Spain faces a new jihadist – El Universal

Madrid.- “He is a real man, not you!”. Samira, a Moroccan resident in Barcelona, ​​with those words left her husband, disenchanted with the precarious life they led in Spain.
Met on the Internet to a jihadist who fought in Syria who recruited, along with 39 other women, to travel to the caliphate of the Islamic State (EI). The police arrested her, but before he had time to say goodbye to her husband with these words full of frustration.
Samira is one more of the cases addressed in a report presented yesterday in Madrid by Fernando Reinares and Carola García -Calvo, the Elcano Royal Institute. This is a portrait of jihadism in Spain. The study reveals that frustration, lack of adaptation, ideology and hope to reach a higher status in the community are attractive to embrace violence.
EI activist profile is that of a Spanish man 31 years old, married with two children. It has secondary education and basic knowledge of Islam but emotional. Almost half of them
has stepped jail for common crimes, confirming that prisons are a factory radicals.
For women It is different. Now represent 16% of those arrested in Spain. Usually they are younger (22 years) and is intended to move the caliphate to have children with fighters and perpetuate jihadism. “They do fit with an online profile in female recruitment strategy as bold as successful,” said Carola García-Calvo.
The report, Islamic State in Spain, states that the proclamation of the caliphate of the Islamic State in 2014 changed the profile of the jihadists in Europe. The images of the Salafist utopia, with young guys building a proto-state in the far Iraq and firing automatic weapons in Youtube videos, has been a magnet for many romantic children of Muslim immigrants who can not find their place in Europe. Before that date, in Spain 95% of those convicted of jihadist terrorism or killed in suicidal acts as the brutal attacks of 2004 were born outside the country; Now, 39% are from the Spanish territory
Most come from the enclaves that Spain preserves in Africa. Ceuta and Melilla. The rest are mainly from neighboring Morocco, although there are also French, Belgians, Italians … What highlights the need for international cooperation to curb the phenomenon.
One of the most interesting sections of the work it covers the process of radicalization. Contrary to the widespread impression, less than 20% of the jihadists reach the EI by propaganda on the Internet. the physical presence of a radicalizing character is usually necessary, be a friend, family member or an activist neighborhood. “Often the future jihadists are kids who go through life crises or conflicts of identity, and just fall off one of these radicals with charismatic features that attract them to your world know,” said Reinares during the presentation of the report.
Spain is one of the objectives that recurrently mentions the Islamic State in their communications, both for its active stance against terrorism and for its historical ties with Islam. However, the report stresses that it is one of the European countries where less adept has achieved EI, because it does not have a second generation immigrants as large as France, Belgium or the United Kingdom.
The report recalls 160 Spanish fighters are or have been in Syria and Iraq. France estimates it has about 600 thousand national in such circumstances.