Ali Hashisho/Reuters
A New York Times interview with a former ISIS operative sheds new light on the group’s apparent plans to spread attackers throughout the world, including what he claims are “hundreds” of sleeper agents in the European Union. Operatives who carry out or coordinate European attacks reportedly belong to an elite intelligence unit called the Emni. According to documents obtained by the Times, the unit is part internal police force, part external operations branch. Its sole job is to export terrorists abroad and to recruit others to carry out attacks in their home countries. When Harry Sarfo tried to join the Islamic State terror group in Syria, members of its secret service allegedly told him they needed Europeans like him to stay home and work from there. “He was speaking openly about the situation, saying that they have loads of people living in European countries and waiting for commands to attack the European people,” Sarfo told the Times on Monday from inside his maximum-security prison. “And that was before the Brussels attacks, before the Paris attacks.” He noted that seemingly unrelated attackers are often go-betweens or “clean men” for undercover operatives, who help connect those interested in carrying out attacks with those who can pass on instructions from the terror group.