express.co.uk/

Today (28 April), the European Parliament’s Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee approved a new EU law which will strengthen Europol in the fight against terrorism and organized crime. Rapporteur Augustín Diaz de Mera MEP expressed deep satisfaction at the result: “After an intense and long negotiating period, we have achieved a Regulation which provides Europol with robust powers to combat terror and organized crime.”

eureporter.co

An Islamic State fighter ordered a Moroccan-born man living in Italy to carry out attacks in Rome, according to Italian prosecutors.

Milan prosecutor Maurizio Romanelli said investigators intercepted the communication to carry out attacks in Italy, “with particular attention to the city of Rome”, from within IS territory during a probe into foreign fighters in Italy.

There was no indication any attacks were imminent and Mr Romanelli said they acted quickly to close the investigation.

Authorities announced six arrest warrants as part of the investigation, including for a couple planning to leave Italy for IS territory with their children, aged two and four, and another couple with small children who had left to join IS last year.

belfasttelegraph.co.uk

Belgium’s Justice Minister has been criticised after claiming the number of practicing Muslims would “very soon” overtake the number of practising Christians in Europe.

Speaking in a question and answer session at a parliamentary committee, Koen Geens said: “In Europe, very shortly we’re going to have more practising Muslims than practising Christians.”

His comments have been dismissed as “misleading and irresponsible” by one of the UK’s leading anti-Islamophobia charities.

Mr Geens’ did not support his claim with evidence but his remarks were quickly seized upon by far-right groups as proof of the creeping “Islamification” of Europe.

However, Mr Geens’ motivation in making the comments appeared to be to highlight the general shift towards secularism on the continent.

“That is not because there are too many Muslims; it is because Christians are generally less practising,” he said.

“We will soon have in Belgium more active practitioners of Islam than of the Catholic faith, simply because Catholics don’t practice anymore.

“It’s not a problem,” Mr Geens said, “I am only saying, and Europe must realise, because it is the reality.”

His words were met with dismay by Fiyaz Mughal OBE, director of Tell Mama, a group which monitors anti-Muslim hatred.

“The comments by the Belgian Justice Minister, Koen Geens, are not only misleading, they are irresponsible, given his position and given the fact that he is the Justice Minister in charge of a core ministry,” Mr Mughal told The Independent.

“He needs to understand that statements like this merely add fuel to the far right and to tensions.”

However, a spokesperson for Mr Geens told The Independent: “Minister Koen Geens did not make an anti-Muslim statement. He just pointed out that in the future, Europe will have more practising Muslims than practising Catholics.

“Not more or less. The Justice Minister is responsible for the religions in Belgium and has a good relationship with all recognised religions in the country, including Muslims.

“Mr Geens regularly meets with the EMB (Muslim Executive of Belgium) and took legislative initiative to contribute funding to professionalize the organisation. On top of that, 80 Imams will be appointed by the EMB, and it receives extra funding for this from the Justice department.”

Belgium has been struggling with problems around radicalism and its capital, Brussels, was subject to bombings in March, for which extremist group Isis claimed responsibility.

Terror attacks and the subsequent investigation of Islamist terror cells has often led police to the city’s suburb of Molenbeek, sparked a national debate around the integration of ethnic and religious minorities in the country.

Christianity is widely perceived to have been in decline in Europe for many years, as fewer people identify as religious.

Catholic journalist Damian Thompson of The Spectator previously bemoaned the loss of millions of worshippers and predicted that “Anglicanism will disappear from Britain in 2033” if British Social Attitude survey trends continue.

The number of Roman Catholics has also fallen in the UK, dropping from 10 per cent of the population to eight per cent between 1983 and 2014, according to the attitude surveys.

However, Christianity has seen large gains in Asia and remains the world’s most prevalent religion.

A 2015 study by the Pew Research Center found that Islam was likely to become more prevalent worldwide due to a youthful population and high fertility rates, catching up with Christianity by around 2050.

independent.co.uk

Sweden’s Expressen newspaper reported, citing own sources that the Iraqi secret service had provided the Swedish Security Service (SAPO) with this information.

The newspaper added that the potential terror attack was expected to target civilians.

The SAPO issued a statement, saying that it was examining new information about a potential terrorist threat but did not provide any details regarding the threat’s character.

European countries have been boosting their security measures following a number of terrorist attacks, such as the multiple blasts in Brussels on March 22 and the series of attacks in Paris on November 13, in light of the threat posed by terrorist groups.

In March, media reported citing intelligence sources that some 400 militants had been trained by Daesh, which is prohibited in a number of countries, including the United States and Russia, to carry out attacks in Europe.

sputniknews.com/

Italian police have arrested a British former professional boxer in Rome on suspicion of delivering funds to Islamist terror cells in Italy.

Officers identified him as Hussain Shamshir, aged 34, a Briton of Pakistani origin.

He was arrested Saturday  while driving in the capital’s suburb of Torpignattara with three other men in a German-registered Volkswagen car.

He was found to be travelling on a false British passport, sources said.

Described by Italian police as a former professional boxer who worked as a pizza baker in a London suburb,  Shamshir was carrying 5,000 euros (£3,500) in cash when he was stopped for questioning by anti-terrorist  police who had been tailing his vehicle.

Shamshir was quoted as saying the cash was  for buying clothing for relatives in Belgium.

The three men with him, two Pakistanis and a Kurd, were released after questioning.

Carabinieri paramilitary police investigators believe that the money was brought to Rome to finance terrorist sleeper cells or terrorist attacks, the Corriere della Sera newspaper reported.

