23-Dec-18: In the UK, what we used to know about airport safety suddenly looks so 1990s

Massive disruption at Gatwick this week [Image Source]

As the UK deals with the strange and unsettling experience of one of its most strategically important airports being left in a state of total paralysis as the holiday travel season reaches its peak, thoughtful Brits will be contemplating some even fresher - and certainly no less disturbing - news.

Gatwick Airport, the UK's second-busiest, was the scene of a still-perplexing series of massive anxiety attacks this week:

After rogue drones forced it to close for 32 hours this week, the airport, one of Europe’s busiest, reopened Friday morning and had a nearly 12-hour uninterrupted run of takeoffs and landings. Then came an unconfirmed drone sighting, forcing the airport to close yet again, although briefly, leaving planes circling above and travelers fuming in the terminals. And by the time flights resumed Friday night, many questions remained: What was behind the incursions? Why couldn’t they be stopped more quickly? And is Britain doing enough to keep the devices away from airports and other sensitive spots? Early Saturday, the police in Sussex announced that they had arrested a man and a woman on suspicion on the “criminal use” of the drones... ["Two Arrests, and Many Questions, as Gatwick Reopens After Drone Threat", New York Times, December 21, 2018]

The answers, when they come, are unlikely to calm the fears of rational Brits. It's clear enough that the huge disruption at Gatwick, whatever its actual details (which at this stage are sketchy) can be reproduced and exacerbated at will by any trouble-minded copy-cat; sustainable protective and defensive measures are almost certainly on the agenda of the authorities but in the nature of things, are unlikely to be implemented as rapidly as they are needed.

But then what if people with serious and deadly malice on their minds, let's say, read the news reports and decide to test those not-yet-in-place defences? And not necessarily in the UK, or in the UK only, but elsewhere?

The issue is far from speculative and not at all fanciful. Underscoring the potential for serious trouble, a Times of London report under the byline of its political editor, Tim Shipman, this morning makes that painfully clear. 

Highlights to mull:

• The UK's Minister of State for Security and Economic Crime Ben Wallace met with senior UK airport managers a week ago, prior to the Gatwick chaos, in order to to discuss what's now known about threats to their facilities including the “insider threat” of jihadist sleeper agents working undercover at airports.
• "Al-Qaeda is resurgent and seeking to carry out new terrorist atrocities against airliners and airports, [he] warned last night. The terrorist group behind the 9/11 attacks in 2001 poses a growing threat that is keeping ministers “awake at night”, he told The Sunday Times... They have reorganised. They are pushing more and more plots towards Europe and have become familiar with new methods and still aspire to aviation attacks.”
• "...The decline of Isis meant al-Qaeda would seek to reassert itself as the world’s leading terror group and an aviation spectacular would be its calling card.... al-Qaeda is developing technology to bring down passenger jets using miniaturised bombs and drones packed with explosives." 
• "Security sources say sketches of drones designed to deliver bombs were discovered during a recent terrorist investigation in the UK. British businesses have also been warned that Islamist terrorists are seeking to mount attacks using a drone armed with explosives or chemicals."
• "British intelligence chiefs are concerned that Donald Trump’s decision last week to withdraw US troops from Syria will create a new safe haven for Islamists to launch attacks on the West. The UK found out about his decision only when he tweeted it on Wednesday."
• Especially depressing is his advice about how useful current, and very intrusive, security arrangements directed at ordinary travelers are. "Wallace said improvements in airport security meant terrorists were less likely to smuggle explosive through terminal security systems: “They have explored other ways of getting bombs on planes. We’ve talked publicly about an insider threat issue. If you can’t get in the front door, you’re going to try to get in the back door.”" ["Al-Qaeda terror group returns to target airliners and airports", Times of London, December 23, 2018]

Meanwhile, UK travelers are still absorbing the scale of the impact on their lives from what, at least at this moment, looks like a criminal offence at worst with no immediate connection to terrorism:

The drone sightings had forced the cancellation or diversion of more than 1,000 flights over three days, affecting some 140,000 people, officials said. On Saturday, Gatwick warned passengers to expect still more delays and cancellations and to check their flight status before going to the airport... [British] officials identified the two [suspects] as Paul Gait, 47, and his wife Elaine Kirk, 54... from Crawley, a town just south of the airport. The couple are suspected of disrupting civil aviation services and endangering people or operations — offenses that carry a maximum sentence of life imprisonment, according to the police. They have not been formally charged and are still in custody, but the police did not release further details. The incident exposed the vulnerabilities of the airport to outside interference and drew attention to the limitations of security officials responding to such a threat at a peak travel time... ["Married Couple Arrested Over Drone Incursions at Gatwick Airport", New York Times, December 22, 2018]

It's evident that whatever the solution, technology will be part, but only part, of fighting back. We noticed some reporting in a Russian source about the things technology can potentially do in ameliorating the drome threat:

UK authorities could use an Israeli-made "Drone Dome" system that the British army acquired in August 2018 to take down the drones, which had been disrupting Gatwick Airport's operations for the last two days. The equipment, seen on the rooftop of a building near the airport and operated by the UK police looks just like the "Drone Dome" components in the photos, published in 2016 by several media platforms. The DJI system is capable of not just detecting drones and hijacking their controls, but also of tracking down the person, who controlled it. Its major downside is that it is not compatible with all drones. On the other hand, "Drone Dome" can take down any drone, by either hacking and landing it or by shooting it down with powerful laser. ["What is 'Drone Dome' That UK Could Have Used to Take Down Gatwick UAV", Sputnik News, December 22, 2018]

What the Russian report calls "Drone Dome", a system developed by two of Israel's major defense firms Rafael and RADA, is described in this recent Times of Israel report: "UK army said to use Israeli-made system to end drone chaos at London airport".

UPDATE Sunday December 23, 2018 at 2:30 pm: So who is actually behind the drone assault (if that's what it was) on Gatwick? At this point, and despite the certainty generated by a proliferation of news reports referring to a specific couple, it seems ["Gatwick drones pair 'no longer suspects'", BBC, this afternoon] no one actually knows:

A man and woman arrested in connection with drone sightings that grounded flights at Gatwick Airport have been released without charge. The 47-year-old man and 54-year-old woman, from Crawley, West Sussex, were arrested on Friday night on suspicion of "the criminal use of drones"... Sussex Police said the pair were no longer suspects. Det Ch Supt Jason Tingley said: "Both people have fully co-operated with our inquiries and I am satisfied that they are no longer suspects in the drone incidents at Gatwick... "Our inquiry continues at a pace to locate those responsible for the drone incursions, and we continue to actively follow lines of investigation."

07-Dec-17: Gazan rockets fired at southern Israel this evening may have crashed into Gaza

The whipping up of furies among Palestinian Arabs and those who stand with them continues apace in the wake of the decision by the White House to finally take formal notice of Jerusalem being the capital city of Israel these past seventy years.

