Three alleged jihadists with manuscripts to act as ‘solitary wolves’ | News from Catalonia

The Mossos d’Esquadra and the National Police They arrested last Monday in a joint operation carried out in the Metropolitan Area of ​​Barcelona to three people allegedly related to activities jihadistsas reported on Friday both police bodies in two press releases. In one of the records, the agents intervened manuscripts and diverse material with references to attacks of the type Lone wolf (committed by a single terrorist autonomously both in preparation and execution) as well as martyrdom. One of those arrested, very radicalized according to the police, had begun to launch in social networks threats to specific people whose identity has not transcended.

Two of the arrests have been practiced in the Barcelona town of Castelldefels and the third, in Montcada I Reixac. In addition, the baptized as Operation Himon, in which 150 agents of both bodies have intervened, has included four records in which various computer devices and a bayonet have intervened. The three arrested, who are accused of sharing radical Islamist material and making terrorism on the Internet, entered provisional prison last Wednesday by order of the head of the Judge of the National Court Santiago Pedraz.

As Mossos and National Police have detailed, the three detainees had repeatedly stated their adhesion to the jihadist postulates defended by various terrorist organizations, including the Islamic State (ISIS in its acronym in English) and justified the attacks committed by these. In addition, they used different profiles in social networks to share propaganda material of these groups.

With these arrests, there are already 55 those arrested in Spain for the security forces accused of Crimes related to jihadism So far this year, according to the official statistics of the Ministry of Interior. Catalonia is, by far, the community with the greatest number of arrests, 20. Of them, 19 in the province of Barcelona. If this rhythm will continue, the year can end more than a hundred arrests throughout Spain, 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 Hamas’s terrorist attacks and Israel’s military response forced the security forces to accelerate many of the investigations that had open on suspects of radical Islamist activities in the face of fear that the conflict was pushing them to attempt, according to police sources. Spain is currently at level 4 of anti -terrorism alert (high risk, on a scale of five), in force for almost 10 years.