15-Feb-15: From the warzones: an update

Copenhagen after the overnight killings [Image Source]

A handful of reminders, part of an ongoing theme, for those who still believe terrorism is shriveling up and dying. Or that our side is winning. Or that lone wolf attacks mean it's all about stopping one person.

Germany: The popular annual carnival parade in Braunschweig, northern Germany's largest, was cancelled this morning (Sunday) on 90 minutes notice, due to a "specific threat of an Islamist attack" identified by state security sources [BBC, today]. Mayor Ulrich Markurth (SPD) and parade marshal Gerhard Baller canceled the parade at short notice shortly before 11.a.m. (1000 UTC) on Sunday. The spectacle had been due to begin at 12.20 p.m. local time. Local Braunschweig police said the Karneval parade had been called off after reliable state sources became aware of a "concrete threat" of an attack with an "Islamist background". Police asked all visitors to not visit the planned parade route. [Deutsche Welle, today]

France and Germany were explicitly named as targets in a video threatening new attacks against people in those countries and released by the terrorist organization ISIS yesterday (Saturday). "The nine-minute video in Arabic and French entitled “A Message to France” claims that Islamic State operatives are deployed throughout both European countries and await orders to commit additional attacks, specifically in Paris and Brussels..." It includes two French-speaking Islamic State fighters wearing military fatigues implored Muslims throughout France to kill non-believers. “I call on my brothers who live among the infidels in France: If you can not emigrate, act within the country. Kill them with the weapons that you have available to you. Spit on them, burn their cars, burn police stations; don’t take pity on them,” one of the men said." [Times of Israel] The video, which includes an explicit threat of car bombs in Paris and Brussels, was distributed via "official" ISIS channels in in Salah al-Din, Iraq [Vocativ, today]

Gaza: The Hamas terrorist regime that presided over daily barrages of rockets directed at anything Israeli in the weeks leading up to the devastating push-back by Israel in July/August 2014, has new rockets to test. It fired two more of them into the Mediterranean Sea today. Times of Israel says today's launches were "likely a test of the rocket systems... fired by the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military branch of the Hamas group that rules the Gaza Strip. A rocket was fired from Gaza into the sea last week in another apparent test. In last summer’s war between Israel and Hamas, Palestinian groups fired almost 5,000 rockets and over 1,500 mortar shells toward Israeli towns and villages. The Israel Defense Forces said at the time that the 50-day conflict had depleted as much as 80% of Hamas’s rocket stockpiles, but the group is believed to be working to rebuild its arsenal." Money for rockets and for the rocket-men who design, manufacture and fire them is never in short supply. But strangely, those media outlets who decline to report on fresh rockets and fresh launches are careful to let news consumers know that the ordinary people of Gaza are in deep trouble, and money is at the core of the problems: "Political bickering stalls Gaza rebuilding" [Aljazeera, January 18, 2015]; "UN halts Gaza reconstruction works as donors renege on vow" [PressTV Iran, January 27, 2015]; "UN, Palestine govt launch humanitarian plan, calling for $705 million in aid" [Al Ahram, Egypt, February 12, 2015]; "Life in Gaza is worse than ever | Thousands still sleeping on floors of UN-run schools, in tents, or bombed-out apartments" [Gulf News, today]. Time we pointed back to a post we wrote here a mere three months ago ["23-Nov-14: Gaza's wealth and where it is - and is not - going"] which started this way:

A flurry of recent reports, like this one from Haaretz and a post of ours ["16-Nov-14: Gazan money, Gazan terror"], say that Hamas is now the world's second wealthiest terror organization. It has income on the order of a billion US dollars per year. And it's not just the organization: among its kleptocratic leadership are some newly-super-wealthy career-terrorists, prominent among them Mousa Abu Marzouk and Khaled Mashaal, Arafat would have admired their cynical brazenness.

Keep in mind, too, that the International Donor Conference in Cairo on October 12, 2014 ended with pledges to the homeless, jobless, hopeless victims of the Hamas Islamist regime in Gaza of about $5.4bn (£3.4bn) [BBC]. That, and the phenomenal wealth washing around the Arab states, ought to persuade people that whatever the urgency of Gaza's needs, it is considerably more complex than a lack-of-cash problem.

