EU agency identifies 2,000 foreign fighters
The chief of the European Union's police coordination organization says its database identifying and tracking suspected foreign fighters traveling between Europe and Syria and Iraq has doubled in size in the past year to now contain some 10,000 names.
Europol Director Rob Wainwright says that 2,000 of those names have been positively confirmed as foreign fighters. The rest are currently considered suspects, associates or facilitators.
Wainwright adds that there is a consensus across Europe that the number of foreign fighters is likely closer to 5,000.
Speaking Thursday in the European Parliament, Wainwright said that Europol's major priority in recent years in fighting terror has been to “motivate the national authorities to share their counterterrorist data.”
Wainwright says that half of all the entries for the database come from only five of the EU's 28 member states and one international partner. He did not identify the countries or international partner.
[AP]