It's still early evening and the reports are somewhat contradictory. Israel National News says this about the rocket attack that happened around 6:15 this evening (Thursday):

Two rockets fired from the Gaza Strip landed in Israel Thursday evening. Warning sirens [Tzeva Adom] were sounded in the Shaar Hanegev and Hof Ashkelon (Ashkelon Coast) regional councils in the western Negev Thursday evening. Shortly after the sirens were sounded, an IDF spokesperson reported that two rockets had been fired from the Gaza Strip towards Israel. Both of the rockets landed in open spaces. There are have been no reports of injuries or of damage. The rocket fire comes after the Hamas terror organization which rules the Gaza Strip warned that the “gates of hell” would be opened in the region following President Trump’s announcement Wednesday that the US recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

But other sources, including the Jerusalem Post, Haaretz and this Australian source quoting the IDF say the two rockets fell short - meaning they crashed ob the Gaza side of the border. This happens frequently and the injuries to Gazan Arabs along with the property damage are often hushed up. We will adjust this report once we know for sure.

Reuters says of Gaza that

dozens of protesters gathered near the border fence with Israel and threw rocks at soldiers on the other side. Seven protesters were wounded by live fire, one was in a critical condition, the [Hamas-controlled] health ministry said... Member of armed groups including from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah faction, appeared at a news conference in Gaza, their faces hidden by masks and called for a resumption of armed resistance in the West Bank.

Xinhua, reporting from Gaza, said around 7:15 pm that not two but six Gazan rockets were fired at Israel in the previous hour. It also focused on the public statements of the Islamists:

The Islamic Hamas movement called on Thursday for a Palestinian "popular uprising" against U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital... "Tomorrow [Friday] will be a day of public anger and the launching of an uprising under the name of Intifada of Jerusalem Freedom," said Hamas Chief Ismail Haniyeh during a public speech. He reaffirmed that Friday would be "the beginning of a new movement" to fight Israel's plan of occupation of West Bank and Jerusalem. "Trump will regret this decision," said Haniyeh... Describing Trump's recognition as "a turning point in the history of the Palestinian cause," the Hamas leader stressed that Jerusalem "has always been the source of victory, the beginning of revolutions and the starting point of uprisings."

Most people with whom we talk here think we're likely to experience less calm in the hours and days ahead.

UPDATE Saturday night, December 9, 2017: Times of Israel reported late last night (Friday) that "the Tawhid al-Jihad group claimed responsibility for the attack on social media. The small, radical group is affiliated with al-Qaeda." The Wikipedia entry for the the group claiming to have fired the rockets says

Jahafil Al-Tawhid Wal-Jihad fi Filastin (Arabic: جحافل التوحيد والجهاد في فلسطين‎, "The Armies of Monotheism and Jihad in Palestine") is a Sunni Islamist Palestinian group in the Gaza Strip and the Sinai peninsula, and is the branch of al-Qaeda in Gaza. The establishment of the group was publicly announced on 6 November 2008, with communiqués vowing loyalty to al-Qaeda, after having "received the messages of Osama bin Laden and Ayman Al-Zawahiri." Various forms of the "Tawhid al-Jihad" label have appeared in relation to developments in the Gaza Strip. The size of the group is not publicly known.

A group of the same name claimed to be behind the kidnapping and murder in 2011 of Vittorio Arrigoni, a high-profile foe of Israel described in various sources as a pacifist supporter of the Palestinian cause, a member of the Palestinian-aligned International Solidarity Movement, and a blogger reporting from the Gaza Strip. He had been living there after sailing in on one of the flotillas to Gaza in 2008. The terrorist regime of Hamas blamed his murder on Israel, unsurprisingly. Some time later, it became evident that this same offshoot of Al Qaeda - or a group using the same name - were actually responsible. We wrote about the tragic affair in three past posts: "14-Apr-11: Gazan jihadists grab Italian journalist, threaten to murder him in name of glorious revolution"; "15-Apr-11: For the record, Hamas is blaming Israel for the murder of the Italian hostage" and "20-Feb-13: Following up a 2011 Gaza murder".

02-Jan-16: Friday night rocket volley on southern Israel: little-reported and most of the damage is inside Gaza

Since they are so rarely reported, Friday night's rocket volley on southern Israel is something we feel the need to mention here:

Two rockets fired from the Gaza Strip exploded in Israel on Friday night, in the south's Sha'ar HaNegev Regional Council. No one was injured and there were no reports of damage. A further two rockets at least were thought to have fallen short and landed inside the Gaza Strip. The number of rockets fired in one volley is unusual in the relative quiet that has persisted since the end of Operation Protective Edge. Several explosions were heard after a rocket alert sounded at 11:07pm in Sderot and communities in Sha'ar HaNegev... [Ynet, Friday January 01, 2016]

Other Friday night reports indicated that the volley consisted of five rockets. Two crashed into Israel, as Ynet reported, and three are "Fell Shorts", meaning they failed to get as far as Israel and fell and exploded onto the heads and homes of Palestinian Arabs living in the Hamas-dominated Gaza Strip.

The outcomes of these Fell Shorts, which represent a large proportion of all the Israel-bound rockets despatched by Gaza's rocket-rich terrorists, are almost always shrouded in Hamas-imposed secrecy. It's a very rare thing for news reporters to challenge that news ban. So there's very little understanding outside of Israel and Gaza about the death, injuries and damage caused to Gazans by the flourishing rocket-firing industry based there.

In Haaretz, Jack Khoury says he knows who is seeking "credit" for last night's explosions:

Israeli detection systems picked up the launches and identified two projectiles that crossed the border, the other three exploded on the Gaza side of the border... The "Aj'nad Beit al-Maqdis" (Soldiers of the Holy Temple) organization, ideologically affiliated with Al-Qaida, claimed responsibility for the five rockets fired from Gaza toward southern Israel on Friday... According to Gaza residents, it is possible that minority factions operating on the ground took advantage of the stormy weather to carry out the rocket fire... There is often tension among Hamas and organizations affiliated with ISIS and Al-Qaida regarding operations on the ground in Gaza. Disputes over power struggles between commanders in the field are often expressed through rocket fire toward Israel. Israel's defense establishment therefore responds proportionately, in order not to provoke an additional response from Hamas.

Was it Aj'nad Beit al-Maqdis? Times of Israel says terrorists

affiliated with the Islamic State terror group claimed responsibility Saturday for firing rockets at Israel from the Gaza Strip late on Friday night. The Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis Islamist group issued a statement hailing its attacks on “occupied Palestine” and gloating that it had “turned night into day” for residents in the Sderot area. Nonetheless, Israel has said it holds Gaza’s Hamas rulers responsible for any attacks out of the Hamas-run Strip.

If the jihadists of Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis are the shooters, they come with a long record of mayhem [see here]. We have posted about them here at least a dozen times, most recently when they launched a rocket at Israel on a day when school-children were on the roads and could easily be hit ["01-Sep-15: Inbound rocket from Gaza announces new school year"]; that assault, like three of Friday's rockets, was also a Fell Short.

Designated as terrorists by Egypt, United Kingdom and the United States among others, the Ansar people have claimed to be part of ISIS since November 2014.

