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.
“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.”…