Posted on 10/27/2017 10:44:33 PM PDT by aquila48
The choice of Barcelona as a target for terrorists came as little surprise to security experts in Spain and elsewhere in Europe because of Catalonia’s links to jihadists and Salafism, a radical form of Islam.
Catalonia has been the main hub of jihadist recruitment in Spain for more than a decade and radical Islamists consider it to be occupied land that should be part of a future Islamic caliphate. The region is home to approximately 510,000 Muslims, more than a quarter of the total number in Spain, according to a demographic study by the Union of Islamic Communities of Spain.
“The Catalan province, especially the area surrounding Tarragona [a port city in northeastern Catalonia], have been a Salafi hotbed for years, and one of the reasons is that it houses the highest numbers of Salafist mosques in Europe,” said Lorenzo Vidino, director of a program on extremism at George Washington University and author of a study on Salafism in Catalonia.
Between 2013 and 2016, 178 people described as being Salafists or having jihadist sympathies were arrested in Spain, and a quarter of those came from Barcelona and the surrounding area, according to data compiled by the Real Instituto Elcano, a Madrid-based think tank.
That proportion becomes much higher when looking at those who were sentenced. According to the Real Instituto Elcano, 37.5 percent of those jailed for jihadi terrorist activities in Spain between 2004 and 2012 were based in Catalonia.
Mohamed Atta, the Egyptian-born pilot of the first plane that crashed into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, and Ramzi bin al-Shibh, a Yemeni who liaised between the September 11 terror cell and the al-Qaeda leadership, met in the coastal towns of Salou and Cambrils two months before the strike on New York.
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.eu ...
Nigel Farage sees it differently as he expressed his opinion on his radio show last Sunday.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3597940/posts
The local police didn’t bend over and support the terrorist attack the other month in Barcelona.
Now the national government is stripping their top officers of their powers.
Islam is a war plan.
They're workin' on it, though.
The Catalan police botched the prevention of the recent attack because while the FBI had informed the Spanish National Police of it, when the latter informed the Catalan police (Catalonia maintains its own separate huge police force), the Catalans shrugged off the warning. This was despite the fact that the known Islamist imam who was the center of the plot accidentally blew up himself up near Tarragona and they found 100 propane tanks in his back yard (the Muslims had planned to load up trucks with the propane tanks and blow them up when the drove down the Rambla(.
The fools couldn’t believe that “their” Muslims would do a thing like that. And yes, the Muslims are salivating over “independence.” They are all behind it and see it as a chance to get their first Muslim country in Western Europe.
Catalonia has also been taking in large numbers of foreign Muslims, partly just to spite the rest of Spain (which has been trying to avoid taking in large numbers of Muslims).
So, if the Catalans are pro-Islam, then the EU supporting Spain against Catalonia secession is anti-Islamic?
Having been to Barcelona a few months ago, I can say I saw much less of a Muslim presence there than in Paris or London.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.