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People attend a rally to protest against satirical cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in Grozny, Chechnya, yesterday. Photo: Reuters

EU ministers call for alliance with Muslim countries to fight terrorism

AFP

EU foreign ministers called yesterday for an alliance with Muslim countries to fight the growing Islamist militant threat as anger over the cartoons fed fresh protests and violence.

Foreign policy head Federica Mogherini met Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi to urge better cooperation in the wake of last week's deadly Paris attacks and anti-terrorism raids in Belgium.

On the other side of a widening divide, anger still raged in the Muslim world at the publication of a new Prophet Mohammed cartoon on the front of comeback issue last week.

Russia's interior ministry claimed 800,000 people had flooded into Grozny, the capital of the Muslim province of Chechnya to demonstrate.

In Niger, 45 churches were torched over the weekend and five people killed in protests against the cartoons.

In Brussels, where Belgian troops guarded the EU headquarters and other sensitive buildings, ministers were discussing how to prevent battle-hardened jihadis returning home from the Syria and Iraq. "Terrorism and terrorist attacks are targeting most of all Muslims in the world so we need an alliance," Mogherini said.

"We need to strengthen our way of cooperating together, first of all with Arab countries but also internally. The threat is not only the one we faced in Paris but also spreading in many other parts of the world."

Al-Arabi, the Arab League secretary general, added "every country in the world is suffering from terrorism".

"It is not just a military or security issue, it covers the intellectual, cultural, media and religious spheres and that is what we are trying to get," he said.

Europe is on high alert after three French gunmen killed 17 people at the satirical magazine and a Jewish supermarket in Paris earlier this month, claiming they were acting on behalf of al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group. Two suspected militants were also killed in a raid in Belgium on Thursday.

Many of the ministers will meet again on Thursday in London when US Secretary of State John Kerry co-hosts talks with some 20 countries, including Arab states.

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Security tightened for Paris fashion shows
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