Recent terrorist attacks in many European cities deserve a pause by experts and researchers in terrorism. One of these is the question posed by Ian Cobain in a recent Guadian article titled “Family ties among Spanish terror cell echo past attacks?” According to Cobain, the terrorist cell that carried out the Barcelona attack was made of brothers and that has become common in terrorist cells.
Younes Abou Yaaqoub, 22, who was killed in a Spanish police operation, was the main suspect driving the truck in the run after in Barcelona. His brother Hussein, 19, was among the five people killed by the police on the coast of Cambrils after committing a vehicle-ramming attack. Mohammed Hashmi, 24, and his brother Omar, 21, who were killed by the Spanish police, took part in the attacks. Saeed Aalla, 18, was killed and his brother Mohammed Aalla, 27, is being interrogated because his car was used in the Barcelona attack, and there is an ongoing search for their third brother. Yusuf. Moussa Oukabir, 17, was killed and his brother Driss, surrendered himself to the police. There is no evidence of his links to the terrorist attack in Barcelona. In Germany, four Syrian brothers have also recently been arrested on charges of belonging to the Al-Nusra terrorist wing in Syria, affiliated with Al-Qaeda.
The author of the article in the Guardian says that jihadist terrorism studies suggest that family links in these organizations are normal, considering that terrorism is a highly social and peer-influenced activity.
This analysis may seem logical, but it needs more understanding of how the group/family is involved in these organizations. Investigations with the father of a terrorist reveal that he knows nothing about his son’s extremist intellectual affiliation, which is highly critical about the feasibility of pre-emptive measures.
The security authorities in most of the terrorist attacks knew the terrorists’ personalities, but could not predict their inclination to commit terrorist acts. Terrorists were not subject to close monitoring proactively because of the use of concealment and deception.
This phenomenon needs in-depth studies as it poses a serious threat and negatively affects the early detection of terrorist ideology in case it is massively infiltrated into families. It is difficult to apply the idea of family censorship, especially since most new terrorists are under 20 years old.
Another development of the terrorist phenomenon is that the new terrorists in Europe have striking backgrounds. The Imam of Ribol Catalan’s mosque, Abdul Baqi al-Saadi, is said to be responsible for the “brainwashing” of young Moroccans and pushing them to form the jihadist cell behind the attacks. He was the mastermind of the terrorist cell in Spain, and may have become an extremist in prison by the help of a participant in the Madrid bombings.
Al-Saadi was sentenced to two years in prison for drug trafficking from Morocco to Spain where he met Rachid Aglif, known as “the Rabbit”, who was sentenced to 18 years in prison for his involvement in the Madrid bombings that killed 192 people and wounded 2,000 others.
This Imam was not religious at all before he entered prison, but was bringing drugs to Spain as official information confirms. The Imam, al-Saadi, was not known for his declared rigidity in the religious discourse inside the mosque but he seemed very natural, which may explain why he did not raise the suspicions of the security services. A mosque attendee states that the Imam was behaving normally among people; if he had been brainwashing these young men, he would have done so secretly and in an unknown place. The witnesses’ statements to the Spanish press reveal some of the characteristics of the leaders of terrorism. One of them said that the Imam of the mosque was very introverted and if he mixed up with others, he would have preferred young men more than people of his age. He was organizing football matches in a hall where participated youths involved in the attacks such as Moussa Oukabir, 17, who was killed during the Cambrils attack, said another witness. This strategy reflects a prior clandestine work.
The radicalization of the Imam of the mosque and his transformation into a terrorist leader took nearly two years. He reached Ribol in 2015 then went to Belgium as an Imam before returning to Ribol, and in April 2016 he began to lead worshipers in this mosque. At the end of June 2017, he asked for a three-month leave to go visit his wife in Morocco, then returned to Spain as a mastermind of the two attacks and was preparing to execute them in a much more serious manner.
Police seized 120 gas cylinders and traces of an explosive device previously used in the Brussels, Paris, and London tunnels. He was also planning to use three rented lorries to launch coordinated attacks after loading them with explosives and gas cylinders against targets intended for tourists.
The most of the 12 suspects of the terrorist cell in Spain lived in Ribol, north of Barcelona near the French border. They were all young people of the same origins, which reflect the extent of mutual influence both in terms of age and ethnicity in one small place.
