The Ministry of the Interior agreed this Tuesday to maintain the terrorist alert at level 4 – out of a possible five – after one of the Hamas ideologues called for “global jihad” throughout Europe. Regarding the Terrorist Threat Assessment Table, which meets at level 4 on a weekly basis, there has been no possibility of increasing the level, according to sources close to the meeting.
The terrorist alert level has remained unchanged since June 2015, when a threat assessment report advised its increase after the attacks in France, Tunisia, Kuwait and Somalia. The maximum levels were not activated by the Ministry of the Interior or after the attacks in Barcelona in August 2017. This will remain the case, for the moment.
Although the level will not be increased, the Ministry, after having analyzed all the elements, has decided to implement a series of complementary measures in the current framework defined by level 4 out of 5 of anti-terrorist activation.
Among the measures, as reported by the Interior through a press release, stands out “the reinforcement of security devices on certain especially sensitive points” throughout the national territory and the increase in anti-terrorist measures by the Forces and Corps. of State Security.
The same sources specify that the places where security will be reinforced are of special strategic, economic, political and cultural interest. All these measures will be transmitted by the Secretary of State for Security to the State Security Forces and Bodies, to the Government delegations and to the Interior or Security ministries of the autonomous communities that have their own Police forces for their immediate implementation.
In this Tuesday’s meeting, in addition to the minister, the Secretary of State for Security, Rafael Pérez Ruíz, the general director of Coordination and Studies, José Antonio Rodríguez, as well as representatives of the National Intelligence Center (CNI), of the National Police, the Civil Guard, the Mossos d’Esquadra, the Ertzaintza, the Intelligence Center of the Armed Forces (CIFAS) and the Department of National Security.
