European intelligence services, faced with the risk of attacks

European intelligence services face an increased risk of attacks, as demonstrated by recent deadly attacks in France and Belgiumagainst the backdrop of the war between Israel and the Islamist movement Hamas.

On Friday, a 20-year-old Russian killed a teacher in northern France on behalf of the Islamic State (IS) group. On Monday, a Tunisian in an irregular situation in Belgium murdered two Swedes, “inspired” in the jihadist organization.

“All European states are vulnerable” before the return of “Islamist terrorism”, warned this Tuesday the French president, Emmanuel Macron, whose country was already the target of bloody jihadist attacks in the past decade.

“Never have Swedish interests been so threatened”estimated the Prime Minister of Sweden, Ulf Kristersson, whose government raised the alert level in August after a series of protests that included the burning of copies of the Koran.

In Europe, the increase in the threat does not surprise anyone, although it suddenly intensified.

Hamas’ bloody attack on Israel on October 7 triggered a fierce debate on social media, accompanied by varying degrees of hatred, causing, at the very least, strong polarization.

“Individuals already radicalized and inclined to violence will be motivated by violence, whether or not they are close to Hamas,” Hans-Jakob Schindler, director of the NGO Counter-Extremism Project (CEP), told AFP.

Contagion effect

Last week, the Israeli foreign ministry warned that Hamas was calling for “all their support in the world to organize a ‘day of rage’” to “attack Israelis and Jews.”

But neither in France nor in Belgium, the attacks were against these groups. The professor’s murderer made an allusion “very marginal” to the conflict in Israel, according to a source close to the case.

The intelligence services must also monitor a possible contagion effect, especially when each attack is recorded and uploaded to social networks, as well as celebrated by their sympathizers.

“It is likely that these attacks will be followed by others in a snowball effect,” fears Tore Hamming, an analyst at the International Center for the Study of Radicalization, in London.

“So far, they all seem to have been driven by a single actor and lack sophistication. But that could change.”abounds.

In April, two Syrian brothers, aged 29 and 24, were detained in Germany. The major planned to “carry out an attack against a church in Sweden when there were many people gathered.”

Moment of recomposition

The concern is also important, especially with respect to the Europeans who went to live in the “caliphate” of IS in Syria and Iraq starting in 2014 and who were convicted and imprisoned upon return.

“The services fear the reconstruction of the networks,” points out a European magistrate, who requests anonymity. “We have the impression that we are in a moment of recomposition.”

Although in specific cases, there is an exchange “fluent” and in “real time” of information within the European Union (EU), services are naturally reluctant to share their information with as many countries as possible, he explains.

On Tuesday, each European country applied its own alert criteria.

Italy “reinforced prevention measures” for the conflict in Israel, but without specifying which ones. In Denmark and Spain, the threat level remains unchanged at a high level.

The Spanish police, for their part, reinforced their presence near places of interest such as synagogues.

Europe is not the only one facing this threat. Last week, an employee of the Israeli embassy in China was attacked in Beijing and the suspect, a foreigner, was detained.

On Sunday, a 71-year-old man stabbed a Muslim woman and a six-year-old boy near Chicago in an attack that US police linked to the war in the Middle East.

Source: AFP