Germany wants to close borders for jihadists
BERLIN - Germany's top security official said Thursday that Europe's system of passport-free travel needs to be changed to prevent Islamic extremists crossing borders undetected.
Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said anyone suspected of intending to join extremist groups in Syria or Iraq should trigger an alarm when they travel in and out of the Schengen Area - which covers 26 countries from the Arctic to the Mediterranean - in the same way that suspected drug dealers do.
"The information that someone is a so-called foreign fighter needs to be more easily recognizable for border authorities," de Maiziere told reporters after a visit to Germany's Joint Counter-Terrorism Center in Berlin.
