In the wake of the Barcelona terror attack this week French terrorism expert Jean-Charles Brisard has claimed that Spain has become a breeding ground for Islamic radicalisation. Mr Brisard, president of the Center d’ Analysis of Terrorism (CAT), said that despite there having been no major attacks in Spain since the 2004 Madrid train bombing, Spain has become a haven for radical Islam. “The intensity of the terrorist threat in Spain is real and the country has become a breeding ground for jihadism,” Brisard said in an interview with French paper L’Express. “Since the attacks in 2004, 700 Islamists have been arrested, including 200 just since 2012,” he said and claimed that Spanish intelligence had tackled and taken down at least 40 Islamist cells. Spain, Brisard said, was also a symbolic battleground for jihadists because of the former Muslim conquests in the 6th century. Spanish Terror: 9/11 Plotter linked to Catalonia ‘Nest of Salafism’, Home to Muslim Brotherhood, Tablighi Jamaat https://t.co/5FA3jVEAZB — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) August 18, 2017 The terror expert mentioned that in 2016 the Islamic State had called for attacks in Spain but that only around 200 Spaniards had gone to fight for the terror group in Syria and Iraq,