National Police Have Made 13 Jihadist Arrests in Catalonia in 2026

The Policía Nacional (Spain’s national police force) has arrested 13 people in Catalonia so far in 2026 on suspicion of links to jihadist terrorism. The figure comes from the head of the counterterrorism section of the force’s provincial brigade in Barcelona, who spoke to the news agency Europa Press in an interview reported by Metrópoli Abierta. His name has not been disclosed for security reasons.

He said the people drawn into jihadist ideas today are mostly young men who radicalize themselves online, often with little religious knowledge, and that some far-right messaging is being used by recruiters to feed that process.

Catalonia’s share of Spain’s arrests

According to the commander, Catalonia carries a large weight in Spain’s counterterrorism figures. Of the 100 arrests made across Spain in 2025, 30% took place in Catalonia. Another 13% were people arrested abroad who had direct ties to the region.

The force has seen investigations and court cases in this area rise for the past four years. He called the increase “suave” (gentle) but steady. Spain has been at level 4 of 5 on its terrorism alert scale since 2017. He asked people not to be alarmist and said the threat has not gone away.

From TikTok to Discord: how young people are drawn in

After the Islamic State lost its territory in Iraq and Syria between 2017 and 2019, its centralized propaganda machine weakened, the commander said. What replaced it is a decentralized online network that keeps itself going. Anyone anywhere can find the material, and it is no longer necessary to go to the deep web to reach it.

He described a set route. Large social networks such as Instagram and TikTok act as shop windows for radical propaganda, where people start teaching themselves. Recruitment then moves to messaging apps such as Telegram, Discord and Signal, which become private spaces for the group.

Most of those who fall into this are men aged 14 to 25. Many were born in Spain, and some are converts. They tend to be going through identity crises or emotional problems, or have a strong need to belong to a group. He described them as young people who cut themselves off from the real world while being “hiperconectados” (hyperconnected) online.

Unlike earlier generations of militants, he said, most have no solid theological training. Ideas such as Salafism are foreign to them, they often watch videos that contradict one another, and they follow clips of self-styled leaders shared online. In his view, what attracts them is an emotional idea of violence.

What it means for security in Catalonia

The commander argued that extremist Islamism and the far right feed each other, which he called a “reciprocal polarization.” He stressed that terrorists are an overwhelming minority among Muslims. But when some far-right voices treat Islam as a whole as incompatible with a democratic state, or keep tying immigration to crime, radicals use those messages to present themselves as victims and to justify hatred, he said.

To stop radicalization before it turns into an attack, police rely on the 2015 reform of the Criminal Code that made glorifying terrorism a crime. He called it a basic prevention tool and said it lets officers act early in 90% of cases. Similar offenses are missing in other European countries, he added, which partly explains why Spain carries out so many preventive operations.

Recruiters abroad and cooperation between forces

The hardest cases involve recruiters who work remotely, nearly always from countries outside Europe. When that country does not cooperate with Spain, investigators can go no further, he said. Police try to work around those limits through CITCO (Centro de Inteligencia contra el Terrorismo y el Crimen Organizado, Spain’s counterterrorism and organized crime intelligence center), together with Europol and Interpol.

In Catalonia, he described the working relationship between the Policía Nacional, the Guardia Civil and the Mossos d’Esquadra (Catalonia’s police) as smooth, with information shared first through the national intelligence center. He said two forces working together may get further than one alone.

Source: Metrópoli Abierta