“Police said he was likely to have been responding to calls from Islamic State for followers in the West to carry out attacks in the countries where they live.”
But remember: to oppose mass Muslim migration is to be “racist” and “Islamophobic.”
“Barcelona police arrest suspected Islamic State terrorist planning lockdown attack,” Reuters, May 8, 2020:
Spanish police arrested a Moroccan man in Barcelona with suspected links to Islamic State who they believed was planning a militant attack, police said on Friday.
The man, described as deeply radicalised, was arrested after a joint investigation with security forces in Morocco and the United States, police said.
“The suspect intended to carry out a terrorist act, the details of which are unknown,” police said in a statement.
The arrested man’s links to Islamic State date back at least four years, police said, though he had not displayed any outward signs of radicalisation until recently.
A group of militant Islamists used a van to hit pedestrians in Barcelona’s La Rambla boulevard in August 2017 and carried out a follow-up attack in another Catalan municipality, killing 16 people in total.
The Morrocan man was arrested in an apartment in central Barcelona close to La Rambla, police said….
After Spain imposed a coronavirus lockdown on March 14, the man’s interest in the jihadist movement increased, police said, and he made public pledges of allegiance to Islamic State while declaring his hatred of the West on social media.
Police said he was likely to have been responding to calls from Islamic State for followers in the West to carry out attacks in the countries where they live.
Investigators feared he was planning an attack, perhaps using a knife or with a vehicle, in Barcelona after observing him breaking virus confinement rules to move around the city, possibly searching for a target….