A stabbing at church in Spain last week has put security agencies all over Europe on alert over the recurrence of “low intensity” jihadism. Their main fear resides in the Islamic State's (IS) potential revival, whether in northeast Syria or among its detainees in European jails, that might fan its embers, a complex issue where the continent's foreign and domestic policies are being challenged.

The stabbing at a church during evening Mass in Algeciras, a coastal city in southern Spain, was carried out by a 25-year-old Moroccan man who killed the sexton after destroying crosses and religious images. 

He had previously injured a priest in another church nearby, and was soon arrested. An undocumented immigrant who had been ordered to leave Spain, he came from a poor village on the Moroccan side of the Gibraltar straits, and lived in a squatters den a few blocks from the crime scene. His co-tenants described him as mentally unstable, and the analysis of his phone showed that he had avidly consulted jihadi websites during the two months before committing his crime. He was not known to be involved in any terrorist organization or network.

The case resembled the stabbing of Rev. Jacques Hamel, in his church in Normandy, France, in August 2016, except that those attackers had been incited by an IS operator, based in the Syrian city of Raqqa. It also recalled the stabbing of three worshipers in another church in Nice, on the French Riviera, in October 2020, by a Tunisian who had just crossed into France illegally.