Report: Europe neglects far right

OSLO, Norway, April 17 (UPI) -- Experts say European intelligence agencies have ignored far-right groups like those that inspired Anders Behring Breivik, who is on trial for killing 77 people.

Hope Not Hate, a group based in London, released a report Sunday that said the right-wing extremists are focused on what they perceive as the threat of radical Islam, the EUobserver reported. The report identified 300 influential individuals and groups in Europe and North America.

"Post-911, all major authorities have themselves in the EU focused on the direct threat of Islamic terrorism while they took their eye off the ball on the radicalization of Europeans," Daniel Hodges, a spokesman for the group, said Monday.

Breivik went on trial this week in Oslo. He has admitted setting off a bomb that killed eight people in Oslo on July 22, 2011, followed by a shooting spree that killed 69 young people at a political summer camp on an island.

The Hope Not Hate report found links between the European far right and their counterparts in the United States. The most important may be David Horowitz, whose Freedom Center funds European groups, the report said.

The European right has also found allies among Christian fundamentalists on both sides of the Atlantic. At the same time, the Europeans are less socially conservative, often supporting gay rights.