The security service AIVD said on Thursday it has no evidence that IS or other Islamic extremists are structurally trying to smuggle supporters into Europe by pretending they are refugees.

Last week Lebanon’s education minister, Elias Bou Saab, said up to 2% of refugees could be IS soldiers before admitting this is his ‘gut feeling’ and he had no actual information.

Nevertheless, the statement led PVV leader Geert Wilders to claim in parliament that thousands of terrorists are being smuggled into Europe. Lawyer turned politician Bram Moszkowicz told a meeting of the VVD’s youth wing at the weekend he is afraid of ‘beheadings’.

However, the Dutch counter terrorism agency NCTV also said it has ‘no information’ indicating that large numbers of jihadis are coming to Europe with migrants from the Middle East and northern Africa.

Terrorism expert Bibi van Ginkel from the Clingendael institute said such claims are ‘absurd’. Such a statement is ‘only interesting from a political perspective, to create fear,’ Van Ginkel told the Volkskrant.