16-Jan-15: More scenes from the warzones

Europe's Jews and today's reality [Image Source]

Following on from this morning's post...

Paris, today: Twelve activist militants (three of them females) suspected of having provided "possible logistical support" to the acts of murder that took the lives of 17 people in last week's attacks in the French capital are being held by police in the Paris region, reports say. "Logistical support" is interpreted by the BBC (quoting a judicial source who told AFP) as giving weapons or vehicles to the killers.

France overnight: Gendarmes carried out raids in Montrouge, Chatenay-Malabry, Epinay-sur-Seine, Grigny (home town of the now-deceased Islamist Amedy Coulibaly) and Fleury-Merogis overnight (source). Their searches are guided, in part, by samples of DNA and the results of wire-taps.

The Gare de L'Est this morning - evacuated [Image Source]

Paris, today: The hugely busy Gare de l'Est railway station in Paris was evacuated for an hour this morning. Services resumed at 09:00 Paris time, Friday morning. The authorities are giving no further details at this stage (BBC), though we see references in the French media to the presence of the bomb squad. One observer notes (here) that in the French capital, its residents starting to become to terms with their city's fate, "The police, more than 80,000 in Paris alone, have been astonished to be cheered."

Madrid, today: A Spanish newspaper (quoted here) says Amedy Coulibaly spent three days in Madrid in early January, spending three days there. The assumption, given the scale of the arms cache in his apartment (here), is that it was not for tourism, and that there are people in Spain who may have something valuable to contribute to the investigation if the need is explained nicely enough to them. Coulibaly's companion Hayat Boumeddiene, sometimes referred to in the media as his wife, is known to have passed through Madrid on her way to Turkey about the same time, and then through Turkey to Syria on January 8.

Amsterdam, today: As was done in Belgium today, the only Orthodox Jewish school in the Dutch city of Amsterdam, the Jewish Children Community Cheder (says Jewish Chronicle, London) is shut down today "for security reasons".

UK: Not so surprisingly, "Community Security Trust patrols and additional police measures are in place in areas with high Jewish populations ahead of Shabbat." The Community Security Trust exists to provide "physical security, training and advice for the protection of British Jews. CST assists victims of antisemitism and monitors antisemitic activities and incidents. CST represents British Jewry to Police, Government and media on antisemitism and security. CST believes that the fight against antisemitism and terrorism is an integral part of safeguarding our wider democratic British society against extremism and hatred."

Nigeria, today: It's not happening in Europe but the Boko Haram practitioners of Islamist jihad in west Africa have been slaughtering people in incredible numbers, orders of magnitude greater than Europe's killings. It's reported today (Times of London) that their ambassador to the US has corrected the toll of Nigerians killed this past week in their ongoing war. Nigeria's military had said it was 150 people dead; turns out to have been about 2,000.