Europol warns of fresh threats
‘New terror tactics’
THE HAGUE, Netherlands, Dec 2, (AP): Europol warned Friday that the Islamic State group could launch fresh attacks in Europe in the near future, and the agency’s director said police forces across the continent are investigating more than 50 terrorism cases.
Europol — the European Union’s police agency — said in a grim analysis of IS tactics published Friday that EU countries participating in the US-led coalition fighting the extremist group in Syria and Iraq are most at risk.
France and Belgium are among the European nations that have joined the US-led coalition. Others include Britain, the Netherlands and Denmark. Germany’s military also is involved, but not in combat operations. Europol director Rob Wainwright said in an interview that counterterrorism agencies are tackling the threat from IS in cooperation with his Hague-based agency. Europol currently is assisting more than 50 terror investigations by national agencies across the continent, he said.
“That says something about the level of the threat, but also about the level of interconnectedness amongst the counterterrorist community here,” Wainwright told The Associated Press at Europol’s headquarters.
In the report released Friday, Europol said car bombs and other tactics the Islamic State group uses in Iraq and Syria could also be deployed in Europe. It said past attacks such as those in France and Belgium over the last two years show that extremists acting in the name of IS can effectively plan complex attacks.
“Estimates from some intelligence services indicate several dozen people directed by IS may be currently present in Europe with a capability to commit terrorist attacks,” according to the report, which draws on counterterrorism intelligence from around Europe as well as media reports and previously publicized calls by IS leaders for attacks. Despite the warnings, Wainwright expressed optimism that the counterterrorism efforts will likely, over the long term, rein in the threat posed by Islamic State.
“We’re not there yet. I think we will get there. It might be replaced in the future, of course, by another iteration in the international terrorist scene,” he said. “So it doesn’t have to be the new normal, but we have to take the right measures, right now, to protect our citizens from the kind of atrocities that unfortunately we’ve suffered in the last two years.”
Incite
Community leaders also have a role to play in diminishing the threat from IS recruiters and trainers who prey on marginalized youths — some of whom may have mental health problems or backgrounds in petty crime — and incite them to carry out attacks, Wainwright said. “We have to work in the community with faith leaders, with parents, with teachers to try and make sure that these young impressionable minds are not turned so easily,” he said.
The Europol report noted a shift in IS attacks from symbolic targets like police officers and military personnel to indiscriminate attacks on civilian targets, such as the attacks a year ago in Paris at a rock concert, the national stadium and bustling sidewalk cafes.
“Indiscriminate attacks have a very powerful effect on the public in general, which is one of the main goals of terrorism: to seriously intimidate a population,” according to the report, which concludes the focus on so-called soft targets means that attacking critical infrastructure like power grids and nuclear facilities is “currently not a priority.”
Meanwhile, a police raid in Morocco in February may have thwarted a possible chemical or biological weapons attack by an IS cell, raising the specter that such weapons also could be used in Europe.
German authorities have arrested an Afghan man suspected of being a member of the Taliban. Federal prosecutors said Friday that 20-year-old Hekmat T. was arrested a day earlier on suspicion of membership in a terrorist organization.
Prosecutors alleged the man joined the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2013 and repeatedly took part in fighting against Afghan police and security forces.
The statement didn’t say where the man was arrested or why he was in Germany. His full name wasn’t provided due to German privacy laws.
Thousands of Afghans have come to Germany in recent years seeking asylum due to the conflict in their home country.
Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka has rejected terror charges that two Czech nationals face in Turkey.
Miroslav Farkas and Marketa Vselichova were arrested Nov 13 in Sirnak province while trying to cross the border to Iraq, and charged with belonging to a terror group.
The Foreign Ministry said Turkish authorities found materials that linked them to YPG, a Kurdish group that has been battling the Islamic State militants with the aid of US airstrikes but which Turkey considers a terrorist group.
Addressing Parliament’s lower house on Thursday, Sobotka said there’s no reason to think that the two were traveling to Syria to commit any terror act and that they didn’t do anything illegal according to Czech law.