Spain upgrades security level in wake of Paris attack

The Spanish government has decided to upgrade its anti-terrorist security level by one notch following the attack on the French satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo which left 12 people dead on Wednesday.

The decision to upgrade the level of alert from 2 to 3 was taken after an emergency meeting between Spain's Interior Minister Jorge Fernandez Diaz, the Spanish National Police, Civil Guard, Center for Intelligence against Terrorism and Organized Crime and the National Center for Intelligence (CNI) in the wake of Wednesday's attack in Paris.

There will now be an increased police presence on the streets, while security around government buildings and public infrastructure, such as nuclear power stations, will also be stepped up.

Diaz explained there was no information about a direct threat to Spain and added the measures were a precaution in case there was "an additional threat of an attack in Spain as a consequence of what happened."

He did however warn that possible rivalry between Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State could lead to an increase in the number of attacks.

Meanwhile Spain's political leaders have all condemned the Paris attack with members of all of the county's main political parties taking part in a vigil in Madrid, while Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, currently on an official visit to Andorra, tweeted that Spain "was with France" at this difficult time.

Spanish police conducted in 2014 a series of operations against networks recruiting fighters for the Islamic State. The majority of these arrests were in the north African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, but operations in recent months have also led to arrests in mainland cities such as Barcelona, Murcia and Almeria. Endit