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European governments pledged to exchange more intelligence with Arab states as they responded to the terrorism threat from Islamist extremists following this months attacks in France.

European Union foreign ministers agreed to embed security officials in EU delegations across the Arab world and work on counterterrorism projects with countries including Turkey, Egypt, Yemen, Algeria and the Gulf states.

The goal is to share information and intelligence information not only within the European Union but also with other countries around us, EU foreign-policy chief Federica Mogherini told reporters after the ministers met in Brussels Monday. She said the security officials wouldnt be an embryonic spy service.

European governments sought to coordinate measures to stamp out radicalism at home and abroad in the wake of the rampage by Islamist extremists in France that left 17 dead, including cartoonists at the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, shoppers at a kosher grocery store, and police.

Another meeting, in London on Jan. 22 and involving more than 20 countries including the U.S. and Arab states, will focus on defeating Islamic State, the radical group that dominates large areas of Syria and Iraq. EU interior ministers meet a week later in Riga, Latvia, to consider how to track suspects throughout the EU and clamp down on the use of social media as a recruiting tool.

What these terrorists represent is the perversion of a major religion, U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron said in an interview with CBS TV during a visit to Washington last week. Theyre not its true adherents, they are fanatics whove attached themselves to a death cult.

European terrorists have been inspired by Islamic State and there is increasing concern about the influence returning fighters are having on domestic extremists. Belgian prosecutors said some members of a terror cell broken up last week in the eastern town of Verviers had returned from fighting in Syria. Two people were killed by officers in that raid.

Belgium has the highest number of jihadis per capita among western European countries, data from the London-based International Center for the Study of Radicalization show. The government estimates that, as of October, 350 Belgian nationals had traveled to Syria and Iraq since violence escalated there almost four years ago and more than 70 of them have returned.

A group of about 30 British women based in northern Syria has been using social-media accounts to recruit extremists to carry out attacks in Britain, the Observer newspaper reported, citing research by the ICRS.

Belgium is deploying as many as 300 soldiers to protect potential targets such as Jewish neighborhoods, EU institutions and embassies. The European Commission, the EU executive in Brussels, raised its alert level one step to yellow -- the third-highest level -- while the government of Belgium has its alert at the second-highest level for police installations across the country.

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European Countries Prepare Response to Islamist Terror