Spanish police officers control vehicles as they cross the Spanish-French border between La-Jonquera northern Spain, and Le-Perthus, southern France, on Aug. 20, 2017.RAYMOND ROIG/AFP / Getty Images
After years of relative calm, Spain is suddenly confronting a series of security challenges that have raised questions about the country's preparedness.
Spanish police are still trying to unravel the terrorist network behind last week's attacks in Barcelona and Cambrils that killed 14 people and injured more than 120, among them seven-year-old Australian-British citizen Julian Cadman, who had been missing since Thursday. While both attacks involved vehicles ramming into crowds of people, police believe the group was actually planning a more deadly attack using vans packed with bombs. That went wrong after an explosion at a house outside Barcelona in Alcanar, which police believe was the group's bomb-making operation.
None of the perpetrators, including one teenager, were known to have any connection to terrorist groups, raising concerns about police intelligence. And on Sunday, Catalan police official Josep Lluis Trapero told reporters that officials weren't even sure of the identity of the one suspect still at large. He added that police are focusing part of their investigation on Abdelbaki Es Satty, an imam in nearby Ripoll where the men came from. There are reports Mr. Es Satty may have radicalized the assailants but Mr. Trapero said that wasn't clear and police were still trying to establish if the imam died in the house explosion.
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The scope of the terrorism network and the flurry of questions surrounding the investigation have raised concerns about Spain's once vaunted anti-terrorism effort. Ever since terrorists blew up a train in Madrid in 2004, killing 192 people and injuring around 2,000, Spain has been relatively free of the kind of terrorist attacks that have haunted other European cities. Its immunity was due to a major crackdown by the government that included adding thousands of police and intelligence officers. Since 2004, Spanish police have arrested 723 suspected jihadists, including 51 so far in 2017. In 2008, they also foiled an attempt to blow up the Barcelona subway and last April they arrested nine men over terrorism allegations, including two connected to the Brussels airport and subway bombings in 2016 that killed 32 people.
But experts say the size of last week's attacks, and the number of people involved, have raised troubling questions. "In the past 18 months or so, you have a feeling the Spaniards have been taking their eye off the ball. They used to be very tough and forthright," said Anthony Glees, director of the Centre for Security and Intelligence at Britain's University of Buckingham. "I don't think they are prepared."
While Spain has escaped many of the tensions over Islamic extremism that have plagued other European countries, Barcelona is considered something of a hotbed. Since 2012, 61 people have been arrested for jihadist activity in the city, the highest of any area in the country. Most of those arrests came in the communities around Barcelona, where much of the Muslim population lives. The area is home to about 510,000 Muslims, or about one quarter of Spain's two million Muslims, and many have roots in Morocco and other parts of North Africa.
"There are jihadist networks and they have been in Barcelona for a while," said Nafees Hamid, a researcher with the Washington-based think tank Artis International who has studied terrorist groups in Barcelona. He added that many local Muslims have ties to Tétouan, a part of Morocco that has become a breeding ground for Islamic State sympathizers, as well as the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, which are on the Moroccan coastline. Tétouan "has been linked to a lot of different terrorist groups and many of those people, friends or family members from those neighbourhoods, they immigrated to Barcelona and so there are a lot of family connections and relationships with actual jihadists from that area."
Mr. Hamid said the situation in Barcelona is complex. There isn't a large anti-Western movement and while there are plenty of followers of Salafi, an ultra-conservative interpretation of Sunni Islam, they don't tend to focus on politics. Nonetheless, he said Barcelona is a major hub for the transfer of illicit goods to France, North Africa and other parts of Europe, and some of that trade is connected to terrorist groups.
And while Spain has generally been less of a target for Islamic State, that is changing, too. Fewer Spaniards, around 200, left to join IS in Syria compared to other European countries such as France which has seen about 1,200 people leave. But IS has recently issued new threats against Spain and proclaimed its long-held notion of recapturing Al-Andalus, as medieval Spain was known.
The resurgence in terrorism also comes as Spain is facing a sudden wave of illegal migrants from across the Middle East and North Africa. The number of undocumented migrants has reached nearly 9,000 so far this year, including 600 in one day alone last week. That compares to 2,500 in 2016. Last week, the United Nations warned that Spain is facing a potential emergency and could soon overtake Greece as Europe's second-biggest migrant destination.
Prof. Glees said the increased terrorism threat and the border security issues are major challenges for Spain, particularly given the tension between the central government and the region of Catalonia, which includes Barcelona and is pushing to separate. "Spain might become far less safe than it has been in the past," he said.
- With a file from The Associated Press
Paul Waldie