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Long Before Brussels, ISIS Sent Terror Operatives to Europe

(New York Times) Rukmini Callimachi - In the two years before the deadly assaults in Paris last November and in Brussels this month, Islamic State dispatched at least 21 operatives trained in Syria to carry out small attacks meant to test and stretch Europe's security apparatus, according to court proceedings, interrogation transcripts and records of European wiretaps obtained by the New York Times. Yet local authorities repeatedly discounted each successive plot, describing them as isolated or random acts, the connection to the Islamic State either overlooked or played down. "They have been contemplating external attacks ever since the group moved into Syria in 2012," said Lt.-Gen. (ret.) Michael T. Flynn, who ran the Defense Intelligence Agency from 2012 to 2014. "All of the signals were there," said Michael S. Smith II, a counterterrorism analyst. "For anyone paying attention, these signals became deafening by mid-2014."
2016-03-29 00:00:00
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