Military Review English Edition July-August 2016 | Page 59

NATO SPECIAL OPERATIONS

(Photo by Peter Andrews, Reuters)

Polish special military force personnel from Grupa Reagowania Operacyjno-Manewrowego (Group [for] Operational Maneuvering Response, or GROM) secure hostages during hostage-rescue training 13 April 2012 as part of preparation for the UEFA Euro 2012 (European
soccer championship) in Gdansk, Poland.

“stealthily taking root” in Europe.13 These established terror networks in Europe will now have a new opportunity
to recruit from this wave of mass migration from Syria
and other parts the Middle East.
Islamic terrorism in Europe is often tied, directly or
indirectly, to immigration and the challenges of societal
integration or the rejection of assimilation, even in the
second and third generations.14 The 2015 refugee crisis
has changed the threat of terrorism in Europe. First,
terrorist organizations such as al-Qaida and IS will likely
attempt to embed terror operatives among the legitimate refugee population for the purpose of conducting
attacks or building a new cadre in Europe.15 Second,
former fighters fleeing or returning from the battlefields
of the Middle East and North Africa will continue to
pose a terror threat. Disillusionment in the rei ntegration
process and the challenges of Western society could lead
these combat-experienced individuals to radicalize and
establish, or re-establish, previously held terror connections.16 The third threat is the potential increase in
second- and third-generation immigrants radicalized
as independent cells or in concert with one of the other
MILITARY REVIEW  July-August 2016

two previously discussed groups.17 In light of the 2015
IS attacks in Paris and the mass migration of refugees
from war-torn countries, it is time for the NATO SOF to
adopt CT as a primary mission.

History of Counterterrorism Units
Historically, the establishment of national-level
CT units and capabilities has always been driven by
terror and crisis. The first impetus for the development of national-level CT capabilities in Europe was
a response to an attack at the 1972 Summer Olympic
Games in Munich, Germany. During the games, a
Palestinian group called Black September entered
the Olympic Village and subsequently kidnapped
and killed several Israeli athletes. Amid the confusion and poorly managed law enforcement response,
German police initiated a rescue attempt that ended in a catastrophic failure, with the deaths of nine
Israeli athletes at the airport. None of the German
police had training in hostage rescue, close-quarters
combat, or sniping. Less than sixty days later, the
German government formed the Grenzschutzgruppe 9
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