As ISIS Threatens Europe, The Netherlands Cut Intelligence Funding.

As ISIS Threatens Europe, The Netherlands Cut Intelligence Funding. HT: TIP. By Abigail R. Esman.

First, they warn the threat of terrorism has never been so dire.Then they cut the funds to fight it.

This is what has happened in the Netherlands, where experts say 'homegrown jihadism" is not only growing, but changing, largely as a result of the war in Syria.

More than 100 Dutch Muslims have joined the resistance battling dictator Bashar al-Assad, most of them becoming members of terrorist groups Jabhat al-Nusra, an al-Qaida affiliate, or the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the most violent of the Islamic terrorist groups, now waging a new war in Iraq.

Now at least 30 of those Dutch youth have returned home, but the country's intelligence agency can't track them. Budget cuts have crippled their ability to keep pace.

And yet, despite this, Interior Minister Ronald Plasterk is calling for an additional €70 million in cuts – this when the country's terror alert is at its second-highest level and the number of Salafist, or radical and often violent Muslims, is on the rise.

Indeed, Europol reports that in 2013, "Al Qaeda and like-minded terrorist groups abroad continued to encourage self-organized attacks within the EU, aiming for indiscriminate casualties." Read the full story here.