Madrid Joke Bomb

In slang the phrase “joke bomb” is used to describe a wisecrack that doesn’t make anybody laugh immediately, but a few seconds afterwards is discovered to be hilarious. On New Year’s Eve in Spain, the Madrid Police Department had to deal with a real joke-bomb case, which had been keep secret and has only recently been revealed. On the morning of December 31st 2015, a reliable police informer, known by the Central Brigade for years, detected in one of the Daesh web-forums a series of messages from a young woman announcing a terrorist attack in Madrid that night.

She claimed that she would be participating in this terrorist attack, which would take place hours later at the Puerta del Sol, the midtown Madrid plaza where thousands of citizens celebrate the coming of the New Year. The informer immediately alerted the Police and the “Operation Nerea” was launched to establish the identity of the suspect. Agents from diverse units were mobilized after receiving clear-cut instructions to collect as much data as possible about the alleged jihadist. Once found and arrested the young woman was submitted to an interrogation during which she broke down and admitted that it had been a joke.

These impasses are becoming increasingly common in European cities, where fear of a terrorist attack is fuelled daily by television and online media. An undeclared war between the West and Islam was outlined more than twenty years ago by American historian Samuel Huntington in his then disdained “Clash of Civilizations”. His worldview of cultural and religious identities as the primary cause of hostility in the post-Cold-War world has proved appallingly precise. The Madrid flop will repeat itself not only in the capital of Spain, but in London, Paris, Berlin, Rome and all main European cities. Hopefully, it’ll be more nonstarters.