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Spain: Kebab shops financing global jihad

Mar 18, 2014 11:28 am By Robert Spencer

Beef-Shish-Kebabs“Officials say the latest arrests demonstrate that Spain continues to be central to the ambitions of the global jihadist movement, which says it is committed to establishing a worldwide Caliphate.” This is because Spain, like Israel, is on land that was once ruled by Islamic law, and so Islamic supremacists believe that it belongs by right to Muslims forever. The Qur’an commands Muslims to “drive them out of the places whence they drove you out” (2:191).

“Spain: Kebab Shops Financing Global Jihad,” by Soeren Kern at the Gatestone Institute, March 18:

Police in Spain and Morocco have dismantled a jihadist network suspected of recruiting Islamic radicals in Europe and dispatching them to “hotbeds of tension” in Syria and other conflict zones.

Spanish officials say the cell, based in southern Spain, was one of the largest of its kind in Europe and responsible for recruiting more jihadists than any other network discovered in Spain so far.

The sting operation—in which seven suspected jihadists were arrested—was conducted on March 14, just three days after Spain marked the 10th anniversary of the 2004 Madrid train bombings that killed 191 people and wounded nearly 2,000.

Officials say the latest arrests demonstrate that Spain continues to be central to the ambitions of the global jihadist movement, which says it is committed to establishing a worldwide Caliphate.

Four of the suspects were arrested in Spain and the other three in Morocco. Of the suspects arrested in Spain, one was detained in the southern city of Málaga and the other three in Melilla, a Spanish exclave in North Africa. The three suspects arrested in Morocco had all recently returned from combat in Syria.

The suspected ringleader of the cell is a wheelchair-bound Spanish convert to Islam named Mustafa Maya Amaya. Maya, 51, was born in Brussels after his Spanish parents moved to Belgium in the 1960s to look for work there. After converting to Islam, he changed his given name from Rafael to Mustafa.

--From left to right: Mustafa Maya Amaya, Paul Cadic and Farik Cheikh, three of the jihadists arrested by Spanish police. (Image source: Spanish Ministry of the Interior)

Maya eventually married a woman from Morocco, where he lived until December 2012, when he was arrested by Moroccan police for conspiring to overthrow the Moroccan monarchy and replace it with an Islamic government.

After escaping from prison in Morocco, Maya took refuge across the border in Melilla and became a naturalized Spanish citizen. Spanish counter-terrorism officials say Maya is well known for his advocacy of extremist Islam—he once told the Málaga-based newspaper Diario Sur that he supported the way the Taliban in Afghanistan treated women there—but that until now he had not been directly linked to terrorist activities.

Investigators say Maya—who maintained close ties to jihadist cells in Belgium, France, Indonesia, Libya, Mali, Morocco, Tunisia, Turkey and Syria—is suspected of recruiting dozens of volunteer jihadists on the Internet and, after a careful selection process, sending them to join terrorist organizations in the Middle East and North Africa.

Groups benefiting from Maya’s recruitment services include the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), an al-Qaeda splinter group active in Iraq and Syria, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), a Sunni Muslim jihadist group committed to establishing an Islamic government in North Africa and parts of Spain, and the Al-Nusra Front, a branch of Al-Qaeda operating in Lebanon and Syria, where it is fighting against the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Spanish police also arrested Chafik Jalel Ben Amara Elmedjeri, a Tunisian immigrant previously arrested in February 2006 for recruiting jihadists to fight American troops in Iraq.

Elmedjeri, a specialist in forging documents, is also known for operating one of the best kebab shops in Málaga. Terrorism analysts say this points to another problem: many of the tens of thousands of kebab and shawarma shops operating in Spain and other parts of Europe may be using their business proceeds actively to finance global jihad in Syria and elsewhere.

The other two Islamists arrested in Spain are Paul Cadic and Farik Cheikh, French jihadists who were about to depart for Syria.

Spanish security officials say that battle-hardened Islamist fighters returning to Spain from Syria under the influence of Al-Qaeda-inspired groups pose a significant threat to national security.

At least 2,000 European jihadists—including many from Spain—have now traveled to Syria in the hopes of replacing the Assad regime with an Islamic state governed by Sharia law.

Although exact numbers are unknown, intelligence sources interviewed by the Madrid-based El Mundo newspaper say that Spanish jihadists are travelling to Syria (via Morocco and Turkey) at the rate of about 30 per month. In many instances, the jihadists are travelling to Syria with their wives and children.

Other intelligence sources interviewed by the online newspaper El Confidencial say they believe that more than 250 Spanish jihadists are currently fighting in Syria, and that around 100 of these were recruited by the cell that has now been neutralized.

“It has been a very big operation that has dismantled an international cell, without doubt the biggest and most active in Spain and one of the biggest and most active currently in Europe,” Spanish Interior Minister Jorge Fernández Díaz said at a news conference in Madrid on March 14.

Fernández Díaz—who revealed that a total of 472 suspected Islamic extremists have been arrested in Spain since the Madrid train bombings in March 2004—also said Spain remains an important target for global jihadists, who frequently use the term “Al-Andalus” when referring to the Iberian Peninsula.

