Spain: “Legal Immigrants” and ISIS

The seizure of 20,000 new military uniforms—destined for ISIS in Syria—by police in Valencia, Spain, last month, has revealed the full extent of the ISIS support network amongst nonwhite invaders already legally resident in Europe.

The uniforms—five tons in all—were hidden under secondhand clothes in two supply containers seized at the city’s port, on their way to Syria.

According to transit documents, the uniforms had been sent from Saudi Arabia to Spain, but their appearance suggested they had originated in a NATO country.

In addition, a quantity of fertilizer, which can be used to make explosives, was also found at another location. Seven nonwhites were arrested.

The destination on the containers was Turkey—first to the port of Mersin near Cyprus, and then, via road, to Bad al Hawa, on the other side of the Syrian border.

The seizure, ordered by Spanish High Court Judge Eloy Velasco, was the continuation of an operation launched on February 7, when authorities arrested seven suspected members of a support group for ISIS in Ontinyent (Valencia), Ceuta, and the Alicante municipalities of Crevillent, L’Alqueria d’Asnar, Muro d’Alcoi, and Alicante.

The head of the network was Ammar Termanini, born in Aleppo (Syria) in 1972, and who arrived in Spain in 2012 after having lived in the Netherlands, Belgium, and the United Kingdom.

Once in Spain he set up a company, Tigre Negro S.L. (Black Tiger Ltd.), of which he was the sole administrator. The company was dedicated to the import and export of textile goods.

Under cover of providing humanitarian aid, he sent a number of packages to Syria, where he traveled frequently.

The financier behind Termanini was Mohamed Abu El Rub Karima, born in Jordan in 1960 and a resident of Ontinyent, Valencia, Spain.

Inside his warehouse in the L’Altet industrial park, police found uniforms similar to those later discovered in the Valencia container.

Karima raised funds and made payments through hawala, the traditional Muslim system based on trust, and which allows for money to be moved around different countries without leaving any trace of bank transfers.

The network did not just send uniforms to Islamic State, but could also manage any other kind of request. One example was the type of fertilizer that is not sold in Spain and can be used to make explosives.

The problem of legally resident nonwhite invaders in Spain supporting ISIS is also apparent from statistics released in November last year by the Real Instituto Elcano think tank. That report showed that 45 percent of the 120 nonwhites arrested for terrorism-related offences in that country from 2013 to 2015 had Spanish citizenship.

“There has been a boom in homegrown jihadism in Spain, in tandem with the global jihadist mobilization that has been affecting Western European countries for the last four years,” reads the report, which was presented at the Third Forum on Global Terrorism, held in Madrid.

Geographically, Ceuta and Melilla are the biggest sources of jihadist activity on Spanish territory. The exclave cities, which are physically located along the northern coast of Africa, are the birthplace of 75.8 percent of all detainees arrested for jihadist activities since 2013.

Barcelona and its metropolitan area are the preferred grounds for jihadists living in Spain, with some 29 percent of all arrests being made there.