The Security Forces carry out an average of 30 operations a year against Islamist terrorism
Since the 11-M attacks aroused fear of Islamist terrorism in Spain, the Security Forces have carried out 365 operations against jihadism that have resulted in 1,091 arrests, 963 in Spain and 128 abroad in connection with operations activated in our country. The last operation took place on the 12th and left two arrested in the common (Almera) and another in Morocco.
The annual number of arrestees reflects two clear peaks that coincide with the two major attacks, that of 2004 in Madrid and from 2017 on catalonia. In the months following the attacks on commuter trains, 131 suspected jihadists were arrested, and 92 the following year, still in the wake of 11-M. Coinciding with the attacks of Barcelona Y Cambrils came the third highest arrest figure: 75 suspected terrorists.
Apart from these specific episodes, another piece of information clearly marks the frequency of police operations and the absolute number of arrests: the approval in 2015 of a reform of the penal code that made it possible to anticipate arrests and act against those who were becoming radicalized before they reached the phase of preparing attacks. Its entry into force meant that the operations of National Police Y Civil Guard They tripled: from an average of 10 before the reform to thirty. The data from last year show 27 operations with 46 detainees.
The sentences handed down by the National audience they have exceeded 300, which means that a majority of the arrests have ended in archive or acquittal. Despite everything, the Security forces They consider that in these cases a potential danger has been neutralized, particularly that of those known as lone wolves, which the world jihadist leaders activated as an alternative to the system of organized cells, which are easier to detect.
Until what happened in Algeciras, there was only one investigation open for a terrorist murder in the National Court that pointed to a lone wolf. It is about the attack on pacheco tower (Murcia) that left a deceased, in addition to the alleged terrorist. The cause is under secrecy.
Social media
The reform of the Penal Code of 2015 indicated in its Statement of Reasons that jihadist terrorism was generated through charismatic leaders who disseminate their messages and slogans through the Internet and, especially, through the use of social networks, […] calling on his followers around the world to commit attacks. The recipients of these messages may be individuals who, after their radicalization and indoctrination, attempt to carry out attacks against the designated targets, including suicide bombings, it continued. It is clear that the new threats require updating the regulations to accommodate the phenomenon of individual terrorism, he indicated, referring to possible cases such as Algeciras.
Anticipating the police response in order to arrest those who were becoming radicalized ran the risk of colliding with the presumption of innocence, but the reform passed the judicial filter. In 2018, the Supreme Court addressed the figure of the individual terrorist. It manifests itself to us in the phenomenon of terrorism as a kind of outsourcing external terrorist, by way of subcontracting outside the organization to carry out activities of external collaboration with it.
The following year, the High Court already expressly mentioned the figure of the lone wolf, in which, in the initial stages of the investigation, the detainee is located in Algeciras: The objective of the terrorist organization is to have these individual terrorists who act from different countries to recruit people related to the terrorist cause and recruit them for the final execution of the terrorist act, from which the expression of the terrorist lone wolf has emerged, which must be framed in the group of people who access this content that they collect and Internet terrorists facilitate, to capture them and be duly indoctrinated in their hatred of those who do not participate in the terrorist ideology.
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