‘Extremists part of daily flow into Europe’ says top Nato commander

Violent extremists, foreign fighters, and criminals are part of the daily refugee flow into Europe, the top Nato military commander in Europe told lawmakers, “masking the movement” of these dangerous elements and heightening potential for an attack.

In testimony before the senate armed services committee, US air force general Philip Breedlove said the Islamic State (IS) is “spreading like a cancer” within this mix, “taking advantage of paths of least resistance, threatening European nations” and the US.

Mr Breedlove later told reporters that he has asked for more US forces to be permanently based in Europe, which is facing threats from a more aggressive Russia as well as IS.

He provided no details in his first public comments on the request, but a senior US official said Mr Breedlove has asked for more army troops that could be ready to respond quickly to any crisis or military need.

The official would not say how many troops Mr Breedlove had requested.

The Pentagon has steadily decreased the number of US forces in Europe over the last several years, choosing to shift focus to the Asia Pacific while fighting continues in the Middle East.

But the growing threats from Russia and the IS have raised questions about those decisions.

In response to a question about whether IS will continue to infiltrate refugee flows, Mr Breedlove said: “I think that they are doing that today.”

Mr Breedlove said Russia’s actions in Syria have “wildly exacerbated the problem”.

Despite its public pronouncements, Russia has done little to counter IS but instead has bolstered Syrian president Bashar Assad.

Russia and Mr Assad, Mr Breedlove said, are using migration as a weapon to overwhelm European support structures and break European resolve.

He cited the use of barrel bombs, which are unguided weapons and have no military value, against civilians in Syria.

The only purpose of these indiscriminate attacks is to terrorise Syrian citizens and “get them on the road” and make them problems for other countries, said Mr Breedlove.

In the wake of Syria’s civil war and the rise of IS, the people fleeing Syria and Iraq were what Mr Breedlove described as “legitimate” refugees.

They were escaping civil war, terrorism, and unresponsive governments. But that’s changed in recent months, he said.

“This criminality, the terrorists, and the returning foreign fighters are clearly a daily part of the refugee flow in Europe,” Mr Breedlove said.

He added that reports suggest that about 6,000 foreign fighters have left to join the fight in Syria and Iraq, and that about 1,500 of them have returned to Europe.

The International Organisation for Migration said that almost 130,000 migrants — more than 2,000 each day — have reached Europe by sea since the beginning of this year and 418 have died trying, most drowning in the cold, rough waters.

The number of arrivals in the first two months of 2016 is more than 11 times as many as the same period last year.

The organisation estimated that last year’s total of more than 1m seaborne migrant arrivals likely will be surpassed in 2016, possibly before the end of the summer.

Mr Breedlove said forcing the flow of migrants into Europe fits into Russia’s goal of using nonmilitary means to create divisions in the Nato alliance and the EU.

“What we have seen is that this is putting great pressure on the nations of Europe,” he said.