CULTURAL ENRICHMENT: Spain: Islamic Radicals Infiltrate the Military.

The Spanish military is quietly monitoring its Muslim soldiers in an effort to prevent the spread of Islamic radicalism within its ranks, according to a classified Defense Ministry document that has been leaked to the Spanish media. . . .

In July 2012 it emerged that the Spain’s National Intelligence Center (CNI) was investigating a tip it received from the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) that al-Qaeda operatives had infiltrated Spanish military units based both in Ceuta and Melilla, territories the Algeria-based Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) has long threatened to “reconquer” for Islam.

The alert resulted from an investigation initiated by the CIA and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in November 2009, after the U.S. Army psychiatrist, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, an al-Qaeda sympathizer, fatally shot 13 people and injured more than 30 others at Fort Hood in Texas. The investigation found that at least 100 Islamic extremists had infiltrated the US military, and that some of these individuals had been in contact with Islamic radicals who had infiltrated military units in Spain, as well as in Britain, France and Germany.