Dutch intelligence sees wars in Gaza and Ukraine as triggers for terrorist threats

ZOETERMEER, Netherlands – The Dutch national intelligence agency said on Tuesday that threats targeting the Netherlands are increasingly linked to global turmoil, including the wars in Gaza and Ukraine.

Although the number of terrorist attacks across Europe has declined in recent years, the General Intelligence and Security Service, in its annual report, said the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza and the destruction of a Quran outside parliament last year they are “trigger events” for extremists. .

“The terrorist threat is serious right now,” the agency’s director general, Erik Akerboom, told the Associated Press.

Akerboom said he was particularly concerned about large events, noting that the agency is working closely with French authorities to prevent incidents during the Paris Olympics this summer.

In December, the Dutch counterterrorism agency raised the country’s threat alert to the second-highest level due to concerns about the Islamic State group’s Khorasan affiliates, Akerboom said. IS-K, a Central Asian affiliate, was responsible for the attack on a concert hall on the outskirts of Moscow that killed at least 133 people in March.

According to the new report, “global jihadism has been the biggest terrorist threat for years in the Netherlands.” Incidents like the one last April, when an anti-Islam activist tore up pages of the Quran in front of the Dutch parliament building, have put the Netherlands on the target map.

About a dozen terrorist attacks were foiled by authorities in Europe last year, and in four cases the suspects were arrested in the Netherlands, according to the report. None of these attacks focused on the Netherlands, according to Akerboom.

The Dutch also see threats from China, in particular cyber attacks, as a major concern. Akerboom said China is producing more hackers to break into Dutch systems than the Dutch can produce to defend them. The security service cited China as the biggest threat to the country’s economic security.

Russia also continues to pose a risk to the Netherlands amid Moscow’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine. The so-called peace protests in Amsterdam, which called on the Dutch to stop sending weapons to Ukraine, included protesters paid by Russian sources to attend and who were given prefabricated slogans, the security service said.

The Netherlands is of particular interest to Moscow, in part because of the international institutions based there, including the International Criminal Court. The Hague-based court is investigating crimes in Ukraine and has issued arrest warrants for President Vladimir Putin and other Russians.