A significant number of recent anti-jihadist operations have raised alarm bells at the Interior Ministry in a trend that has increased in recent years. State security forces and bodies warn: Jihad attacks minors in Spain.
According to anti-terrorism sources revealed to EL ESPAÑOL, we have currently observed “a notable increase” attempts to recruit adolescents and children by organizations such as Daesh (Islamic State) or Al-Qaeda. They already constitute an obvious target of jihad, with the number of radicalized young people continuing to increase.
One piece of information that demonstrates this is that revealed by last year’s trial before the National Court. Until 19 of 26 minors Those who have been the subject of criminal proceedings before this judicial body have done so for crimes linked to radical Islam.
EL ESPAÑOL consulted experts from the Ministry of the Interior dedicated to combating this type of organizations. And it is clear that there is a trend among the indoctrinationists, who have found a niche to feed on. “Miners constitute a sector of the population more easily influenced; mainly thanks to new technologies”underline these sources.
Indoctrinators take advantage of this to inoculate adolescents with propaganda in which terrorist acts are idealized, as if they were something “heroic and attractive,” something full of emotion. They offer them “a mission or an adventure, like video games or action films”.
“From the mosque to the bedroom”
The Internet is the main area in which this phenomenon occurs. Other commanders consulted by EL ESPAÑOL speak of a sort of migration of indoctrination techniques from public spaces to the privacy and solitude of each adolescent’s homes.
The virtual environment is of essential importance in this phenomenon, because it is the space in which terrorist organizations are increasingly concentrating their efforts. “For digital natives, it is no longer necessary to travel and meet people. What used to happen in mosques now happens in a room“, they emphasize.
These religious centers, years ago, were the place chosen by radicals to win followers to their cause. This gathering space has now simply shifted to cell phone screens and social media. And its great ally is the algorithm that transmits personalized content to thousands of users throughout Spain. “Daesh and Al-Qaeda,” the researchers warn, “saw a vein here.”
Last January, the General Information Commission (CGI) of the National Police arrested a Syrian minor in Montellano, Seville, who had purchased explosives and planned to attack in the Andalusian capital. “Martyr, God willing,” he wrote in one of his conversations. He had purchased the materials needed to make the powerful explosive known as Mother of Satan.
Just a few days ago, the CGI also arrested a minor and another adult as part of an anti-jihadist operation. Early July The Civil Guard arrested a group of young people in different cities for jihadist self-indoctrination.
There is more. On July 25, Mohamed M. was arrested following a complex investigation carried out by the Civil Guard Information Service (SIGC) with the FBI, during which they dismantled ISIS’s largest unofficial propaganda machine on the Internet. He was arrested at his home in Malaga.
According to SIGC agents, the detainee was “extremely dangerous” and was dedicated to spreading the most radical postulates of Islam to young people through his 16 TikTok accounts and extolling the activity of Islamic State terrorist groups and Al-Qaeda.
Before, in December 2023, the Police arrested nine people in Melilla for forming a group dedicated to indoctrinate young people of the city in “hatred of the West” and in “violent jihad”. Earlier that month, an Arabic teacher in Madrid who recruited his students for Daesh was killed.
As the National Counterterrorism Strategy 2023 explains, terrorist and extremist propaganda is constantly evolving, adapting to new technologies and methodologies in order to access “to a wider, younger and more vulnerable audience”. Perhaps this is why researchers are faced with operations like that of November 2023, when the Civil Guard arrested two minors for spreading Daesh propaganda in video games. online.
In August last year, a unique operation on this subject took place. The Civil Guard Information Service (JIGC) dismantled the largest jihadist structure for recruiting minors age detected in Spain.
In the private channels they created on social networks, they urged young people to realize “acts of martyrdom” (attacks including suicide). In some groups, as many as 50 people gathered, and all were receptive to the instructions provided by the indoctrinators. Some, as was confirmed after the arrests, had already internalized the radical message.
All types of profiles
This and other recent operations reveal that major jihadist organizations are concentrating their efforts to attract minors to their cause on the national territory. And this development worries specialists from the Ministry of the Interior.
A well-known video game modified by DAESH in recent years.
Researchers have confirmed that organizations such as Daesh or Al-Qaeda intend exploit adolescents to increase tension in the West and even provoke a terrorist attack. And this new strategy of attracting supporters to the jihadist cause is being carried out on the Internet, via online. A space in which new generations invest a significant number of hours per day.
As verified by the researchers consulted by EL ESPAÑOL, there is no specific profile of adolescents to recruit. Radicalized minors belonging to different social origins were detected. For example, Converted Spaniards, second and third generation minors raised and born in Spain, and also of course immigrant minors recently arrived in the national territory.
In the same way that there is a niche of minors likely to be impressed by the absurd challenges broadcast on the Internet, there is also a niche of minors ready to be impressed by the propaganda served to them by terrorist organizations: video games onlinevictimization videos, fake news, images of suicide bombers described as glorified martyrs.
According to experts, the jihadist narrative of 2024 is built, to a large extent, on the false security of social media anonymity. This influences young people and prepares them to carry out a certain type of violent action.
History of jihad
The recruitment of young people is at the origin of the jihadist movements of recent decades. From their origins, they were interested in this spectrum of the population. Abdullah Yusuf Azzam, known to Western counterterrorism forces as The Father of Global Jihadlaunched a call decades ago in Afghanistan for minors to join the ranks of Al-Qaeda.
The training manual of this terrorist organization expressly refers to the importance of admitting minors under the age of 15 into its ranks. Osama bin Laden himself once said that from this age a person meets the best conditions for jihad and sacrifice. There is even evidence that in 2014, ISIS encouraged the recruitment of child soldiers.
A young woman arrested during a recent operation.
Two years ago, the National Police discovered how the Islamist cell led by the imam of White Mosque of Melilla He sought at all costs to instill the ideas of jihad in the children around him. So they organized excursions, trips, meetings and homilies. For this reason, they gave them gifts, gathered them around the mosque and forced them to learn songs praising the terrorists.
Amin Harchaouin was at the head of an organization of 11 people. All were arrested by the national police. He demanded that those who listened to his sermons transmit to the miners the most radical ideology of Salafism. Consuming jihadist propaganda and instilling these values, he said, should be normal for them: “These are the cartoons we need to show our children”.
The recruitment of minors, as verified by state security forces and agencies, is influenced by the personal situation of the minor, mainly of an extra-familial nature. The main factors in this sense are the lack of welcome in their environment, the lack of communication due to language problems, the feeling of exclusion and the search for identity. Even if this can also happen, they remind from the Interior, that the family itself generates radicalization. Something that has happened many times.
Interior experts believe that this increase compared to last year comes on the one hand after the terrorist group Hamas urged last October to practice “global jihad”as part of its war not only against Israel, but against the West. This call has in fact warned the security forces and bodies of several European countries; among them, Spain, which heightened his alert. Counterterrorism experts have verified that some of the profiles they usually monitor have been radicalized due to the situation in the Middle East.
To this factor we must add technological advances and social networks, mainly used by young people and adolescents. These platforms, as well as others like Dark webfacilitate anonymity on the Internet, an essential element for these radicalized individuals. This is why specialists in the field believe that there is a lot of work to be done.
