Exactly a decade ago, in mid-2015, a terrorist cell was taking shape in Ripoll. It was made up of nine young men and led by an imam. They were young (between 15 and 26 years old at the time) and there were four pairs of brothers. Two years later, one of them drove a van at full speed, destroying everything in his path, on Barcelona's La Rambla. Hours later, other members of the cell sowed panic with knives on the Cambrils seafront. It was August 2017, and sixteen people were murdered. What led nine young men, most of them raised in Catalonia, to embrace jihadism? Today we are a little closer to answering this question with certainty.

The congressional commission charged with investigating the August 17 jihadist attacks in Barcelona and Cambrils has summoned Ali Yassine, former president of the Annour Mosque in Ripoll, to testify this Tuesday. As the leader of the town's Muslim community, he was responsible for hiring Abdelbaki es-S. Es-Satty would end up being the mastermind behind the attacks perpetrated by young people from Ripoll. After the attacks, the former president of the mosque claimed that he had never seen any signs of radicalization in the imam, and he reiterated this today.