Two sisters accused of creating a “Yihad Academy” online to capture young women | Spain

The National Police arrested last Monday in the Madrid town of Alcorcón (173,600 inhabitants) to two sisters aged 21 and 19 and Spanish nationality as alleged perpetrators of a crime of terrorist indoctrination for creating on social networks a “Yihad Academy” To indoctrinate young women, also minorsas reported on Friday the Ministry of Interior. The arrests drove about twenty profiles in different social networks and instant messaging applications where they accumulated, in some cases, to 1,000 followers and in which they spread, among the other, among the other, violent material prepared by the Islamic State (ISIS in its English acronym).

In their profiles, the two arrested were presented to their followers as strict defenders of the Sharía o Religious law and in some of his messages they extolled the man who, in February 2024, was arrested as an alleged perpetrator of the aggression to a dozen women in the Barcelona subway and caused serious injuries to one of them. They also referred to war in the Gaza Strip. The judge of the National Court Antonio Peña has ordered in admission in provisional prison of the major and freedom with precautionary measures for the second.

The research on the sisters began in 2024, when agents of the General Information Police Station (CGI, specialized in the anti -terrorism struggle) detected the indoctrinating activity of both on the Internet. The investigations revealed that they had created a structure in social networks with several levels in which they tried to attract Muslim girls towards the most rigorist postulates taking advantage of the fact that they showed interest in improving their knowledge of Islam and the Qur’an. Thus, they had two channels in WhatsApp and Telegram – which came to have 1,000 people squeeze – in which they spread teachings about seemingly innocuous religion, but in which sometimes they introduced speeches of radical Muslim leaders, according to detail sources close to the investigation.

On a second level they had profiles in Tiktok and Instagram that they were opening and closing from time to time to avoid being detected by the security forces and in which they hung violent material prepared by the ISIS or facilitated links so that it could be downloaded, and in which, at some point, they came to have 700 followers. Finally, they used smaller chats in WhatsApp, with between four and 70 members, in the already disseminated openly radical messages and even showed their desire to immolate themselves in the future for jihad.

For all this, they used safe navigation computer programs and told their followers what they had to do so as not to be detected. In the housing registry where they resided with their parents and brothers, the agents found abundant computer material and documents, including photomontages in which both appeared with overlapping images of weapons.

The greatest of the two arrested – which is the one that handled the greatest number of profiles in social networks, 14 – also allegedly performed indoctrination work in two mosques of the province of Madrid to which he went to teach classes about Islam to other young people. The videos of these teachings, in which they stressed to those who attended what they could or not to do in their daily lives, subsequently served to feed a channel in the YouTube social network.

According to sources close to the investigation, the two young women followed in their day to day the most rigoristic precepts of Islam both in clothing and in their leisure activities and, for example, they did not listen to music. At the time of the arrest, the largest was in unemployment – it had been fired from a job for dedicating the working day to navigate on social networks – and the minor went to a secondary school. The investigations have revealed that, at least, the first had begun in indoctrination activities in 2023.

Police sources highlight that the arrest of the Alcorcón sisters reflects the increasingly prominent role that women play for jihadism in Spain. At the moment, most of the detainees are located in the field of recruitment, such as the two sisters, logistics support or financing, although in other countries they have already been intervened for detainees to attempt. According to a study by the Royal Institute Elcano, between 2001 and 2011 there was no woman arrested in Spain for jihadism. Today they represent about 12% of arrests.

So far this year, Security forces have arrested 60 alleged jihadists in Spainin addition to participating in the arrest of another 10 in other countries, according to the last official interior balance of the anti -terrorism struggle. Spain is in Level 4 of anti -terrorist alert, « high risk » ―In vigor since June 2015 -, on the existing five.