As Europe Moves Aggressively Against Terrorism, New Challenges Emerge

 

Investigators at an apartment in Verviers, Belgium, on Friday, a day after officers killed two men suspected of planning an attack. Credit John Thys/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

BERLIN — After a series of police raids and a deadly gun battle, arrests of terror suspects in Belgium, Germany and France late Thursday and Friday highlighted the scope and complexity of the challenge facing European intelligence agencies and security services in confronting the expanding threat from radical jihadists, many of them battle-hardened in Syria and Iraq.

On Friday alone, the Belgian authorities announced that 13 people had been detained nationwide after two men suspected of planning an imminent attack were shot dead by the police in the eastern town of Verviers on Thursday evening. The authorities in France reported 12 detentions, and 250 police officers in Berlin swooped down on 12 locations to detain five Turks — three of whom were later released — on suspicion of recruiting, financing and helping Turkish and Chechen fighters get to Syria.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/17/world/europe/europe-arrests-terrorism-links.html?_r=1