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ByKarinLaub The Associated Press AMMAN, JORDAN Faced with a chronic shortfall in Syria aid, the World Bank and other donors are pro- moting new ideas, includ- ing interest-free develop- ment loans for the hard-hit Middle Eastern countries that are hosting most ref- ugees. The idea was discussed at a meeting with top officials from regional host coun- tries on Monday, ahead of next week's Syria pledging conference, where aid agen- cies and regional govern- ments are expected to seek close to $9 billion for 2016. The appeal at the Feb. 4 conference in London would include $3.18 billion to alleviate suffering in- side Syria and $5.75 billion for close to 4.3 million war refugees and their regional host countries, among them Jordan and Lebanon, ac- cording to U.N. figures. Last year's aid request of more than $8 billion was only half-funded, a gap that forced cuts in vital food and cash aid for refugees in re- gional host countries and was seen as one of the trig- gers for the influx of hun- dreds of thousands of dis- placed Syrians to Europe last year. The shortfalls have led to a search for a new ap- proach, including shift- ing from what has largely been humanitarian relief to funding development programs, such as build- ing schools, hospitals and water networks in overbur- dened host countries. The London conference is also expected to discuss ways to put more refugees to work and make them less dependent on aid — a hot- button issue in Jordan and Lebanon, where unemploy- ment is high. On Monday, representa- tives from the World Bank, the Islamic Development Bank and the U.N. met with top officials from refu- gee host countries to gauge the response to the idea of loans, potentially with zero interest, to Jordan and Leb- anon to help narrow fund- ing gaps. The idea was first raised last year, but more details were presented at Monday's closed-door meeting in the Jordanian capital of Am- man. "We are faced with a re- ality that grants are not in- finite," Ferid Belhaj, the World Bank director for the Middle East, told The Asso- ciated Press. In such a cli- mate, inexpensive loans are the next best option for Jor- dan and Lebanon, he said on the sidelines of the meet- ing. Belhaj said he expects vigorous debate over how much Jordan and Lebanon would be expected to bor- row. "The politics of it are very heavy," he said in a separate phone interview last week. "So we need to wait for all the stars to get aligned and ... the donors showing how much they are ready to put on the table, and based on that see what the Leb- anese and the Jordanians will be willing to accept in terms of borrowing," he said. The two countries have argued that they pay a high economic price for provid- ing a global public good — hosting large numbers of refugees — and that the world must do more to help them. About 1.2 million Syrian refugees have been regis- tered in Lebanon and about 630,000 in Jordan. Imad Fakhoury, the Jor- danian planning minis- ter, said Monday that he expects the international community to step up in London and provide "sub- stantively more support and resources for coun- tries that are about to en- ter the sixth year of the crisis." Jordan welcomes po- tential offers of conces- sionary financing, includ- ing for development pro- grams that the country had to put on hold after the 2011 start of the Syria crisis, he said. However, Jordan expects grants — not loans — to ad- dress the needs of refugees and of host communities in Jordan that had to absorb large numbers of displaced Syrians. "We will not bor- row, as a country, to fund priorities related to the Syr- ian refugees," Fakhoury told AP. Meanwhile, the head of the International Labor Organization, Guy Ryder, is visiting Jordan later this week to talk to government officials about labor rights for refugees — a key compo- nent of the aid debate. Largely barred from working legally, many Syr- ian refugees in Jordan and Lebanon work in informal day jobs for low wages. SYRIA Cheap loans proposed to ease aid gap in refugee crisis MUHAMMEDMUHEISEN—THEASSOCIATEDPRESS Syrian refugee girls collects wood to be used for heating at an informal tented settlement near the Syrian border on the outskirts of Mafraq, Jordan, on Saturday. By Lori Hinnant and John-Thor Dahlburg The Associated Press PARIS Europe's top police agency issued a stark warn- ing Monday: Islamic State extremists will keep at- tempting lethal attacks on soft targets in Europe as the militant group increasingly goes global. Some 2½ months after suicide bombers and gun- men killed 130 people in Paris, the Europol agency said, "there is every rea- son to expect that IS, IS-in- spired terrorists or another religiously inspired terror- ist group will undertake a terrorist attack