Europe is still struggling to face up to the terror threat

Europe’s unpreparedness to deal with the terrorist threat it is now facing is highlighted in two reports today. The Wall Street Journal has obtained a copy of the report prepared for the Belgium parliament on the failure of the Belgium authorities to stop the Islamic State terror cell who travelled from Belgium to carry out the 2015 Paris attacks. The report details a quite remarkable litany of incompetence, including the failure of the Belgium police to act on a warning that Salah Abdeslam had changed his social media profile picture to a picture of the Islamic State flag.

The failure of Belgium’s various police and intelligence agencies to cooperate with each other is well known. But it is not just Belgium that is struggling to deal with the terrorist threat facing it. Spiegel has detailed how the German authorities had marked out Anis Amri as a threat long before his attack on the Berlin Christmas Market, but were still unable to stop him.