Israel’s intelligence agencies have stepped up cooperation with their foreign counterparts leading to the prevention of dozens of terror attacks around the world.
Following the coordinated terror attacks in Paris that killed 130 people in November 2015, the intelligence branch of Israel’s General Staff made a decision to concentrate more on collecting information from foreign terrorists who had ties to Middle Eastern terror organizations, Haaretz reported Wednesday.
Since the intelligence branch shifted the focus of priorities, it has improved its cooperation with European spy agencies particularly in targeting Sunni terror groups such as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (ISIS).
It is believed that Israeli intelligence was behind preventing an ISIS attack against a soccer match between Israel and Albania last year.
Israeli security officials believe that the United States-led campaign against ISIS in northeastern Syria will soon defeat the terrorist group in Raqqa, the capital of its so-called caliphate. The possible defeat of ISIS in Raqqa, however does raise concerns in Israel’s intelligence community that lacking their capital, some number of ISIS fighters will relocate to the Sinai and join Wilayat Sinai, the ISIS affiliate located there, raising the risk of greater violence against Israel.
Despite greater cooperation of Israel’s intelligence community with European agencies to fight ISIS, Israel still sees Iran and its proxies, especially the possibility of Shiite militias moving to the Golan Heights, as a bigger threat than the Sunni terror groups.
By: The Tower
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