Spain’s spy agency warned of Ceuta border breach, declassified files show

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The trove of 40 documents, which includes alerts, intelligence reports, charts and communications from multiple law enforcement and intelligence agencies, appears to undermine what Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has said about the level of prior warning the government had before the sudden influx took place.

On July 29, a day before more than 72,000 people began pouring into the Spanish city neighbouring Morocco, Spain’s spy agency, the National Intelligence Centre (CNI), sent an alert via WhatsApp to the Spanish government’s delegation in Ceuta about calls on social media “for an assault on the fence and by sea tomorrow at 8pm.”

It mentioned that migrants might take advantage of Morocco’s national Throne Day, celebrated on July 30.

That same day, Spain’s national intelligence agency issued similar warnings about “several groups on Facebook and WhatsApp encouraging these attempts” in messages to Spain’s Civil Guard police force.

Once thousands of people were streaming across the border on July 30, a Defence Ministry intelligence report issued that day stated that Moroccan forces were passive and acted negligently to stop migrants.

“It cannot be ruled out that Morocco may attempt to exploit the situation that has arisen in Ceuta to further its strategic interests,” the report went on.

Morocco’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

On Wednesday, Mr Sanchez wrote on social media to say: “The existence of this campaign was known and was being monitored, but in no way did it constitute or could it be interpreted as an indicator of the scale, nature, or probability of what happened afterward.”

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