Europe Reacts to Terrorist Attacks

 

The European Commission announced its support for national governments to seize passports of suspected jihadists. Seizing the passports will prevent Europeans from traveling to Syria and Iraq. “The commission would support this type of initiative if it were taken by member states,” commission spokesperson Natasha Bertaud said on January 16.

Germany also proposed the issuing jihadists specially designed “jihadi” cards. While all Germans must carry identity cards, suspected jihadists’ cards would be distinctly different. To prevent unauthorized border crossings out of Europe, the proposed cards would be printed with warnings in several languages of the holder’s nature.

It may seem extreme that Europe is willing to go to such lengths to keep tabs on suspected jihadists; however, these proposals are a reaction to the recent terrorist attacks in Paris and several other thwarted plots. Europe is on edge.

Europe is home to roughly 20 million Muslims—many migrated from the Middle East and North and sub-Saharan Africa. More recently, foreign-born Muslims from Syria and Iraq are boosting the population in Europe. Five million Muslims reside in France, composing 8 percent of the French population. Germany and Britain’s Muslim populations make up 5 percent of their overall populations. Germany experienced a 57.5 percent increase in applications for asylum in 2014—more than any other nation in the European Union.

The Wall Street Journal reported, “So impressed were the Europeans with their own generosity that they failed to notice that the population of second- and third-generation immigrants was growing bigger, stronger, more unified and less inclined to take moral instruction.” It is the younger European-born Muslims who are stirring trouble. An estimated 3,000 jihadists have traveled to fight in the Middle East.

Europe’s large Muslim communities have created no-go zones in certain cities. Non-Muslims, including the police, cannot enter these zones. Nigel Farage, the United Kingdom Independence Party leader, recently spoke out about the no-go zones:

It’s happening right across Europe. We have got no-go zones in most of the big French cities. We’ve been turning a blind eye to preachers of hate that have been coming here from the Middle East and saying things for which the rest of us would be arrested. … We have, through mass immigration and through not checking the details of those people who have come to our countries, we have allowed big ghettos to develop … wherever you look, you see this blind eye being turned, and you see the growth of ghettos where the police and all the normal agents of the law have withdrawn, and that is where sharia law has come in, and you know it got so bad in Britain that our last archbishop of Canterbury, the leader of our church, actually said we should accept sharia law.

After the recent terrorist attacks, though Europe’s security agencies have stepped up their raids on suspected or known jihadists, over two dozen people were arrested on January 16 in police sweeps by German, French and Belgian police. France and Belgium both mobilized troops to patrol and protect schools and government buildings.

Europeans have largely been tolerant of Muslims living in their midst, but expect an increased number of terrorist attacks to revive a level of tolerance more reminiscent of World War ii days. Germans protest regularly against Islam’s influence in their country. These protesters will grow louder as the Islamic threat grows larger.

Even a small attack on European soil can have dramatic consequences. Read Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry’s article “The Whirlwind Prophecy” to understand Europe’s response.