MADRID, August 14, 2008 (AFP) - Dutch authorities Thursday extradited to Spain a Pakistani man suspected of belonging to a group planning suicide attacks in Barcelona and elsewhere in Europe, Spain's interior ministry said.

Spain's anti-terrorist court on June 5 charged Aqueel Ur Rehman Abbasi and 10 other South Asians, most of them Pakistanis, with belonging to a terrorist group.

The other 10 had been arrested in Barcelona, northeastern Spain, in January in a series of raids during which police also recovered bomb-making equipment.

The court issued a warrant for Abbasi, who was arrested on June 6 in his prison cell in the Netherlands where he was being held by the immigration and naturalisation services.

Dutch judicial authorities approved his extradition last week, and he was transferred to Spain on Thursday, Spain's interior ministry said.

The cell is suspected of planning suicide bombings in the Barcelona metro and other European cities.

After the arrests, Spain's intelligence services had warned Paris, London and Lisbon of the threat of terrorist attacks linked to a European tour by Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf.

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in February that the cell was linked to Pakistani Taliban warlord Baitullah Mehsud.

Officials in Islamabad suspect him of involvement in the assassination of Pakistan's former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.

Spanish authorities have stepped up operations against Islamist radicals since the March 11, 2004 Al-Qaeda-inspired train bombings in Madrid that killed 191 people and wounded 1,800 others in the country's worst terror attack.

Security forces have staged several operations in Barcelona, which has a large Pakistani community.