The Islamic State group has trained at least 400 fighters to target Europe in deadly waves of attacks, deploying interlocking terror cells like the ones that struck Brussels and Paris with orders to choose the time, place and method for maximum carnage, officials have told The Associated Press.

The network of agile and semiautonomous cells shows the reach of the extremist group in Europe even as it loses ground in Syria and Iraq. The officials, including European and Iraqi intelligence officials and a French lawmaker who follows the jihadi networks, described camps in Syria, Iraq and possibly the former Soviet bloc where attackers are trained to attack the West. Before being killed in a police raid, the ringleader of the Nov. 13 Paris attacks claimed he had entered Europe in a multinational group of 90 fighters, who scattered “more or less everywhere.”

But the biggest break yet in the Paris attacks investigation — the arrest on Friday of fugitive Salah Abdeslam— did not thwart the multipronged attack just four days later on the Belgian capital’s airport and metro that left 31 people dead and an estimated 270 wounded. Three suicide bombers also died. (Read more from “ISIS Has Sent 400 Fighters to Attack Europe, Officials Say” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

By Ruth Halkon. Fears are growing for a priest believed to have been kidnapped by ISIS as sickening reports suggest he may be crucified on Good Friday.

Father Tom Uzhunnalil was seized when four armed militants stormed an old people’s home in Aden in Yemen on March 4.

The gunmen killed 16 people, including four nuns, in the brutal attack on the home run by the in a brutal raid which killed 16 people including four nuns.

No group has come forward to claim responsibility for the kidnap of the priest, who was a member of the Silesian order in of Bangalore, India, but a survivor said ISIS was to blame.

Now reports shared on social media suggest the priest faces being brutally tortured this Friday as Christians mark the day Jesus died. (Read more from “Fears Grow for Priest ‘Kidnapped by ISIS'” HERE)

________________________________

Quantity of Explosive Found in Belgium Surprises Officials

By C. J. Chivers. The announcement by the Belgian authorities that they had confiscated more than 30 pounds of the explosive TATP from a dwelling used by the attackers in Brussels was, in some ways, an expected development. But it contained one detail that bomb-disposal technicians and security officials regarded with surprise: the quantity of the particular explosive involved.

TATP, also known as triacetone triperoxide, is a white, crystalline explosive also used in the attacks in Paris in November, though it caused few casualties compared with the terrorists’ assault rifles. Highly unstable and sensitive to shock, friction and heat, it breaks down quickly in air. And while it can be made with basic chemistry skills and relatively simple equipment, it is more dangerous and tedious to manufacture than a commonly used fertilizer-based explosive, ammonium nitrate, which an American official, citing intelligence shared by Belgium, said the attackers had also used.

Unlike ammonium nitrate, TATP is typically seen in small quantities, not in the tens of pounds. One American official who had reviewed the intelligence related to the bombs in France and the newer intelligence from Belgium said the recovery of more than 30 pounds indicated an increased capacity since the Paris attacks. And that figure did not include any explosive actually used in the bombs that killed 31 people on Tuesday. (Read more from “Quantity of Explosive Found in Belgium Surprises Officials” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.