The EU said today it will launch anti-terror projects with Muslim nations and boost intelligence sharing following the Paris attacks, as anger over the Charlie Hebdo cartoons fed fresh protests and violence.
Foreign ministers meeting in the shadow of the Islamist attacks and a wave of arrests across Europe agreed on the need to work with Arab nations and Turkey in particular to counter the growing threat.
On the other side of a widening divide, hundreds of thousands of people rallied in Russia's Chechnya while dozens of churches were torched in Niger during protests over the publication of the Prophet Mohammed caricatures.
After talks in Brussels with the Arab League chief and European ministers, EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said that "probably for the first time there was real deep awareness of the need to work together."
"We are looking at specific projects to launch in the coming weeks with some specific countries to increase the level of cooperation on counter-terrorism, and I would name Turkey, Egypt, Yemen, Algeria and the Gulf countries," she said.
The bloc will also post security attaches at its embassies in key Muslim nations to boost cooperation, as well as increasing its Arabic language capacity to try to counter Islamist propaganda, she said.
She said there was a need to "share intelligence information not only with the EU but also with other countries around us."
Nabil Al-Arabi, the Arab League secretary general, said earlier that "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 Charlie Hebdo 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 police raid in Belgium on Thursday and a huge security sweep across Europe resulted in dozens of arrests in Germany, Greece and France.
The EU meeting today was to prepare for a special European summit on February 12 dedicated to fighting terrorism.
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.
