Posted on 10/03/2017 8:34:50 PM PDT by bboop
Barcelona’s strong ties to radical Islam A quarter of those arrested in Spain for having jihadist ties in recent years were in Catalonia. By GIULIA PARAVICINI 8/18/17, 8:44 PM CET Updated 8/20/17, 12:57 PM CET 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.
ALSO ON POLITICO Barcelona attack: What we know so far
PAUL DALLISON Cambrils was back in the spotlight late Thursday, hours after the Barcelona attack, when five men in a car ran down pedestrians on the seafront, before their vehicle overturned. The occupants of the car, who were wearing fake explosive belts, then attacked passers-by with knives before police shot them. One woman injured in Cambrils later died.
Reconquering Al-Andalus
Another reason that makes Spain a likely target is that ISIS, al-Qaeda and other terror groups consider the area to be land that could be reclaimed. They refer to it as Al-Andalus, the ancient Arabic name for the Iberian mainland, covering most of modern-day Spain and Portugal, and which was under Muslim rule until 1492.
Spain is therefore considered a legitimate target for inclusion in a future Islamic caliphate. A Spanish-speaking ISIS member declared in 2014, “I tell you, Spain is the land of our forefathers and, Allah willing, we are going to liberate it, with the might of Allah,” El Mundo reported.
Rita Katz, director of the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors radical Islam, said on Twitter two weeks ago that a pro-ISIS Twitter account had threatened to “reconquer Al-Andalus” and promised an “imminent attack” in Spain. “Fire in Al-Andalus,” proclaimed one of those tweets, although it is not clear if there is a relationship between that threat and what happened Thursday in Barcelona.
fake news
Nominal, not radical islam.
haha, Politico is fake news? But Wikipedia is accurate?? / rolling eyes
wow this is in politico? They even use the word salafist?
And DOD/FBI just dumped southern poverty law center.
Things sure are looking up today
you’re right there
“And DOD/FBI just dumped southern poverty law center.”
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They did????????
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yes wonderful news, though I might have overstated it a bit
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3591681/posts
deep state wants Madrid to rule Barcelona
why do you support the deep state and soros ?
Thanks for that link——the SPLC is a dreadful organization.
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“They refer to it as Al-Andalus, the ancient Arabic name for the Iberian mainland, covering most of modern-day Spain and Portugal, and which was under Muslim rule until 1492.”
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I am aggravated by articles that contain such slanted statements in their body, even when it is not the main focus of the article. In the quoted sentence above, their are two biases: first, by stating that Al-Andalus is the ancient Arabic name for the Iberian mainland, it makes an implication that the muslims ruled it from ancient times. Second, this bias is reinforced by the statement that Spain was under muslim rule until 1492.
So, this article takes two facts, each of which is true, and is able to convey something to the uninformed reader that is totally false: that Spain was ruled by muslims from long ancient times until it was taken from them by Christians in 1492. In fact, since the Christian Visigoths of Iberia who were usurped and put to the sword by the muslims in the 8th Century, Christian forces under Ferdinand and Isabella freed the Iberian peninsula from the invading muslims.
Sorry to be picky, but it is my opinion that this liberal narrative about the muslims permeates into too many places.
FWIW, Stephen Paddock and Marilou Danley took a little trip in May of 2016 that included Barcelona, Jordan and Dubai.
>deep state wants Madrid to rule Barcelona
How do you know that? Pretty much all the parties-both pro and anti Catalan independence-are left wing.
wapo and NYT are strong pro-Madrid Brussels too
>> All you have to do is google ‘Islam / Catalonia’ and there are plenty more discussions of this.<<
Killing them en masse will start at some point, and soon, mark my words.
Thanks for this report.
I am really curious about how the Spanish national government views it in terms of its concerns about Catalonia independence.
It must at least be a security concern that could become worse with an independent Catalonia.
Pamela Geller is also very astute about Islam and has terrific reports from all over. Great site.
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