Minors radicalized by the internet, returning from conflict zones, affected by mental illness and former prisoners. The concerns of the security forces and intelligence services are today, almost twenty years after the enormous attack of March 11, 2004 in Madrid, perfectly outlined and, the result of twenty years of learning, more focused on individuals. that in commands 0 groups. On their computer screens more than in their mosques.
Today it seems unlikely that a command the size of 11-M can be formed, with around twenty members and collaborators who place bombs on trains and cause a massacre of 193 deaths.
Also from experience, today nothing is ruled out, but the risk seems different. A police expert in the fight against terrorism summarizes that the three keys to attacks remain unchanged: means, opportunity and, finally, will. But in recent years, the first two aspects have been simplified. All it takes is a knife, a truck, a push.
Looking to the future, both the National Police and the Civil Guard agree that the combination between minors and the internet will be the greatest of their concerns. Young people, highly impressionable, with little knowledge of religion, but who find a way to become references in social networks. They begin to consume terrorist propaganda sooner and earlier without, sometimes, being aware of it.
The radicalization processes they suffer are generally much shorter than those of older people. Although there are no written rules in jihadist terrorism.
Proof of this concern is the operation carried out in Montellano (Seville) last month, which could have ended in a far-reaching tragedy.
A minor, in a refugee family without a father figure present, accumulated explosive material in the desk of his house to such an extent that he had managed to cook the explosive “mother of Satan”, the same one that blew up the house in Alcanar .
Since 11-M, police investigation methods and also the laws that protect them have mutated. If a terrorist organization is not necessary, today a judicial conviction is not necessary to expel a mere suspect from the country. The Immigration Law allows expulsion for “national security.”
“Although sometimes this evidence is not important enough for a conviction, it is important and can be used to carry out an administrative expulsion. Sometimes an investigation begins and does not come to a successful conclusion, but if we have a series of facts that we bring to the attention... a complaint is made to the General Information Commissioner's Office. It is a very restrictive procedure, but in many cases it ends with the expulsion of the subject and the prohibition of entry for ten years," explains at the Canillas police complex, the National Police headquarters north of Madrid, a commissioner and head of brigade in the fight against jihadist terrorism.
“We found other types of evidence that may have nothing to do with terrorism. They are people who, in addition to being radical, not only is the radical message they transmit, it is a message that attacks the LGTBI community, or women,” details this police commander. “It is a very dangerous message and that is why we decided to propose them for expulsion.”
Spain expels between 30 and 35 people annually through this procedure, and to execute it the signature of the Secretary of State for Security, number 2 of the Ministry of the Interior, is necessary.
In fact, the argument that the Supreme Court (TS) has used to initiate proceedings against Carles Puigdemont is based on the legislative changes of recent years.
“The statement that emerges in some politicians and the media that only the actions of ETA or Jihad deserve to be treated as terrorism is incompatible with the definition of terrorism derived from the current art. 573 CP,” says the order issued on Thursday against the former president.
“Terrorism (…) –adds the TS- is not, nor can it be, a static phenomenon but rather it expands and diversifies gradually and constantly, in a wide range of activities, which is why the democratic criminal legislator in the response obliged to this complex phenomenon, it must also expand the penal space” for what can be considered terrorist.
In the jihadist sphere, Spain has arrested a total of 1,043 suspects since 11-M in 404 different operations, according to data from the Secretary of State for Security updated as of January 31.
In these twenty years, the collection systems and modus operandi have changed radically. This has been influenced by police pressure, converted into a work of anticipation, and the appearance in 2013 of the Islamic State, a movement that has competed with Al Qaeda in perpetrating coups and attracting followers.
“We have gone from an Al Qaeda that planned its coups, which were very big coups, with many deaths, to an Islamic State that practices a different type of terrorism, with much fewer means and much less planned,” details the police source.
“In addition, those from Al Qaeda did not blow themselves up. While those of the Islamic State tend to immolate themselves. They know that once they carry out the action they will not survive.”
“We have gone from an Al Qaeda that was more physical,” continues the agent in Canillas, “in the vicinity of religious centers, reading books, watching video tapes in apartments where few people gathered and watched and talked, Now we have moved on to a type of indoctrination through social networks, through the Internet.”
The members of the 11-M command basically knew each other from the M-30 mosque, although they stopped going when they clashed with the majority currents of Islam and when they sensed - especially after 9-11 - that they could be being spied on by the security forces.
They then occupied small oratories, often in garages, and were indoctrinated in meetings on outings to the countryside, mostly around the Alberche River.
In the Dátil operation, which Judge Baltasar Garzón launched in November 2001 against the Al Qaeda cell in Spain, some of those who had been attending those meetings were detained.
The theory, confirmed years later, is that the local cell has a role in the visit that Mohamed Atta – 9/11 terrorist – made to the Costa Daurada in July 2001, and where the date of the attacks in America was possibly established. .
For this reason, the academic and jihadism expert from the Elcano Royal Institute Fernando Reinares considers that 9/11 (and the arrests that it entails) is one of the triggers for 3/11. “There is a “boomerang effect” against Spain, due to various factors,” Reinares explains to La Vanguardia.
If 20 years ago we were concerned about the guys who had fought in Afghanistan and returned with military experience and knowledge, today we are concerned about those returning from Syria or Iraq, although since August of last year, the agent details, no return has been detected.
Since October, one of the police concerns has been that Israel's response to the Hamas attack could lead to violent action.
Days after the start of the war, the Ministry of the Interior agreed to reinforce the measures of alert level 4, out of five, in which Spain has been since 2015 after the attacks in France, Tunisia, Kuwait and Somalia. It should be remembered that the maximum levels were not activated even after the mass attack on Las Ramblas in Barcelona in August 2017, when the perpetrators who were at large were being pursued.
As the weeks went by last fall, and thanks to police monitoring of the suspects, it is known that “the radicalism of those people who were already in the spotlight multiplied, but it has decreased considerably. There has not been a boom in the transfer of mujahideen or followers of terrorist groups to Palestine to fight against the Israeli army. It has also been exploited by these terrorist groups, at first for the blow they dealt to Israel, for the attack that caused the death of more than 1,200 people and then they are using it for victimization. A war between two countries, Palestine and Israel, has turned it into a religious conflict, but in itself the boom we expected has not occurred.”
The harshness of the images coming from the area and the confinement suffered by the Strip, besieged by Israeli troops, have discouraged the desire to move to the area to fight for their cause.
These reinforced anti-terrorist measures, focused on prevention, meant that last year – which was on track to become a period of declining arrests compared to previous years – became the year in which the most arrests were carried out since 2005. .
Sources from the National Intelligence Center emphasize that Palestine “is a very important factor of concern, especially because it is a spark that will last over time.”
And that is not new either: in the months prior to 11-M, one of the obsessions of one of the leaders of the command - Jamal Ahmidan, El Chino - were the injustices that “the people of Palestine” were suffering.
Twenty years have passed.
