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Europe must avoid doom and gloom on terror: EU official
Tuesday, 19 Oct, 2010
BRUSSELS: New warnings of an Al-Qaeda plot in Europe show the terror threat is present but governments must be careful not to alarm people unnecessarily, the EUs counter-terrorism coordinator said Monday.
Gilles de Kerchove, who coordinates EU terrorism policy, said a French government announcement that Al-Qaeda's Yemen-based branch was targetting Europe confirms that the West faces a wide range of terror threats.
What the recent weeks have shown is that the threat is unfortunately still here and that it has become more complex, more diffuse and more diverse, and so we must be vigilant, de Kerchove said in an interview with AFP.
But there is no reason to preach doom and gloom, he said.
The United States, Britain, France, Sweden and Japan issued travel alerts for their citizens two weeks ago amid reports that extremists with EU passports could return home to launch attacks on European cities.
French Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux revealed a new threat on Sunday, saying that Saudi security services warned European intelligence agencies that Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula was possibly active or planned to be activeand was targetting the European continent and in particular France.
The core organisation led by Osama bin Laden in the Afghan-Pakistani border region remains a danger more than nine years after the September 11 attacks, de Kerchove said.
But he said the West faces three other forms of terror threats: a lone wolf, EU-born extremists trained in Pakistani militant camps, and Al-Qaeda offshoots or like-minded groups in Yemen, northern Africa and Somalia.
In the face of so many threats coming from so many sides, Western authorities face a delicate task of deciding when and how much to inform the public, de Kerchove said.
It is a difficult debate about informing without causing alarm, he said in an interview in his office at the European Council, the institution representing the 27 EU states.
At the same time, Europeans should not drop their guard even though the continent has not been struck since the London bombings in 2005, he warned.
You must always find the right balance because, as several people said, alarmist remarks play into terrorist hands because they want to terrorise, de Kerchove said.
You can also lose credibility in the long term because if you cry wolf 10 times, the 11th time people will say there is no wolf, he said. It is very complex, it is finding the right tone, the right balance between alerting without alarming.German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere warned against causing alarmism earlier this month after the US and some European governments issued travel alerts but said Berlin was taking the threat seriously.
The German interior minister was very clear about this. We are vigilant but there is no reason to alarm or scare the population, de Kerchove said.
I dont want to comment on whether people exaggerated or not, but it confirms my analysis of the nature of the threat, the top EU official said.
EU interior ministers backed the US travel alert at a regular meeting in Luxembourg on October 7 but agreed on the need to better coordinate between governments to avoid surprises about imminent warnings.
We must install a system which ensures more collective and faster information on a state's decision to lower or raise the alert level, de Kerchove said.
Tuesday, 19 Oct, 2010
BRUSSELS: New warnings of an Al-Qaeda plot in Europe show the terror threat is present but governments must be careful not to alarm people unnecessarily, the EUs counter-terrorism coordinator said Monday.
Gilles de Kerchove, who coordinates EU terrorism policy, said a French government announcement that Al-Qaeda's Yemen-based branch was targetting Europe confirms that the West faces a wide range of terror threats.
What the recent weeks have shown is that the threat is unfortunately still here and that it has become more complex, more diffuse and more diverse, and so we must be vigilant, de Kerchove said in an interview with AFP.
But there is no reason to preach doom and gloom, he said.
The United States, Britain, France, Sweden and Japan issued travel alerts for their citizens two weeks ago amid reports that extremists with EU passports could return home to launch attacks on European cities.
French Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux revealed a new threat on Sunday, saying that Saudi security services warned European intelligence agencies that Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula was possibly active or planned to be activeand was targetting the European continent and in particular France.
The core organisation led by Osama bin Laden in the Afghan-Pakistani border region remains a danger more than nine years after the September 11 attacks, de Kerchove said.
But he said the West faces three other forms of terror threats: a lone wolf, EU-born extremists trained in Pakistani militant camps, and Al-Qaeda offshoots or like-minded groups in Yemen, northern Africa and Somalia.
In the face of so many threats coming from so many sides, Western authorities face a delicate task of deciding when and how much to inform the public, de Kerchove said.
It is a difficult debate about informing without causing alarm, he said in an interview in his office at the European Council, the institution representing the 27 EU states.
At the same time, Europeans should not drop their guard even though the continent has not been struck since the London bombings in 2005, he warned.
You must always find the right balance because, as several people said, alarmist remarks play into terrorist hands because they want to terrorise, de Kerchove said.
You can also lose credibility in the long term because if you cry wolf 10 times, the 11th time people will say there is no wolf, he said. It is very complex, it is finding the right tone, the right balance between alerting without alarming.German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere warned against causing alarmism earlier this month after the US and some European governments issued travel alerts but said Berlin was taking the threat seriously.
The German interior minister was very clear about this. We are vigilant but there is no reason to alarm or scare the population, de Kerchove said.
I dont want to comment on whether people exaggerated or not, but it confirms my analysis of the nature of the threat, the top EU official said.
EU interior ministers backed the US travel alert at a regular meeting in Luxembourg on October 7 but agreed on the need to better coordinate between governments to avoid surprises about imminent warnings.
We must install a system which ensures more collective and faster information on a state's decision to lower or raise the alert level, de Kerchove said.
