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Arrests for jihadism outstrip those for ETA in Spain

Xinhua, September 6, 2016 Adjust font size:

During 2015 the number of people detained for crimes related to jihadism outstripped those related to Basque separatist group ETA for the first time in Spain, a report published Tuesday showed.

The Annual Report of the State Prosecution Service for 2015 showed that 40 percent of all investigations carried out by the High Court were related to terror offences and "the threat of jihadist attacks in Spanish territory is certainly important."

Terror offences made up 331 of the 808 investigations carried out by the High Court in 2015 and of those 179 (22 percent of the total) were linked to jihadism, with 21 of those related to the "glorification" of terrorism or attempts to recruit minors, according to the report.

The report, published by the Prosecution Services of the Spanish High Court (Fiscalia de la Audiencia Nactional), highlighted that investigations against jihadism were now "one of the fundamental pillars" of the High Court's work and that these investigations now "far outstripped" cases linked to ETA.

2015 saw 68 people arrested in Spain in anti-jihadist operations with a further 26 arrested in joint operations with police forces abroad. The majority of these arrests were related to networks dedicated to recruiting, indoctrinating and sending fighters to Syria.

The centers for this activity are Madrid and the Catalan Region, as well as in Spain's north-African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla.

The threat posed to Spain by groups such as the Islamic State (Daesh) is now considered to be "serious and worrying" and is expected to "be habitual in the coming years".

The High Court also expressed concern about a "significant increase in mentions" of Spain in jihadist propaganda in the wake of the Paris and Brussels attacks. Endit