Daesh terrorist threat remains despite loss of territory, EU official says

The European Union's counter-terrorism coordinator says the loss of its so-called "caliphate" will cripple the Daesh terrorist group but the threat from the terrorists is not over yet.

Gilles de Kerchove also told The Associated Press in an interview that there hasn't been a massive flow of Daesh fighters returning to Europe as many had feared following the group's loss of territory in Syria and Iraq.

De Kerchove says intelligence services describe the fighters' return as "more a trickle than a flow."

He says, however, that the threat posed by people inspired by the ideology remains and the group is likely to entrench in other parts of world with "weak governance" such as Libya or Afghanistan.

De Kerchove was in Turkey for talks on enhancing cooperation against terrorism.