The dimension of this case reinforces the fears of anti-terrorism experts, who have seen in recent months how the number of radicalized young people captured has increased and how the risk has increased. In fact, since November, security forces have announced the arrest of six minors for crimes of jihadism. The last one was recorded at the end of this January in Montellano (Seville, 7,000 inhabitants), when a 17-year-old boy was arrested who had carried out tests with homemade explosives in an open field in the town.
In the midst of an increase in arrests for jihadism, with levels close to those recorded in the months following the attacks of March 11, 2004 in Madrid, the National Police highlighted on December 19 that it had detained three minors, two of them in Madrid and another in Barcelona, between 15 and 16 years old, who were “highly radicalized” and showed their total submission to the extremist postulates of the self-proclaimed Islamic State (ISIS, for its acronym in English). As the agents explained then, these “young students” not only shared jihadist propaganda and praised the members of these terrorist groups through digital platforms; but rather that they had already expressed the desire to commit an action and had begun the distribution of tasks, such as “training” to make explosives.
Intentions that, according to the investigations opened in the National Court, did not remain mere generalities. They had translated into the determination to attack a “concrete” objective, as confirmed by legal sources to this newspaper. In a resolution issued in January, the Criminal Chamber of the National Court highlights that, as observed from their continuous interactions online, the three young people “coordinated” and “planned the attack” against a person they considered “apostate” and contrary to their radical ideas, since he had “opposed the violent conception of Islam” professed by one of those investigated. Therefore, they began to move and, presumably, collect personal information about their future victim.
Because, according to the court, the three young people had adopted the jihadist ideology and, through instant messaging platforms, “justified, publicized, praised and propagated” in an “obvious way” the violent Islamic postulates and the actions carried out by terrorist organizations. The boys allegedly operated, for example, on the Hispanic Islamic Organization and Islam Server servers, located within the Discord platform, used by young video game fans to create communities of users with similar tastes. The Prosecutor’s Office highlighted that they share “content that harbors a jihadist terrorist narrative and propaganda of a highly violent nature and with a clear intention of indoctrination and recruitment.”
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In December, after being placed at the disposal of the Juvenile Section of the National Court’s Prosecutor’s Office, the Central Juvenile Court ordered the admission of these three arrested persons to a closed detention center.
“Cyber Soldiers”
The radicalization of minors is a growing concern among anti-terrorist forces. A 2019 report from the Elcano Royal Institute already reported an “increase” in jihadists who had begun their radicalization process at an early age. Along these lines, last December the Civil Guard arrested an imam who was an Arabic teacher in a mosque in the Villaverde neighborhood in Madrid, accused of radicalizing the minors to whom he taught with videos and sermons in which he praised the figure of the suicide bomber. Also, in September, the armed institute arrested a mother from Vitoria (Álava) for allegedly encouraging her four minor children (all boys under 12 years old) to become “combatants” willing “to kill, die and self-immolate.”
The Ministry of the Interior has warned that “radicalized digital natives are one of the emerging phenomena globally in the field of terrorism.” The youngest people create their own broadcast channels on networks frequented by minors, where they call themselves “cyber soldiers” and where they browse groups of mobile applications converted into “huge virtual recruitment centers,” as the Police have come to call them. National.
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