French Intelligence Tracking 400 'targets' believed to be in terror sleeper cells.

Paris last Summer

French Intelligence Tracking 400 'targets' believed to be in terror sleeper cells.(DS).

PARIS: France is tracking hundreds of people believed to belong to possible sleeper cells for terror organizations like Al-Qaeda or ISIS, the country’s top security official said.

In an interview with the Associated Press, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve laid out what has become an increasingly urgent question for European intelligence services: How to trace the moment when someone transforms from a disgruntled criminal or a disaffected citizen into a terrorist, and how to block those first steps toward radicalization.

“Four hundred targets have been identified by our intelligence services that are more or less sleeper cells, affiliated or in relation with Al-Qaeda-type organizations, that can strike like the Kouachi brothers,” Cazeneuve said late Monday.

Cazeneuve said he wants new measures to give intelligence services more leeway to monitor suspects’ electronic communications. He is heading to the United States Wednesday to try and persuade Internet giants to step up and help stem extremists’ ability to use propaganda videos to recruit and indoctrinate new followers.

Facebook, Twitter, Apple and Google – all major vectors for increasingly sophisticated jihadi clips targeting potential followers in the West – will be among his stops in Silicon Valley.

“Ninety percent of those who commit terrorist acts fall into it after regularly consulting websites or blogs that call for or provoke terrorism,” Cazeneuve said.

France also is pushing to treat jihadi material on the Internet like child porn, a task that before the attacks in Paris was getting scant traction but now seems to have caught the attention of Europe’s top security officials.

“Everyone agrees now that legislation that prevents the diffusion of child pornography is protecting citizens from crime. It is the same for terrorism,” Cazeneuve said.

“Calling for anti-Semitism, calling for crimes, calling for murder, calling for the killing of Jews or journalists – that’s not about freedom of expression. That is a criminal act.”

Hmmmm.....I feel that the 400 is only the tip of the iceberg, only 30% of those who left to join ISIS in Iraq or Syria were known to authorities before they left. I think the same applies for those remaining in France. The Islamic State asked in a previous message that would be suicide bombers to stay put and not to come to Iraq and Syria. It's a timebomb waiting to exploded.The riots in Paris last Summer were just appetizers. Read the full story here.