News analysis: Europe poised to fight terrorism, solutions remain elusive
MUNICH, Feb. 9 (NsNewsWire) — Faced with increasing terror threats, European countries have yet to come up with a strategy to fight the war on terror, which they can not afford to lose.
In an address made at the the 51st Munich Security Conference, which concluded on Sunday, U. S. Secretary of State John Kerry called for joint efforts to fight terrorism and said it must be confronted “with every fiber of our being.”
Kerry’s concern about terrorism has been shared by many participants of the conference. The Munich Security Report 2015 published by the organizing party of the conference featured a report about terrorism with the title “War on Terror: Are We Losing It?”
“The number of jihadist groups has mushroomed in recent years, as have the number of militants and attacks worldwide,” said the report, in which the goal of the war on terror led by the United States has been described as “elusive”, reports Xinhua
Belgium and France have been put on high alert after the militant group Islamic State (IS) warned that it intended to launch terrorist attacks in the two countries. The group, which hardly attracted any attention at the security conference here a year ago, has been the focus of discussion when people talk about terrorism at the security conference this year.
Elisabeth Guigou, president of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the French National Assembly, said that some 1,400 people from France followed the ideology of IS, and 400 people even left France for Iraq.
“I think that we have to ask ourselves what are the reasons for this…” she said.
Andrey V. Kortunov, director general of Russian International Affairs Council, blamed the U.S. for terrorism. According to him, military actions taken by the United States “destroy states”, “unleash radical forces” and terrorism find easy prey in these countries.