IS feared planning new Europe attacks soon
Print Edition
EUROPOL — the European Union’s police agency — warned yesterday 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.
The agency — said in a grim report on IS tactics that EU countries participating in the US-led coalition fighting the extremist group in Syria and Iraq are most at risk.
That includes France, Belgium, Britain, the Netherlands and Denmark. Germany’s military also is involved, but not in combat operations.
Europol director Rob Wainwright said 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 inter-connectedness amongst the counterterrorist community here.”
Europol said car bombs and other tactics IS uses in Iraq and Syria could also be deployed in Europe. It said past attacks such as those in France and Belgium over the past two years show that extremists acting in the name of IS can effectively plan complex 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. 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.”
Community leaders also have a role to play in diminishing the threat from IS recruiters 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.
The Europol report noted a shift in IS attacks from symbolic targets like police officers and military personnel to indiscriminate attacks on civilian targets.
“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,” the report said.
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