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Top official's warning: Huge risk of terrorist attacks in Europe over Christmas
EU Security Risk: "There is a huge risk of terrorist attacks in the European Union," EU home affairs commissioner Ylva Johansson said.
Europe faces a “huge risk of terrorist attacks" over the Christmas holiday period amid Israel-Hamas war, the European Union's home affairs commissioner warned as French investigators probe a fatal attack near the Eiffel Tower in Paris. "With the war between Israel and Hamas, and the polarisation it causes in our society, with the upcoming holiday season, there is a huge risk of terrorist attacks in the European Union," EU home affairs commissioner Ylva Johansson said, adding, “We saw (it happening) recently in Paris, unfortunately we have seen it earlier as well.”
She also said that the European Commission will provide an additional 30 million euros ($32.5 million) to help bolster security in vulnerable areas, especially places of worship.
The suspect- Armand Rajabpour-Miyandoab- in the Eiffel Tower attack swore allegiance to Hamas before stabbing a German-Filipino tourist to death and injuring two other people with a hammer, it was reported.
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Armand Rajabpour-Miyandoab, a French national born in 1997, killed a 23-year-old German-Filipino man with two blows from a hammer and four stab wounds from a knife close to the Eiffel Tower increasing concerns in France over the risk of Islamist attacks, barely half a year away from the 2024 summer Olympic Games.
France's interior minister Gerald Darmanin said, “There was clearly a failure, not from the point of view of his monitoring by the intelligence services, but a psychiatric failure. The attacker had an acute mental illness. Doctors said on several occasions that he was doing better, was more normal and could be free.”
German interior minister Nancy Faeser sent her condolences to France over the attack saying that it highlights “just how acute and how serious the threat posed by Islamist terrorism is currently in the EU.”
“The war in Gaza and Hamas' terror are exacerbating this situation,” she said.