02-Aug-15: Violence, incitement, double-talk, more violence

Site of the child's death: Intensive IDF and Israel Police investigation
[Image Source]

In the wake of Friday morning's apparent attack on a sleeping Palestinian Arab family in their home, the death of their infant and widespread Arab rioting, there's a poisonous atmosphere of unrestrained incitement to revenge and further acts of violence and murder.

Not so much from the Israeli side: the president condemned the awful events, addressed an anti-violence-and-incitement rally in downtown Jerusalem on Saturday night and conveyed the same message to the Arabic media on Friday. The prime minister visited the injured family in hospital (as did the president) and told them and the media that

we’re shocked, we’re outraged,.. We condemn this. There is zero tolerance for terrorism wherever it comes from, whatever side of the fence it comes from. We have to fight it and fight it together. [Jerusalem Post, July 31, 2015]

During Saturday night, there were reports of incoming explosive missiles emanating from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and directed at Israelis. Readers of this blog know better than most that rocket attacks by Palestinian Arab terrorists are very far from new in southern Israel, or rare, and those doing the firing have never needed a trigger like the death of a Palestinian Arab child.

Two rockets fell near the Israel-Gaza border fence late on Saturday night. No warning sirens were heard and the military was initially unsure whether the projectiles struck the Israeli or Gazan side of the border... The [IDF] army’s official policy is to retaliate to attacks based on their damage, not the attackers’ intent. Misfired rockets landing on the Gaza side of the fence do not generally elicit an Israeli response. [Times of Israel, today]

If, as is the case with many of the previous Gazan Fell Shorts (Palestinian Arab rockets that misfire and hit something Gazan instead of something Israeli) someone was hurt or something was damaged on the Arab side, this will almost certainly go unreported. (Check out some of our past Fell Short reports.)

Though no news channel, to our knowledge, quotes Gazan sources on the subject of last night's rocket attack, this morning we checked the European Union-funded GANSO website which we have mentioned numerous times in the past. Visit their Incident Alerts page right now, as we did (see image below) and you see their report of four, not two, Gazan rockets last night, all of which crash landed on the Gazan side of the border.

Was anyone killed? Were any houses destroyed? No one, but literally no one, seems ever to report on such Arab-on-Arab casualties. Why? Ask the foreign media reporting from there. They're sure to find a justification.

From the GANSO website, Sunday morning August 2, 2015. Published in Gaza, GANSO say 4 rockets were fired at Israeli targets last night, not just 2 as reported in Israel. And not one managed to get as far as the Gazan border. Our sympathies to the hapless Gazans who have to live with this kind of catastrophe daily/nightly.

In the background - the very distant background to judge by the almost entirely absent media news coverage - there have been dozens of attacks on Israelis during Friday and the Sabbath day. This Hebrew-language report provides a summary and a time line, replete with photographs depicting the aftermath at some of the attack sites. One of them [here] shows a fire bomb (a so-called Molotov Cocktail) being hurled at an Israeli bus inside Jerusalem on Saturday evening. Israel National News [here] provides its customary close-the-action reports on the weekend's wave of anti-Israel violence.

In the Palestinian Arab media, the call to arms is unmistakable:

Clashes broke out across occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank on Friday night in response to the death of an 18-month-old Palestinian who was burned alive in an arson attack carried out by suspected Israeli settlers earlier that day... [Maan News, Saturday]

It's almost comical to witness the straight-faced reporting of old/new threats emanating from the terror-addicted ranks of the Islamist Hamas regime in Gaza whose rockets and thuggish "security" agents have been - and continue to be - the cause of so many Palestinian Arab deaths:

Hamas said Friday that every Israeli is now a legitimate target following the deadly terror attack in the village of Duma in which a Palestinian toddler was killed, Israel Radio reported. In an official message to the public, Hamas also called for a "day of rage" to protest the deadly terror attack and "in order to protect al-Aksa mosque..." Israeli and Palestinian Authority security forces are on high alert in Jerusalem and the West Bank as Hamas calls for "day of rage." [Jerusalem Post, Friday]

Alert readers understand that declaring Israelis now to be legitimate targets for the rage and murderous hatred of the ranks of Hamas is a cynical joke. The Hamas Charter, its constitution, lays down the foundation for "legitimizing" the murder of Israelis, and virtually every public statement by its spokespersons reinforces the message. Friday's declaration is entirely directed at foreigners, and in particular foreign news reporters.

But not all. This Hamas statement was plainly directed at Palestinian Arab society:

Hamas spokesperson Sami Abu Zuhri has accused Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas with bearing responsibility for the death of an Arab infant in the village of Duma in Samaria on Friday, which came during an arson attack the IDF suspects may have been committed by Jewish extremists. "I call on Abbas to stop pursuing Hamas in the (West) Bank, and place on him personal responsibility for the burning of the infant Ali Dawabsha, due to his harassment of resistance fighters," said the terrorist spokesperson. "If Hamas had a free hand to act in the (West) Bank, the settlers wouldn't be able to commit crimes like this and burn our children," claimed Abu Zuhri. [Israel National News, August 1, 2015]

(Abu Zuhri's non-stop venom has been the subject of some of our previous comments.)

Some other selected voices from this weekend (all direct quotes):

• Palestinian officials say Israel is "fully responsible" for the death of an infant in an arson attack blamed on Jewish settlers... [T]he Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), which dominates the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, said it held the Israeli government "fully responsible for the brutal assassination" of the child, Ali Saad Dawabsha. "This is a direct consequence of decades of impunity given by the Israeli government to settler terrorism," it said. [BBC, Friday] The head of the PLO is Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority.
• Husam Badran, a key Hamas leader in Judea and Samaria... [said] that "this crime has turned IDF soldiers and settlers into legitimate targets, in any location and situation... Badran called for every "free person who can harm the occupier to start conducting revenge activities" because "the enemy doesn't understand anything but the language of force." [Israel National News, July 31, 2015]
• Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the firebombing "an act of terrorism in every respect" and made a rare telephone call to Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas... Abbas said he had ordered his foreign minister to file a complaint at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. "We want true justice, but I doubt that Israel will provide that," he said of the attack in Duma, near the northern city of Nablus. [AFP, July 31, 2015]
• The US State Department condemned the "vicious terrorist attack" in "the strongest possible terms," urging Israel to "apprehend the murderers" and calling on both sides to "avoid escalating tensions". [AFP, July 31, 2015] 

That last point causes us personal heartburn, and here's why.

The State Department and especially its now-departed spokesperson Marie Harf, have a history (with us personally) of being mystifyingly unable to label certain kinds of acts of murder as terror, let alone characterize them as vicious. That's astonishing (we feel) when you take into account the plain nature of the crimes of those people, determined in a court of law and with the terrorists mostly confessing to their savagery, and even taking credit for it. (For a reminder of the background: "14-Sep-13: Memo to Secretary of State Kerry: Your staff need some urgent guidance").

We're offering no prizes for readers who can figure out which vicious acts by which people are ranked as terror by State's clever professionals, and which are not. It's about as obvious and clear as such matters ever get. You have to be a certain sort of diplomat to be blind to the nature of what's happening.

