Rising terrorism has Europol eyeing change

BRUSSELS, April 11 (UPI) -- The international police agency Europol is seeking additional powers to help it fight an increasingly serious terrorist threat to European Union members.

After a recent report from the European law enforcement group showed that nearly 500 terrorist attacks occurred in 2006 in EU states, Deutsche Welle said that Europol had asked for a broader mandate to combat the growing threat.

"The mandate is currently limited to organized crime, which means that in each individual case we have to demonstrate a link or connection to local structures before we pass on the data," Europol chief Max-Peter Ratzel told the European parliament on Tuesday.

Ratzel said that while most of the 2006 terrorist attacks were minor and limited in their scope, failed Islamic extremist attacks were oriented towards inflicting maximum casualties.

The EU Observer said that the Europol report showed that such extremists also represented half of the arrests made in the European Union in 2006 regarding terrorist threats.