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Raúl García Hémonnet/Editor
Ferdinand Reinares (Logroño, 1960) is a professor of Political Science and Security Studies at the Rey Juan Carlos University. Thanks to an agreement signed with the Elcano Royal Institute, he has been researching for years, from the URJC, on violent radicalization and global terrorism.
The Association 11-M Affected by Terrorism has awarded him this 2022 the AWARD FOR MEMORY AND FOR PEACE, "for his research work on the attacks of March 11, 2004". This work has been captured in his book '11-M. THE REVENGE OF AL QAEDA' (Barcelona: Galaxia Gutenberg). Professor Reinares will collect the award tomorrow, Wednesday, May 11, at the El Pozo Cultural Center, located in the Vallecas neighborhood
Below, you can read the interview with Professor Reinares on the occasion of this award where he talks about the state of jihadism in Spain, what we know today about the 11-M attacks and many other issues.
What does receiving this award mean to you?
For an academic who has investigated the 11-M attacks, one cannot imagine greater or better recognition than that of the victims of the massacre on the Cercanías trains and their relatives or relatives also affected by the loss and the damage caused by terrorists to loved ones. Throughout my research, the memory of the victims of 11-M has been present in my mind and in my heart. My work has been that of a university student interested in placing these attacks, the deadliest ever on Western European soil, in the context of the evolution of jihadist terrorism. In this effort I was able to provide new evidence about who was behind 11-M and why Spain was designated as a target. As an academic, as well as as a person and as a citizen, my work is my contribution to wanting to know about so many victims of 11-M.
Over time I also understood that this evidence on 11-M, articulated in a way that is both rigorous and accessible, but above all presented in a way devoid of the political tension and social division that occurred in Spain after the attacks , had served many victims and those affected who lived through prolonged grief. Furthermore, the fact that the award expressly alludes to memory and peace means a lot to me. The publications that have resulted from the investigation are a decided contribution to maintaining the memory of what happened on March 11, 2004 and from them derive lessons to be taken into account to prevent events of this nature from being repeated.
18 years after the attacks, what are the main certainties of the facts? Is there something left to know? Will it be possible to know everything one day?
A first certainty is that the 11-M attacks materialized a double revenge. The decision to attack Spain was made in December 2001 as revenge against Spain for having dealt Al Qaeda the biggest blow that the jihadist organization received in Western Europe after 11/2003. I am referring to Operation Date. The plans were approved by the Al Qaeda board in 11 as revenge for the Spanish military presence in Iraq. The second certainty is that Amer Azizi was the mastermind or intellectual author of 1994-M. Azizi, a Moroccan and a prominent former member of the cell that Al Qaeda had in Spain between 2001 and November 2002, could not be arrested in Operation Date because he was outside of Spain. Azizi was the one who instructed other members of the cell who were also not arrested, such as El Tunecino, Jamal Zougam and Said Berraj, to regroup for operational purposes, which they began to do in March 2003. Azizi, who became deputy to the head of external operations of Al Qaeda in the spring of 11, was the conduit between the terrorist network of 2002-M, which began to mobilize in Madrid in March 11, precisely following his instructions, and the central command of Al Qaeda with based in northwest Pakistan. The third certainty is that the XNUMX/XNUMX attacks could have been prevented on numerous occasions throughout the two years during which they were planned and prepared.
Thus, we know who was the mastermind of 11-M; we know where, when and why the decision to attack in Spain was initially made; we know how the 11-M network was configured with its three components; we know what the connection was with Al Qaeda's external operations command, or the circumstances in which the Al Qaeda leadership approved and facilitated the plans, among many other things. What things are left to know? Yes, there are things. Knowing absolutely everything about large and complex attacks is not realistic. But about the 11-M attacks we not only know the essentials, but much more than that. Including what failed for the terrorists to get away with it.
Jihadism seems to have receded into the background in public and published opinion in European countries. What do you think is the reason?
