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New style ISIL group seeks to target Europe, says Europol

Rob Wainwright, director of the EU’s police agency Europol has warned that ISIL has developed a new ‘special forces’ style of combat to target Europe. Wainwright made the warning at the opening of Europol’s new counter-terror centre in The Hague, where he voiced concerns that more attacks such as those that took place in Paris last November could take place again. Europol is seeking to improve information exchange and identify the links between terrorism and other areas of crime. Europol’s report, ‘Changes in modus operandi of Islamic State terrorism attacks’, outline the Paris attacks and the downing of a Russian airliner over Egypt last October as ‘a shift in ISIL strategy towards going global’. It claimed: "ISIL is preparing more terrorist attacks, including more 'Mumbai-style' attacks, to be executed in member states of the EU, and in France in particular. The attacks will be primarily directed at soft targets, because of the impact it generates." The report adds: "Indeed there are reports that refugee centres are being specifically targeted by Islamic extremist recruiters.” The report also discusses the possibility that: there may be terror training cells in the Balkans and in some EU nations; ISIL is becoming more sophisticated in encryption and other techniques to evade monitoring; a significant number of foreign jihadists - at least 20 per cent - have mental conditions before recruitment. Up to 80 per cent are estimated to have criminal records; and lone attacks still pose a serious threat. Wainwright said: "We know that many terrorist suspects, such as those responsible for the terrible attacks in Paris, have a criminal background, are linked with the drugs sector, firearms and other criminal sectors. "Critical to Europol, therefore, functioning as the EU's information hub on countering crime and terrorism will be to uncover those links."

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