The forces and security forces of the State arrested 77 suspected terrorists last year in 35 operations related to jihadism, the highest number since 2005, when the expansive wave of the 11-M attacks was still kept Spain alive. 67% more arrests than in 2022. But police strikes were concentrated in the last three months of the year, after the Hamas attack on Israel was a turning point. From October 7, anti-terrorist agents detected that a large number of subjects who were previously under the microscope were suffering from “a rapid process of radicalization” through social networks, so they exploited the investigations to neutralize them before they could take action.
Sources from the General Information Office of the National Police – from where they piloted 25 of the operations – explain that the first two arrested last year had sworn allegiance to the Islamic State and intended to travel from Almeria to the Sahel to join the terrorist ranks. However, once the war broke out in Israel, experts detected how some of those investigated showed the intention of moving to Gaza to fight. Even so, the same sources acknowledge that at the end of the year those intentions deflated, as the harshness with which the Israeli army acted was seen.
But the international repercussions of the Hamas attack are not the only cause that explains the increase in terrorist activity. The year was marked by the great rise of jihadist propaganda. From the Directorate of Information of the Civil Guard, the secret service of the Armed Institute, they have detected that terrorist organizations such as Al-Qaida or the Islamic State – which have lost their large territories and suffered very considerable casualties in their structures – have managed to “maintain terrorist tension in Europe thanks to propaganda”. “The threat is decentralized in charge of those who consume propaganda”, say the Civil Guard.
The propaganda boom that the security forces and bodies warn of is not only enhanced by the official terrorist organizations. And here is the key. More and more individuals with a high level of knowledge in the field are being detected – on an individual basis – to spread terrorist content on the internet. They do not have the profile of the solitary act carried out by the terrorist action – despite the fact that it cannot be ruled out either – but they are increasingly young people who, despite not knowing each other, carry out tasks of spread very dangerous.
Precisely, both the National Police and the Civil Guard agree to point out that 2023 was the year of the “boom for minors”. There have been more teenagers arrested than ever before, in addition to the fact that they are the perfect breeding ground for the catchers of this group. The most recent: on December 19, three minors were arrested in Barcelona and Madrid as alleged perpetrators of the crimes of indoctrination, terrorist self-training and conspiracy to commit murder. Faced with the desire to commit an action and the distribution of tasks that began – including the manufacture of explosives -, the agents in charge of the investigation proceed to the arrest.
It is one of the biggest concerns in the fight against terrorism, researchers say. They qualify some operations with young detainees as “patches”, because “the underlying problem” is radicalization through propaganda media. A phenomenon similar to that of Latin gangs – now called youth gangs – is happening: very impressionable teenagers, with a low value scale and in family environments that are not at all radicalized. On the contrary, they are completely unaware that their son embraces terrorist postulates.
The agents have no doubt that this phenomenon will continue to flourish and will mark large areas of the operations of the year that begins now. They also bet on “not neglecting” the figure of the returned fighter, one of the biggest threats to Spain according to Interior, despite the fact that in 2023 they did not arrest any terrorist with this profile. In addition, the researchers say that it is essential not to “lose sight” of the Sahel, as all security experts warn, and the focus of radicalization that is still the Spanish penitentiary centers, as in the rest of Europe.
