ICT researchers participate in an international seminar in Madrid, Spain
Dr. Eitan Azani, Col. (ret.) Yoni Fighel and Dr. Ely Karmon participated at a major seminar on "Islamist Terrorism across the Mediterranean: Assessing Risks and Threats", held on November 17 – 19, 2008 and organized by the Real Instituto Elcano and the Fundación Ortega y Gasset in Madrid, Spain.
They were the speakers in the first panel (November 17), on Islamist terrorism in Eastern Mediterranean and spoke, respectively, about, Hezbollah from the second Lebanon war to the national unity government, New Global Jihad Offshoots in Gaza Strip and trends in the West Bank, and Which is the Major Islamist Threat?
Global Jihad or the Iranian Coalition?
Speakers in the second panel (November 18), focused on Southern Europe and included Dr. Armando Spataro (Deputy Chief Prosecutor in Milano, Italy), Dr. Jean-François Daguzan (Research Fellow at the Fondation de la Recherche Strategique in Paris), Dr. Javier Jordán (Prof. at the University of Granada) and Dr. Darko Trifunovic (Prof. at the University of. Belgrade). The third panel (also on November 18) was devoted to Islamist terrorism in the Maghreb and included Dr. Abdellah Saaf (Prof. at the Mohamad V Univ. in Rabat, Morocco), Dr. Anneli Botha (Senior Researcher at the Institute for Strategic Studies in Capetown, South Africa), and Prof. Fernando Reinares Director of the Program on Global Terrorism, Real Instituto Elcano, who organized the seminar
The heads of police counterterrorism branches Superintendent Miguel Valverde and General Pablo Martín, the director of the National Center for Antiterrorist Coordination Superintendent Eugenio Pereiro, the Chief Prosecutor at the National Court Javier Zaragoza, and the General Director for Strategic Affairs and Terrorism at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, Ms. Carmen Buján intervened at a round table on November 19. The Spanish Secretary of State for Security, Antonio Camacho, and the United States Ambassador to Spain, Amb. Aguirre, closured the seminar.
These were three days of intensive open professional discussions on a subject which is rarely dealt in Spain in the presence of some 200 people from the academia, the defense and security establishment and the media. The seminar and the Israeli contribution received wide coverage in the electronic and written media of Spain.
On November 12, 2008, Dr. Ely Karmon was guest speaker at an annual event of the Police of Castilla and Leon organized by the University of Leon in the city of Ponferrada, in the presence of Israel's ambassador to Spain and the participation of some 200 people from the regional academia, defense and security establishment and the media. The regional authorities took advantage of this event to celebrate their solidarity and friendship with the State of Israel.