EU threat warning

The EU's top counter-terrorism official said yesterday all countries in Europe faced a serious threat of attack, regardless of whether they supported the Iraq war or not.

"The threat is real and it is serious," said Gijs de Vries, appointed the European Union's counter-terrorism coordinator after suspected al Qaeda-linked militants killed 191 people in bombings on packed passenger trains in Madrid on March 11.

"We cannot exclude that there will be at some point in time another major attack in Europe," Mr de Vries told Reuters in an interview.

"Unfortunately we must reckon with the possibility that each country in Europe could be a victim of an attack. All countries of the European Union are vulnerable, regardless of their presence in Iraq."

Mr de Vries said national security services had been successful in rooting out militants linked to al Qaeda, but smaller and more elusive groups still remained inside Europe.

"Al Qaeda has lost much of its leadership through good cooperation of the security services and the judicial authorities," said Mr de Vries.

"But there are... smaller, looser groups that claim they are inspired by al Qaeda, but not necessarily directed by al Qaeda," he said.

"We should be aware that much potential risk emanates from within (Europe) and not immediately from people travelling to Europe from elsewhere."

Mr de Vries said that as well as "radical Muslim elements", threats of attack were also posed by domestic groups in Europe such as Northern Ireland's Real IRA and the Basque separatist ETA movement in Spain.

EU leaders, who have backed US President George W. Bush's war on terror, will review the bloc's counter-terrorism efforts when they hold a summit in Brussels on June 17-18.

After the Madrid bombings, EU leaders called on their security services to increase cooperation and asked Mr de Vries and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana to draw up plans to improve intelligence sharing within the bloc.