TerrorismFrance, Britain Fearful of Resurgent Jihadist Threat After Lockdown

By Jamie Dettmer

Nearly 200 jihadists imprisoned in France are due to be released over the next two years and French security officials are pressing French lawmakers to approve fresh antiterrorist measures to impose enhanced restrictions on those freed and to give police new legal powers to fight terrorism. 

British officials, likewise, are fearful of a resurgent jihadist threat and are considering overhauling Britain’s 650-year-old treason law to make it easier to prosecute militants returning from Syria and Iraq.  

And it is not only returnees from the Levant who are preoccupying European security officials.  

During the pandemic jihadist assaults have subsided — the consequence, officials think, of society-wide lockdowns and other travel restrictions that have stymied would-be attackers. The lack of crowds and public events have also deprived militants of high-profile targets. But in the meantime there has been increased activity online by radical Islamists, according to security officials. 

Neil Basu, assistant commissioner for specialist operations at London’s Metropolitan Police told The Times newspaper this week that he fears large numbers of vulnerable and marginalized youngsters have been trapped online during lockdowns and surfing increased amounts of propaganda that have been posted online during the pandemic.

“I don’t know what effect that is going to have on people who are vulnerable to that kind of message, who may want to take action, who may have been sitting on that suppressed feeling for 12 months or more,” he said. 

New Wave Alert
The possibility of a new wave of recruits and so-called lone-wolf assailants combined with the release of dozens of jailed jihadists is a toxic mix, say counter-terrorism officials. They say they will be stretched to maintain surveillance of released jihadists let alone trying to detect radicalization online.  

The last eight attacks on French soil were carried out by assailants who were previously unknown to French security services — including last month’s stabbing by a Tunisian immigrant of a female civilian police employee in Paris and the murder in October of middle-school teacher Samuel Paty in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, a suburb of the French capital.

Of the 500 jihadists currently in French prisons, most were convicted for joining the Islamic State or al-Qaida in Syria and Iraq, or assisting others to do so. Fifty-eight are scheduled to be released this year after serving an average five-year sentence. And more than another 100 are due to be freed by 2023.    

New Controls 
New counterterrorism measures before the National Assembly would give the French security services