Islamist terrorism rising in Europe, says Macron

TIRANA: Europe is seeing a rise of “Islamist terrorism” and all states are threatened, French President Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday during a visit to Albania, after Islamist killings of a teacher in France and two Swedish football fans in Belgium.

Macron spoke a day after a 45-year-old attacker, who identified himself as a member of IS and claimed responsibility in a video posted online, killed the two Swedes fans in Brussels. In Paris, a French antiterrorism prosecutor said on Tuesday A 20-year-old man who fatally stabbed the scho- olteacher and wounded three others in the northern city of Arras on October 13 had pledged allegiance to IS.

“We saw it again yesterday in Brussels. All European states are vulnerable, and there is indeed a resurgence of Islamist terrorism,” Macron said after talks with Albanian PM Edi Rama, adding, “Here, we reiterate our solidarity with our Belgian friends.”