McCaul releases new European terror threat snapshot

House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-TX) released a European terror threat snapshot on Tuesday.

The snapshot represents a periodic committee assessment of potential Islamist terror threat environments across Europe.

“The United States and our allies face an increasingly lethal Islamist terror threat,” McCaul said. “A global jihadist network operating from safe havens is exploiting Western security gaps to orchestrate a widespread terror campaign, particularly in Europe. Battle-hardened European fighters groomed by ISIS are returning home from Syria to commit acts of terror with the support of local extremist networks, as we have tragically seen in Paris and Brussels. These operatives are also potentially a plane-flight away from our shores. Given the magnitude of the threat across the continent, we are likely seeing only the tip of the jihadist iceberg in Europe.”

Key points of the snapshot included findings that ISIS-linked attack plots have unfolded at a rate of approximately two every month, including 35 ISIS-linked plots to launch attacks across Europe since 2014. Additionally, approximately 5,000 European Union (EU) citizens have traveled to Syria and Iraq, according to the report.

EU member states have also reported approximately two million instances of illegal border crossings within the last year.