Denmark's prime minister sounds optimistic, the morning after three fatal terror-centric events in her nation's capital, after her intelligence people concede the deceased "suspect" is "someone who had been on the agency's "radar"" [Newsday, today] and before the funerals and hospital visits to the wounded: "We've tasted the ugly taste of fear and impotence that terror wants to create," Thorning-Schmidt told reporters. "But as a society, we have answered back..." [Reuters] Answered back? What in the name of all that is decent can she be thinking?

20-Jan-15: From the warzones

Belgian armed troops guard a courthouse in Brussels [Image Source]

Berlin, today: Associated Press: After two suspected members of an Islamic terror cell were taken into custody by German police this past Friday (see our post: "16-Jan-15: Scenes from a warzone"), thirteen homes, mostly in Berlin, were raided today by a force of some 200 police "looking for further evidence". Most are Turks, and members of a mosque in Berlin’s Moabit neighborhood, as are the two suspects already in the hands of the police. The group’s leader, identified only as Ismet D. because his privacy is a major pre-occupation of the German law, is accused of recruiting Turkish and Russian nationals to fight against “infidels” in Syria. Emin F. is accused of being in charge of finances. It appears the police think the group's plans did not include attacks within Germany and "were unrelated to the recent attacks in Paris or raids in Belgium". German citizens are doubtless hoping the security men and woman are right.

Paris: How confident ought we to be that sooner or later the authorities in Western Europe are going to get on top of the rapidly metastasizing spread of Islamist terror? CNN doesn't reach a conclusion but reports on a list of what it calls "mishaps" (intelligence failures might be a more useful term) that culminated in the January 7, 2015, Charlie Hebdo massacre.

• French security ended its surveillance of one of the murdering brothers, Cherif Kouachi, in November 2013. They knew he had gotten into the business of selling counterfeit goods, but failed to realize this was how he was financing his purchase of the weapons arsenal discovered after he had been shot dead by police. So he was not on their radar for the year leading up to the execution of the lethal plan.
• A French surveillance agency received an unspecified alert concerning one of the Kouachi brothers in February 2014. How long before this intelligence was passed on to the country's main domestic spy agency? A mere four months. By then, neither of the brothers was under surveillance. Presumably the intelligence was then trashed.
• French surveillance on the other brother, Said Kouachi, ended in June 2014. Why? No one is volunteering an answer, at least not to CNN.
• The authorities in France now say both Kouachis traveled from their homes in Paris to Yemen in 2011 via Oman. But note that Cherif Kouachi's passport had been officially confiscated in 2010. So how could he have gotten across the borders? And neither brother's name has been discovered in any of the relevant government databases of travelers. Which brings up the next point...

Europe: The Wall Street Journal noted yesterday that

"Borderless travel across most of the European Union makes it easy for suspects to cover their tracks. Terror suspects are exploiting the ease of travel across the Continent to stay one step ahead of authorities as they move militants, cash and weapons across the bloc without raising alarms, according to European officials. In some cases, suspects are evading tough antiterrorism laws in countries like France—where travel to Syria and Iraq has been banned—by moving through other EU countries en route to Syria or Iraq. The problem is compounded, officials say, by a lack of coordination between national law-enforcement and intelligence agencies from Brussels to Athens who are straining to pursue suspects across European borders."

17-Jan-15: Scenes from the warzones - Saturday update

Belgium, this week [Image Source]

Athens, today: AFP reports this evening that four people ("at least") were arrested in Athens today "as part of a probe into a jihadist cell that was dismantled in Belgium this week before it could carry out any attacks" according to a Greek police source. The arrests occurred in the Pangrati district of Athens in the middle of Saturday. They think, though there seems to be some doubt, that the arrested include Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the mastermind of the cell planning the foiled attacks from Greece. These arrests come on top of dozens of others across Europe, in raids targetting Islamists.

