A masked man with an assault rifle on a reddish background in which you can see part of the four football stadiums in London, Paris and Madrid, where the first legs of the Champions League quarterfinals will be held on Tuesday and Wednesday, and a threatening message: “Kill them all.” The intimidating notice spread in recent days via the internet by the jihadist platforms Al-Azaim Foundation and Sarh al-Khilafah has led the Ministry of the Interior to issue “orders to reinforce” security at the Real Madrid-Manchester City matches and Atlético de Madrid-Borussia Dortmund that are being held these two days in the capital, as confirmed by Fernando Grande-Marlaska’s department in a message with which he wanted to convey tranquility. The Government delegate in Madrid, Francisco Martín, has also spoken of “additional reinforcement” to the initially planned deployment. This increase translates, for example, into a greater number of anti-terrorist agents assigned to the security of the matches, police sources add.
Interior has recalled that the operation, which is also intended to avoid altercations between the teams’ fans – 8,000 British and German fans are expected to travel to Madrid these days – will involve the deployment of more than 2,000 agents, mostly of the National Police, although there will also be civil guards, who will be joined by members of the Madrid Municipal Police. Spain is at level 4 of anti-terrorist alert (high risk, on a scale of five), in force since June 2015. On April 2, another anti-jihadist reinforcement device concluded, this one motivated by the celebration of Holy Week, although since October Spain and other European countries have already adopted measures in the same direction after the outbreak of Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Sources in the anti-terrorist fight highlight that the threat against the Champions League football matches is part of “a jihadist campaign against large events where crowds of people gather and have great media significance.” Their objective, they add, is to “create a climate of fear and tension, and, in the process, incite some radicalized Islamist to step forward and commit violent action.” These same sources believe that the recent Islamist attack committed at Crocus City Hall, on the outskirts of Moscow – which was claimed by a branch of the Islamic State (ISIS) and caused more than 130 deaths – “helps these groups in this objective of intimidating society.” In fact, it is not the first time that jihadism uses sports competitions to issue threats. The Football World Cup held in Russia in 2018 also registered intense propaganda activity from platforms orbiting around ISIS with threats of terrorist actions during the competition, although in the end no incident occurred.
“This type of threats seeks to attract the attention of the press to generate noise,” says Manuel R. Torres, professor of Political Science at the Pablo Olavide University of Seville and an expert in jihadism. Torres highlights that in the case of the propaganda spread in recent days against the Champions League matches, it is carried out by two organizations, Al-Azaim Foundation and Sarh al-Khilafah, which have no direct relationship with the Islamic State nor are they part of what which he calls the “media arm” of what is currently the hegemonic organization in jihadism. “Sometimes, behind these types of platforms there is only one person,” he adds as a detail of his limited capacity to perpetrate major violent actions.
For this expert, ISIS does not bother to deny its connection with this type of messages launched by unrelated platforms “because it benefits them in their strategy of creating fear.” And he remembers that these types of campaigns arise periodically and in them it is not strange to make references to emblematic places in Spain, such as religious buildings. Torres also predicts that the upcoming celebration of the Olympic Games in Paris will cause an increase in these threatening messages with allusions to this sporting event due to the great media impact they can achieve.
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The decision to increase anti-terrorist measures for the celebration of specific events or designated dates is not new in Spain. For nine years, Interior has reinforced security devices during the Christmas and Easter holiday periods to focus precisely on places where, such as at a soccer match, there are high concentrations of people. In June 2022, on the occasion of the NATO summit in Madrid, with the attendance of more than 40 heads of State and Government of the member countries, more than 10,000 police officers were deployed to face a triple threat: jihadist terrorism. , violent anti-system groups and the risk of cyber sabotage by Russia following NATO’s support for Ukraine after the outbreak of war. So far this year, the Security Forces have arrested 18 suspected jihadists. In all of 2023 there were 78, the highest number since 2005, after the 11-M attacks.
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