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Europe terror attackers predate Daesh 'caliphate': FT

Saturday, 26 March 2016 12:26 PM [ Last Update: Sunday, 27 March 2016 4:07 AM ]

A person holds a placard reading “Against terrorism and hatred — Solidarity” during a gathering to pay tribute to the victims of the Brussels attacks on the Place de la Bourse in the central part of the Belgian capital, March 25, 2016. (Photo by AFP)

Many of the attackers in Paris and Brussels went to Syria when the West's policy in the Arab country was exclusively backing militant groups, the Financial Times reports.

There is currently much hype surrounding the fight on Daesh Takfiris which are blamed for terror attacks in Paris and Brussels.

However, the cell behind the attacks had its roots formed in 2013, a year before Daesh captured the city of Raqqah in northern Syria and called itself a "caliphate," the British daily says.

At the time, the US and Europe were largely ambivalent toward militants and many in the West were openly praising those who went to Syria to fight against President Bashar al-Assad as freedom fighters.

In November 2015, attacks in and around the French capital killed a total of 130 people. Thirty-two people were also killed at a metro station and an airport in the Belgian capital earlier this week.

“Some of the most hardened members of the cell" behind the two attacks traveled to join anti-government militancy in Syria before Daesh captured swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq in 2014, the FT report said.

“Najim Laachraoui, whose DNA was found on the Paris suicide belts and who is reported to have blown himself up at Brussels airport on Tuesday, is said by Belgian police to have left for Syria in February 2013,” it said.

That’s before Daesh had even taken Raqqah. According to Iraqi government adviser Hisham al-Hashimi, many of the members of the Brussels-Paris cell arrived in Syria in this period, and that their focus at the time was exclusively fighting in Iraq and Syria.

The file photo shows a combination of two pictures of Najim Laachraoui. (By AFP)

When Daesh gains in Syria started spreading into Iraq, and some major Iraqi cities started falling, the West changed their mind and suddenly began intervening against Daesh.

The US and 65 of its allies have been pounding alleged Daesh positions in Syria and Iraq for the past two years but the campaign has fallen severely short of uprooting the terrorists.

Before 2013, Western policymakers were largely ignoring militants because they were the only ones gaining any ground in the war against the Syrian government.

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