Islamist Foreign Fighters Returning Home and the Threat to Europe

ISBN-13: 9781507802687 / Angielski / Miękka / 2015 / 44 str.

Eurasia And Eme Subcommittee on Europe

Opis

Today's hearing is particularly relevant, given the geographic proximity of Europe to the conflict zone. Social networking, the internet, the propaganda have become the premier recruitment tools for terrorist gangs expanding their reach far into Europe and to the United States. These tools are cheap and effective. Even for the group like ISIL, who seems to have plentiful resources, they are being used. For this reason, I think that the nexus of our counterterrorism strategy should focus on various facets of their recruitment and communication strategy. This has been the root of the problem for decades and this is what we must attack. The National Counterterrorism Center estimates that as of this month, as many as 12,000 individuals have traveled to Syria since 2011 in order to support the armed militants there. This figure includes well over 1,000 European citizens and more than 100 Americans. Europe can serve as a barometer for what may come in the United States, and for this reason, we must continue to work closely with our European partners and find ways to facilitate better information- sharing and communication.