Is Catalonia a Jihad Corridor?

Four out of every ten terrorists convicted for jihadist operations in Spain are located in Catalonia. The northeastern province of Spain was also where the Egyptian Mohamed Atta –chieftain of the 9/11 attacks in New York and Washington– and the Yemenite Ramzi Binalshibh –intermediary between the September 11 unit and the Al-Qaeda headquarters– met two months before the final operation to approve the definitive action plan. Their rendezvous took place in the Catalonian province of Tarragona, very near the residence of another Al-Qaeda terrorist, an Algerian connected with the most prominent members of the so-called Abu Dahdah cell that the Islamist organization had set up in Spain in 1994.

In Spain there are approximately 1,200 Islamic places of worship –300 of them in Catalonia– and a large number of illegal temples set up in apartments, warehouses and garages. On November 28th the Spanish government has arrested two members of a jihadist network that was recruiting young volunteers willing to join ISIS. The two men taken into custody –both Moroccans from Tangiers, 42 and 32 years old– had enlisted a young Spanish woman of 24, born in Granollers (Barcelona) from Moroccan parents. According to the Spanish Ministry of Home Affairs, the young woman had recently tried to fly to Syria, but desisted when her male companion was arrested. On this occasion she was headed for Afghanistan and when the police took her in she had already packed her suitcase.

Catalonia –home to about a third of Spain’s Muslim population– limits with France on the North and is considered one of the main gateways of jihadism into Europe. Spain has had a smaller problem with radical Islam than other European countries, largely for demographic reasons. Muslims represent only 4% of Spain’s population, about half the percentage of neighboring France.