Meanwhile. the intensive police and army manhunt for the perpetrators of the Duma village fire-bombing is still underway.

16-Jul-15: Lessons from yet another early-morning rocket attack on southern Israel

The huge role played in Palestinian Arab culture by exploding rockets
seems to be poorly understood by foreign news editors. In everyone's interests,
they ought to be paying more respect and giving much more attention to
the message of rallies like this one, in Nuseirat, Central Gaza Strip,
on December 12, 2014 [Image Source]

We were sound asleep at 2 this morning, Thursday. But in the communities of Israel's southern coast, it's likely that hundreds of thousands were rudely woken by the sounds of the Color Red incoming-rocket warning system, commencing at 2:02 am and blaring out a message of "seek shelter right now".

Ynet (basing itself in part on Reuters) reports today on

a rocket that was fired from the Palestinian enclave just after 2am local time... [N]one of the organizations known to hold rocket stockpiles in Gaza initially claimed responsibility for the early morning rocket attack on Israel. The rocket set off code red sirens in Zikim, parts of Ashkelon city and the Hof Ashkelon Regional Council... No damage or injuries were reported as a result of the Gazan missile that landed in an open area in the Hof Ashkelon Regional Council. Security forces are still searching the area to find the projectile. "The IDF considers this incident a severe one," said the IDF spokesperson in announcing the retaliatory attack on Gaza. "We won't put up with any attempt to harm Israeli civilians. Hamas is the address of responsibility."

From the way the United Nations committee looking into last summer's vicious rocket attacks on all parts of Israel ("Commission of Inquiry on the Gaza Conflict", better known here as the Schabas Report after the chairman who resigned late into its work after revelations about his past involvement with the PLO) dealt with 2014's barrages of rockets on Israeli civilian targets, we're not expecting much interest by news reporting agencies outside Israel. Nor should you.

(Israel absorbed more than four thousand - no mistake, 4,000+, Palestinian-Arab-Gazan rockets during calendar 2014. Here's the record-keeping to demonstrate it.)

Reuters reported Thursday's early-morning attack, but in a way that guarantees close-to-zero reporting among its subscriber news channels.

Here are the key sections from the Reuters bulletin, issued around 8:30 this morning Israel time, with a headline that makes clear it's a story about what Israel did: "Israeli air strike hits Gaza Strip after militant rocket launch":

Israeli aircraft struck militant targets in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip early on Thursday after a rocket from the coastal territory landed in southern Israel, the Israeli military said. A passerby was lightly hurt in the Gaza Strip, according to residents. No damage or injuries were reported in Israel after warning sirens sounded and the rocket struck open ground near the city of Ashkelon before dawn, the army said. Rocket launchings have become an almost weekly occurrence from the coastal strip recently but no militant group took immediate responsibility for the attack... A group that sympathises with al Qaeda, who have defied Hamas, has been blamed for other recent strikes, none of which caused injuries or damage. The Israel-Gaza border area had largely been quiet since last year's July-August war, when Palestinian militants launched thousands of rockets and mortar bombs into Israel and Israeli shelling and air strikes battered the enclave. More than 2,100 Palestinians were killed, most of them civilians, while 67 soldiers and six civilians were killed on the Israeli side.

As always, we are struck by how the low casualties on the Israeli side feature as a key component of the newsagency messaging. Perhaps one day they will offer some insight into how and why it is that our side takes the measures that any sane society would to protect the lives and homes of its civilians, while on the Gazan Arab side, they don't even provide their miserable subjects with shelters.

Then there's the pathetically laconic

No damage or injuries were reported in Israel after warning sirens sounded... [Reuters]

but that was not, and never has been, the outcome that the terrorist forces, equipped with their rich arsenals of rockets, intend.

They fire at us hoping to kill and destroy. An outcome that involves merely terrifying families in their bedrooms (as happened in the small hours of this morning) is an achievement in their terms. But it is not the goal. And they will certainly keep trying again and again and again and again to achieve the goal - one which involves deaths and destruction.

No sane government would ever allow a terrorist enemy free rein to do that.

19-Mar-15: In Tunisia, terrorists target tourists... again

Evacuating victims of Wednesday's terrorist attack in Tunisia
[Image Source]

A murderous attack by terrorists in broad daylight yesterday (Wednesday) left at least 19 people killed on the streets of Tunis, the capital of Tunisia.

"They just started opening fire on the tourists as they were getting out of the buses ... I couldn't see anything except blood and the dead," the driver of a tourist coach told journalists... [Reuters, March 18, 2015]

The victims were assaulted outside the National Bardo Museum, located inside the "heavily-guarded" parliament compound. Other than two of the attackers, the dead (the numbers seem uncertain even now) are reported to be made up of 5 Japanese, 4 Italians (among hundreds from an Italian cruise ship, the Costa Fascinosa, touring the western Mediterranean), 2 Colombians, 2 Brits, 2 French, 2 Tunisians - one a civilian, one a police officer - and individuals from South Africa, Poland (perhaps 2), Australia (he may also be one of the two Colombian victims) and Spain. Dozens more were left injured, and some people are still regarded as "missing", including 14 (more or less) from the cruise ship.

The president of Tunisia says his country will now fight terrorism "without mercy", according to the BBC. Interesting to see how the BBC's notorious guidelines make it impossible for them to call yesterday's cold-blooded murders "terrorism", though their reports do freely quote other people - such as Tunisia's political leaders and security officials - using the "T" word.

Tunisia is "the Arab world’s most successful democracy" [NYTimes] having "recently completed its first free presidential elections and a peaceful rotation of political power". It's also "one of the biggest sources of foreign fighters joining the Islamic State" [NYTimes].

The new Tunisian prime minister, Habib Essid, who took office last month ["Tunisia's secular-Islamist coalition takes office", Al Ahram], said "two or three accomplices might still be at large", and urged "national unity", calling the massacre “the first operation of its kind ever to occur in Tunisia”. 

The synagogue in Djerba where a previous human bomb attack
targeted civilians, including tourists visiting Tunisia [Image Source]

The first? That's true only if we ignore (and ignore is exactly what most parts of the news media are doing) the April 11, 2002 Djerba synagogue bombing in which terrorists operating on behalf of Al Qaeda deployed a human bomb and a truck full of explosives to attack people, most of them tourists, visiting a historically-significant (and exceptionally beautiful) Tunisian synagogue. The death toll was heavy: 14 German tourists, 3 Tunisians, 2 French. 

Terrorism rarely needs a trigger. But there is speculation [here, for instance] that Wednesday's massacre is 

linked to the death of Ahmed al-Rouissi, Tunisia’s most-wanted terrorist, who had become a senior leader in Isil’s Libya group. Accused by the Tunisian government for a string of terrorist attacks in his home country, he was killed last weekend in a clash with Libyan militiamen.

