BRUSSELS - Several European countries are still under terrorist threat, including most of all France and Belgium, then Britain, Germany, probably Italy, Spain and the Netherlands as well, a European intelligence expert has said.
“Even if the terrorist cell who attacked Paris and Brussels is almost destroyed ...IS (Islamic State) will try to refuel his human force in Europe in order to conduct other attacks,” said Claude Moniquet, the former agent of France’s intelligence service in an interview with Xinhua. Since the beginning of 2015, and even 2014, a lot of terrorist attacks planned by IS failed in Europe, but unfortunately three of them succeeded, Moniquet said.
The advantage is on the terrorists side because Europe is a very open society where there is no registration even when people rent a flat, said the current director of the Brussels-based European Strategic Intelligence and Security Center.
When people are inside the Schengen zone, they can do what they want in a lot of countries, he added. Ten years ago, Moniquet noted, there were around 1,000 terrorists in Europe, while now about 5,000 to 6,000 people “are linked to the jihad in Syria,” plus their sympathizers estimated at 10,000 and 20,000 in Europe.
“It’s just impossible to monitor them,” Moniquet said.(Xinhua)