POLICE in the Canary Islands have debunked claims in a British tabloid that a terrorist attack is imminent in the region and has called for the public to 'ignore hoaxes' – although they recognise this is difficult when they are printed in a mainstream newspaper.
The Daily Star published a report titled, “REVEALED: White Widow recruiting suicide bombers to attack Spanish beaches this summer.”
It spoke of a white 'British Jihadi' called Samantha Lewthwaite who has 'enrolled dozens of women – including white converts to Islam like herself – to strike at hotspots across Europe'.
“The Spanish Costas, Greece, Turkey, the Canary Islands and Cyprus have all been identified as potential targets – along with resorts in the UK,” the report claims, referring to 'shocking details' from 'encrypted emails, phone calls and via foreign Intelligence services'.
According to the sensationalist report, the woman in question, aged 34, 'hates Britain and everything the West stands for' and has 'completely turned her back on her country and her former life'.
Ms Lewthwaite is claimed to have been targeting white Muslim converts 'because they attract less suspicion', 'preys on vulnerable women who are easily manipulated' and teaches them to make their own suicide vests.
The report says she is an ex-soldier's daughter who grew up in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire and converted to Islam in her teens before marrying 'Jamaican-born fanatic Germaine Lindsay' who reportedly blew himself up during the London bombings on July 7, 2005 in which he and another 26 people were killed.
The Daily Star claims UK Intelligence services 'fear [she] has enrolled fanatics to blitz top European resorts', and the main headline is titled 'Spain holiday terror'.
Canary Island MP Elena Máñez has urged the public to remain calm, saying 'even the UK foreign office' does not believe it.
Rumours based on the story, claiming Spain has upped its terror alert to the maximum from its current level 4, have been dismissed by the National Police in the Canary Islands.
“We're not on level 5 terrorism alert, nor should you trust messages being spread in order to generate fear. Always consult official sources,” the force said on Twitter.
These official sources say there is no information to suggest any possibility of an attack being planned in the Canary Islands or any other popular beach destinations in Spain.
Daily Star's warnings of Teide eruption also wrong
This is not the first time the Daily Star has published fearmongering stories about Spain with the potential to put tourists off – two years ago, it claimed the dormant Teide volcano at the centre of the Tenerife national park of the same name was about to erupt.
The article referred to 'nearly 100 earthquakes' which had struck the island in four hours and which were allegedly leading geology experts to fear an imminent eruption.
But Spain's National Geographical Institute said there was no connection and that if the Teide was at risk of erupting any time soon, they would have seen the signs.
These '100 earthquakes in four hours' are not at all unusual in the Canary Islands, and not one of them was of a great enough magnitude to even be felt by residents.
Like Iceland, whose capital, Reykjavík, has up to 20 earthquakes a day which nobody even notices, very tiny quakes are fairly common in south-eastern Spain and the Canary Islands.
Neither is it unusual for quakes strong enough to be felt to occur, but they typically reach around 2 or 3 on the Richter scale, meaning little more than a momentary sensation of the ground shifting and no damage caused at all.
Quakes of 4 or 4.5 occur very occasionally in Spain, but the damage to buildings is no more than would normally be seen during a major winter storm like those seen in Spain and the UK most years.
