15-Oct-10: Is Europe facing a terror attack? Part II

From Arab News, today, in an article called "Al-Qaeda magazine offers terror tips":

"Al-Qaeda's affiliate in Yemen is urging followers to strike Western countries with tips on how to carry out random terrorist attacks, including the US, in a new edition of an English-language publication that the group posts online. The 74-page English-language publication, called “Inspire,” urges attacks in “Israel, the US, Britain, Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Denmark, Holland and other countries where the government and public sentiment is in support of the occupation of Palestine.” It urges Muslims in America and other Western nations to wage home-grown terrorist attacks, offering grisly suggestions that “would cause chaos and trauma among the public... The magazine, complete with frank essays, cleverly designed imagery and ominous terrorist tips, preaches “sheer anarchy and mayhem...”

From Germany's Jihadi Export in Wednesday's WSJ Europe:

"The flow of jihadists from Germany to Afghanistan and the tribal regions of Pakistan is hardly anything new. The German media began to take serious notice of the phenomenon at the latest in spring 2008, after Bavarian-born Cüneyt Ciftci blew himself up in a suicide attack on an U.S. Army post in Afghanistan's Khost province. Two American soldiers were killed and another four wounded. The attack and the identity of the perpetrator earned barely a passing mention in the traditional American media. The German recruits have been connected to two al Qaeda-affiliated organizations: the Islamic Jihad Union and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan... In a recent commentary in the daily Die Welt, German editorialist Clemens Wergin urges Germany to do more to prevent what he pointedly calls Germany's "export of terror." In particular, he suggests that "legal levers must be created that make it possible to apprehend dangerous suspects [Gefährder] earlier." That's because "for the moment," as Mr. Wergin explains, "it is not sufficient for a criminal prosecution that someone has trained in a terror camp, for instance. The authorities have to demonstrate that the person in question completed this training with the goal of carrying out concrete plans for an attack. But it is difficult to imagine that a radical would do training in a terror camp just to have better perspectives of finding work in Germany as a fireworks arranger or bodyguard... What are German authorities waiting for? That known graduates of terror camps whose sole raison d'être is jihad show them their non-existent al-Qaeda membership cards?"

"Bin Laden's Western foot soldiers" in The Australian on 7-Oct-10 describes a phenomenon that ought to keep politicians and police awake every night: the Westernisation of the militant movement.

"Terrorists nowadays don't come from refugee camps or isolated mountain villages but from our societies," Hoffman says. "Because they are intimately familiar with our societies, they can navigate through them without detection or arousing suspicion [and] penetrate what they see as the most vulnerable and attractive targets." ... "The threat of a Mumbai-style attack has been troubling the authorities here since it happened in India," says Clive Walker, a terrorism specialist from the Leeds University law school. "There are undoubtedly those who wish to emulate such an attack in Europe, even though it is more difficult, especially in Britain where entry controls and munitions controls are among the tightest in the world." But even with the tightest of controls, authorities are hard pressed to keep tabs on the estimated 400,000 people who travel between Britain and Pakistan each year." More

And another brief excerpt from "Bin Laden's Western foot soldiers

Perpetuating a reign of terror depends not on being able to kill large numbers of people but on being able to generate mass fear... Of this, bin Laden is well aware. He once said: "All we have to do is to send two mujaheddin to the farthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written 'al-Qa'ida' in order to make the generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic and political losses, without their achieving anything of note."