A Spanish judge on Monday remanded in custody three suspected Islamists and conditionally released a fourth on terrorism charges, a judicial source said.

Police arrested the four Spaniards -- two pairs of brothers of Moroccan origin -- in the Spanish territory of Ceuta bordering Morocco on Saturday.

Spanish police on Saturday arrested four suspected Islamist extremists who it said were prepared to launch attacks in Spain, the government said.

Officers detained two pairs of brothers, Spaniards of Moroccan origin, in the Spanish territory of Ceuta bordering Morocco, the interior ministry said in a statement.

Spain said Friday it was starting negotiations with Washington to host a permanent U.S. Marines intervention force for deployment on missions to Africa.

The Spanish government said it was ready to permanently extend an agreement under which the force has been based at Moron de la Frontera, near Seville in southern Spain.

An ex-official of Spain's governing party reignited a corruption scandal on Friday, months ahead of a general election, by alleging Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy knowingly tolerated irregular payments to politicians.

Luis Barcenas, former treasurer of Rajoy's People's Party (PP), spoke a day after being released on bail in a separate corruption probe, throwing the spotlight back on an affair that has embarrassed the government.

Spanish police said Friday they had seized 11 tonnes of hashish and detained 55 people across the country as part of an operation targeting a Moroccan drug trafficking ring.

Police also seized two million euros ($2.2 million) in cash as well as several weapons, including two assault rifles, as part of the operation which follows a two-year investigation. 

Spain's unemployment rate fell in 2014 for the second straight year, dropping by just over two points to 23.7 percent, but still remains at one of the highest levels in the European Union, official data showed on Thursday.

The fall was greater than what had been expected by the government, which had forecast the country would end 2014 with a jobless rate of 24.2 percent as en economic recovery gains pace.

Spain said Tuesday it hopes Iran will join the global fight against Islamic extremism if Tehran reaches an agreement with world powers over its disputed nuclear program. 

"Iran is critically important in the region," Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo said on the sidelines of a business forum in Madrid.

The Catalonia region plans to open more offices representing its interests abroad in the hope of facilitating secession from Spain if Catalan separatists win a regional election, a source said.

Nationalist leaders in the rich region in northeastern Spain have called the snap regional vote for September 27 after Spanish authorities blocked their bid for a referendum on independence.

Belgian authorities are hunting for two men on the run after a jihadist cell was broken up in Belgium last week, with the search focusing on Spain and France, a source close to the investigation in Spain said Tuesday.

Belgium issued arrest warrants on Sunday for the two men, born in 1993 and 1996, to police in Spain and France, the source told AFP, confirming reports in the Spanish and Belgian media.

An election win for Greece's leftist Syriza party on Sunday could mark a turning point in Europe where other populist parties, starting with Podemos in Spain, are hoping to launch their own anti-austerity revolts.

Syriza and Podemos are united in blaming Europe's ills on budget austerity measures imposed by the so-called "troika" -- the European Union, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund -- and by their tough stand against corruption.