And

Al Rouissi was one of the most wanted men in Tunisia, where he was considered the mastermind of a string of attacks carried out by the Ansar Al Shariah movement... Al Rouissi fled to Libya where he began fighting under the banner of the Daesh [ISIS] group, which already controls about a third of Syria and Iraq. Tunisia’s Interior Ministry has not confirmed Al Rouissi’s death, though the local Press has been filled with reports on the incident. [Khaleej Times, March 16, 2015]

BBC Watch has done a good job [for instance here] of tracking the history of anti-Jewish violence in Tunisia and the deaf ear and blind eye provided by the BBC.

What will be? For the optimists, there is the fact that, in the past few hours, the international community has sprung into decisive action. The U.N. Security Council last night "condemned the Bardo museum attack saying that no terrorist action can reverse the path of Tunisia toward democracy..." [Associated Press] and offering condolences to the victims. According to Xinhua (which calls the killers "terrorists" in quotation marks lest we suspect the Chinese news-agency of taking sides on such contentious matters) the UNSC "underlined the need to bring perpetrators, organizers, financiers and sponsors of these reprehensible acts of terrorism to justice." 

Fierce determination of this sort (excuse our cynicism) ignores the way the UN has for years struggled with defining terrorism. Because of "a lack of consensus on the definition of this phenomenon", it has consistently failed and

"a UN Ad Hoc Committee to Eliminate Terrorism, created by the General Assembly back in December 1996, has remained deadlocked as it tries to reach agreement on a comprehensive draft convention to eliminate terrorism" [Aljazeera]

We don't know any informed sources who believe the UN is ever going to get past that problem. The consequences of its condemnation and call to action in the wake of yesterday's terrorism are unfortunately predictable.

8-May-14: Madrid moments

Two bereaved fathers with more
in common than the differing backgrounds might have
suggested: Michael Gallagher and Arnold Roth
at the Madrid photo exhibition

I visited Madrid for the first time (writes Arnold Roth) ten years ago. I was invited to go there as one of a small delegation of Israelis participating in a conference of terror victims, the first international gathering of its kind. In many ways, it was an extraordinary experience, mostly positive.

Three weeks later, on March 11, 2004 and after I was back home, Spain was shocked to discover that its terrorism problem involved more than just a decades-long conflict with its Basques, and that the curse of jihadism and of Islamist terror had other countries on its agenda beyond the US and Israel.

I have been invited back there several times since as an invited speaker addressing issues of terrorism. It's not surprising to me that Spanish audiences have real interest in the subject. But the political antipathy of large parts of Spanish society to Israel - among the worst in Europe - has remained a puzzle to me. Israel and Spain first established diplomatic ties in 1986. That's when Spain finally recognized an independent state of Israel (independent in fact since 1948).

Relations since then have been proper but (as far as I can tell) not especially warm. Israelis have noted how, in Pew Research Center’s 2008 Global Attitudes Project, an astounding 46% of Spaniards were found to hold an unfavorable view of Jews. (In 2005, it had been 21%.) Spain's Jewish community numbers about 12,000 making it roughly 0.03% of the Spanish total. Notwithstanding the microscopic presence, it's said to be the European nation with the poorest view of Jews.

Memorial mass: view of the cathedral entrance from the far side of the street

Two months ago, Spain observed the tenth anniversary of the Madrid train bombings. The European Union sponsored a project in which a dozen or so terror victims from Spain and beyond came to Madrid for the commemoration and to speak to the cameras about how they have dealt with life in the wake of their personal encounters with terror. I was invited to be one of the interviewees, and I traveled back to Madrid.

For me, Madrid is the most spectacularly beautiful city in Europe. My encounters with Spaniards, with some small exceptions (political figures, mostly), have been warm and rewarding.

But this time there were some mildly discordant notes too. A very moving photographic exhibition - to the opening of which our group was invited - sympathetically depicted victims of terror from many parts of the world - with one obvious exception which readers of this post will need no help in identifying. And at the Atocha railway station where a striking memorial to the 191 people killed, and the 1,800 injured in the terrorist bombing, incorporates hundreds of messages of support, solidarity and condolence in a large number of languages including Arabic, one particular language is not in evidence. No prizes for guessing which.

On the morning of March 11, the date Spaniards now call 11M, the anniversary of the train massacre was marked with a Mass in the Almudena cathedral next to the royal palace. I chose to remain outside on the street and watched as a small handful of protesters, placards at the ready, gathered on the boulevard under the watchful gaze of the police, while a stream of VIPs including the royal family arrived and eventually left the magnificent church.

Onlookers and protesters outside the 11M memorial
religious service

I overheard one of the protesters, standing right in front of me, being asked by an English-speaking tourist to explain what brought them there.

Two things, it turns out. One, they were offended by the fact that Spain's official religious commemoration of the jihadist attack had an entirely Catholic character, when it ought to have been more respectful of certain other religions.

And two: the evidence is that it was not the Islamists, as the government claims, but NATO that was the true culprit. He launched into a multi-point rationalization with some of the usual depressingly-familiar components of 21st century conspiracy theories.

At about that moment, a passing Spaniard gave me a close look and stopped right next to me. Here's trouble, I thought to myself. He spoke: Shalom, he said. Then said it again: Shalom. Instinctively, I responded in Hebrew but quickly saw that "shalom" was the only Hebrew he knew. He had evidently noticed the kippa on my head  as he walked by and wanted to share with me the one aspect of Jewish culture that he could summon up on a moment's notice. We ended up smiling pleasantly and a little stupidly at each other and then he went on his way.

The following evening, a Spanish friend who is a prominent lawyer in Madrid invited me out for drinks just before I had to leave to catch a midnight flight back to Tel Aviv. He chose a stunningly elegant venue for our conversation, the Villa Magna Hotel, across the street from the far more modest (but very adequate) hotel where we terror victims were accommodated.

Ricardo and I were deep in conversation in the gorgeous cocktail lounge when I became slowly aware of something that seemed somehow out of place. It took me some moments to figure out what. The piano in the background - the pianist was playing... Hatikva. I didn't recognize it immediately because he was interpreting it in dramatic fashion.

But that's what it was, and I asked my friend to pause while we both paid closer attention to the delightful music. Then the pianist, seated some way off at his grand piano, gave a small smile of acknowledgment and switched gear - playing Yerushalayim Shel Zahav. There was no sign among the business people in the vast lounge that anyone else was aware of the significance of either piece of music.

When it became possible to do so, I got up and walked over to the piano and thanked the young pianist. We exchanged business cards. His opening words in our brief conversation were "I love Israel" followed by a few seconds of explaining that after centuries of turbulent history many Spaniards have Jewish blood running through their veins and they know it. Then he moved on to his next piece and I returned to my host.

Members of the terror victims group in the Atocha
train station experience the "cylinder of light"
memorial to the victims of the March 11, 2004 Islamist atrocity

This week on Israel's Independence Day I received an email from the Spanish pianist, David Marín Ariza.

