Europol Report: U.K. has the highest rate of returning Islamist fighters in Europe

European police chiefs have warned that the United Kingdom has by far the highest rate of “exceptionally dangerous” returning Islamist fighters in the whole of Europe. In fact, about half of British citizens who made the journey to Iraq and Syria to fight for ISIS have now returned to the United Kingdom.

Europol – the law enforcement agency of the European Union – has warned that the returned Islamists fighters who’ve trained in and who’ve likely seen battle in the Middle East are “exceptionally dangerous”.

“Their training and experience — such as handling weapons and explosives — makes them exceptionally dangerous,” authors of the report wrote.

As per Europol’s yearly report, 45 percent of the British jihadists who traveled to Iraq and Syria during the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) have now made their way safely back to the United Kingdom.

This means that the U.K. has the largest proportion of returned Islamist foreign fighters in the entire EU. In second place was Germany with 33 percent of its citizens who traveled to Iraq, Syria, and the surrounding area have returned. The Netherlands and Spain were tied for third place with the next highest proportion of returning ISIS fighters – both with 18 percent.

The report cautioned that returning foreign fighters along with their radicalized supporters pose a significant and persistent threat to the national security of European Union member states.

“Furthermore, EU Member States’ ongoing concern is that these individuals can perpetuate and strengthen their networks both nationally and internationally,” the authors of the report wrote.

“Those that have returned garner kudos with like-minded individuals,” the report authors continued.

In a piece by The Telegraph¸ Bill Gartner reported that only 40 of the 400 returned jihadists have been prosecuted for their terrorist activities in the Middle East.

In fall of 2017, the now Director of Public Prosecutions Max Hill QC, who at that time was the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation – the government’s supervisory organ on  terrorism laws – said that British government was not looking to prosecute large numbers of returning jihadist fighters, but that they should be ‘reintegrated’ into British society.

In support of his position, Mr. Hill claimed that large percentages of those who traveled abroad to fight for ISIS could have been young people who “traveled out of a sense of naivety, possibly with some brainwashing along the way.” Hill also expressed concern that if the British government did prosecute all returning jihadists that it would risk “losing a generation”.

The Europol report revealed that a total of thirteen people were killed and 46 were injured in attacks by jihadists in 2018.

With respect to domestic terrorism, the report revealed that the U.K had the highest number (60) of completed, failed, or foiled terror attacks in 2018 across Europe, with the second-highest number of arrests for terror-related activities (273). France had the most terror-related arrests with 310.

European countries that had the fewest terror-related arrests were, not surprisingly, central and eastern European countries who have so far refused to capitulate to globalist demands to Islamify and to accept massive numbers of migrants into their countries.

These countries were Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Croatia, and Romania.