In contrast to countries like the United Kingdom, France, or Germany, for which immigration from Muslim-majority countries is a phenomenon with a long-standing history, there are other European countries whose own languages have had limited presences in jihadist propaganda. This is the case in Spain, where the large Muslim population consists primarily of first-generation immigrants who arrived from the Maghreb in the 1980s.
The first translations of jihadist material into Spanish, far from being the work of the organizations themselves, first appeared on the Internet in a chaotic matter due to the initiatives of some sympathizers of jihadist organizations who could communicate easily in multiple languages. The authors of these works did not systematically address any group or theme, disseminating their works without any regularity.
It was not until 2013 that a jihadist organization (Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb) decided to utilize Spanish as a primary language in its pubic communications. From that point onward, the North African organization has used Spanish in some of its messages (particularly those that contain subjects related to Spain). However, the organization’s overall contributions to Spanish-language propaganda have remained marginal.
The emergence of the Islamic State (IS) has not transformed this situation, either. Despite its hyperactive communications strategy, the group did not utilize the Spanish language until the recent publication of a video in which it celebrates the August 17, 2017 Barcelona attack and promises new attacks against Spain, if the country does not abandon “the union of Christians” which harasses the group in its territories in the Middle East. To add prominence to its new message, the terrorist group uses two of its Spanish-speaking militants as spokespeople.
Nevertheless, this new threat against Spain also provides new evidence concerning the limitations of IS, including its inability to comprehensively utilize and process Spanish in its communications activity.
Multiple factors explain this anomaly. Firstly, the number of Muslims who speak Spanish is significantly smaller in comparison to other communities of Muslims who use languages other than Arabic. In the Spanish case, this group, closely linked to economic migration, demonstrates higher rates of illiteracy and unfamiliarity with the Spanish language.
Additionally, the propaganda apparatus of the Islamic State is physically located in Syria and Iraq, and is aided by activists located in the enclaves controlled by the organization. From the 200+ residents of Spain that have joined the organization in its territories, the organization does not have many choices in selecting individuals responsible for making threats against their country of origin. For example, the few Spanish phrases contained in this video are poorly constructed and pronounced. This same problem can also be noticed in the news footage incorporated in the video, which mostly comes from English-speaking countries. It is possible that the creators of this video do not speak or understand Spanish, which led them to ignore the enormous quantity of material available from Spanish television channels. This is notable because it was easier to find disturbing images of the victims of the attack in Spanish-language footage; despite the Islamic State’s predilection for displaying explicit violence, these images were absent from the video.
IS' inability to document its actions in Spanish also explains why a second written message, that claimed the attacks one day after they were carried out, refers to a non-existent assault on a “bar”, where the terrorists “tortured and killed the Crusaders and Jews that they found inside”. Due to a flawed search on the internet, IS propagandists gave credibility to a hoax that had been circulated widely on social media during the initial moments of the attack. Accepting claims of a hostage situation, which never occurred, the propagandists decided to enrich the episode by creating imaginary victims, inspired by the individuals who committed the attack on the Bataclan in Paris.
Nevertheless, IS shares its problems with the Spanish language with other terrorist groups. There is a larger, structural problem in regard to recruiting and maintaining good propagandists from among the followers of terrorist groups, who are primarily attracted to the warrior ethos and the glorification of martyrdom, not to the auxiliary role played by those who work behind a keyboard. The few people who possess the necessary knowledge and abilities to issue successful communications end up having a disproportionate influence on the form and substance of terrorists’ messages.
For the moment, IS has not been able to fill its ranks with activists that are capable of adding Spanish to the list of languages that the organization uses to threaten attacks, recruit, and promote violence. However, individual factors can be decisive in the field of communication. The emergence of a second generation of Spanishspeaking jihadists will inevitably generate activists who have the capacity to enhance the communications of their groups by appealing directly to the more than 500 million people who use this language.