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THE EU’S COUNTER-TERRORISM chief has said it is impossible to completely prevent new Islamist attacks like those in Paris, and warned that Europe’s prisons have become a “massive incubator” for radicalisation.
The head of European police agency Europol, Rob Wainwright, meanwhile told British lawmakers on Tuesday that between 3,000 and 5,000 EU nationals have joined jihadist ranks.
“We’re dealing with a large body of mainly young men who have the potential to come back and have the potential or intent and capability to carry out attacks we have seen in Paris in the last week,” he said.
Wainwright also called for greater scrutiny of the use of social media by jihadist groups:
We have to have a closer, much more productive relationship between law enforcement and technology firms. One of the important evolutions we’re seeing right now in the current terrorist threat is the way the Internet is used, clearly much more aggressively, much more imaginatively by the networks.
Gilles de Kerchove told AFP that the Islamic State group and Al-Qaeda wanted to launch more attacks on the West like the Islamist assault on the French capital last week in which 17 people were killed over three says.
“We can’t prevent (such attacks) 100%,” de Kerchove said in an interview in Brussels, two days after meeting European, US and Canadian security ministers in Paris in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo massacre and linked attacks.
It’s a real challenge but one can try to prevent them as much as possible without becoming a totalitarian society.
Balancing security needs and personal freedoms is a sensitive issue in Europe, parts of which have in the past experienced totalitarian Nazi and Communist rule.
Backing some of de Kerchove’s points, European Union President Donald Tusk called for a “coherent security policy” across the 28-country bloc, while protecting democratic freedoms.
The former Polish premier, speaking at the European parliament in Strasbourg, called for an EU-wide Passenger Name Record system, a controversial idea opposed by the parliament on the grounds it breaches privacy rules.
New footage of last week’s attack emerged today.
The proposed system would create a central database pooling details on people aboard flights, allowing faster exchange of information about foreign fighters returning to Europe, radicalised and well-trained from the war-zones of the Middle East.
The three French citizens responsible for the Paris attacks are believed to have had links with various jihadist groups in Yemen and Syria.
De Kerchove warned that the Al-Nusra Front, the Al-Qaeda branch in Syria, is also looking for “clean skins,” Europeans with valid passports and no record of radical activity, to mount attacks in Europe.
The EU anti-terror chief warned that it was better to try to rehabilitate jihadists, including those returning to Europe from Syria and Iraq, than to jail them.
Both Mohamed Merah, the Al-Qaeda militant who shot dead seven people in a series of 2012 attacks, and Mehdi Nemmouche, last year’s Brussels Jewish museum killer, were also turned to radical Islam in jail.
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Another clear indication that the economy is improving and possibly at a faster pace than some believe
Hard to believe that Sin Fein still believe the economy is doomed and there are zero signs of a recovery.
It’s absolutely key now that developers get the credit needed to add to the supply side and therefore avoid over heating of the market. Govt have a job here in my view
Economic recovery is bad news for SF.
They will run the country down at every opportunity.
Can you imagine their horror in 2016, budget back in surplus & economy growing again.
It’s another property bubble.
It’s absolutely crazy in the residential market. I signed a 12 month lease on a 1 bed flat in the city centre last week but it took me a few weeks to find it.
They (landlords and letting agents) are actually having viewing nights, where 10 or more people view the kips at once.
My rabbit hutch was €300 cheaper 12 months ago.. its a sign paddy greed is setting in yet again and we know what happened last time.
a rebound is inevitable, but there are still a lot of vacant buildings about.
So, the “to let” signs are fake then?
Dublin is too overcrowded and concentrated, there should be greater incentives for companies set up base outside of Dublin
Dublin is not in the slightest bit overcrowded.
There are thousands of acres of derelict brown & green field sites within the M50.
Amazing how our economy is doing so well according to the government, estate agents and landlords yet the ECB warned our politicians our economy is not doing well at all.
We have one of the biggest debts of any country in the world. sinn feinn are not being negative about the economy there being realistic. We cant afford another little building bubble. It would break ireland totally. And the sooner most people in this country realise that the better.
i wonder where will families go when renting a 2 beds will cost 1600 per month ( give it another 6 months)
have your say