The fight against terrorism

In Segovia, Spanish Guardia Civil arrest man engaged in propaganda activity for terrorist organisation DAESH

2016.12.13

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Specialists from the Information Service of the Spanish Guardia Civil had both the man arrested and his environment under surveillance, enabling them to confirm his support of the Jihadi ideology. Furthermore, the arrested individual had travelled to conflict zones in Afghanistan, Syria and Palestine, where he said he had been willing to commit suicide attacks if the occasion had arisen.

Investigations by the Guardia Civil enabled the presence of this radicalised individual who was highly active on the social media networks and acted in support of Jihadi organisations to be revealed. He had stepped up his process of radicalisation from the summer of this year, stating his support for the terrorist acts carried out in Europe over the course of recent months. His extreme radicalisation had led him to try to obtain the means to commit a terrorist attack and he was willing to carry out indiscriminate suicide attacks against means of transportation.

The arrested individual, who served a sentence for the killing of French railway worker Jean Pierre Leiba in Hendaye in 1984 as a member of the GAL armed gang, is considered highly dangerous and his access to firearms was not ruled out. For this reason, the Special Operations Unit of the Spanish Guardia Civil was activated to proceed with his arrest.

The investigating officers are currently carrying out property searches, during which they hope to find information that will help reconstruct the plans he may have eventually developed and discover whether he was receiving help from third parties to execute those plans, either in Spain or abroad, as well as whether he had any kind of connections with people forming part of DAESH.

Since the Counter-Terrorism Alert was raised to Level 4 on 26 June, 2015, the Guardia Civil have stepped up all its operational mechanisms and lines of inquiry related to the threat of terrorism, especially those regarding individuals undergoing a radicalisation process that may lead to them travelling to conflict zones or the commission of terrorist acts in their countries of residence, which today poses one of the main threats to western countries.

Since 2015, the year in which the Ministry of Home Affairs raised the Counter-Terrorism Alert Level to 4, the State law enforcement agencies have arrested a total of 173 Jihadi terrorists.

The Ministry of Home Affairs sends out a reminder that, through the initiative STOP RADICALISMOS, citizens can collaborate through a series of channels open to them so that, in a confidential and secure manner, they can notify the State law enforcement agencies of possible cases of radicalisation in their surroundings through the web page www.stop-radicalismos.es, the mobile phone app for citizens security alerts Alertcops and the free hotline 900 822 066.