The savage terrorist attacks in Spain which killed 15 people – including two boys aged three and seven – and injured over 130 in Barcelona and Cabrils is yet another reminder of the constant threat Europe faces from fanatics inspired by the so-called Islamic State.
Thirteen people died when a van drove into crowds on Las Ramblas in Barcelona; hours later one person was killed by a car in Cambrils, a coastal town 120km to the south of the Catalan capital and another person was stabbed to death in a car outside Barcelona by a 22-year-old Moroccan shortly after he had carried out the atrocity at Las Ramblas.
The Barcelona massacre joins an ever-growing list of devastating vehicle attacks – such as in Nice, Berlin, Stockholm and London – which are unfortunately so easy to carry out and so difficult to prevent. Sadly, we can expect such attacks to continue in Europe for the foreseeable future, especially, as I have often pointed out, since Islamic State is on the brink of being defeated in Iraq and Syria.
That Barcelona was attacked is not particularly surprising; the security services have been on high alert for years and the city’s metro was the target of a foiled plot in 2008. Barcelona’s international, cosmopolitan, open character make it an obvious terrorist target, as does the fact that it is such a popular tourist destination and many people from all parts of the world can easily identify with it. Not surprisingly, the victims of this latest act of terrorism were of many different nationalities. And we must remember that Spain had already suffered a horrendous jihadist act of terrorism – the bombings that killed 191 people at Madrid’s Atocha station in 2004.
The people behind the Barcelona van attack were a 12-man Moroccan terrorist cell who had planned – apparently for months – to use explosives against monuments including the city’s famous Sagrada Familia church.
However, things went wrong when a house packed with bomb-making equipment blew up the day before in the town of Alcanar, killing two of the terrorists. Among the rubble of the house 100 gas cylinders were found, which were likely going to be used in the originally planned attack.
Why was Imam Abdelbaki Es Satty able to radicalise the Barcelona terrorists without being detected?
Six of the terrorists were later shot dead by the police: five after the Cambrils attack and the sixth, Younes Abouyaaqoub, in a town 30 miles west of Barcelona, four days after he carried out the Las Ramblas massacre. The surviving four members of the terror cell have already been taken to court, where one of the jihadists confirmed that the group had indeed planned an even bigger attack in Barcelona.
What now, and how can Europe deal with this latest scourge of terrorism? First of all we must understand that this was not just an attack on Spain, but on all of Europe. These terrorists hate our freedom, our way of life, our democracy, our openness and our inclusiveness. They want to create civil strife, they want us to turn on the Muslim populations in Europe and they want to end multicultural cosmopolitanism.
Also, the Barcelona attack shows that it is a myth that only those countries directly involved in the military fight against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria will be targeted by the terrorists. Spain is not involved in this war, and neither is Finland, where a Moroccan stabbed two people to death in the city of Turku the day after the Ramblas attack. For Islamic State, Spain is simply another Western civilisation which its warped mentality considers to be a legitimate target. Additionally, Spain was once part of the Islamic empire, so the fanatical jihadists consider it to be occupied by ‘infidels’.
As with all cases of terrorism, the response must be strategic, intelligent and patient, and not a knee-jerk one. We must not fall into the terrorists’ trap by cracking down unnecessarily on Muslims or curbing civil liberties. What is needed is increased intelligence and surveillance work, stricter border controls, more police co-operation on a national level (in Spain’s case questions have been raised about poor collaboration between Catalonia and Madrid) as well as on a European level – a European FBI should be set up as a first step.
Also, a thorough review of security surrounding tourist and commercial centres as well as sporting, entertainment and political events is essential. And very importantly, there should be increased co-operation between the police and Muslim communities, as ultimately it is the jihadists’ families, neighbours and friends who can pass on vital information to the authorities should they suspect their relatives of becoming radicalised.
Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy was spot on when he said, in the aftermath of the Ramblas attack: “The way to beat terrorists is with institutional unity, with police cooperation, with prevention, international support and the firm determination to defend the values of our civilisation: democracy, freedom and the rights of people.”
Of course, defending our democracy and freedom does not mean we shouldn’t resort to stricter measures in dealing with potential terrorists or jihadists. Why for example, was Abdelbaki Es Satty – an imam in Ripoll, a small town in Catalonia where nearly all the terror cell members lived for the last two years – able to radicalise the Barcelona terrorists without being detected? Why was this imam allowed to preach despite having a conviction for drug smuggling? And why was nothing done about the fact that he was suspected of recruiting local youths to fight for Islamic State and had links with jihadists going back more than a decade?
Es Satty, who died in the Alcanar explosion, should never have been allowed to practise as an imam and should have been under constant surveillance. He should also have been expelled to his native Morocco, but incredibly an order for his expulsion from Spain upon release from prison was overturned by a judge in 2015 who said he had shown “employment and an effort to integrate”. Also, questions must be asked about how the 12 members of the terror cell were never suspected of being jihadists, which implies that the police needs to improve its links with the Muslim community.
As we combat terrorism we need to offset the need for more police action and intelligence work with the fact that we want to continue living in free and tolerant societies which respect minorities and guarantee civil liberties. The challenge, of course, is to arrive at the right balance.