somewhere in Europe again, but partic- ularly in France, intended to cause mass casualties among the civilian popu- lation." The sobering conclusions reached by experts from the European Union's chief agency for law enforcement cooperation and EU mem- ber states make clear that many, perhaps virtually all in Europe, may be at risk. "Without reliable intel- ligence on the intentions, activities and contacts and travels of known terrorists it is nearly impossible to exactly predict when and where the next terrorist at- tack will take place, and what form it will take," the Europol report said. Hours before the report was issued, a new video was released by the Islamic State group celebrating the killers who carried out the Nov. 13 attacks in the French capital — while also threatening fresh blood- shed. The grisly recording ends with one militant hold- ing a severed head, foot- age of British Prime Minis- ter David Cameron giving a speech, and an IS warning that whoever stands with the unbelievers "will be a target for our swords." The 17-minute video, re- leased Sunday, shows the extent of the planning that went into the multi- ple attacks in Paris, which French authorities have said from the beginning were planned in Syria. All nine men seen in the video died in the Paris attacks or their aftermath. All but two of the attack- ers were from Belgium and France and spoke fluent French. The two others — identified by their noms de guerre as Iraqis — spoke in Arabic. Seven of the militants, in- cluding a 20-year-old who was the youngest of the group, were shown stand- ing behind bound captives, described as "apostates," who were either beheaded or shot. "Soon on the Champs-El- ysees," says Samy Amimour, who was raised in a Paris suburb, as he holds a cap- tive's head aloft. The Nov. 13 attacks tar- geted a packed concert hall, a restaurant and cafe, and a soccer match at the French national stadium. The video glorifying the Kalashnikov- wielding gunmen and sui- cide bombers responsible for that carnage was prob- ably also meant as a recruit- ment tool. French Interior Min- ister Bernard Cazeneuve said Monday's Europol re- port did not go markedly beyond previous warn- ings and was not intended to sow fear but "to look lu- cidly at reality." Gilles Kepel, a political scientist who wrote "Ter- rorism in France," said even if Islamic State extremists carry out new attacks in Europe, the video shows the group is increasingly desperate and likely on the wane — in part because of the indiscriminate killings Nov. 13. "They emphasize their ability to be cruel, to kill all their opponents and to ter- rorize everyone. But what is very striking is that I do not believe that they will have a significant amount of new sympathizers after those videos," he said. "I believe that it's not re- ally a display of strength. It's rather a display of weak- ness. Terrorism has its po- litical economy of sorts. You have to terrorize peo- ple. On the one hand, you have to spread terror, but at the same time you have to gather sympathizers. If you're not able to have the two going together, then the model fails," he added. But releasing the video draws attention anew to at- tacks that terrorized central Paris and shows the group's ability to turn Europeans against their homelands in a relatively short time, said Magnus Ranstorp, a counterterrorism expert at the Swedish National De- fence College. The young- est of the group, a 20-year- old, had been in Syria only since February. "They were not only battle-hardened but they were cruel. Their threshold for killing was low. They wouldn't blink to kill," Ran- storp said. He said the vid- eo's release two months af- ter the attacks fell into a typical delay by Islamic State's propaganda appa- ratus. Expert reviews con- ducted by Europol on Nov. 29 and Dec. 1 concluded that the Islamic State "is preparing more terrorist attacks," including copy- cats of the so-called Mum- bai method of coordinated bombings and shootings by multiple teams of assailants that claimed 164 lives in In- dia's financial capital in No- vember 2008. "The attacks will be pri- marily directed at soft tar- gets, because of the impact it generates," the Europol report said. Numerous independent analysts have conjectured that as Islamic State has increasingly lost ground in Iraq and Syria, including to a U.S.-led international co- alition and the Russian mil- itary, it has lashed out at its foes abroad. TERRORISM EU police warn that more attacks by Islamic State militants are likely Landscape/Fence Steve's Tractor &LandscapeService •FenceBuilding•Landscaping • Trenching • Rototilling • Disking • Mowing • Ridging • Post Hole Digging • Blade Work • Sprinkler Installation • Concrete Work Cont. 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