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WORLD NEWSThursday 24 March 2016
IS trains 400 fighters to attack Europe in wave of bloodshed 3
LORI HINNANT — but he’d signed up as on condition of anonym-
an Islamic State suicide ity because he was not
PAISLEY DODDS bomber for the group in authorized to discuss brief-
2014 and returned to Eu- ing material. He is also fa-
Associated Press rope as part of the Nov. 13 miliar with interrogations of
plot. In claiming responsi- former fighters who have
PARIS (AP) — The Islamic bility for Tuesday’s attack, returned to Europe. Some
the Islamic State group were jailed after leaving IS
State group has trained at described a “secret cell while others were kicked
of soldiers” dispatched to out of the terror group,
least 400 fighters to target Brussels for the purpose. and they include Muslims
The shadowy cells were and Muslim converts from
Europe in deadly waves confirmed by the EU police all across Europe.
agency, Europol, which Fighters in the units are
of attacks, deploying in- said in a late January re- trained in battleground
port that intelligence of- strategies, explosives, sur-
terlocking terror cells like ficials believed the group veillance techniques and
had “developed an ex- counter surveillance, the
the ones that struck Brus- ternal action command security official said.
trained for special forces- “The difference is that
sels and Paris with orders style attacks.” in 2014, some of these IS
French speakers with links fighters were only being
to choose the time, place to North Africa, France given a couple weeks of
and Belgium appear to training,” he said. “Now
and method for maximum be leading the units and the strategy has changed.
are responsible for devel- Special units have been set
chaos, officials have told oping attack strategies in up. The training is longer.
Europe, said a European And the objective appears
The Associated Press. security official who spoke to no longer be killing as
many people as possible
The network of agile and but rather to have as many
terror operations as possi-
semiautonomous cells ble, so the enemy is forced
to spend more money or
shows the reach of the more in manpower.”
Similar methods had
extremist group in Europe been developed by al-
Qaida but IS has taken it
even as it loses ground in to a new level, he said.
Another difference is that
Syria and Iraq. fighters are being trained
to be their own operators
The officials, including Euro- — not necessarily to be be-
holden to orders from the IS
pean and Iraqi intelligence Belgian Army soldiers patrol at Zaventem Airport in Brussels on stronghold in Raqqa, Syria,
Wednesday, March 23, 2016. Belgian authorities were search- or elsewhere.
officials and a French law- ing Wednesday for a top suspect in the country’s deadliest at- Several security officials
tacks in decades, as the European Union’s capital awoke under have said there is growing
maker who follows the ji- guard and with limited public transport after 34 were killed in evidence to suggest the
bombings on the Brussels airport and a subway station. bulk of the training is taking
hadi networks, described place in Syria, Libya and
Associated Press elsewhere in North Africa.
camps in Syria, Iraq and In the case of Tuesday’s
attacks, Abdeslam’s arrest
possibly the former Soviet may have been a trigger
for a plot that was already
bloc where attackers are far along.
“To pull off an attack of this
trained to target the West. sophistication, you need
training, planning.
Before being killed in a po- that the man, whose iden-
tity Belgian officials say is
lice raid, the ringleader of not known, will follow Ab-
deslam’s path.
the Nov. 13 Paris attacks After fleeing Paris immedi-
ately after the November
claimed he had entered attacks, Abdeslam forged
a new network back in his
Europe in a multinational childhood neighborhood
of Molenbeek, long known
group of 90 fighters, who as a haven for jihadis, and
renewed plotting, accord-
scattered “more or less ev- ing to Belgian officials.
“Not only did he drop out
erywhere.” of sight, but he did so to
organize another attack,
But the biggest break yet with accomplices every-
where. With suicide belts.
in the Paris attacks inves- Two attacks organized just
like in Paris. And his arrest,
tigation — the arrest on since they knew he was
going to talk, it was a re-
Friday of fugitive Salah Ab- sponse: ‘So what if he was
arrested? We’ll show you
deslam— did not thwart that it doesn’t change a
thing,’” said French Sena-
the multipronged attack tor Nathalie Goulet, co- Firefighters and first responders stand next to blown out windows
head of a commission at Zaventem Airport in Brussels on Wednesday, March 23, 2016.
just four days later on the tracking jihadi networks.
Estimates range from 400 Associated Press
Belgian capital’s airport
and subway system that
left 31 people dead and to 600 Islamic State fighters him and Khalid El Bakraoui,
trained specifically for ex- were known to authorities
an estimated 270 wound- ternal attacks, according as common criminals, not
to the officials, including anti-Western radicals un-
ed. Three suicide bombers Goulet. Some 5,000 Euro- til an apartment one of
peans have gone to Syria. them rented was traced to
also died. “The reality is that if we Abdeslam last week, ac-
knew exactly how many cording to Belgian state
Just as in Paris, Belgian au- there were, it wouldn’t be broadcaster RTBF. Similarly,
happening,” she said. an Algerian killed inside
thorities were searching Two of the suicide bomb- that apartment on March
ers in Tuesday’s attacks, 15 had nothing but a pet-
for at least one fugitive in Belgian-born brothers Ibra- ty theft record in Sweden
Tuesday’s attacks — this
time for a man wearing
a white jacket who was
seen on airport security
footage with the two sui-
cide attackers. The fear is
