Why Syrian refugee passport found at Paris attack scene must be treated with caution

There are good reasons to wait for the full facts instead of jumping to the conclusion that Isis infiltrators are exploiting Europe’s refugee crisis

One of the most chilling details from the Paris attacks is that the passport of a Syrian refugee was found on or near the body of a dead suicide bomber. The Greek government has subsequently said that someone using the passport was among the refugees who landed in the Greek islands in early October, and the Serbian government says the passport was again used to cross its southern border a few days later.

This development has increased fears of Isis infiltrators among the thousands of desperate refugees arriving in Europe. Allies of the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, have voiced security concerns over her open-door policy and one, the Bavarian finance minister Markus Söder, told a German newspaper: “The days of uncontrolled immigration and illegal entry can’t continue just like that. Paris changes everything.”

The new government in Poland is using the news as a reason to back out of an agreement to take in several thousand Syrians. And the front page of the British newspaper the Mail on Sunday stated definitively that the attackers “sneaked into Europe as fake Syrian refugees”.

These fears should not be dismissed out of hand. Thousands of refugees arrive on the Greek islands every day. While each has to be registered before they can make it to the Greek mainland, the process is a brief formality rather than a lengthy investigation. In registrations witnessed by the Guardian during the summer, refugees simply presented identification to the Greek authorities, before being allowed to leave minutes later without anything like a background check.

Since October, each arrival has also been fingerprinted but officials still do not have the time nor the resources to assess whether or not they’re connected to militant groups. Should a would-be terrorist want to reach Europe via the Greek islands, it would be relatively simple to do.

But there are several reasons why it’s worth waiting until all the facts are known before making too strong a link between the attacks and the refugee crisis. The first is a general one: on at least 12 occasions, Isis has actually criticised refugees for fleeing to Europe. “For those who want to blame the attacks on Paris on refugees, you might want to get your facts straight,” wrote Aaron Zelin, an analyst of jihad, in an online commentary about the 12 outbursts. “The reality is, [Isis] loathes that individuals are fleeing Syria for Europe. It undermines [Isis’s] message that its self-styled caliphate is a refuge.” It’s therefore unlikely that the vast majority of Syrians fleeing to Europe are Isis supporters, since their actions are in obvious contravention of the group’s creed.

The second reason for caution is more specific. Investigators still need to verify the Syrian passport was carried by an attacker rather than a dead bystander (one Egyptian passport-holder initially believed to be an assailant turned out to be an injured victim). They will then need to be certain that the passport’s carrier was the same as the passport’s legitimate owner.

It’s possible that it was stolen. Since the possession of a Syrian passport makes it easier to claim asylum in Europe, there is a busy trade in stolen Syrian documents. Syrians interviewed on Greece’s border with Macedonia have described how they were mugged for their passports after leaving the Greek islands as they tried to make their way north through the Balkans. Such passports can be sold on for as much as several thousand euros, in a trade that the EU’s border agency acknowledges is a growing problem. Forgeries are also common; a Dutch journalist recently had one made in the name of his prime minister.

 

 

THE GUARDIAN