US targets Barcelona in anti-terrorist fight

The American Embassy in Madrid believes that Catalonia is the biggest hotbed of radical Islam in all of Spain, and that as such it requires special monitoring. US intelligence services are worried about the effervescence of Islamist activities in cities such as Tarragona, Hospitalet, Badalona and Reus, as well as the size of the Pakistani and Moroccan communities in Barcelona. Secret documents from the State Department define Catalonia as "a major Mediterranean center of radical Islamist activity."

The cables released by WikiLeaks underscore the importance of Barcelona, the Catalan capital, because of its influence on the Mediterranean region. This is the reason why the US government selected it as a location for a multi-agency, counterterrorism and crime-fighting center based out of the US Consulate there. The decision dates from October 2007 and the hub has been operative for the last two years, according to the secret notes.

"Spain has very little intelligence on, or ability to, penetrate these groups"

"Spain is waking up to the nexus of terrorism, crime, and drug trafficking"

"The threat in Catalonia is clear. Barcelona has become a crossroads of worrisome activities, a natural meeting place and transit point of people and goods moving to and through the region from all countries bordering the western Mediterranean. The US needs an on-site ability to quickly see who and what is passing through the area from places such as Algiers, Tunis, Rabat and the south of France. The Consulate General in Barcelona would be the ideal platform for the hub because it has the space available, secure communications and a prime location," reads one of the cables.

The initiative for the intelligence center came from then-Ambassador Eduardo Aguirre. The chargé d'affaires Hugo Llorens, currently serving in Honduras, filed the secret report on October 2, 2007.

The jihadist threat was the main cause for the creation of the intelligence hub, the eight-page document reveals: "Heavy immigration - both legal and illegal - from North Africa (Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria) and Southeast Asia (Pakistan and Bangladesh) has made this region a magnet for terrorist recruiters. The Spanish National Police estimates that there may be upwards of 60,000 Pakistanis living in Barcelona and the surrounding area; the vast majority are male, unmarried or unaccompanied, and without legal documentation. There are even more such immigrants from North Africa. Once here, they share a similar fate: they live on the edges of Spanish society, they do not speak the language, they are often unemployed, and they have very few places to practice their religion with dignity. [...] In light of recent suspected activity, there is little doubt that the autonomous region of Catalonia has become a prime base of operations for terrorist activity. Spanish authorities tell us they fear the threat from these atomized immigrant communities prone to radicalism, but they have very little intelligence on, or ability to, penetrate these groups."

In January 2008, the Civil Guard arrested a group of Pakistanis in Barcelona who were planning an attack against the subway. Eleven were sentenced to up to 14 years in jail; the main suspect, Mahroof Ahmed Mirza, was the imam of the Pakistani mosque on Hospital street. Last week, another seven Pakistanis were arrested in Barcelona on charges of having ties with terrorist networks back home. The suspects sent stolen passports to jihadist groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba, which perpetrated the Mumbai attacks of 2008. The Egyptian Mohammed Atta, head of the suicide cell that carried out the 9/11 attacks on the US, used a passport that had been stolen in Barcelona.

Drug trafficking and money laundering were another argument in favor of creating the center in a city that the report describes as a veritable hotbed of organized crime. "US and Spanish officials consider Barcelona to be a key operational base for distribution and financing for Colombia's cocaine cartels. These drug traffickers view the region as a hospitable environment and increasingly ply their trade in and around Barcelona."

The cable also talks about people trafficking, describing El Prat as one of the busiest airports for organized crime.

"The Department of Homeland Security reported that the Barcelona airport has seen an increase in the number of trafficking victims passing through in recent months. Spanish authorities tell us that Chinese, Romanian, and Kosovar-Albanian mafias have settled in Catalonia and spread down the Mediterranean coast in recent years, and continue to gain strength."

Regarding money laundering, the 2007 report indicates that "more than 25 percent of the EU's

¤500 notes are found along Spain's eastern coast, where they are presumably used in large-scale drug and money transactions." Ambassador Aguirre's cable estimates that the Spanish political class will take a favorable view on their proposal for a crime-fighting center, because they are gradually waking up to the amorphous threat represented by the nexus of terrorism, crime, and drug trafficking."

Finally, the cable suggests that the proposal be discussed with the central government of Spain because it will "necessitate granting more powers to the Catalan region. We would have to carefully broach this hub concept with the central Spanish government, who may be wary of ceding more authority and responsibility to Catalonia. [...] Embassy Madrid has established extensive bilateral contact with the Spanish government on issues of counterterrorism and law enforcement, but the USG now needs a regional approach that extends our focus and reach into the entire western Mediterranean."