Tightening the Net

A series of sweeps across Spain netted a clutch of suspected Islamist extremists, but also fanned concerns that despite increased police pressure, jihadist activity has actually grown in recent months.

Some 500 members of the security forces staged coordinated raids across Spain and its northern Moroccan enclave of Ceuta last week, taking in 16 alleged members of radical Islamist groups. Five were charged with involvement in the March 11, 2004, Madrid bombings that killed 191 and injured over 1,000. Spanish authorities say the other 11 men are suspected of recruiting radicals to join the insurgency fighting U.S.-led forces in Iraq. French intelligence officials say around 55 Islamist radicals — including some who were recruiting fighters for Iraq — have been arrested in France during the first five months of the year, versus 76 for all of 2004.

Do more arrests mean Europe is more or less safe? A French counterterror official says recruitment in Europe of fighters for Iraq has "gone from a trickle to become quite significant." But that additional activity has left clandestine networks more vulnerable to detection by police. "The public understandably gets scared seeing more Islamist extremists arrested in their midst," he remarks. "But those who should be more worried are in places where very few radicals are apprehended. Because they're out there."