American interest in Majorca's ties with Al-Qaeda

According to the Spanish Interior Ministry's statement, the 26-year-old man originally from Cuba was wanted for allegedly being an Al-Qaeda's member and for having 1'120 radical videos on the Internet, mostly produced by him. It was reported that he used these YouTube videos with jihadi, or holy war, content to indoctrinate other individuals. The Interior Ministry's statement added that the police also seized from him portable computers, external hard drives and USB memory sticks.

However, yesterday, the digital newspaper the Hudson New York ran an article entitled “Al-Qaeda Speaks Spanish: Advances to Mallorca and the Western Sahara”.

In the report, not only was the Cuban mentioned but it was also revealed that several Al-Qaeda members have spent time here in Majorca.
The most known is Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, a co-founder of Al-Qaeda and now imprisoned in the ADX Florence facility in Colorado.

Salim, born in Sudan from Iraqi parents, was involved in the terrorist attack against U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.
Just before being arrested in Germany, Salim lived for a while in a luxurious apartment along the Paseo Maritimo in Majorca.
The apartment belonged to Ahmed Brahim, an Algerian Al-Qaeda member who was one of the masterminds of the 1998-attack against the U.S. embassies.
He apparently ran a yacht chandlers as a front for his alleged terrorist activities in Palma.
Brahim, who allegedly had “routine” contacts with Tariq Ramadan, was detained by the Spanish authorities for financing Al-Qaeda in Spain. He was jailed in Barcelona.