December 13,
2008: Britain, and some other European countries with large Moslem populations,
have reduced the number of their Moslem citizens trying to go off and join the
Taliban or other Islamic terrorist organizations, by monitoring the flights of
likely "volunteers" and intercepting them along the way. There,
embassy or security officials have a chat with the lads and convince them to
return home. This involves a bit of profiling, but Europeans are less uptight
about this than Americans.
The
terrorist recruitment networks are aware of this "interception and
interrogation" tactic, and have tried to get around it. Typically,
recruits are instructed to take several different flights to Pakistan, buying
tickets along the way. But the counter-terrorism agencies quickly became aware
of this, and have adjusted their tracking systems as much as possible.
Islamic
radicals in European recruit impressionable young men in Mosques, or other
places where young Moslems congregate. The recruiters have to do it discreetly
these days, because security forces are well aware of the recruiting networks
and methods. U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan have been sharing information,
for years, about Moslems from Europe, Australia and North America being
captured or killed. But Western countries cannot shut down all the recruiters
without violating the human rights of some Islamic radicals.
