A report from Spain's Interior Ministry, seen by the newspaper El Pais, warns of messages linked to the Islamic State group urging followers to exploit the cost of living and housing protests in Spain and Portugal to carry out attacks. Spanish authorities have detected and documented the messages, which were posted on a website linked to the jihadist group.
The alert comes amid a wave of demonstrations that, beyond Spain and Portugal, has also spread to France and Italy over the past several weeks, driven by anger over the rising cost of living and the housing crisis. In France alone, last weekend's protests drew more than 800,000 people and were marked by violent incidents, including arson at Limoges city hall and at Lyon's tourism office.
According to the report, the messages described the large gatherings as a rare opportunity and pointed to police lines deployed during street clashes as vulnerable targets, though no specific operational details have been made public in the information available so far.