Arrested in less than three months 38 alleged jihadists in Spain | Spain

Police activity in the fight against Islamist terrorism records record figures. When the first three months of 2025 have not yet been completed, the National Police and the Civil Guard have already arrested 38 people accused of different Crimes related to jihadismaccording to data from the Ministry of Interior to which the country has had access. The last five, between the early morning of March 17 and 18, with only 24 hours apart, in three operations developed in the towns of Santa Coloma de Gramanet (Barcelona), Granada, Fuencaliente de Lucio (Burgos), Salamanca and Huelva. If this rhythm follow, the year can end more than a hundred arrests, figures not registered since 2004, when the 11-M attacks were committed and 131 alleged jihadists were arrested.

This upward trend in the number of antiyihadist operations began in October 2023, when the outbreak of the war in Gaza after the terrorist attacks of Hamas and Israel’s military response forced interior to accelerate many of the investigations that had open on suspects of radical Islamist activities in fear that the conflict pushes them to attack, according to police sources. In fact, since the war broke out and on December 31 of that year, less than three months, the security forces arrested 54 alleged jihadists, when in the immediately previous nine months 24 people had been arrested for these crimes, according to official statistics. The year ended with 78 arrests against 46 throughout 2022.

Since then, the number of anti -terrorist operations has remained in very high figures. Thus, in 2024 there were 81 arrests (the third year with more arrests, only surpassed by 2004 and 2005), which are now added the 38 of the first three months of this year. In total, in the year and a half elapsed since the outbreak of the war in Gaza, the security forces have arrested 173 alleged Islamist terrorist. This figure, already high, also includes a worrying fact: among them there were twenty minors. In 2023 had been six young people under 18 arrested; The following year this figure rose to 15 – among them a teenager who had made tests with explosives prepared by him – and so far this year there are already four. Between 2015 and 2021 only 11 minors had been arrested, according to interior statistics.

For Álvaro Vicente, researcher at the Royal Elcano Institute and professor at Rey Juan Carlos University« The war in Gaza has had an impact on the emotional mobilization of certain sectors linked to jihadism in Spain » by fitting « in a pre -existing narrative, according to which Muslims face an existential threat that justifies violence as the only legitimate response. » For this expert, « in the specific case of Spain, this emotional mobilization is especially reflected in a notable increase in radicalized expressions in social networks, with some individuals explicitly showing support for violence », although it emphasizes that « so far, this has not been significantly translated into concrete violent acts. »

Carlos Igualada, director of the International Observatory for Studies on Terrorism (Oiet)it agrees that « the war in Gaza may be serving as a catalyst when giving that impulse to some people when initiating the radicalization processes », although it clarifies that « the subsequent development of that extremism is more associated with the propaganda of the Islamic State (ISIS in its acronym in English), the transnational terrorist organization that, curiously, is less taking advantage of that conflict in its propaganda, » adds. On the increase in arrests, matched, it affects that it is a trend already registered in 2024 They are more difficult to identify or avoid. ”

In the same sense it is pronounced Manuel R. Torres, Professor of Political Science at Pablo Olavide University of Seville and an expert in jihadism. Torres is convinced that the conflict in the Middle East “has influenced this increase in arrests”, but not so much because it has increased jihadist radicalization in Spain, “but because it has advanced the line of action of security forces. Many years ago they follow an anticipatory logic of removing from the circulation to individualized individuals in an early stage so as not to assume the risks of the risks of not detect Step of action, ”he adds. Torres points out that, precisely, among the last arrested « in very few cases they have appeared among their motivations or the plans that had some kind of justification in mind in terms of retaliation for what is happening in Gaza. »

The truth is that, after the outbreak of the war, Spain reinforced – like the rest of the EU countries – the prevention, protection and anti -terrorist response measures within the current level 4 of anti -terrorist alert, « high risk » – in vigor since June 2015 -, on the five existing. Among them was an increase in security in different diplomatic legations in Spain, such as those of Israel, Turkey, Palestine, Lebanon and Jordan, as well as in other “strategic, cultural and economic interests” of these countries. Anti -terrorist preventive measures were also reinforced in the embassies of the 26 EU countries, with special attention to those of France, Sweden and Denmark. Other diplomatic representations that saw how their security were increased were those of the United States and the United Kingdom, as well as their « educational, economic or any kind. » On March 3, it occurred The frustrated fire attempt at a restaurant-pizzzería Kosher (which serves food following precepts of Judaism) from the center of Madrid When several clients were inside. Police investigate it as an anti -Semitic attack. The author has not yet been arrested.