Expert urges West to take terrorist threat seriously

A Singaporean terrorism research expert has urged the West to seriously take the threat posed by international terrorist groups including the Islamic State, in the wake of a series of bloody terrorist attacks on parts of the world recently.

It is important for the West to take the matter of terrorist danger seriously and fight effectively against it, Rohan Gunaratna, the professor of security studies at Nanyang Technology University in Singapore, told Xinhua recently.

"First, it is important to criminalize terrorists' propaganda posted on European servers or distributed in the European Union," Gunaratna said in a telephone interview with Xinhua.

Stressing the important role of security services as a front line in the fight against terrorism, the expert pointed out that security forces must strongly prevent all kinds of acts of terrorism or extremism.

Gunaratna also said that "no other organization is more important than the intelligence services, to which resources must be given to to fight this threat."

Advocating the operation of rehabilitation programs as another significant means to prevent increase of foreign fighters, he explained that without such programs, terrorists will become a security threat after being released, possibility to "be recruited or recruit other people." Endi