EU crime fighting unit teams up with counterterror forces

THE HAGUE, Netherlands – The European Union’s police agency has signed a co-operation agreement with a European network of special counterterror intervention units, in a move that Europol’s chief says will make the bloc’s citizens safer.

Under the deal signed Wednesday, the Atlas Network of units, which was established in the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States, will establish a permanent support office at the Europol headquarters in The Hague that will co-ordinate training exercises and development of special tools for the units.

Atlas chairman Bernhard Treibenreif says that the 2015 extremist attacks in Paris and subsequent arrest of suspects in Belgium highlighted the importance of cross-border co-operation between counterterror police units.