Madrid, Jun 12 (EFE).- Police arrested five Tunisians on charges they disseminated jihadist propaganda and bomb-making tips via the Internet, Spain's Interior Ministry said Wednesday. The suspects uploaded more than 400 files with text, still photos and video of attacks and speeches by the late Osama bin Laden and other prominent terrorists, the ministry said in a statement. The Barcelona-based group also posted instructions for making explosives and information on the training of jihadist militants.

German intelligence voiced concern Tuesday over the growing number of ultra-conservative Islamic Salafists in the country, warning that some of them were swelling jihadist ranks abroad. "Salafism is a particularly rapidly growing and extremely worrying group within the extremist Islamist movement," Hans-Georg Maassen, head of domestic intelligence, told a news conference as he presented his agency's 2012 annual report.

Afghanistan's Taliban insurgents announced Tuesday they have released a Kyrgyz hostage they seized in April after a helicopter crash-landing in a mountainous region south of Kabul. The militants abducted the Kyrgyz man together with eight Turkish nationals, a Russian and an Afghan interpreter on April 21 after their helicopter made a hard landing in Logar province. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, speaking to AFP by phone from an unknown location, said the hostage was freed as a goodwill gesture to the Kyrgyz government.

Four car bombs and a suicide attack targeting Iraqi markets and cafes on Monday killed at least 23 people, the latest in a surge in violence that authorities have struggled to control. Thirteen people were killed and 53 wounded when two near-simultaneous car bombs and a suicide attack tore through a wholesale market north of Baghdad, a police officer and a medic said. The blasts went off in the predominantly Shiite town of Judaida al-Shat, which lies just west of Baquba, capital of Diyala province and one of the most violent areas in the country.