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Poll: Spaniards divided on whether to bomb ISIS strongholds

Spaniards are divided on whether Spain should take part in the international military campaign in Syria against the Islamic State, with just over half, 54, percent, opposed, a poll published on Sunday showed.

Poll: Spaniards divided on whether to bomb ISIS strongholds
One of the Spanish soldiers sent to help train Iraqis at the Basmaya camp in Baghdad. Photo: Ali Al-Saadi/AFP
About a third, 35 percent, are in favour of joining the military campaign in Syria and the rest were undecided, according to the poll published in El Mundo newspaper.
   
The poll — carried out after the November 13 suicide bomb and shootings in Paris — also found that 83 percent of Spaniards believed a Paris-style attack could happen in Spain, suggesting that national security could emerge as a theme for a December 20 general election.
   
Another poll published Saturday in the conservative daily La Razon showed 69 percent of Spaniards wanting Spain to help France “in its fight against Islamist terrorism”.
 
By contrast with the poll in El Mundo the survey showed 49.3 percent opposing “bombing the terrorists in Syria”, compared with 43.6 percent in favour.
   
Several thousand people marched Saturday in Madrid against Spanish involvement in the Syrian conflict as conservative Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy stressed he would not rush into a decision.
   
“No to war,” chanted the demonstrators who gathered rallied outside the Reina Sofia museum in the Spanish capital. The organisers estimated their number at around 6,000.
   
With elections looming, Rajoy's government has been holding off on any decision on whether Spain will join France, the United States and others in airstrikes against Islamic State strongholds in Syria.
   
“Decisions have to be well thought through, as in any aspect of life,” said Rajoy, who added Madrid was in touch with its allies on a clear plan of action.  
 
 Leftist opposition parties have voiced opposition to Spanish military involvement in the Middle East.
   
The leader of the far-left grouping Podemos, Pablo Iglesias, backs putting the issue to a referendum.
   
Rajoy is mindful of how events unfolded in March 2004 under his Popular Party predecessor, former conservative prime minister Jose Maria Aznar. Aznar, who had backed the US intervention in Iraq a year earlier, was voted
out of office days after Islamic extremists killed 191 people in bombings on Madrid trains.
   
Aznar's stance on Iraq was in stark contrast to that of the public in a traditionally pacifist country.

ISIS

Ex-jihadi housewife jailed in Norway for joining IS

A Norwegian court on Tuesday sentenced a woman who lived as a housewife in Syria to prison for being a member of the Islamic State group (IS), despite not actively fighting herself.

Ex-jihadi housewife jailed in Norway for joining IS
The Kurdish-run al-Hol camp which holds suspected relatives of Islamic State fighters.Photo: Delil SOULEIMAN / AFP

The Oslo court sentenced the Norwegian-Pakistani woman to three and a half years in prison for “participating in a terrorist organisation” by taking care of her household and enabling her three husbands to fight.

“By travelling to an area controlled by IS in Syria… by moving in and living with her husbands, taking care of the children and various tasks at home, the defendant enabled her three husbands to actively participate in IS fighting,” judge Ingmar Nilsen said as he read out the verdict.

Being a housewife to three successive husbands did not render her a passive bystander, the judge said.

“On the contrary, she was a supporter who enabled the jihad, looked after her three husbands at home and raised the new generation of IS recruits,” he said.

The young woman, who admitted having “radical ideas” at the time, left for Syria in early 2013 to join an Islamist fighter, Bastian Vasquez, who was fighting the regime.

Although she did not take up arms herself, she was accused of having allowed her husbands to go fight while taking care of her two children and household chores.

The trial was the first prosecution in Norway of someone who had returned after joining IS.

“This is a special case,” prosecutor Geir Evanger acknowledged during the trial.

“This is the first time that, to put it bluntly, someone has been charged for being a wife and mother.”

The prosecution had called for a four-year sentence, while the defence had called for her acquittal and immediately appealed Tuesday’s verdict.

The woman’s lawyer, Nils Christian Nordhus, argued that his client had quickly wanted to leave Syria after being subjected to domestic violence.

She had also been a victim of human trafficking because she had been held against her will, he added.

But the judge stressed that she had participated in the organisation “knowingly” and of her own will.

The woman was repatriated to Norway in early 2020 on humanitarian grounds with her two children, including a young boy described as seriously ill.

At least four other Norwegian women and their children are being held in Kurdish-controlled camps in Syria.

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