Interview: Some European countries still under terrorist threat

Several European countries are still under terrorist threat, including most of all France and Belgium, then Britain, Germany, probably Italy, Spain and the Netherlands as well, a European intelligence expert has said.

"Even if the terrorist cell who attacked Paris and Brussels is almost destroyed ...IS (Islamic State) will try to refuel his human force in Europe in order to conduct other attacks," said Claude Moniquet, the former agent of France's intelligence service in an interview with Xinhua.

Since the beginning of 2015, and even 2014, a lot of terrorist attacks planned by IS failed in Europe, but unfortunately three of them succeeded,

Moniquet said.

The advantage is on the terrorists side because Europe is a very open society where there is no registration even when people rent a flat, said the current director of the Brussels-based European Strategic Intelligence and Security Center.

When people are inside the Schengen zone, they can do what they want in a lot of countries, he added.

Ten years ago, Moniquet noted, there were around 1,000 terrorists in Europe, while now about 5,000 to 6,000 people "are linked to the jihad in Syria," plus their sympathizers estimated at 10,000 and 20,000 in Europe.

"It's just impossible to monitor them," Moniquet said.

He opposes the idea of establishing a single European intelligence service, saying that currently the only counter-terrorism is in the common interest of European Union (EU) member countries, but they don't have the same interests on a lot of other topics.

"So if we open an 'EU CIA' it will be weak, it will take years for effectively working and it will use the money assigned for our police and intelligence..." the Belgian expert said.

Moniquet criticized the EU's role on counter-terrorism, saying that Europe should push the countries to align their laws and legal systems, have a better coordination and give political influx to fight against terrorism.

"IS is using Facebook and mostly twitter to recruit, once the contact is established they go to some mobile phone applications to communicate more easily and fix a physical meeting," he said.

About IS recruitment places in Belgium, Moniquet said "Now mosques are out of the game...the recruitment places are now the streets, schools, football places, sport facilities and every place where young people meet."

Moniquet also noted that IS needs a lot of financial resources to conduct terrorist operations, like those they did in Paris and Brussels.

He admitted that Europe needs about 10 to 20 percent more police and intelligence agents, especially more experts on terrorism from different backgrounds as the United States is doing.

"If everybody is working well and together, I think we can eradicate IS in one or two years," he said. "But this will not fix the main problems in the Middle East." Endi