Al-Andalus is the Arabic name given to those parts of Spain, Portugal and France that were occupied by Muslim conquerors from 711 to 1492. Many Muslims believe—based on the Islamic doctrine that all territories once occupied by Muslims must forever remain under Muslim domination—that Spain still belongs to them, and that they have every right to return and establish Islamic rule there.

“Clearly Spain forms part of the strategic objectives of global jihad,” Fernández Díaz said. “We are not the only ones, but we are in their sights.”

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Comments

  1. Kalliope says

    Mar 18, 2014 at 11:45 am

    “Although exact numbers are unknown, intelligence sources interviewed by the Madrid-based El Mundo newspaper say that Spanish jihadists are travelling to Syria (via Morocco and Turkey) at the rate of about 30 per month. In many instances, the jihadists are travelling to Syria with their wives and children.”

    Don’t let them back into Spain.
    Since they don’t appreciate democracy, they can enjoy Dar al-ʾIslām in any Middle Eastern country. Win-win for everyone.

  2. Charli Main says

    Mar 18, 2014 at 11:46 am

    Spain has made a rod for its own back. It took 800 years to kick the Muslim vermin that invaded their country out.
    Now, they allow tens of thousands of Moroccans back in every year to work in the fields and do farm work.
    Needless to say, most of these Moroccans “forget” to go back after the farms have been harvested.
    Travel most places in the south of Spain and you will see road signs in Arabic, no doubt to be shortly followed by road signs in Britain, France and the rest of Muslim Europe.

  3. veggiedog says

    Mar 18, 2014 at 11:59 am

    Europe continues on it’s path, the US tries very hard to be next, Australia I get mixed info on, I had thought they were dead against a Muslim invasion but I hear differently from some. If the Muslims try to take us here in the US as long as the second amendment is not destroyed they will have a difficult fight, but they will fight.

  4. Jay Boo says

    Mar 18, 2014 at 11:59 am

    SUBWAY
    ??????
    Subway until recent years was rumored to only hire Muslims
    Is this true?

    • Rob Crawford says

      Mar 18, 2014 at 12:33 pm

      WTF? I was a Muslim when I was a teen? And everyone I worked with that summer was, as well?!

      And in late-80s Cincinnati, at that. Amazing what you learn.

    • Truthiocity says

      Mar 18, 2014 at 1:56 pm

      To my knowledge it’s not possible. Subway is a franchise. Individual people buy franchise licenses from the company and are supplied product from the company to sell to the consumer.

      Individual franchise licencees hire over the counter staff and managers, not the company itself.

      • veggiedog says

        Mar 18, 2014 at 2:03 pm

        Also, would they serve pig?

    • gravenimage says

      Mar 20, 2014 at 8:24 pm

      Jay Boo, where did you hear that about Subway? I’ve never heard that rumor and was unable to find any reference to it online.

      Even if so inclined and willing to violate American hiring laws, in most parts of the US they would be unable to find enough Muslims to staff their outlets.

      Subway is one of the very few fast food places I patronize fairly frequently. You can’t always tell, of course, but I’ve never seen a single employee who appeared to be Muslim.

      One also wonders that such a chain would feature a pulled pork sandwich, as well as many more with ham and bacon.

      Apparently some Subway franchises in the UK and Ireland have Halal menus—but this is just common dhimmitude, these days.

      http://www.subway.co.uk/menu/halal.aspx

  5. Jay Boo says

    Mar 18, 2014 at 12:15 pm

    The long rambling repeated posts by Ismail Mohamed
    does more to obscure the topic at hand
    and would be better positioned at end if at all

    The middle section has a familiar sounding
    White Homeland type section

    • Jay Boo says

      Mar 18, 2014 at 12:19 pm

      Note both of Ismail Mohamed’s
      extremely long posts are at the beginning
      ISLAMIC COVER UP ??????????

      • islamisdeath says

        Mar 18, 2014 at 1:36 pm

        Possibly he is posting that tripe here to try and make this appear to be a racist site. Very devious how he added all that crap in the middle.

  6. tpellow says

    Mar 18, 2014 at 12:25 pm

    Also:

    “Migrants flood over Morocco-Spain border”

    https://www.euroweeklynews.com/news/spanish-news/item/119374?

  7. voegelinian says

    Mar 18, 2014 at 12:59 pm

    “Officials say the latest arrests demonstrate that Spain continues to be central to the ambitions of the global jihadist movement, which says it is committed to establishing a worldwide Caliphate.”

    Somehow I doubt that officials in any Western country, whether Spain or anywhere else, have the common sense and intelligence to defy the PC MC paradigm and actually utter the words “global jihadist movement”, and to know about the prevalent Islamic idea of “establishing a worldwide Caliphate”. I wish this Gatestone report would have cited who the officials were or provided actual quotation marks.