I have to say I am so sorry about that terror atact. I feel so closed to Israel in its fight against terror. My father is Guardia Civil (police man) in Spain, and we were always object of terrorists, we had just luck. I was as well born in 1985, and I am a musician, like Malki. I feld so sad while I was reading her story. I think there will be never enough tribute to victims of terror, they and their families are the most important value in open and free sociaties, they are, as well with our police and army, our heroes. It is what I think, and the reason because I tried always to go to demostrations of terror victims in Madrid, against negotiation with terrorist. I am no great pianist, but if you need some day one, for beneficial concert or whatever here in Spain, let me know. Here [click] is a version fo mine of Hatikvah, in a concert wich I played in Madrid one month ago. (The quality of the video is not very good)... Excuse my English, please... I am actually musicologist but I have worked as pianist at Villa Magna since I finished my studies. I would like to work actually as composer for video, films, etc, and music manager. But there are not many possibilities right now in Spain. So I want to go to the Unated [presumably means the United States] to practish English, look for a job and perhaps study music (film, management...) Do you live in Israel? I was there once, and loved it. I want to visit it again. I wished could soon.

Click below for his YouTube rendition of Hatikva. It's unfortunately captured in a rather ordinary cell-phone video but it conveys a taste of the music behind it. And if readers have some constructive ideas that might help David advance in his career, please drop us a line.

The human, individual response to terrorism always seems to me to be more interesting, more nuanced, more humane and generally more constructive than government statements and political declarations. 

22-Jan-14: Disclosed today: Israeli security thwarts major wave of Al Qaeda-inspired terror attacks from Jerusalem

We are barely a week into the much-heralded International Year of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, crafted and launched by the UN on January 16, 2014. Already, we are being reminded of what it is about which certain Palestinian Arabs seek our solidarity.

“The coming year will be crucial to achieving the two-State solution,” Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson said in his remarks to the UN General Assembly’s Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People. Mr. Eliasson said Israeli and Palestinian negotiators are working hard towards a peaceful, comprehensive settlement of all permanent status issues. [From the UN website]

Some hours ago, here in the mixed Jewish/Arab city of Jerusalem, the security authorities announced the thwarting of a major terror plot involving Al Qaeda, human bombs, exploding trucks, East Jerusalem Arabs, and some of the best-known and most-prominent landmarks in the city. It appears arrests were already made some weeks ago, but a court-imposed gag order prevented them being reported until now.

Yes, it was stopped before it happened. But there's something breathtakingly disturbing about how threats on such a vast scale can (as it appears) evolve right under our noses even as the trams, buses, hospitals, schools, cafes and sidewalks of our country's capital are shared by people with different outlooks and expectations in life. None of them, for the benefit of readers unfamiliar with life in Jerusalem, walk around with the word "terrorist" branded on their foreheads. That's a reality that defines a large part of what a society needs to do to keep itself and its children safe.

Yakov Lappin, writing a headline-grabbing report on the Jerusalem Post website, says the Shin Bet, the Israel Security Agency, went public earlier today with the news that it had arrested three Palestinian Arabs who had been recruited from by an al-Qaida terrorist called Al-Sham operating from Gaza and reporting directly to the Egyptian head of Al Qaida central, Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri whose head carries a $25 million reward from Washington as Bin Laden's successor.

What brought together this hideous alliance is a plan to execute a string of murders by large-scale bombing and shooting attacks. The three Arab men were recruited separately from each another, with the intention of operating as three separate terrorist cells. The suspects:

• Iyad Khalil Abusara, 23, from Ras Hamis, a Jerusalem neighbourhood, carries an Israeli ID card. He was to orchestrate several terrorist outrages. One was a planned attack on a Jerusalem to Ma'ale Adumim bus in which the wheels would be shot out, causing the vehicle to overturn and enabling gang members to gun down passengers at close range, and then kill the emergency responders as they arrived. In addition, simultaneous human-bomb and truck-bomb attacks on the Jerusalem Convention Center (Israelis know it better as Binyanei Ha'uma) and on the US Embassy's seaside office building on Tel Aviv's Hayarkon Street.
• Rubin Abu-Nagma, a male also from Jerusalem, confessed to being part of a plan to kidnap an IDF soldier at Jerusalem's busy Central Bus Station, and to bomb a residential building in the mixed Jewish/Arab Abu Tor neighborhood of Jerusalem; the targeted building is, naturally, home to Jewish families.
• Ala Anam, an incomplete name with few identifying particulars at this stage. From the context, it appears he too is from Jerusalem.

The Internet played a central role in the plot, as Lappin goes to some lengths to show. Over at Haaretz, they add this:

Shin Bet officials say that the method of recruitment - through Facebook, Skype and, in one case, encrypted communication software on the Internet - is nothing out of the ordinary. Most global jihad groups operating in the Middle East use the same or similar methods: they scour the Internet to search for candidates, issue orders and learn methods of operation. This is followed by a meeting with the handlers and a brief training period before carrying out the plan. Even though many of these attempts fail, or are prevented by the intelligence agencies of various countries, there have been quite a few instances of success. [Haaretz, today]

The Gaza stronghold of the Hamas terrorist regime, from where the co-ordination and overall planning was done, also played an important enabling role. What do its terror-addicted thugs say, you ask? According to Reuters:

"Hamas Islamists governing Gaza rejected the spy agency's account as "silly fabrications", saying it was an attempt to justify Israeli military strikes in the territory... Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri fired back by accusing Israel of seeking a "pretext" for its attacks in Gaza... Facebook is not a Hamas network."  [NYTimes]

Certain voices in the news media are fond of asserting that the desire of the Palestinian Arab side to carry out terrorist actions of the kind we saw a decade ago has somehow diminished. This is nonsense of a very dangerous kind. The security barrier has played a key role in reducing the number and severity of terrorist attacks on Israelis and so too has the vigilance of the various Israeli security agencies. As for a reduced desire to see dead and maimed Jews? Our impression is that this remains as potent among parts of the Arab world as it ever was, even while the current focus on International Solidarity gets so much of the media's attention.

Seems likely that we will be hearing more about today's disclosures.

17-Dec-13: When they next tell you that one man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter etc etc [UPDATED]

Closed-circuit video at this link

Max Boot writing in Commentary Magazine ["AQAP’s Global Threat"] yesterday:

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula doesn’t get the kind of publicity that al-Qaeda central, based in Pakistan, receives but it has emerged as one of the deadliest terrorist groups on the planet–and one that is a direct threat to the United States.
If you want to know how bad AQAP is, all you have to do is look at the horrifying video footage of its attack on a military hospital in Sanaa, the capital of Yemen. The WallStreet Journal summarizes some of the atrocities the terrorists committed:

A gunman walks toward more than a dozen men and women clustered in the hospital corridor. He raises his assault rifle in his left hand as if to shoot them, but then puts his right hand up and tosses a grenade into the crowd a few feet away. It lands at the feet of a frail-looking man stooped over an IV pole. He stares down at it for a moment, then a woman lunges to try to clear the grenade, her black robe whirling around her in the seconds before it explodes.

Some 63 people died in this ruthless and merciless mass murder spree.

He goes on to connect the horrifying Pakistani carnage with a matter to which we related here two days ago ["15-Dec-13: Now what could possibly motivate a man to load up a car with explosives and drive onto an airfield tarmac?"]

