Major terrorist attack is ‘inevitable’ as Isis fighters return, say EU officials

[CJCRANE]

Source: Guardian UK

EU’s 28 governments are said to be struggling to respond to threat of Islamist fighters coming back from Iraq and Syria

A major Islamist terror attack in Europe is almost inevitable as European members of Islamic State (Isis) return from Syria and Iraq, according to senior EU officials familiar with the diplomatic, intelligence, and security planning taking place to try to counter the threat.

They said the EU’s bodies and its 28 governments were under intense US pressure to get to grips with the menace represented by thousands of European citizens fighting in Syria, but that Europe was struggling to develop coherent instruments to reduce the risk of an atrocity.

“It is pre-programmed,” said a senior official involved in the policy and security debate over the chances of an attack. “We have clear signals that this is what the foreign fighters are doing. This is the main threat we are facing.” Interior ministers from the 28 countries are to meet in Luxembourg in a fortnight to try to come up with a concerted policy.

“The home affairs council is very aware and very frightened of this … The colleagues in the police administration just don’t know how to cope. They all fear this could be totally out of control. It may already be too late,” the senior official told the Guardian and five other European newspapers.

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/25/major-terrorist-attack-inevitable-isis-eu

[Helen Borg]

1. How about not getting involved in the first place?

What is going on is that probably many of the European agencies have been infiltrated by US defense/military types, and they are trying to pull the same tricks they pulled in the US.

[TwilightGardener]

2. Sure. That always works.

[CJCRANE]

4. How many terrorists were on the loose in Iraq before 2003?

[TwilightGardener]

5. How many were in Afghanistan before 9/11?

Should we have acted before then?

[CJCRANE]

8. Didn't need to bomb them. Intelligence work

could have prevented 9/11.

The hijackers were based in Hamburg then San Diego and Sarasota IIRC.

[TwilightGardener]

13. Really? If we had a chance to kill the plotters, you're saying we shouldn't have?

Bill Clinton was going to bomb then in Afghanistan, and decided not to because he was afraid of civilian casualties.

[CJCRANE]

15. So you bomb the plotters but the hijackers are already in situ...

Then what?

Bomb Hamburg?

[TwilightGardener]

18. Blow up the operations--the funding, the plots, the communications--in places

where we don't have a ground presence. Use law enforcement to track down the rest. That's kind of been our model. If we could have gotten OBL in Afgh/Pakistan, shouldn't we have done so?

[CJCRANE]

19. How can you blow up the funding?

Do you know where the funding came from for 9/11?

It wasn't from somewhere you can just blow up.

Plus how can you blow up the communications?

You can't blow up the internet.

[TwilightGardener]

20. You don't think there's a headquarters of sorts? Master planners who

move money around and direct operations? ISIS certainly has that. This Khorasan group had that. I don't know if you're just being disingenuous for argument's sake, or what.

[CJCRANE]

21. Master planners who live in an underground supervillain lair

like the famous illustration of the Tora Bora cave system shown in the Sunday Times (UK)?

The funding comes from a network of rich individuals and charities.

You can't go around blowing up charities and prominent individuals.

But you can prosecute them, freeze the funds and close the charities down.

[TwilightGardener]

22. Why are you pretending there's no central organization to these groups?

Who do you think is in Mosul and Raqqa? Yemen and Waziristan? You'd better let all of our intelligence agencies know they're tracking the wrong guys...

[CJCRANE]

23. We were talking about 9/11.

You suggested that we could have just bombed the plotters and it might have been averted.

Then we talked about the funding and planning.

[CJCRANE]

24. ISIS and the Taliban are also military forces

which of course can be degraded by military action.

But it's much harder to combat terrorism via bombing.

[ballyhoo]

6. Too late now. You can't kill millions of people and not expect them

to seek revenge. I wrote a post in mid-Iraq war about some little kid who just watched his family get slaughtered by American soldiers and somehow making it into MIT, where he learns all about nukes. Even if we escape the current American adventure, which I doubt, something is going to happen to make those that killed that kid's family atone. Bush opened up a can of worms that can never be closed without the can dissolving.

[99th_Monkey]

17. +100! n/t

[jwirr]

7. Isn't he talking about followers of ISIS who are citizens and went to help and are now coming home

again? I am wondering why the various countries are even letting them come home? Is there an example of what we have done in other wars where the citizen actually left the country to fight with out foes? I know we had the Japanese camps in WWII but they were citizens who did not even leave the country. But that is not what I am talking about.

[christx30]

9. I'd be ok with either taking their passports

so they have to stay in Iraq and Syria, or keeping an extra close eye on them once they get home. If you join a violent organization that cuts people's heads off, you shouldn't expect things to be normal once you get home. You joined for a reason, knowing thei were violent. If the Boy Scots of America were beheading people, I wouldn't let my kid join.

[jwirr]

10. Exactly.

[Helen Borg]

11. The UK was/is considering not letting them back...

At minimum, they will probably monitor the hell out of anyone who has visited any ME countries recently.

[CJCRANE]

12. I think that's unfair to other countries.

That's just passing the hot potato to someone else to deal with.

Also, the UK was mooting a temporary ban, which just kicks the can down the road.

Better to arrest them and try them in a court of law.

[Helen Borg]

14. Not sure if they actually doing it or what...

Cameron was talking about it...

[christx30]

16. So the other country just treats them

as an illegal immigrant with possibly hostile intentions. Should be a good deterrant to others making the same mistake. "If you turn your back on the country, the country will return the favor."

[TexasMommaWithAHat]

25. They haven't assimilated and don't want to

and I use the term "assimilate" loosely, as I don't expect anyone to give up their cultural heritage. They hate the western countries before they even move to them, so it is what it is. I realize a lot of this is of our making, but we compound it by welcoming these folks who hate us.

We need much better screening and a lengthy interview process for immigrants from the Middle East, imo. There are plenty who do want to be here.

[arcane1]

3. But we're fightin' 'em over there!

Or something.

[Thinkingabout]

26. This is a serious problem, to hide one's head in the sand is not going to make it okay.

Attempting to deny ISIS is a threat is not going to make them go away. They have the funds to purchase weapons and have ways to purchase it illegally.

[cosmicone]

27. Why not arrest all returning "fighters"

and charge them with crimes against humanity?