- Aug 17, 2005
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They have begun to return
Highly motivated, trained European jihadists are giving continent?s intelligence services real headache.
By Michel Moutot - PARIS
They are highly motivated, battle-hardened, mobile - and therefore dangerous. And the return of Europe's jihadists from Iraq is giving the continent's intelligence services nightmares.
As far back as October 2005, Iraqi Interior Minister Bayan Jabr Soulagh warned that intercepted correspondence between Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, and other figures in the movement had revealed a decision to send large numbers of Islamist volunteers back to their countries of origin to wage holy war there.
According to Soulagh, by autumn 2005 several hundred militant fighters had already left for home.
Baltazar Garzon, the Spanish judge who has led inquiries into Al-Qaeda in Spain, said on Tuesday there were indications that large numbers of veterans of the Iraqi jihad were returning to Europe.
"I cannot say how many cases we are talking about but it is a question of logic. Up until now enquiries were focused on volunteers travelling to Iraq. Now we are beginning to get indications that they have begun to return," he said.
"Infrastructures are being put in place to accommodate them," added the judge, who spoke from the French city of Lyon, where he was attending an Interpol meeting.
Over the past three years, hundreds of jihadist volunteers from almost every country in Europe have travelled to Iraq, via Syria, Egypt, Turkey or Iran. Once there, they have been more or less integrated into the anti-US resistance, often to commit suicide attacks.
In 2005, the prestigious International Institute for Strategic Studies in London estimated the number of foreign volunteers in Iraq to be at least one thousand.
On Thursday, the head of France's domestic security service, Pierre de Bousquet, indicated that around 15 young French people remained in and around Iraq. At least nine have been killed there.
Foreign volunteers "have become a bit of a nuisance there and are being urged to return to Europe to pursue jihad there. We have seen a few examples," he said.
Claude Moniquet, director of the Brussels-based European Strategic Intelligence and Security Centre, estimates there are "several hundred" former fighters from Iraq in western Europe and says they are "potentially very dangerous".
"Given the high motivation and the youth of these Iraqi volunteers, the risk that they will start to commit terrorist acts on European soil is very real," he said.
"Twenty years ago, following Russia's retreat from Afghanistan, a lot of people returned to their home countries, and behaved relatively calmly.
"But 10 years later they were the ones found, more or less systematically, to be involved in the networks that were dismantled between 2001 and 2005."
If it is relatively simple to monitor the departures of people to Iraq, and therefore their possible return home, tracking them over the medium to long term will be a real headache, warned Moniquet.
"It is pretty much impossible to organise the surveillance of several hundred people across Europe.
"Effective surveillance of one person requires an absolute minimum of 12 to 15 officers. Multiply that by several hundred and you need thousands. And even then, we're talking about a makeshift operation."
It is ironic that the monsters this war has created are now going home to wage jihad against countries such as France who opposed the war.
Highly motivated, trained European jihadists are giving continent?s intelligence services real headache.
By Michel Moutot - PARIS
They are highly motivated, battle-hardened, mobile - and therefore dangerous. And the return of Europe's jihadists from Iraq is giving the continent's intelligence services nightmares.
As far back as October 2005, Iraqi Interior Minister Bayan Jabr Soulagh warned that intercepted correspondence between Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, and other figures in the movement had revealed a decision to send large numbers of Islamist volunteers back to their countries of origin to wage holy war there.
According to Soulagh, by autumn 2005 several hundred militant fighters had already left for home.
Baltazar Garzon, the Spanish judge who has led inquiries into Al-Qaeda in Spain, said on Tuesday there were indications that large numbers of veterans of the Iraqi jihad were returning to Europe.
"I cannot say how many cases we are talking about but it is a question of logic. Up until now enquiries were focused on volunteers travelling to Iraq. Now we are beginning to get indications that they have begun to return," he said.
"Infrastructures are being put in place to accommodate them," added the judge, who spoke from the French city of Lyon, where he was attending an Interpol meeting.
Over the past three years, hundreds of jihadist volunteers from almost every country in Europe have travelled to Iraq, via Syria, Egypt, Turkey or Iran. Once there, they have been more or less integrated into the anti-US resistance, often to commit suicide attacks.
In 2005, the prestigious International Institute for Strategic Studies in London estimated the number of foreign volunteers in Iraq to be at least one thousand.
On Thursday, the head of France's domestic security service, Pierre de Bousquet, indicated that around 15 young French people remained in and around Iraq. At least nine have been killed there.
Foreign volunteers "have become a bit of a nuisance there and are being urged to return to Europe to pursue jihad there. We have seen a few examples," he said.
Claude Moniquet, director of the Brussels-based European Strategic Intelligence and Security Centre, estimates there are "several hundred" former fighters from Iraq in western Europe and says they are "potentially very dangerous".
"Given the high motivation and the youth of these Iraqi volunteers, the risk that they will start to commit terrorist acts on European soil is very real," he said.
"Twenty years ago, following Russia's retreat from Afghanistan, a lot of people returned to their home countries, and behaved relatively calmly.
"But 10 years later they were the ones found, more or less systematically, to be involved in the networks that were dismantled between 2001 and 2005."
If it is relatively simple to monitor the departures of people to Iraq, and therefore their possible return home, tracking them over the medium to long term will be a real headache, warned Moniquet.
"It is pretty much impossible to organise the surveillance of several hundred people across Europe.
"Effective surveillance of one person requires an absolute minimum of 12 to 15 officers. Multiply that by several hundred and you need thousands. And even then, we're talking about a makeshift operation."
It is ironic that the monsters this war has created are now going home to wage jihad against countries such as France who opposed the war.
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