If you want to know why this is of concern beyond Yemen’s borders, consider the little-noticed arrest over the weekend of an airport technician in Wichita, Kansas, named Terry Lee Loewen... He was arrested for plotting to set off a car bomb at the Wichita airport. Luckily the FBI was onto his plot and the man who he thought was helping him turned out to be an FBI agent. Easy to overlook in the perfunctory news reports on Loewen’s arrest was the fact that he was a jihadist with a devotion to AQAP whose act of would-be violence was inspired by AQAP’s late propagandist, the American-born Anwar al-Awlaki. [Commentary Magazine]

(There's some harrowing closed-circuit video footage here, with Arabic-only commentary.)

It all seems so far away and just-marginally relevant when terrorism is something you associate with the evening news and foreign correspondents. More and more, ordinary people are coming to understand that it's actually an all-encompassing phenomenon. And we're all in it, even if not all of us fully understand that yet.

UPDATE December 22, 2013: About that hospital massacre in Yemen? Relax. A mistake, a huge, thoughtless mistake and a pity about all those dead people. The point of a YouTube video, posted on Saturday December 21, 2013, featuring a cool and calm Al Qaeda murder-spokesperson, is to say this was one big misunderstanding, and let's just move on while "we continue our jihad" (direct quote from the "apology"). If you have the stomach for it, it's here in Arabic with English subtitles. Along with large swatches of the jihad industry, these people know their audience and understand the marketing and branding game and the need to unbalance and confuse public opinion. Keep an eye on the mainstream media and you'll see their tactics generally work.

22-Nov-13: Memo to self: Not everyone claiming to be against terrorism ought to be believed

In the war against the terrorists, there's a sharp distinction to be drawn between those who are for the terrorists and those against. A great shame that there is so much confusion on the matter in so many places.

From Reuters today:

Pakistani doctor who helped U.S. find bin Laden charged with murder
JIBRAN AHMED | Reuters | Peshawar, Pakistan | Fri Nov 22, 2013

Pakistan on Friday charged with murder the doctor who helped the United States track down al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, in the latest development in a case that has strained ties between the two countries. Shakil Afridi, hailed as a hero by U.S. officials, was arrested after U.S. soldiers killed bin Laden in May 2011 in a secret raid that outraged Pakistan and plunged relations between the strategic partners to a new low.

Pakistan arrested Afridi and sentenced him last year to 33 years in jail for membership of militant group Lashkar-e-Islam, an accusation he denies. But in August, Pakistan overturned his conviction, citing procedural errors and ordering a retrial.

Friday's murder charge, relating to the death of a patient eight years ago, dims Afridi's chances of going free and could further sour ties with the United States. It centers on the death of Suleman Afridi, at a hospital in Pakistan's rugged Khyber Agency region in 2005, and was brought by the man's mother, a local official told Reuters. "A woman blamed Afridi for the death of her son," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "She stated that he operated on her son at a hospital in Khyber Agency even though he was not a surgeon, and that caused (her son's) death." No further details of the case were immediately available. Afridi is not a relative of the doctor, despite the shared surname.

The Khyber Agency, on the border with Afghanistan, is part of the semiautonomous areas where tribal law holds sway instead of Pakistan's judicial system, and the government is represented instead by a political agent.

Afridi's lawyer, Samiullah Afridi, also no relative, said Khyber officials had informed him about the murder charge on Friday morning.

Pakistan accused the doctor of running a fake vaccination campaign in which he collected DNA samples to help the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency track down bin Laden. Afridi is a last name shared by members of the Pashtun tribe of that name.

29-Oct-13: Terrorism is skyrocketing globally and there are hard numbers to prove it

Click for the Global Terrorism Database

The number of terror attacks globally rose sharply to a record high in 2012 after rising steadily (apart from small dips in 2004 and 2009) throughout the past decade. And 2013 is already set to surpass last year's toll. The strong expansion of terrorism "is not just a matter of having better data" but reflects "a fairly steep upward trajectory in the total of terrorist attacks and fatalities worldwide” according to the people behind the report.

CNN reported this afternoon ["Terrorist attacks and deaths hit record high, report shows"] that it will be revealing exclusive details based on an ongoing study by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) at the University of Maryland. START maintains the Global Terrorism Database, "the most comprehensive source of unclassified information about terrorist attacks, with statistics dating to 1970".

START's definition of terrorism closely mirrors that of the State Department and other experts. To be counted as an act of terror, an incident has to be an intentional act or threat by a "non-state actor" that meets two of these three criteria: (a) Aimed at attaining a political, economic, religious or social goal; (b) Intended to coerce, intimidate or convey a message to a larger group; (c) Violated international humanitarian law by targeting non-combatants.

The apparent increase in civilian casualties is alarming. Gone are the days when terrorist groups like the Irish Republican Army or Italy’s Red Brigade would try to keep casualties low by issuing warnings. Quoting Gary LaFree, START’s director, CNN says:

“If you’re a terrorist group now and you want to get your message out,” he said, “the more people you kill, the more ‘successful’ you’ll be.”

Six of the seven most deadly groups are affiliated with the al Qaeda Islamist forces, according to START, and most of the violence involved Moslem countries. CNN being CNN, puts this into context by means of a classic framework:

LaFree and other experts cautioned against viewing Islam itself as inherently violent. “Not so long ago, terrorism was centered in Western Europe and Latin America,” LaFree said. “It moves. And, unfortunately, it has moved into the Muslim world right now.”

A random sort of thing, in other words. A little like a roulette wheel. A pity that CNN's editors evidently cannot offer another way of understanding Islamism's role in this expanding crisis.

12-Jun-13: Sick of the war on terror. Oh, and also of being shot down out of the sky while flying somewhere.

One not-so-complicated way to permanently bring down
a civilian aircraft [Image Source]

Associated Press has been running a series of expose pieces in recent weeks, disclosing and analyzing the contents of thousands of pages of internal al-Qaida documents recovered in Timbuktu, Mali where a French military expedition has been fighting local Islamists - see our post "14-Jan-13: How do you say "proportionality" in French?"

The latest was published today. It focuses on the really disturbing disclosure that Islamist terrorists have gotten control of a stock of surface-to-air missiles capable of downing commercial airplanes.

It describes the discovery of what an expert calls "a ‘Dummies Guide to MANPADS'", the commonly used name given to the SA-7 weapons system. It says this is strong circumstantial evidence of al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb having the missiles.

First introduced in the 1960s in the Soviet Union, the SA-7 was designed to be portable. Not much larger than a poster tube, it can be packed into a duffel bag and easily carried. It’s also affordable, with some SA-7s selling for as little as $5,000. Since 1975, at least 40 civilian aircraft have been hit by different types of MANPADS, causing about 28 crashes and more than 800 deaths around the world, according to the U.S. Department of State.

A digital version of what AP calls that Dummies Guide is online here.

