Ireland not immune from terrorist attacks, says EU

IRELAND is just as possible a target of a terrorist outrage as any other European country, the EU's anti-terror chief warned yesterday.

Gijs De Vries said al-Qaida activists and supporters moved between all EU countries and engaged in fundraising in all member states including Ireland.

Mr De Vries also said he intended to highlight the operations of the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) to EU justice ministers as a possible model for targeting terrorist finances.

"The risk of new and major attacks in Europe remains high. No European Union country can consider itself immune to this threat," said Mr De Vries in Dublin yesterday.

The EU Counter-Terrorism Co-ordinator, appointed in the wake of the March 11 atrocities in Madrid, said small countries such as Ireland were no less vulnerable to attack.

"I do not believe that the size of the member states bears a relationship to the threat these member states are facing.

"The threat is directed at those that al-Qaida, and al-Qaida-inspired groups, target for reasons of their own and I don't think size so far is an element in their considerations nor, incidentally, is there a direct relationship with participating in the war in Iraq."

He pointed out German and French citizens had been victims of terrorism even though they did not send military forces to Iraq.

Mr De Vries said there was a wide variety of terrorist groups whose members move quite frequently across EU borders.

He urged parliamentarians to ensure all United Nations anti-terrorism conventions are implemented, such as the UN Convention on the Financing of Terrorism.

"The question of financing is one that relates to all our countries. It's not just a question of looking at the formal banking system but also looking at more informal mechanisms of financial transfer including the abuse to that end of certain Islamic charities."

Fine Gael TD Gay Mitchell, who chairs the Oireachtas sub-Committee on European Scrutiny and who joined Mr De Vries at a press conference yesterday, pointed out that two persons, with suspected links to al-Qaida had their funds, amounting to €250,000, seized two years ago by the Central Bank on the authority of the UN.

Mr De Vries said he was compiling an inventory of models within members states, such as CAB, to present to EU justice ministers with the possibility of replicating them union-wide.