The Jihad in Europe

Both France and Belgium have been busy.

Man accused of plotting French terror tied to 2015 Paris attacks ringleader

Reda Kriket, 34, was previously found guilty in absentia by a Belgian court and sentenced to 10 years in prison for being part of a jihadist network, the documents state.

Also convicted in that July 2015 decision was Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the alleged ringleader of the November terror attacks in Paris that killed more than 130 people. 

Abaaoud was killed in a police raid on a Paris-area apartment days after the Paris attacks.

Kriket was arrested Thursday night in a raid in Argenteuil, near Paris.

French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said the terror plot thwarted Thursday was in an "advanced stage" of planning.

. . . .

Since the start of the year, French authorities have arrested 75 people as part of the fight against terrorism. 

Those arrests have led to 37 people being placed under formal investigation and to 28 others being incarcerated, Cazeneuve said.

Brussels attacks: Explosion, gunfire in Belgian police operation

At least six people were arrested overnight in Belgium, while a man in France suspected of being in an "advance stage" of planning his own attack was also detained.

Investigators know of additional plots in Europe, in various stages of planning, linked to the same networks behind November's Paris attacks and the latest ones in Brussels that left 31 people dead and 300 more wounded, according to U.S. counterterrorism officials. 

Those terrorists are tied to ISIS, the Islamist extremist group that's taken over swaths of Syria and Iraq while also lashing out elsewhere around the world.

His government's police forces detained at least six people overnight in raids around Brussels -- the latest, but most likely not the last, such operations in the wake of Tuesday's attacks.

. . . .

Belgium, especially, has come under fire. Interior Minister Jan Jambon offered to resign after acknowledging missed opportunities to stop one of the suicide bombers, Ibrahim El Bakraoui. 

And Prime Minister Charles Michel said he talked with [US Secretary of State, John] Kerry about how "to do better (and) work together to be more efficient."

Michel added, "We need to accept that we need to improve the fight against terrorism in Europe and in Belgium."

The story reports this happened the day of the Belgian airport and subway bombings.

Secretary of State John Kerry vowed the same day that his government will "provide any assistance necessary" to Belgium in the investigation and their shared fight against terrorism.

"We will not be intimidated, we will not be deterred, and we will come back with greater resolve, with greater strength," Kerry said. 

"And we will not rest until we have eliminated your nihilistic beliefs and cowardice from the face of this Earth."

Really?

A BBC story says Europe needs to get its act together.

Ex-CIA director: EU 'gets in way' of security services