Europol: As Many as 5,000 European-born Citizens are in the Ranks of ISIS

As many as 5,000 European citizens fight in the ranks of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, Europol announced at a meeting of the Joint Parliamentary Scrutiny Group on the functioning of European police, held in the National Palace of Culture on 19^th of March. 800 of these fighters are from countries in the Western Balkans. Thousands of young men in Europe are radicalizing and are potential terrorists, Europol Executive Director Rob Wainwright said.

30,000 are the potential terrorists in Europe - radicalized men and women who are involved in the ideology of the "Islamic state", Wainwright said answering a question by BNT. The threat from them is active and concrete, he added.

The threat of active foreign fighters, who have been in Iraq and Syria and who return or in the future may return, is real. But in our European society - in a number of countries - there are radicalized persons that we from the security services are monitoring. The figure 30,000 may have already been reached, maybe they are more. Not all of these individuals intend to take terrorist actions, but that shows us how great the challenge is for the security authorities, he added.

Most of the European fighters in the ranks of ISIS are from the Western Balkan countries - a region that remains a major transit area for trafficking in drugs, arms, humans and for radicalisation, according to Europol reports.

Oldřich Martinů. Deputy Executive Director of Europol said that in the Western Balkans there was radicalisation among the population, but in comparison to previous years, the number of foreign fighters in Syria were less. So far, about 800 people have travelled to conflict zones in Syria and Iraq to join the “Islamic State”. The Islamic movements are interconnected across the region and with the Member States through their diasporas there. We play our part in the region by supporting operations to intercept arms and drug trafficking and fight against terrorism, he added.

The participants in the Joint Parliamentary Scrutiny Group on Europol were firm that the cooperation with the Western Balkans that needs to be deepened. It is important, according to the experts, that the UK maintains access to Europol's Information Exchange Network even after Brexit, Tsvetan Tsvetanov, the co-chair of the Joint Parliamentary Scrutiny Group told BNT.

UK is one of the most reliable security systems in the EU. Britain, however, is also one of the largest providers of information on EU systems. All national parliaments, EU leaders, politicians will be looking for the opportunity not to lose a substantial source of information, experience and expertise that the UK has, Tsvetanov noted.

One of the key topics in the negotiations on Brexit will be security and defence and the closest possible cooperation between the services will be sought because of the threats we face - the fight against terrorism, organised crime, Julian King, EU Security Commissioner, said

The cyber-security centres of the EC and Europol also cooperate closely in the fight against cybercrime and disinformation, experts said.

We in the EC have a team to monitor propaganda and disinformation in the media in the EU. There are many attempts for propaganda and disinformation that seem to be Russia-linked. This is not the only source of propaganda, but there are about 3,500 different publications identified by this team in Brussels, Julian King said.

More than 1 million are shares of intelligence and operational information in the Europol network last year, experts said. The future of the service is to become a major information hub of the European police services for intelligence and exchange.

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