From Alertnet.Org
Germany’s intelligence chief said on Thursday that the success of Germany and other countries in hunting down terrorists has done little to reduce the threat “Islamic terrorism” poses to Europe and Israel.
In a rare public appearance, Ernst Uhrlau, head of Germany’s BND foreign intelligence agency, said Europe had been transformed from an Islamist recruitment and financing centre into a target of Islamist extremism. “In spite of numerous successful hunts for terrorists, the terrorist threat situation has eased only superficially. The bomb attacks in Madrid and London are clear evidence that Europe is no longer just a recruitment and financing area but has become a target of Islamic terrorism,” Uhrlau told a conference on Islamic extremism organised by the American Jewish Congress.
“In the foreseable future international terrorism will remain one of the most serious threats to our society. More than ever before Israel and Europe as a single risk area are caught in the crosshairs of international terrorism,” he said. Unlike the foreign-born members of al Qaeda seen responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States, “the terrorists in Europe are homegrown and homemade,” he said.
HT: Non Imprimatur.