Governments across Europe have accidentally paid taxpayer-funded welfare benefits such as unemployment funds, disability pensions and housing allowances to Islamic State militants who have used the money to wage war in Iraq and Syria, authorities and terrorism experts say. Danish officials said this week that 29 citizens were given $100,000 in public pension benefits because they were considered too ill or disabled to work, and they then fled to Syria to fight for the radical group. It took eight months before welfare authorities cut off benefits paid to a Swedish national who had joined the terror group in its Syrian stronghold Raqqa. Michael Skråmo, who grew up near Gothenburg, fled in 2014 with his wife and four children to Syria. Over the eight months, Skråmo was paid more than $5,000. Authorities concluded that several of the plotters in the Brussels and Paris terror attacks that killed 162 people in 2015 and 2016 were partly financed by Belgium's social welfare system while they planned their atrocities. Radical Islamic cleric Anjem Choudary, who was jailed for terrorist activities, urged followers to claim "jihadiseeker's allowance", a reference to the nation's welfare system. His phrase echoes a manual released by the militant group in 2015. "How to Survive in the West: A Mujahid Guide" advises that "if you can claim extra benefits from a government, then do so."
The hammer-wielding terrorist who attacked police outside the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris was handed an award by the European Union for complaining about racism against migrants. Farid Ikken, 40, emerged from a crowd of tourists and swinging his weapon at three police officers. Now it has emerged that he had worked as a reporter in Sweden and received the EU's 'National Journalist Prize Against Discrimination'. He was given the accolade by officials in Brussels after writing an article about asylum seekers 'who are not entitled to medical care and who are therefore forced to seek shelter'. After winning the prize in 2009, Ikken said: 'it has been gratifying that attention has been paid to such important topics as discrimination and diversity.' Ikken had studied at Stockholm university, and is thought to have married a Swedish woman during his time there. He is currently enrolled as a doctoral student specialising in communication at Metz university, in eastern France.
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