Europol warns IS has ‘new style of combat to target Europe’

The Islamic State has developed a new style of combat to target Europe in particular, the director of the EU's law enforcement agency Rob Wainwright said.

“The group has developed a new combat style capability to carry out a campaign of large-scale terrorist attacks on the global stage, with a particular focus on targeting Europe,” Wainwright said.

Wainwright was speaking as Europol opened its new counter-terrorism centre in The Hague, to seek to improve information exchange and identify the links between terrorism and other criminal sectors, a necessity which was highlighted by the Paris attacks in November that killed 130.

The new unit will have between 40 and 50 experts in counterterrorism, according to the BBC.

Wainwright added that Europe's leaders, had decided to establish "for the first time a dedicated pan-European operational centre to combat terrorism".

According to the BBC, a new Europol report says that IS is preparing more terrorist attacks, including more 'Mumbai-style' attacks, to be executed in member states of the EU, and in France in particular, and which will be primarily directed at soft targets.

Wainwright said more than 5,000 EU nationals had been radicalised fighting abroad and many had returned home and that the centre's priority would be to improve information exchange between EU members.

Europol has some 800 staff at its headquarters in The Hague and it works with law enforcement agencies in the 27 member states and other non-EU partner nations to combat serious crime.