There are reports the Islamic State has chosen a new target – and some say that target could be Great Britain.
British intelligence is tracking more than 50 jihadists reportedly planning upwards of 20 terror attacks against the United Kingdom.
Coming after the attacks in Brussels and Paris, a new report in The Sun newspaper suggests the Islamic State wants to prove it can strike any major capital, and it has authorities playing catch up.
"This is the most serious terrorist threat we've faced in Europe for at least a decade and even in the last six months, I think," said Rob Wainright, with Europol, the European Union's law enforcement agency.
"We're faced by a new determined strategy by the Islamic State to take the fight to Europe, to our streets, with a new aggressive form of international terrorism," he said.
Even though counterterrorism officials have been tracking potential terrorists, it's clear that officials underestimated the size and scope of the terror network.
Reports indicate that at least 50 ISIS supporters are working as baggage handlers, cleaners and catering staff at the Brussels airport, with security badges and access to planes. Airport police say they warned about this before the attack.
"We are working with a fragmented picture of this dispersed network of terrorists," Wainright explained. "At least 5,000 European nationals who we think have been radicalized by IS, have gone to Syria and Iraq, some of whom have come back. [It's] very difficult to monitor all of them all the time – very difficult to identify always who the real terrorists are."
And the terror threat is taking a new toll on France. One report says a lot of the wealthy are leaving. Taxes were already too high, but now they are afraid of Islamic terrorism, too.
The Brussels attacks were yet another wakeup call, but there are signs the European Left still hasn't gotten the message.
Following the attacks in the Belgian capital, several articles by left-leaning intellectuals blamed the terrorism on European society's alleged unfair and inhumane treatment of Muslims – and not on radical Islam itself.
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