Spain Has Convicted Over 200 Jihadists Since 2004 Madrid Train Bombing

terrorists
Mohamed Abdiwahab/AFP via Getty Images
Chris Tomlinson

Spain has convicted over 200 jihadists since the 2004 Madrid train bombing and has seen far fewer radical Islamic terror attacks compared to other European countries in recent years.

Since 2004, Spanish authorities have arrested and convicted over 200 jihadists, which, according to a report from the newspaper El Mundo, perhaps explains the relatively low number of attacks in the country.

Spain has seen comparably fewer radical Islamic terrorist attacks compared to other major European countries, such as France and Germany, with the last attack taking place in 2017 in Barcelona, in which 13 people were killed and 130 others were injured.

The most deadly, however, was the 2004 Madrid train bombings which saw al-Qaeda-linked terrorists murder 193 people and injure a further 2,000, making it one of the deadliest attacks in Europe since the start of the millennium.

While some criminal proceedings have often led to acquittals of those involved, experts in counter-terrorism believe that the cases have still managed to hinder those who may have possibly engaged in terrorism.

 

Spain has also amended laws and the penal code to allow terrorist sentences to be applied to those who were simply radicalised but had not carried out an attack or even taken real steps to carry one out.

Despite this claimed success, earlier this week, a Moroccan knifeman killed one person after committing attacks against two different Roman Catholic churches in Algeciras on Wednesday night. Investigators are still trying to determine if the attacker had been motivated by radical Islamic extremist ideologies.

The attacker, 25-year-old Moroccan citizen Yasine Kanjaa, targeted clergymen in the churches, killing sacristan Diego Valencia and injuring several others, including a priest who was stabbed in the neck and shoulder.

If the attack is determined to be Islamic terrorism it would be not only the first terror attack in Spain since 2017 but would also be the first “lone wolf-style attack” that has become common in neighbouring France and in Germany.

Follow Chris Tomlinson on Twitter at @TomlinsonCJ or email at ctomlinson(at)breitbart.com.

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