The Civil Guard considers that the two detainees in Benavente (Zamora) and Cullera (Valencia) were involved in the “largest known jihadist structure in Spain” in the field of recruiting young people and minors through dissemination on social networks of Dáesh content that they themselves translated into Spanish.
The detainees, Salim H.S. and Hugo C.M., were placed this Friday at the disposal of the judge of the National Court on duty, María Tardón, who ordered their entry into provisional prison at the request of the Prosecutor’s Office for alleged crimes of integration into a terrorist organization, active indoctrination and recruiting of young people and minors.
The operation has been carried out jointly between the Information Service of the Civil Guard and the Moroccan Direction Générale de la Surveillance du Territoire (DGST), under the direction of the Central Investigating Court 6, the Central Investigating Court 3 (acting as Guard ) and the National Court Prosecutor’s Office, the Civil Guard reported this Saturday in a press release.
Within the framework of the work of early detection of potential terrorist threats to National Security, the Civil Guard Information Service began in 2022 the investigation into two people who, although they were located in different provinces, were acting in concert and coordination. in the virtual environment to capture and indoctrinate other users of social networks in the postulates of jihadist terrorism.
Both created and publicly disseminated terrorist content that allowed them to identify and select those users most prone to radicalization.
Subsequently, they became part of a private group, administered by the two detainees, in which dozens of users have been identified throughout Spain, with more than ten provinces affected to date.
The investigations have verified how the proselytizing activities of the detainees transcended the virtual sphere, having detected graffiti on public roads in which they exposed the slogans of the terrorist organization Daesh such as “DAWLAT AL ISLAM BAQUIYAH”, which means “Islamic State remains and it expands.”
Those investigated focused their terrorist indoctrination activities mainly on 18-year-olds and minors, which, according to the Civil Guard, indicates a clear desire to reach a public that is especially vulnerable to radicalization processes.
With this objective, they used a “multiplatform” strategy, based on a combined use of the main social networks used in that age range.
In this way, the dozens of users present in the private group managed by both have been recipients of audiovisual content, as well as messages and slogans suitable for attracting and radicalizing new followers of the terrorist cause.
Those investigated carried out their own editing and the translation of original content in other languages ??of the media field of the Dáesh terrorist organization into Spanish, which indicates a clear intention to target the young Spanish-speaking community, facilitating access to terrorist content for those that, in its original version, its full compression would be difficult.
The action on the potential victims that have been able to be identified has been designed with the participation of personnel specialized in care and intervention with minor victims in a context of vulnerability.
For the success of the operation, carried out since mid-2022 by the Civil Guard Information Service, the collaboration of the Moroccan DGST has been essential, which highlights the importance of international cooperation between anti-terrorist services in order to carry out in the face of this threat and in anticipating the move to action by terrorists.
The arrests have occurred in the framework of previous proceedings that remain secret and that began in November 2022 in the Central Court of Instruction 6 of the National Court through a report from the Civil Guard on communications intervention.