Police sources said Shamshi was wanted by police in Britain for crimes of physical violence.

An investigating  judge ordered that he be held in the Reginal Coeli prison on the banks of the Tiber pending trial or possible  extradition as police try to determine more about what he was doing in Rome.

“Her Majesty’s Security Services are ready to ask a British judge to issue a European arrest warrant for his  extradition,” the Corriere quoted judicial sources saying.

Police tightened security in the centre of Rome yesterday as Italy celebrated Liberation Day marking the  end of Fascism on the peninsula and Italian President Sergio Mattarella placed a wreath in memory of  Italian anti-fascist Resistance heroes in a ceremony at the Altar to the Homeland monument in the  vast Piazza Venezia.

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi’s government insists it is doing everything possible to ensure Italy  is spared terrorist attacks of the kind that have ripped through Paris and Brussels.

Last week Italian Interior Minister Angelino Alfano strongly denied a report in the German tabloid Bild that  Isil is planning attacks on beaches in Italy.

“We are working hard on the prevention plan through intercepts, personal checks, controls of ships and  vehicles, expulsion of radicalised people,” Alfano said.

“No country is at zero risk but up to now the prevention has worked.”

Shamshir was quoted as telling police who arrested him that he had relatives living in Belgium for whom he

was on a shopping expedition in Rome.

Police sources said that the Belgian connection was one of the reasons he was arrested as well as the false passport, large amount of cash and criminal record in the UK.

Police did not immediately confirm a report that Shamsha was being interrogated in connection with Isis  terrorist attacks in Belgium, however.

A UK Foreign Office spokesman said: ” We are in contact with Italian authorities following the arrest of a British national in Rome.”

telegraph.co.uk

Islamic extremists have more secret cells hidden throughout Europe that could be deployed in terror attacks against civilians, the top U.S. intelligence official warned on Monday.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said during a breakfast sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor that terror groups have additional clandestine cells similar to those that mobilized during attacks in Paris and Brussels in recent months.

In particular, Clapper certified that U.S. intelligence officials “continue to see evidence on the part of ISIL” in Germany, England and Italy. ISIL is an alternate acronym for the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

“That is a concern, obviously, of ours and European allies. I assure you we are doing all we can to share with them,” he added.

Following the deadly attacks in Paris and Brussels, focus on sharing information has ratcheted up considerably to ensure that intelligence and law enforcement agencies across Europe are on the same page. Some critics said after the March Brussels attack that Belgian officials were not adequately prepared to deal with the rising threat of radicals tied to ISIS.

Sharing information “is a major emphasis of ours,” Clapper said on Monday.

European security officials have cracked down on suspected extremists at a dramatic rate since the violence in Paris and then Brussels, arresting multiple people believed to have links to ISIS.

The extremist group has increasingly promised that the attacks in Europe are part of a larger campaign to inflict violence far from its self-proclaimed caliphate in the Middle East, worrying officials and the public in Europe and the U.S.

In the weeks and months since those attacks, a rough portrait of the extremists’ presence in Europe has begun to emerge, Clapper told reporters on Monday.

“We’ve learned that they are fanatic, very OPSEC conscious — meaning operational security conscious — they’re  very mindful of that,” he said. “They have taken advantage, to some extent, of the migrant crisis in Europe — something which the nations, I think, have a growing awareness of.”

He cautioned, however, that officials “don’t have the total picture for them.”

ISIS operators have a “mindfulness of the efforts mounted to monitor them,” Clapper maintained.

“They are very, very security-conscious.”

Among other signs of efforts to evade detection, Clapper said that extremists have flocked to encrypted messaging applications that scramble communications to make them inaccessible to anyone without a passcode.

The growth of encrypted messaging platforms has frustrated officials in the U.S., who warn that the technology has allowed terrorists and criminals to remain hidden behind a veil of algorithm.

“From our standpoint, it’s not a good thing,” Clapper said.

The proliferation of encrypted messaging services has expanded dramatically in the years since Edward Snowden’s leaks about the National Security Agency (NSA).

According to Clapper, Snowden’s revelations accelerated the development of encryption “by about seven years.”

“That’s an estimate which I think is quite valid by NSA,” Clapper said, “that the projected growth, maturation and instantiation of commercially available encryption, that it forecast for seven years a few years ago, [and] was accelerated to now because of the revelations.”

thehill.com

.ibtimes.co.uk

Bosnia government officials said Friday that U.S. intelligence director John Brennan had arrived in Sarajevo on an unannounced visit to meet anti-terrorism officials.

The CIA director arrived from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where he met with senior officials from six Arab nations aimed at coordinating efforts in the conflicts in Iraq, Syria and Yemen.

Bosnia’s chief prosecutor and head of the country’s anti-terrorism group, Goran Salihovic, told media that the visit was a “great honor” and that his group will inform the CIA chief about how it is coordinating its anti-terrorism efforts. The group is made up of the heads of several agencies, including police, the prosecution office and border police.

According to the group, 124 Bosnians are fighting in foreign wars – four in Ukraine and the others in Syria and Iraq for the Islamic State group. Efforts to stop people from going to Syria have recently reduced the number of those leaving. Many who are now there want to return home and are negotiating with the government on how to do that. They know they face jail terms in Bosnia, but if they cooperate, they will get milder sentences.

A total of 51 Bosnians have died so far on foreign battlefields and 49 have returned from them. Half of those have already been processed by courts.

Bosnia’s law foresees a jail term of up to 10 years for those who recruit, finance or personally participate in foreign wars. Salihovic told reporters that so far some 70 people have been processed as suspects in some form of terrorist activity.

ap.org