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European authorities overwhelmed as hundreds of Islamic State fighters return home

Mar 28, 2016 10:10 am By Robert Spencer

The Islamic State has vowed to destroy Europe and the U.S. and murder massive numbers of European and American civilians. It is at war with Europe and the U.S. Islamic State jihadis should not be allowed to return to their home countries; they should be treated as enemy combatants.

English-speaking_Islamic State jihadi

“European Authorities Overwhelmed As Hundreds Of ISIS Fighters Return Home,” by Salvador Hernandez, BuzzFeed News, March 24, 2016:

Hundreds of Europeans who fought alongside ISIS in Syria and Iraq have returned to a continent officials say lacks the resources to monitor them all.

The returning fighters are an increasing challenge to security and intelligence officials who believe recent terror attacks in Paris and Brussels are part of a continuing effort by ISIS to keep launching deadly attacks inside Europe, officials told BuzzFeed News.

Between 4,000 to 6,000 people from European countries have traveled to fight in Syria, Iraq, and Libya, and roughly 10% are believed to have returned, many bringing with them deadly expertise in weapons, explosives, and an extremist ideology that has already been spreading within European borders.

“Those people that have been traveling there two, three, four years ago, they are absolutely trained and ready to fight,” French Senator Nathalie Goulet, who co-heads a commission to track jihadis, told BuzzFeed News. “For us, it’s a new threat.”

Law enforcement agencies across Europe not only lack the ability to keep tabs on all returning fighters, which Goulet estimates to be between 400 and 600, but poor intelligence sharing between European nations is hindering efforts address the threat of ISIS operatives, she said.

“Turkey said they send information to Belgium, and nobody paid attention to it,” she said. “We have to have more cooperation.”

Most of the returning fighters were likely not “operatives” under the direction of ISIS, but the terrorist group appears engaged in a campaign to continue deadly attacks inside Europe, Malcolm Nance, executive director of Terror Asymmetrics Project and a former U.S. counterterrorism officer, told BuzzFeed News.

Some of them might have been wounded, grown tired of the battlefield, or even become disillusioned with ISIS. Still, the bulk of fighters returning home pose a challenge to intelligence agencies there, Nance said.

“[French] intelligence about who is in their country is very damn good,” he told BuzzFeed News. “That doesn’t mean they can track everyone on the ground.”…

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Filed Under: European Union, Featured, Islamic State (aka ISIS, ISIL, Daesh) Tagged With: Nathalie Goulet


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Comments

  1. Angemon says

    Mar 28, 2016 at 10:22 am

    Hundreds of Europeans who fought alongside ISIS in Syria and Iraq have returned to a continent officials say lacks the resources to monitor them all.

    Here’s an easy way to monitor them: when you get wind they’re coming back, you arrest them. For, let’s say, treason. Terrorists in Gitmo were easy to monitor – just sayin’…

    Between 4,000 to 6,000 people from European countries have traveled to fight in Syria, Iraq, and Libya, and roughly 10% are believed to have returned, many bringing with them deadly expertise in weapons, explosives, and an extremist ideology that has already been spreading within European borders.

    Skills in weapons and explosives perhaps (who’s to say they didn’t train in terror training camps in European soil before travelling to Syria), but the ideology? They were already “extremists” before they left Europe to join ISIS. That’s why they left Europe to join ISIS to begin with.

    poor intelligence sharing between European nations is hindering efforts address the threat of ISIS operatives, she said.

    “Turkey said they send information to Belgium, and nobody paid attention to it,” she said. “We have to have more cooperation.”

    That’s not “poor intelligence sharing” between Turkey and Belgium, that’s poor threat analysis from Belgian authorities.

    • Karen says

      Mar 29, 2016 at 11:43 am

      Arrest – absolutely! I hope that’s a given, but who knows? And, if the returnee is not a citizen – automatic, permanent expulsion at the border with no trial. Or automatic stripping of dual citizenship with entry denied. This isn’t hard when you think about it….a few summary judgements without expensive trials – problem solved.

  2. Baucent says

    Mar 28, 2016 at 10:25 am

    Paris attacks and Brussels are the logical outcome of uncontrolled migration from Syria. ISIS boasted they would infiltrate the migrant hordes with jihadists agents; they have. The problem now is they will disperse over Europe in cells and pop up from time to time and sometimes they will succeed in committing shocking acts of violence. This is Europe’s future thanks to weak political leadership.

  3. Mo says

    Mar 28, 2016 at 10:40 am

    Let me get this straight. They know who these fighters are but they won’t do anything about them? They just let them get on planes to return to mix with the population where no one can then find them?

    Are people really that stupid?

  4. Jay Boo says

    Mar 28, 2016 at 10:45 am

    Options?

    1 — Political correctness
    or
    2 — informants and hit-squads

    Which would be most effective?

  5. mortimer says

    Mar 28, 2016 at 12:12 pm

    They should be put into detention until the age of 60 and deprogrammed out of Islam using a professional protocol that debunks and discredits Islam so one has so many doubts it is impossible to be a jihadist.

    • Charles Martel says

      Mar 29, 2016 at 5:26 am

      Why should they be let back in?? Revoke their citizenshiip and deport them back to syria or iraq.

  6. SpiritOf1683 says

    Mar 28, 2016 at 1:33 pm

    They’re running from the Russians in full knowledge the West is a soft touch. Send them to Syria and let Assad deal with them.

  7. Michael Johnson says

    Mar 28, 2016 at 1:51 pm

    They should be kicked out period all of them

  8. bridgette says

    Mar 28, 2016 at 6:38 pm

    Round them all up and drop them at the Merkel residence. Might want to send a few to Trudeau. Seems he needs a wake up call in a big way.

  9. Harriet says

    Mar 28, 2016 at 8:17 pm

    good- and faster please

    while the native Europeans still outnumber the muslims and will not be voted into submission

  10. gravenimage says

    Mar 28, 2016 at 10:12 pm

    European authorities overwhelmed as hundreds of Islamic State fighters return home
    ……………………

    What could possibly go wrong?

  11. davej says

    Mar 28, 2016 at 11:02 pm

    European countries have a very short time left to deal with the Islamic threat before Muslims simply vote themselves into power. Then its game over for the infidels.

    Twenty years, max, maybe less.

  12. Matthieu Baudin says

    Mar 28, 2016 at 11:11 pm

    “… Hundreds of Europeans who fought alongside ISIS in Syria and Iraq have returned to a continent officials say lacks the resources to monitor them all…”

    Yes, they lack the mental resources to monitor them, namely the will to engage, confront and incarcerate them. This is the great 21st Century Phoney War of Western Europe. The 20th Century Phoney War, for those too young to have heard of it, was a period of several months in which Nazi Germany ranged freely through Western Europe after having attacked and occupied Poland.

    This time around the leadership and courage required to fight this war will probably come from within those Central European nations that have watched and attempted to analyse this unfolding catastrophe.

  13. Travis says

    Mar 29, 2016 at 10:43 am

    It may take real Europeans to save themselves, this time. The problem is in house, and there is no lend, lease, or cavalry riding to the rescue. America is busy.

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