Paris attacks exposed holes in European security

Paris — To carry out the attacks that left 130 people dead in Paris this month, the killers relied on a cunning awareness of the weaknesses at the heart of the European security services charged with stopping them.

Poor information-sharing among intelligence agencies, a threadbare system for tracking suspects across open borders and an unmanageably long list of homegrown extremists to monitor all gave the Paris plotters an opening to carry out the deadliest attack on French soil in more than half a century.

Two weeks later, European security experts say the flaws in the continent's defenses are as conspicuous as ever, with no clear plan for fixing them.

“We lack the most obvious tools to deal with this threat,” said Jean-Charles Brisard, chairman of the Paris-based Center for the Analysis of Terrorism. “We're blind.”

With the Syrian war raging on the continent's doorstep and thousands of Europe's own citizens traveling to and from the battlefield under the influence of a spellbindingly effective propaganda campaign, Brisard's bleak assessment is widely shared.

The mismatch between the scale of the threat and Europe's patchwork response has contributed to a grim resignation among counterterrorism professionals: Even after a series of terrorist strikes this year — including two bursts of mayhem in Paris, deadly shootings in Copenhagen and a would-be assault on train passengers foiled by off-duty U.S. servicemen — another large-scale attack in Europe is almost inevitable.

“We have to figure out what went wrong and fix it as soon as possible. Because one thing is for sure: Islamic State will try to hit Europe again,” said a senior European intelligence official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Unlike in the United States after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, when American officials vowed to do whatever it took to prevent a repeat, Europe's leaders can offer few guarantees. They face enormous structural holes in their security networks, and they have few obvious solutions to a threat more potent than any the continent has confronted in decades.

Authorities confirm one of the Paris attackers came through Greece

The Paris attackers freely exploited those flaws and offered a possible guide to others who could follow in their blood-saturated wake.

Coordination between European intelligence services is poor, with no comprehensive, shared list of suspected extremists. So the attackers hopped freely and frequently over unguarded European Union borders, with at least five also traveling to Syria and back.

Most had already been flagged as potential security threats. But so had tens of thousands of others — 20,000 in France alone — and the plotters were careful not to stand out or give law enforcement an excuse to arrest them.

“We have to figure out what went wrong and fix it as soon as possible. Because one thing is for sure: Islamic State will try to hit Europe again.”

A SENIOR EUROPEAN INTELLIGENCE OFFICIAL