ISIL presence in England’s prison cells, US intelligence chief warns

US intelligence chief James Clapper has warned that ISIL has Brussels-style terror cells operating in England. The director of National Intelligence was speaking at a briefing with journalists in the US. When asked whether clandestine ISIL cells such as those which were found in Brussels, could exist in England, Germany and Italy, he said: “Yes, they do. That is a concern of obviously ours and our European allies We continue to see evidence of plotting on the part of ISIL in the countries you name.” Clapper continued to warn that EU governments were increasingly aware of jihadists exploiting the migrant crisis. He said: “They have taken advantage to some extent of the migrant crisis in Europe, something which the nations have a growing awareness of.” Clapper also warned that one challenge counter-terror officials faced, was ISIL’s increasingly sophisticated technical methods. He said: “The obstacles in Europe have somewhat to do with some of the fundamental conflict between, on the one hand, European Union incentives and drives to promote openness and free movement of people and goods, privacy, which is in some ways in conflict with the responsibility each country has as a nation state to protect the security of its borders and its people. Those are sort of countervailing processes.”