Some extracts from the Washington Post: "Manual left behind in Mali suggests al-Qaida training to use feared surface-to-air missile"

• The United States was so worried about this particular weapon ending up in the hands of terrorists that the State Department set up a task force to track and destroy it as far back as 2006. In the spring of 2011, before the fighting in Tripoli had even stopped, a U.S. team flew to Libya to secure Gadhafi’s stockpile of thousands of heat-seeking, shoulder-fired missiles. By the time they got there, many had already been looted. “The MANPADS were specifically being sought out,” said Peter Bouckaert, emergencies director for Human Rights Watch, who catalogued missing weapons at dozens of munitions depots and often found nothing in the boxes labelled with the code for surface-to-air missiles... 
• The knowledge that the terrorists have the weapon has already changed the way the French are carrying out their five-month-old offensive in Mali. They are using more fighter jets rather than helicopters to fly above its range of 1.4 miles (2.3 kilometers) from the ground, even though that makes it harder to attack the jihadists. They are also making cargo planes land and take off more steeply to limit how long they are exposed, in line with similar practices in Iraq after an SA-14 hit the wing of a DHL cargo plane in 2003... 
• The SA-7 is an old generation model, which means most military planes now come equipped with a built-in protection mechanism against it. But that’s not the case for commercial planes, and the threat is greatest to civilian aviation.
• In Kenya in 2002, suspected Islamic extremists fired two SA-7s at a Boeing 757 carrying 271 vacationers back to Israel, but missed. Insurgents in Iraq used the weapons, and YouTube videos abound purporting to show Syrian rebels using the SA-7 to shoot down regime planes...
• “This is not a ‘Fire and forget’ weapon,” said Bruce Hoffman, director of the Center for Security Studies at Georgetown University. “There’s a paradox here. One the one hand it’s not easy to use, but against any commercial aircraft there would be no defenses against them. It’s impossible to protect against it... If terrorists start training and learn how to use them, we’ll be in a lot of trouble.”
• ...“Even if you get your hands on an SA-7, it’s no guarantee of success,” he said. “However, if someone manages to take down a civilian aircraft, it’s hundreds of dead instantly. It’s a high impact, low-frequency event, and it sows a lot of fear.”

Just another little thing to think about when people like Peter Beinert over at the Daily Beast write, as he did yesterday

Obama was right: Americans are sick of the war on terror. We aren’t terrified anymore, and we’re no longer willing to sacrifice our freedoms.

For Beinert and anyone else wondering about how to quantify risk versus reward on this somewhat touchy issue, AP published a list today [here] of civilian planes shot down so far by MANPADS. If it's not relevant to you, just ignore.

28-Apr-13: Canadians learn that criminals can be saved from deportation if they persuade court they are "Palestinian"

Raed Jaser's family outside court in Toronto this week [Image Source]

Here's a follow up to "22-Apr-13: Tentacles in Canada, and the Iranians are behind it according to police".

Questions are now being asked in Canada that highlight a series of governmental decisions about one (at least) of the two men accused of plotting to carry out a terrorist attack on an interurban train. They're questions that ought to get some wider airing, and they come from Canada's minister of citizenship and immigration, Jason Kenney.

They are about Raed Jaser, 35, accused along with Chiheb Esseghaier, 30, of planning to derail a Via Rail passenger train in what the Canadian authorities are calling an "al-Qaeda supported" attack. Terrorism-related charges [detailed here] have been brought against the two.

From a CBC report, the government minister framed his concerns this way.

• Mohamed Jaser, with his wife, his son Jaser and two other children, travelled from Germany where they had been living, equipped with fake French passports, arriving in Canada on March 28, 1993. They applied immediately for asylum as refugees, based on claims of persecution in Germany. 
• Jaser was a boy of 10 at the time. He was born in the United Arab Emirates, but did not hold UAE citizenship.
• The family's request for refugee status was denied. They appealed, and eventually succeeded and became Canadian citizens. 
• Jaser, however, did not - evidently because of a proclivity for engaging in crime. He had acquired five separate fraud-related criminal convictions and was also convicted of making death threats by the time the citizenship application was heard. These offences rendered him ineligible for citizenship.
• In 2004, the Canadian government served a deportation order on him. In court - despite the government's claims that he should remain in detention - Jaser's lawyer successfully argued that Jaser could not be deported because, as a Palestinian, he was stateless.
• Some time after that, Jaser received a pardon - why is not clear - and granted permanent residency status in Canada.

Kenney says, as minister of citizenship and immigration, that the pardon and permanent residency given as gifts to the accused terrorist happened because of "old policies." Canada had recently legislated the Faster Removal of Foreign Criminals Act, a law designed to make it easier for Canada to expel foreigners who have faced six months or more in jail for a crime committed in Canada.

Jaser in court [artist's sketch]

Some time after Raed Jaser got permanent residence (according to Canada's Global News), his own father

became worried enough about his son’s religious views to ask others in the community for assistance that apparently never came through, and another two before a Toronto imam approached police through a lawyer, concerned about Jaser’s influence on youth. By the summer of 2012, he was under RCMP surveillance as part of an investigation that would ultimately see him and 30-year-old Chiheb Esseghaier arrested, accused of terrorist conspiracy and plotting to attack a passenger train... [more].

The parents' story [source] keeps coming back to their Palestinianism.

• Raed Jaser's father, Mohammed Jaser, says he was born in Jaffa; moved with his parents to Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip as a child. Egyptian authorities refused to provide citizenship. 
• Mother says she is a Palestinian, though born in Saudi Arabia. 
• They married when she was 16, and lived in Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. She attended secretarial and business administration school. Mohammed, the father, was granted legal residence in Jordan.
• Raed’s younger brothers were born in Jordan. 
• In 1966, the Jasers all moved to United Arab Emirates. Raed was born there. 
• Mohammed Jaser worked there in a garage, then as a school teacher, then to an advertising and publishing firm, then to Al Syasa, a political newspaper. he describes being terrorized by UAE authorities. “We lived in fear. Palestinians in the Gulf became the target of abuse, random arrests, torture and beatings... We lived as outsiders, in fear of growing and hardening anti-immigrant and anti-refugee sentiments. Our lives were threatened and we were harassed."
• After 24 years in the UAE, the family moved to Germany in January 1991. "The Jaser children were denied asylum". They again "lived as outsiders, in fear of growing and hardening anti-immigrant and anti-refugee sentiments. Our lives were threatened and we were harassed”.
•  Mohammed Jaser says he chose to immigrate to Canada because he had two brothers there, one a Canadian citizen, the other a refugee. Other siblings still live in the UAE. (But no suggestions about why this was done via forged French travel documents.)
• The family's application to become Canadians was rejected at first because the authorities "had concerns about the family’s credibility. However, as stateless Palestinians, they could not be removed from Canada since there was nowhere to send them."

The Canadian authorities are now going to have to figure out how to fit the family saga of harassment (by Egypt, Germany, UAE at least) with a major terrorist plot.

Also: how to explain to Canadian citizens that criminal offenders who claim Palestinianism and statelessness cannot be expelled even when the law requires it because there is nowhere to send them. It's a conundrum they might care to take up with the Palestinian Authority who first declared themselves to be a state twenty-five years ago on November 15, 1988.