“two Swedish fans were shot dead. The alleged gunman, named as Abdesalem Lassoued, posted two videos online, in which he claimed to be a “fighter for Allah” and that he was a supporter of Islamic State.
Here the script is depressingly familiar. Reports in the English and Belgian media state the gunman was Tunisian, had been in the country since 2016, and was “known to the police”. His asylum application had been rejected in 2020, but a request to leave Belgium had not been enacted as Lassoued had moved house. A subsequent arrest for making threats on social media was working its way through the Belgian legal system.
It would be easy to blame some of these problems on Belgium itself. Districts of Brussels have long been allowed to opt out from the rule of law, and the nation’s multiple police forces are hardly a by-word for competence. But the situation is little better elsewhere. On Friday, France witnessed its second murder of a school teacher by an Islamist. Here the suspect was again ‘known to the police’ as an alleged extremist and has a brother in prison for terrorist offences.
Britain is no better. In November 2021, an asylum seeker in Liverpool died while attempting to blow up the city’s women’s hospital. Emad Al-Swealmeen had originally entered Britain on a tourist visa, claiming he wanted to see Britain’s Got Talent be recorded in Belfast. Al-Swealmeen was still in the UK six years after his asylum claim was rejected.
Huge numbers of primarily young men, have crossed Europe’s leaky borders since 2015. Research for Policy Exchange earlier this year found 83% of those crossing the channel on small boats in 2022, were male. We know next to nothing about who they are or what they believe. In many cases they move to communities where levels of integration is already poor, and extremist ideals have currency.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/facts-now-clear-mass-illegal-140725533.html