Very radical Moroccan DAESH sympathizer arrested in Spain

USPA NEWS - The Spanish Civil Guard has arrested a Moroccan citizen in Barcelona for his connection to the terrorist group DAESH. The investigation, which has been conducted by the Central Investigating Court number 4 and the Prosecutor's Office of the National Court, has been carried out jointly with the Moroccan Directorate General for Territory Security (DGST) and has also had the outstanding participation of the American FBI.

“International cooperation is a factor of utmost importance in the fight against terrorism in the jihadist field, where the high mobility of terrorists and the use of social networks and Internet applications greatly condition police investigations. Especially, in this investigation this fact has been extremely relevant,“ say spokesmen for the Ministry of the Home Affairs of Spain.

In relation to the detainee, there have been references to his radicalization and affinity for DAESH for at least four years. Until recently, this process of radicalization was maintained under an appearance of discretion, both from the physical and virtual plane, which in no case identified him as a critical actor. It is precisely during the current state of alarm in Spain that this process of radicalization has been completed, activating in a highly striking and worrying way.

Initial police hypotheses have concluded that this extreme activation of their activity could have responded to the different calls made by the leadership of DAESH for solitary actors, settled in western territories, to mobilize and carry out attacks in their places of residence. Along these same lines, since the expansion of the Coronavirus into Europe began, several terrorist attacks have taken place under the responsibility of individual actors, attacking them through the use of white weapons and hitting them with vehicles.

The detainee made public expressions of his adherence to the DAESH terrorist postulates and hatred of the West through his social network profiles. On the physical plane and thanks to the police surveillance deployment, it has been observed that he regularly and without justification failed to comply with the confinement rules established in the framework of the state of alarm, perceiving how in said displacements through the city of Barcelona he did so under significant security measures, auguring a possible search for targets.

The investigation has served to determine by police, among other things, that the detainee is totally influenced by the propaganda and the postulates of DAESH, having even sworn allegiance to said terrorist organization, a circumstance for which he is considered a real threat to security.

Since the elevation to level 4 of the anti-terrorist alert on June 26, 2015, the Civil Guard has reinforced all the operational devices and lines of investigation into the terrorist threat, especially those involving individuals immersed in a process of radicalization that could lead to the displacement to a conflict zone or in the commission of terrorist actions in the countries of residence, which is currently one of the main threats to Western countries. This reinforcement has also been intensified since the declaration of the state of alarm, given the possibility that DAESH or another terrorist organization could take advantage of the health scenario as a multiplier of the effects of an attack.