The German intelligence service and the Austrian government have confirmed that hundreds of Islamic State fighters have come into Europe disguised as refugees.

The German Federal Intelligence Service (BND) has released a new report indicating that Islamic State has used the migrant crisis to smuggle in hundreds of terrorists to Europe. The BND has also revealed that rather than individual jihadis operating and travelling on their own, the group has coordinated and dispersed networks of fighters, reports Die Welt.

The report was released a year after the horrific attacks at the Bataclan theatre in Paris in which it was revealed six of the attackers smuggled themselves into Europe as asylum seekers.

According to the BND report, Islamic State leaders are training the fighters on how to apply for asylum and even how to behave as asylum seeker so as not to arouse suspicion if questioned by police or by other migrants. Despite this training, many of the fighters have been caught in asylum homes across Europe including in Germany and Italy.

The investigators further revealed that Islamic State has also expanded into the Netherlands where anti-Islamisation MP Geert Wilders has announced he would crack down on radical Islam to the extent of shutting down all mosques in the country.

The report also mentioned that the Paris attacks were a coordinated effort between four different “teams”.

The first team, named “French group”, attacked the Bataclan, “Iraqi group” carried out the Stade de France stadium bombing, and the remaining “Airport group” and “Metro group” attempted to attack Amsterdam’s Schipol airport and the Paris underground respectively.

In Austria, a new report from the interior ministry has shown that close to half, or 40 per cent, of the known Islamic State fighters entered the country as asylum seekers. The news has led leader of the anti-mass migration Freedom Party (FPÖ), Heinz-Christian Strache, to demand the “immediate deportation” of all asylum seekers with links to the terror group or radical Islamism.

The terror group is likely to ramp up its efforts to export fighters to Europe as Austrian expert Gerald Tatzgern, the head of Austria’s anti-human trafficking force, claims they have taken over much of the people smuggling trade in the Middle East and in Libya. Mr. Tatzgern also claimed that the group was staging attacks on refugee camps in neighbouring Jordan to force more people to flee to Europe.