To carry out the attacks that left 130 people dead in Paris this month, the killers relied on a cunning awareness of the weaknesses at the heart of the European security services charged with stopping them, The Washington Post reported Sunday.

Poor information-sharing among intelligence agencies, a threadbare system for tracking suspects across open borders and an unmanageably long list of homegrown extremists to monitor all gave the Paris plotters an opening to carry out the deadliest attack on French soil in more than half a century.

Two weeks later, European security experts say the flaws in the continent’s defenses are as conspicuous as ever, with no clear plan for fixing them.

“We lack the most obvious tools to deal with this threat,” said Jean-Charles Brisard, chairman of the Paris-based Center for the Analysis of Terrorism. “We’re blind.”

Following the Paris attacks, French President François Hollande declared a state of emergency that has given security services vast new powers. Authorities have conducted more than 1,000 searches, more than 120 people have been charged, and many others have been placed under house arrest.

The measures, which will remain in place for three months, may disrupt plots in the short term. But, given the civil liberties concerns, Heisbourg said, they are hardly long-term solutions for Europe’s struggle with violent extremism.

Source: MENA