Islamic State prepped 400 fighters to attack Europe

PARIS (AP) — The Islamic State terrorist group has trained at least 400 operatives to target Europe in deadly attacks, deploying interlocking cells like the ones that struck Brussels and Paris with orders to choose the time, place and method for maximum carnage, the Associated Press has learned.

The network of agile and semi-autonomous cells shows the reach of the Middle Eastern group in Europe even as it loses ground in Syria and Iraq. European and Iraqi intelligence officials and a French lawmaker who follows jihadist 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 to have entered Europe in a multinational group of 90 fighters, who scattered "more or less everywhere."