London, 19 July (AKI) - The Western troops presence in Iraq is just one element in the complex cocktail of factors motivating potential Islamic terrorists in Europe, according to a London-based security expert, Jean-Yves Haine. As European leaders seek common anti-terror strategies - Italy's foreign minister Gianfranco Fini was in London on Tuesday for talks with Britain's Jack Straw - Haine said the real danger was the return of European citizens or integrated immigrants who had fought with the Iraqi insurgency.
"When they come back, they are perfect recruiters, and that for me is the real danger of Iraq, the flow- back effect," Haine told Adnkronos International (AKI).
Haine, a European security expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in London said EU leaders are grappling with the fact that Europe is both a base and a target for Islamic terrorism: "This means the fight against them is extremely difficult, precisely because we have got people in Europe who are travelling freely."
In terms of the lessons Italy and other European nations can learn from the 7 July bombings in London, Haine noted the blasts were caused by British nationals - "some of them perfect products of the Western education system" - who had fallen into an extremist form of Islamic jihad triggered also by foreign elements.
"The danger for European Union countries is that you have European nationals going into Iraq to be part of insurgency. They acquire knowledge of explosive devices, are trained as fighters, and as a result they have an aura among some susceptible young people," said Haine.
"The London bombing shows that profiling these people is extremely difficult," Haine added. Unlike other terror formations that European countries have had to face - such as the Irish Republican Army (IRA) or the Basque separatist group ETA - the new Islamic terror militants do not follow a 'campaign pattern', he said.
Haine pointed to the divergence in Europe between law enforcement and justice regarding terrorism, noting that "the level of proof you require at a judicial level is very different from the level of proof that is obtained at a police and intelligence level".
Various cases in EU nations in which Muslims accused of international terror conspiracies have been acquitted because proof was not sufficient for the high defendant protective justice systems indicates the problem is real.
"One of the consequences of terror attacks is that reactions and solutions in Europe tend firstly to be nationalist, for example France decided to suspend the Schengen accords [on the free movement of people and goods]. Answers must be collective, not all of them - intelligence does not need a framework of 25 - but the key ones, like border controls"
"Europe must not become a fortress. The point of the Schengen accord is strengthening external borders, because once you are in you can travel everywhere. For that reason, there must be more resources, more cooperation, more staff," he added.
However, Haine says while preventing a terror attack,and profiling potential suspects is extremely difficult, the handling of the London bombs offers some important lessons in terms of disaster management.
"Consequence management is extremely important. Those bombs became part of a scenario that had been rehearsed over and over by services in London" Haine added.
Their key strength, which other EU members could learn from, was cooperation between the various services. "You have to have emergency rescue teams ready and able to respond, hospitals on alert, dedicated safe radio frequencies for communication - the coordination of police, emergency teams, transport officials and the interior ministry is crucial," he concluded.
