Gema Peñalosa Madrid

Madrid

Updated Sunday, January 21, 2024-02:04

  • Terrorism German Bagaev, the Russian who directed from prison the jihadist cell in Catalonia that finalized the purchase of weapons and explosives

  • Interior 'How to train a child to be a good jihadist': A teacher from a Koranic school in Extremadura kept manuals to indoctrinate minors

In the fight against jihadism in Spain there is a turning point that should not be sought either in the intensity of police operations or in surveillance techniques.

It has been jihadism itself that has evolved by itself in the country, which has taken another step.

The operations of the

National Police

and the

Civil Guard

carried out in 2023 - with 77 suspected terrorists detained in 35 devices - have shown that the agents who fight against this type of terrorism no longer only face recruiters or people who serve as loudspeakers for Daesh

.

_

The last 12 months have reversed this trend and now, terrorists are ready to take action.

Committing attacks in Spain, organizing them from here to execute them in other countries openly calling to "do Jihad", finalizing the purchase of weapons or bulletproof vests are the new seams of jihadism.

2023 also brought a worrying new trend: There were more arrests of teenagers than ever before.

"This population segment is the perfect breeding ground for those who recruit," argues one of the agents consulted by

EL MUNDO

.

The presence of very young people has also been seen in the cells dismantled in anti-terrorist police operations.

Alert level 4

On many occasions, the fact that the detainees accelerated the search for weapons, completed the obtaining - also the preparation - of explosives manuals or planned an attack - even if it had no date or place - caused the device to be put in place to remove them from the circuit. criminal.

The effervescence of jihadism has kept Spain on alert 4 out of 5 since June 26, 2015.

One of the last operations carried out by the General Information Commissariat (CGI) of the National Police made it clear that the injection of these postulates in Spain reached children.

The device yielded several detainees, but the one who drew the most attention was a teacher from a Koranic school in Extremadura who kept manuals in his home to indoctrinate children and had them classified by age and different contexts.

He also hid a handwritten notebook on how to make explosives.

The manual, titled

How to Train a Child to Be a Good Jihadist

, contained different installments and consisted of images of, among other things, tanks or weapons such as Kalashnikov that the children had to relate to become familiar with them.

Furthermore, this dossier was divided into chapters by age: 7, 8, 9 or 10 years old.

Each age had different material.

This device was started because one of the detainees was planning a "major attack" in France with the help of a man of North African origin who lived in Spain.

Both had met through social networks.

«I am your brother and I support you.

"I'm in Spain," he told him in what investigators understand was an offer of shelter on the trip that the other man had started from Turkey to end up carrying out the attack in France.

And they weren't just words.

The agents seized ammunition for a short weapon, an ax and explosives manuals.

Directly inciting an attack against police officers led to the immediate arrest of a man in March.

He presented himself as a hitman for Allah. He managed different profiles on social networks, in which he had hundreds of followers, and disseminated continuous threatening speeches against any type of authority, mainly police and military officials, also establishing himself as a jihadist and mujahidin.

"Maximum" control

From the beginning, he put investigators on guard.

He had Spanish nationality, radical beliefs and constantly changed houses.

A month later, the intention of another man who, from Burgos, openly called to "do Jihad" was a cause for concern.

The threat is constant, neither the National Police nor the Civil Guard deny it, although the State Security Forces and Corps insist that they have "maximum" control that makes Spain the country in the world where, every year, carries out the largest number of operations against international jihadist terrorism.

Another of those arrested at the end of 2023 followed the same pattern.

He encouraged attacks and also insisted on doing so "on a massive scale."

He viewed, almost compulsively, a large amount of extremely violent and terrorist glorifying material.

He also tried to recruit other users whom he indoctrinated - through social networks - in jihadist theses, showing them videos from production companies related to Daesh that included beheadings, individual and group executions.

When he toughened his radical speech and spoke of "attacks in Spain," the agents carried out the arrest.

This and the interest he showed in obtaining firearms led to his arrest.

Another example of the shift in jihadism in Spain was found last October in Catalonia.

When experts in the fight against terrorism detected the so-called Caliph, they knew that they were not dealing with an amateur or just a popularizer.

That was something else.

The Caliph was the creator and administrator of several groups in which he tried to indoctrinate young people in the jihadist creed;

He energized his followers and created private groups to which he invited the radicals with whom he established greater trust and in which they spoke openly about the terrorist cause.

Their monitoring allowed the identification of other members of the cell, all of them young, who were interconnected with each other, although they did not know each other physically.

Two of them strengthened their ties and ended up getting married, with the leader's authorization and beginning to live together in the same house.

This new relationship was a turning point in the investigation, since it was detected that his level of radicalization increased exponentially.

They recorded videos in which they demanded "shed blood to recover Al Andalus and restore the Caliphate."

The intense physical training he underwent, his desire to take action and the immediate search for knives and vests from a man "dedicated" to jihadism led to another operation at the end of the year.

The concern was enormous when discovering the number of users who followed him: close to 400,000.