Foreign Fighters Are Evading Europe’s Security Net

Foreign Fighters Are Evading Europe’s Security Net
In this file image originally made available Thursday, March 24, 2016, by Haberturk newspaper, showing Ibrahim El Bakraoui pictured in July 2015 by Gaziantep police. Haberturk newspaper via AP
The Associated Press
Updated:

BRUSSELS—When Ibrahim El Bakraoui blew himself up in the Brussels Airport check-in area, killing and maiming scores of travelers, it was at least the third time he had passed unimpeded through an airport terminal in recent months.

Suspected by Turkey of being a “foreign terrorist fighter” and known at home in Belgium as an ex-con wanted for parole violations, Bakraoui was still allowed to board a commercial airliner unaccompanied last summer, flying freely from Istanbul to the Netherlands and disappearing without a trace.

The ease with which he did so raises questions about how much governments know about the movements of returnees among the 5,000 home-grown jihadis who have trained and fought in places like Syria or Iraq. Many now pose a “serious threat,” according to the police agency Europol. Some, like Bakraoui, have already used their deadly skills in cities like Brussels or Paris.

We are talking about someone with a 10-year conviction, who spent a few years in prison, then traveled via Turkey to the Syrian border.
Jan Jambon, Belgian interior minister