LONDON: Militant networks are on a recruiting drive across Europe for potential suicide bombers in Iraq, according to US and European police and security sources. The claim comes amid evidence that the high number of recent attacks is forcing terrorist leaders into a drive for new volunteers.

Analysis of recent patterns of activity, based on tracing the identities of suicide bombers killed in Iraq, indicates that Europe is experiencing the sharpest growth in the recruitment of suicide bombers in comparison with North Africa, the Middle East and Asia, although those areas still supply the largest numbers of jihadis.

Evidence of the rise in recruitment in Europe has emerged as concern grows that sympathy for the conflict is spreading to mainstream Islamic communities that have thus far rejected violence. There are fears of an ‘Afghanistan effect’ in a new generation of young men, inspiring them to fight the Americans in Iraq in the same way that a previous generation flocked to fight the Russians.

In the past six months, old and dormant networks — including some that had been concerned with violence in north Africa, others with the war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, and others in criminality — have been reactivated across Europe.

Some intelligence sources believe that there are now up to 21 networks active in Europe, some of them linked to more than 60 groups in the Maghreb area of north Africa, involved in training and recruitment of volunteers, many for suicide bombing missions in Iraq.

Some analysts argue that there is a general ‘waxing and waning’ of activity as networks come together and then are broken up — but all agree that recruitment in Europe is increasing, with ‘talent spotters’ taking a particular interest in those with European passports who find it easier to travel.

It is believed that some networks may actually hold a ‘register’ of those who have expressed an interest and who are gradually being ‘tapped up’ for missions.

Analysis of the jihadis who have travelled to Iraq and either died or been picked up also shows worrying trends.

A typical volunteer is a well-educated, upwardly mobile man in his mid-to-late twenties from a middle-class background and a stable family, and without a strong religious upbringing.— Dawn/The Observer News Service