France’s top security official says the country has dismantled 13 jihadi networks recruiting young people for fighting in Syria since fall 2013, but the number of departures keeps growing.
Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said Wednesday that France was committed to stopping the networks, but said about 1,200 citizens have left for Syria, including 400 still in the war zone and about 200 on their way. French fighters make up the largest contingent of Europeans joining Muslim extremists in Iraq and Syria, and security officials fear they will return and attack at home.
Calls by the Islamic State group for lone-wolf attacks in the West have heightened anxiety. A Frenchman who is believed to have fought with the organization is charged in a deadly shooting at a Brussels Jewish museum.