    P.S.: Shame on Gatestone for firing Clare Lopez merely because she committed the crime of favorably citing the book by persona non grata Diana West, American Betrayal. It’s never too late to apologize and make amends to the public.

    http://dianawest.net/Home/tabid/36/EntryId/2645/Ruth-King-Why-Has-Gatestone-Scrubbed-Lopez-Column.aspx

  8. Kalliope says

    Mar 18, 2014 at 1:52 pm

    From the article:

    “Maya eventually married a woman from Morocco, where he lived until December 2012, when he was arrested by Moroccan police for conspiring to overthrow the Moroccan monarchy and replace it with an Islamic government.”

    This is actually a good thing. A uncle of mine who served in the military for several decades, spent two years in Morocco. He said that it was the most pleasant Muslim country that he lived in (and he lived in several), because in Morocco the Muslims were quite laid back.

    My uncle also said every once in a while, hardliners from other Muslim countries would come and try to ‘radicalize’ the Moroccan populace, but the Moroccans weren’t having any of it, the Moroccans preferring cultural ʾIslām to Salafist ʾIslām. He also said that even though the king was a descendent of Muḥammad, he saw the Salafists as a threat to his kingdom.
    Take it for what it’s worth.

    Salafists in Europe are intent on forcing cultural Muslims back to normative ʾIslām. In order to tell which is which, all Muslims will have to be monitored. Unfortunately, Muslims bought this on themselves. They are a potential danger to everyone.

    Another article on the subject:

    The Spanish Foreign Fighter Contingent in Syria
    http://www.ctc.usma.edu/posts/the-spanish-foreign-fighter-contingent-in-syria

  9. Anushirvan says

    Mar 18, 2014 at 4:30 pm

    I’ve never had a kebab in my life, so I will never turn complicit in any way. Well, not by eating kebabs anyway. Besides, I don’t like the idea of Muslims poisoning me in this manner, with all the crap that kebabs contain, and all that. Just so you know…

    • Kalliope says

      Mar 18, 2014 at 5:07 pm

      Purchase your kebabs from Greek vendors. Greeks are Christians.

      Or make your own kebabs:

      Souvlaki (Wicked kebabs) with tzatziki and grilled peppers
      http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/pork-recipes/souvlaki-wicked-kebabs

      Grilling: Pork Souvlaki with Pita and Tzatziki
      http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2009/03/grilling-pork-souvlaki-with-pita-and-tzatziki-recipe-greek.html

      Saveur: Kebabs
      http://www.saveur.com/find/Kebabs

    • dumbledoresarmy says

      Mar 18, 2014 at 5:17 pm

      I see a potential business opening for *non-Muslim* middle eastern immigrants such as the Christians from Lebanon, Syria and Iraq.

      Set up a chain of kebab and shawarma shops and proudly advertise as *non-halal*; make it clear, all over the decor of the shop, that you are either nonreligious or Christian.

      Donate a percentage of the proceeds to the Resistance (e.g. Q society if in Australia, Gavin Boby’s Law and Freedom Foundation if in the UK, Mr Spencer’s website or SION or ACT for America, if in the USA).

      Advertise at jihadwatch…

      Similarly: where are the Parsee, Hindu and Christian Indians, immigrants to the West, who are setting up *non-Halal* curry shops and Indian restaurants?? I *love* Indian food but there is no way I would patronise a restaurant run by Muslims.

      PS: free advertisement – I have it on good authority that the owners of “Patak’s” of the UK, a company who make *delicious* readymade curry sauces, are *Hindu* rather than Muslim. So one can buy their sauces and *know* that one is *not* funding jihad in any way, shape or form; one can take satisfaction in helping to uphold a *non-Muslim* business.

      • Kalliope says

        Mar 18, 2014 at 5:46 pm

        Lovely idea…

        I personally would like to see a Persian-Christian restaurant.
        And yes, I cook Middle Eastern food for my family.

      • Kalliope says

        Mar 18, 2014 at 5:50 pm

        Put a cross in the window of any non-Halal restaurant.
        Pius Muslims will give it a wide berth.

        • Kalliope says

          Mar 18, 2014 at 5:52 pm

          I meant “pious”, of course.

        • Aardvark says

          Mar 19, 2014 at 6:04 am

          “Put a cross in the window of any non-Halal restaurant.
          Pious Muslims will give it a wide berth.”

          Pious mohammedans are more likely to give it a brick…

          Good suggestion, but make sure it is behind toughened glass!

  10. Reality Check says

    Mar 18, 2014 at 6:02 pm

    It seems that we have a troll on this page. Don’t feed the troll!

  11. citycat says

    Mar 18, 2014 at 9:24 pm

    and don’t buy their hummus
    Muslims don’t seem to frequently buy from Muslim fast food places
    i heard that in prison sometimes the message goes out
    “don’t eat the porridge today, don’t eat the porridge!”

  12. gravenimage says

    Mar 20, 2014 at 8:34 pm

    Spain: Kebab shops financing global jihad
    ……………………..

    I wonder how many *other* Muslim concerns are funding violent Jihad?

    Muslims are required to pay Zakat, and all pious Muslims do. Zakat is often mistranslated as “charity”, but it is more likely to use its monies to finance Jihad and Da’wa than to fund such charities as schools, clinics, and orphanages.

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