Returning jihadists pose great threat to Europe: British think tank

Security services across Europe are "deeply worried" about jihadi terrorists returning from Syria and Iraq, experts at British think tank International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) said Wednesday.

"The rise of ISIS (also known as the Islamic State or IS) and the flow of jihadists in and out of various Middle East theaters of war has become a major preoccupation for European states," IISS director general John Chipman told a press conference at the launch of "The Military Balance 2015," the latest in an annual series which reviews global military capabilities and defense economics.

"Intelligence services have to concentrate heavily on the threats posed to European societies by returning jihadists," Chipman added, noting that the threat from extreme Islamic terrorists had grown in the past year.

Toby Dodge, consulting senior fellow for the Middle East at IISS, said IS had reached the limits of its capacity in Iraq, and was being contained by a variety of forces including the peshmerga - the Kurdish regional government - and the Iraqi government and its allies, but returning jihadists posed a serious threat to Europe.

Dodge added: "The security services across Europe are deeply worried about jihadi terrorists returning from Syria and Iraq. The threat is certainly profound in Europe, it is constrained in Syria and Iraq and it is expanding in the wider Middle East region."

Dodge said the situation in Iraq and Syria was caused by political problems and that IS was a symptom of that and not the cause.

He added that the conflict in Iraq and Syria was likely to last for the next five to ten years.

Turning to Ukraine, IISS experts said the collapse of trust between the West and Russia over the Ukraine crisis now challenged the post-Cold War status quo in Europe.

"The events in the Ukraine over the last year and the erosion of virtually all trust between Western powers and Russia have challenged the post-Cold War European settlement," Chipman said.

"The way in which the Ukrainian crisis is handled will set the tone for how the broader relationship with Russia unfolds," he added.

Nick Redman, IISS editorial director, said any agreement reached between the powers in the conflict could lead to a reshaped Ukraine, which might result in a confederal arrangement similar to Bosnia. Enditem