One of the largest propaganda centers associated with Daesh, with radio stations, news agencies, video production companies and social media profiles that disseminated radical content in several languages, including Spanish, under the name “Ilam Foundation”, was dismantled by the Civil Guard in cooperation with Europol and the FBI as he prepared to attack Real Madrid players.
According to El Confidencial, the network ordered followers to attack a bus of Real Madrid players and fans. “My dear brother. Wait in a place near where the players arrive. Point at them and the fans,” demanded the poster, which showed a hooded man opening fire with a rifle and aiming a telescopic sight at a Real Madrid bus in Madrid.
Another seized poster was targeted at the Santiago Bernabeu stadium. “My dear brother from Al-Andalus. A very valuable goal awaits you. Attack the crowds, distract the guards with explosives.
The investigation was carried out by the Central Training Court No. 1 of the National Audience, as well as with the assistance of the authorities of the Netherlands, Germany, France, Estonia, Romania and Iceland. The Civil Guard detained nine people in Solta (Girona), Algeciras (Cadiz), Anta (Almeria) and Tenerife. Two of them were placed in a pre-trial detention center.
As for the Paris Olympics, a montage was found showing the Eiffel Tower and hands using drone controls. “The Lone Wolf Olympics began by the will of Allah,” reads a small text in the header.
The Guardia Civil, Europol and the FBI made it clear that the operation damaged Daesh’s propaganda apparatus at a particularly critical moment for European security.
Dozens of Eelam Foundation servers and satellites (known as terrorist-operated websites, or TOWs) have been taken offline to disrupt the spread of jihadist material on the Internet and darknet. The success of the Ilam Foundation has been attributed to its speed of creating content on current events in a variety of languages, including Spanish. The investigation began in 2022, when the Guardia Civil intervened in another propaganda operation in perfect Spanish and began to trace its origins.