The execution of acts of terrorism, as the main corollary of the cycle of unprecedented jihadist mobilization that occurred in Western Europe during the past decade, has decreased in frequency and intensity during the last four years. The largest jihadist attacks, such as those perpetrated in 2015 in Paris, in 2016 in Brussels and Nice, or in 2017 in Manchester and Barcelona, have been left behind. More recently the attacks have been smaller in scope and carried out by jihadists who operate as lone actors, often have mental health problems and are not even initially identified as terrorists. Meanwhile, the attention of the citizens of European countries has been focused on other issues, from the pandemic to political polarization and now the war in Ukraine. Furthermore, since the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan, the media tends to offer very little information about jihadist insurgencies in Africa or Asia.
In this context, it is understood that for European public opinion in general and for Spanish public opinion in particular, the threat of jihadist terrorism to national security or social coexistence is currently less than it was just a few years ago. Such a drop in the perception of jihadism as a threat to national security and social coexistence already occurred between 2009 and 2011, but then came what came and this is something that should not be forgotten, even more so when that threat is not has vanished.
What is the current reality of the jihadist threat in Spain? What would be the main focuses and areas of violent radicalization at this time?
Jihadism in Spain is currently in a moment of transition, as is the case in Western Europe as a whole. This is a transition from the recent cycle of jihadist mobilization promoted by the Islamic State, to which I referred earlier, whose consequences will persist for years to come, especially with regard to the problem of so-called foreign terrorist fighters or jihadists displaced from Spain to conflict zones. and the challenge posed by jihadist radicalization within prisons. A transition, in any case, towards a new situation in which the processes of radicalization and recruitment are going to be related to the influence of Islam within the Muslim communities of our country and to the emerging scenarios of conflict in the northwest of Africa or South Asia, as with the gradual return of Al Qaeda as an organization of global reference.
In any case, the processes of jihadist radicalization and recruitment do not occur uniformly or proportionally among the Muslim population of Spain. On the one hand, its likelihood is considerably greater in social segments such as the second generation. Today, to speak of jihadists in Spain is to speak mainly of Muslim adolescents and young people born or raised in Spanish territory who are descendants of immigrants from Islamic countries, particularly Morocco. One fact to illustrate: all but one of the members of the 11-M network were first-generation immigrants. All but one of the members of the 17-A cell were descendants of immigrants, that is, they belonged to those second generations. On the other hand, the probability is equally greater in the Muslim communities within which the Salafists have acquired greater influence and control, as is the case in Ceuta and Melilla or in Catalonia, giving rise to pockets of radicalization and recruitment.
Is the withdrawal of identity a response to the threat of violent Islamism?
Issues related to identity are very present in the processes of jihadist radicalization and recruitment, especially in relation to those second generations that I have just mentioned. But the response to the threat of violent Islamism and the challenge to the internal cohesion of our societies posed by other forms of Islamism, including indeed Islamism that presents itself as non-violent, must not be to promote exclusionary and divisive identities. For national, regional or local policies capable of favoring the socioeconomic integration and sociocultural accommodation of second-generation Muslim adolescents and youth to have an effect in Muslim communities, their associations, places of worship and Islamic cultural centers must be led by people who consider their religious creed compatible with their status as citizens of a democratic country. For the vast majority of Salafists, including of course the jihadists, European societies and democracy are sins.
Thus, the response to religiously exclusive identities proposed by Islamist movements and doctrinaires, violent or apparently not, must be the promotion of norms and values of open and pluralistic societies, where identities naturally intermingle because they are understood as diverse. and inclusive.
Is the jihadist phenomenon and terrorism in general studied enough in Spanish universities?
No. And yet, violent radicalization and terrorism are phenomena that will continue to exist as a unique and changing expression of crime, as well as conditioning realities and of great importance in the international arena. Jihadism, as an ideology and as a movement that produces terrorism, is today more widespread and more complex than ever. Therefore, it is highly advisable that university students of Criminology or International Relations, among others, have courses, duly adapted to their corresponding degrees, on these key issues of today's world.
Within the scope of the Rey Juan Carlos University, it is to be congratulated that the students of the Degree in International Relations, or of the Double Degrees in International Relations with Law or Journalism, for example, have a subject dedicated to International Terrorism. But it is a pity that students of Double Degrees such as Law and Criminology or Psychology and Criminology are not given the opportunity to enrich their training itinerary with an optional subject on terrorism. I take this opportunity to respectfully request the colleagues who coordinate these degrees to consider correcting this situation.