© Jason Lee / Reuters
Between 3,000 and 5,000 so-called 'foreign fighters' -
EU citizens trained in Islamic state terror camps - have returned to Europe and pose a "completely new challenge," according the continent's top police chief.
"Europe is currently facing the highest terror threat in more than in a decade," Rob Wainwright, Europol's director,
told the
Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung daily, warning of the real possibility of Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) or other terror groups attacks in Europe.
"We can expect [IS] or other religious terror groups to stage an attack somewhere in Europe with the aim of achieving mass casualties among the civilian population," he said, noting that the risk of attacks by individuals has also not diminished.
However, Wainwright refused to link the unprecedented increase in the terror threat with the ongoing refugee crisis. He refuted the widespread assumption that terrorists are infiltrating Europe under the guise of asylum seekers.
"
There are no concrete indications that terrorists are systematically using the stream of refugees to come into Europe undetected," Wainwright said.
Comment: That is an unspeakably barbaric thing to do to someone.