The Ministry of the Interior has announced this Monday the usual reinforcement of prevention, protection and anti-terrorist response measures before the upcoming start of the Christmas holidays within the current level 4 anti-terrorist alert, “high risk” – in force since June 2015 – , over the five existing ones. However, on this occasion Fernando Grande-Marlaska's department uses the expression “of special intensity” to talk about these measures and does so a week after the European Union Commissioner for the Interior, Ylva Johansson, warned about the ” enormous risk” of attacks being committed during these dates due to the great polarization that exists after the outbreak of the conflict in the Gaza Strip. The announcement of the operation – which will begin at midnight on December 18 and will continue until midnight on January 10, 2024 – also occurs when the majority of community countries, including Spain, have already taken reinforcement measures in October, after the then outbreak of Israel's war against Hamas. In fact, the police reinforcement now announced “adds” to these, as detailed by Interior in a note.
The increase in anti-terrorist security measures at Christmas is not new. These are the consecutive novenas in which Interior reinforces them by putting special focus on “places, spaces and means of transport, as well as religious, leisure or recreational events in general, in which high concentrations of people occur on these dates , as well as the strategic objectives and infrastructures essential for the normal functioning of citizen activity”, in reference to energy plants, airports, hospitals and water supply systems, among others. The decision adopted this Monday by the Terrorist Threat Assessment Table, chaired by Grande-Marlaska, has been reflected in an instruction from the Secretary of State for Security sent to the general directorates of the Police and the Civil Guard, as well as to all Government delegations where there are regional police forces, so that they can send it to those responsible. It is also communicated to the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces (FEMP), so that the dissemination reaches local police officers, and private security companies, so that they also reinforce their services on those dates.
Police sources add that this reinforcement will be especially visible with uniformed officers in commercial areas, including street markets, where it is common for large numbers of people to come to shop on these dates, as well as at any type of mass event. The police presence is also increased in buildings and emblematic places, and in all those properties where it is foreseeable that high concentrations of people will occur. To this end, in addition to specific anti-terrorist surveillance and response devices, the Interior will increase random controls of vehicles and people in these sites and their surroundings.
On this occasion, the measure comes nine days after a 26-year-old French citizen stabbed a German tourist to death and injured two other people in the capital of France shouting “Allah is great.” This fact was what caused the EU to warn about the risk of attacks. It was not the first attack in Europe since the outbreak of the war in Gaza. In fact, two Islamist attacks perpetrated in France and Belgium forced an extraordinary meeting of the Terrorist Threat Assessment Board to be held on October 17, in which it was agreed to issue “complementary” instructions to level 4 of anti-terrorist alert. .
In this October meeting, the Interior focused the measures on the security of different diplomatic legations in Spain. Among them, that of Israel, Turkey, Palestine, Lebanon and Jordan, as well as other “strategic, cultural and economic interests” of these countries. Then, preventive anti-terrorist measures were also reinforced in the embassies of the 26 EU countries, with special attention to those of France, Sweden and Denmark. Other diplomatic representations that saw their security increase were those of the United States and the United Kingdom, as well as their “educational, economic or any other type of interests.” The instruction then already included increasing “prevention, protection and anti-terrorist response” measures in “events and festivities relevant to religious communities”, as well as on dates designated by terrorist organizations. The instruction also contemplated the need for security force agents to exercise extreme self-protection.
In September of last year, the National Police already focused, in its strategic plan for the period 2022-2025, on jihadist terrorism and, specifically, on the danger represented by the “strengthening” of the Islamic State (ISIS in its acronym in English) “after the period of weakness of the international coalition due to the pandemic” of covid-19. The confidential document highlighted the “growing” expansion of this jihadist group in “various geographical settings” and the risk that it could take advantage of it “to execute actions of greater complexity and scope.”
What affects the most is what happens closest. So you don't miss anything, subscribe.
Subscribe
The National Police indicated in the plan that the greatest risk for Spain continued to be represented by “terrorists or autonomous cells”, such as the Ripoll group that committed the attacks in Catalonia in August 2017. To this was added “the release from prison due to completion of a sentence ” of jihadist prisoners who could “invigorate terrorist activity in the coming years.” So far in 2023, 56 people have been arrested in Spain for alleged jihadist activities, to which another 10 have been arrested in other countries in joint operations, according to official statistics from the Ministry of the Interior. This figure is the highest since 2019, when 58 arrests were made in Spain and 10 abroad.
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits
_
#Interior #announces #antiterrorist #measures #special #intensity #Christmas #warning #risk #attacks