(NBC) The vast majority of terror attacks in France were carried out by Islamic radicals who had been known to police or intelligence services, according to a new report by a global security think tank.
Bratislava-based GLOBSEC examined 22 terror incidents in France since 2012. Nearly 80 percent of the people behind those attacks had been on a terror watchlist, and 97 percent had been on the radar of authorities, according to the firm’s new analysis, obtained by NBC News.
The figures included Saïd and Chérif Kouachi, career criminals with long records who killed 12 people in January 2015 in the offices of the satirical weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo in Paris.
The statistics are likely to bolster the longstanding criticism leveled at France and other European countries that authorities are not doing enough to prosecute and imprison those who pose a threat.
