EU: Profiling Mosque's To Fight Homegrown Terror

European Security Officials Back Plan To Profile Mosques In Fight Against Homegrown Terror

The Associated Press
Published: May 12, 2007
IHT

VENICE, Italy: Security officials from Europe's largest countries on Saturday threw their weight behind the EU Commission's plans to map out mosques on the continent to identify imams who preach radical Islam that raises the threat of homegrown terrorism.

The project, to be finished by the fall, will focus on the roles of imams, their training, their ability to speak in the local language and their source of funding, EU Justice and Home Affairs Commissioner Franco Frattini told a news conference.

Italian Interior Minister Guiliano Amato said Europe had ample experience with the "misuse of mosques, which instead of being places of worship are used for other ends.

"This is bringing about a situation that involves all of our countries and involves the possibility of attacks and developing of networks that use one country to prepare an attack in another," Amato said, after a meeting in Venice of interior ministers and security officials from six European countries and the United States.

Frattini also emphasized the need of strengthened dialogue with the Islamic communities "to avoid sending messages that incite hate and violence..."