European Refugees and Terrorists

As The Sunday Express stated in the beginning of September in reference to a source in the Islamic State terrorist organization, more than four thousand Islamic State fighters have already entered many member countries of the European Union under the guise of being refugees. The fighters infiltrate the flow of illegal immigrants in the Turkish port cities of Izmir and Mersin, from where they accordingly cross the Mediterranean Sea to Italy, before proceeding to other European countries, in particular Sweden and Germany. According to the message from the newspaper’s sources, the infiltration of the fighters is in retaliation for air strikes by the international coalition headed by the USA and the countries of NATO. “We want to establish the Caliphate not only in Syria, but also around the whole world,” declared the newspaper source. Furthermore, the source predicted that attacks will be aimed specifically against the governments of western countries, and not against ordinary citizens.

A number of western news agencies promptly denied these predictions, wishing to calm the alarm which was rapidly arising in the population due to the message, accusing the mass media that publish such information of “artificial aggravation of the situation”.

However, it is unlikely that the general populace will believe that all those who are migrating to the countries of the European Union are genuinely entering with motivation of finding a better life. Young people with apparent military bearing have clearly stood out among crowds of the truly downtrodden, persecuted refugees. There is no fear or hopelessness in the eyes of these young people as there is in the eyes of the other migrants. They are quiet and assured, and probably are already acting according to a previously approved plan.

As Süddeutsche Zeitung, the largest daily political newspaper of Germany, wrote the other day (Refer to https://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/migration-warum-fluechtlinge-zu-falschen-syrern-werden-1.2657804), only 10 to 12% of the “Syrians” arriving in the country are actual citizens of Syria. Syrians, as the newspaper noted, however cynical it may sound, are in reality an exclusive group among the refugees arriving in Europe, and certainly there could be both “Assad’s henchmen”, and “executioners from IGIL” among the immigrants. Syrians in Europe are admitted by “a simple process “; as a rule, in addition to not facing the risk of being deported from the EU, almost all Syrians are immediately granted both shelter and the status of a refugee. Furthermore, Syrians are given the opportunity to obtain temporary residence permits far quicker than immigrants from other countries, a permit that allows them to both invite their relatives and children to the country that has offered them shelter, and obtain employment easier than other immigrants.

For this reason many refugees from other Middle Eastern and African countries envy Syrians and many determine to acquire forged Syrian documents by any means possible in order to be accepted by European nations. In Iraq, Turkey and even in some European countries it is possible to buy forged Syrian passports, which allows many refugees to be granted asylum in numerous EU countries. The story of how Harald Doornbos, a war correspondent of Amsterdam’s Nieuwe Revu magazine, acquired a forged Syrian passport by using a photograph of the current Dutch Prime Minister, made headlines across Europe last week.

As a result of these simplified immigration processes, the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) has already had to deal with 116 fake Syrian passports in which substitutions of photos, or additional unreliable records were included. For this reason, only 4% of the refugees’ documents pass inspection.

Ultimately, according to results from the investigation which was recently completed by the German newspaper Die Zeit, “only 10 to 12% of the arriving immigrants are Syrians”. Many such assumed Syrian immigrants actually arrive from Pakistan, Iraq or other countries.

The following examples may serve as confirmation of the fact that terrorists may be in the flow of illegal immigrants who crowding into Europe.

In the beginning of September of this year, Hungarian intelligence sources detection of two Arab terrorists who had arrived in Western Europe along with the stream of refugees. It turned out to be possible to identify terrorists with the help of Facebook, where some terrorists stored photographs in personal accounts, photographs in which they were posing with guns somewhere in the territory of Syria or Iraq.

This unexpected discovery happened to also be a part of the story involving a refugee who had been offended by a Hungarian journalist- Osama Abdul Mohsen, who appeared to be a terrorist. The story of this Syrian refugee, who had become a soccer coach in Spain, reached his homeland, where the Party of Syrian Kurds declared that Mohsen did in fact have “sporting motivations”, but had participated in military operations on the side of radical Islamists. To prove this the Kurdish portal presented a picture of Mohsen from his already deleted Facebook page, where he declared himself to be a member of Al Nusra Front, a radical organization and the Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda. As a result, the Syrian Kurd Party is now accusing the newly made coach of participation in cruel suppression of a revolt in the city of El Camishla in 2004 where 50 Kurds were killed.

It is certainly quite difficult to estimate the real number of radical Islamists in the flow of the thousands of illegal immigrants who are arriving in Europe. But for this very reason it is essential to adjust the immigration control and identification of these refugees. This question undoubtedly cannot be solved with the help of the so called “moderate Syrian oppositionists”, whom Washington and London like so much, since considerable numbers of the refugees have actual close operational links with ISIS, Al-Qaeda, Al Nusra Front and other radical formations. Close cooperation and dialogue with the legitimate Syrian authorities, the Kurdish representatives and other formations in Syria and Iraq who have been combating with radical Islamists and fighters that are supported from abroad for more than just a year, will give the solution the problem, whether or not it is pleasant for Washington which brought the Middle East into chaos.

Vladimir Platov, an expert on the Middle East, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook” .