Brussels, today: The BBC says uniformed soldiers were seen guarding Jewish schools and government buildings in Belgium today. Belgium's interior minister said his country "had to make use of all the forces at its disposal". The report quotes defence ministry officials saying 150 police are already in place, a figure that could double in the coming days until the situation is reviewed next week. Associated Press says they are currently protecting synagogues in Antwerp, the Jewish Museum in Brussels and other sites and include paratroopers, "the first time in 30 years that authorities used troops to reinforce police in Belgium’s cities".  Belgium's terror warning level now stands at 3, the second-highest level. Justice Minister Koen Geens said Saturday that “we hope the worst has been avoided but we need to prepare for the most difficult to come.”

London, Friday: An 18-year-old woman was arrested by anti-terror officers at Stansted Airport Friday on suspicion of terrorism offences. One British report quotes a Scotland Yard source saying she was taken to a central London police station for questioning on suspicion of preparing terrorist acts and membership of a banned organisation. It said authorities were not revealing at this stage where she was travelling from. The Daily Mail UK covers the same incident, and names "A-level student Silhan Ozcelik" who was 17 when she "went missing in October", and describes her as "Kurdish teenager, from Highbury Corner, North London."

Sydney, Friday: The Daily Telegraph reports that Australian authorities deported a man described as "a former Australian factory worker... who had also breached his visa" on Wednesday, and that he was promptly arrested in Malaysia on arrival there, on suspicion of running an Australian IS terror cell. Malaysia's Special Branch Counter Terrorism Division officials were waiting for the man when he arrived at Kuala Lumpur's International Airport Friday morning.  "The terror cell was reported to consist of the man and a married Malaysian couple who were also deported, on January 7, and also arrested on arrival [back in Malaysia]. They had reportedly travelled to Australia with their 14-month-old daughter [and were] recruiting Malaysian militants and sending them to Turkey and eventually Syria via Australia."

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.

16-Jan-15: Scenes from the warzones

Belgium [Image Source]

The past 24 hours in the ongoing war in Europe...

Verviers, Belgium last night: Two armed men, evidently Islamists with plans for launching terrorist attacks on Belgian targets, were shot dead and another wounded by security people from Belgium's federal police after opening fire with automatic weapons on Thursday evening. Belgium is now on high alert. BBC quotes officials saying the shooters were part of a group that had returned to Belgium from fighting in Syria "and planned imminent attacks on police targets". In a search of the terrorists' premises - a flat above a bakery (source) - four Kalashnikov guns, bomb-making equipment and police clothing were seized.

Brussels, Belgium last night (as well as nearby towns Sint-Jans-Molenbeek, Anderlecht and Schaerbeek): Searches were carried out overnight by security personnel hunting for additional embedded Islamist terrorists.

Antwerp and Brussels, Belgium this morning: Jewish schools were closed "after they were informed that they could be potential targets" according to the BBC quoting the Belgian newspaper Joods Actueel.

Zaventem, Belgium: Two Islamists suspected of involvement in acts of terrorism or planning them were arrested Thursday (source).

Across western Europe: CNN has a breaking report today "that the ongoing terror threat appears to involve up to 20 sleeper cells of between 120 to 180 people ready to strike in France, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands. The source said that European Union and Middle East intelligence agencies identified an "imminent threat" to Belgium, possibly also to the Netherlands."

Montrouge, France: The suburban Paris apartment, rented on a short-term basis by Amedy Coulibaly, the jihadist killer who seized a kosher grocery store in Paris last Friday and cold-bloodedly murdered four of the unarmed Jews on the premises, turns out to have been an armaments repository. French police yesterday showed what they found there: "four Tokarev pistols similar to a pair found at the store, a revolver, and sticks of dynamite... mobile telephones, tear gas grenades, a flak jacket, binoculars, a flag similar to the ones used by the Islamic State (Isil), a copy of the Koran and a car rooftop beacon similar to those used by police" (source). Many thousands of Euros were spent in accmulating what the young thug had there.

Berlin, Germany: Overnight raids on Thursday/Friday by German security personnel involving "250 officers and three Special Operations commands carried out the raids on 11 homes" resulted "in the arrest a pair of Turkish men for planning a terrorist attack on Friday", (source)

More coming.