Thousands of North Africans have fled the fighting in their home countries to come to Europe. Most have entered the continent using people traffickers. They have received the de-facto assistance of European naval forced by picking up people from sinking smuggler boats and bringing those on board to Europe.
Mr Haroun claimed they included IS fighters, and the system was being used in a calculated way to bring forces across the Mediterranean sea. He said IS was using the boats: "for their people who they want to send to Europe, as the European police don't know who is from IS and who is a normal refugee or not".
It has long been a stated aim of IS to land troops in Europe via refugee boats, but so far the EU has denied the existence of the problem. The issue was raised last month by Nigel Farage, according to the Daily Mail the UKIP leader expressed fears that up to 500k Islamists could enter Europe via this route.
At the time one of his aides said: "If there is going to be one country where these guys are going to head to, it is going to be us because of the Iraq war and our involvement in Afghanistan and against Islamic State."
So far the EU has insisted naval forces pick up the 'refugees' and take them to which ever European country the forces originate from. A number of countries, including Britain, have refused so far but if the refugees are given EU citizenship London will be powerless to stop them coming to the UK.
Egypt's ambassador to the UK had already wanred of "boats full of terrorists" coming to Europe if nothing is done to stop them.