Dozens of terrorism suspects among refugees who entered Germany

BERLIN (Reuters) – German authorities are investigating 40 cases in which Islamic militants are suspected of having entered the country with the recent flood of refugees from the Middle East, the federal police said on Wednesday.

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That represents a doubling of such cases since January and is likely to deepen concerns about the threat level in Germany, which has not suffered a large-scale Islamist attack like those that have rocked neighbours France and Belgium in recent months.

In the past, the German government has played down the risks of Islamic State fighters entering Europe with the tide of migrants, in part to avoid exacerbating public concerns about the influx, which hit a record 1.1 million last year.

 

But the head of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency Hans-Georg Maassen told a conference last week that although there were more efficient ways to smuggle in fighters, Islamic State appeared to have sent some via the Balkan route from Greece in order to fan fears about refugees and “send a political signal”.

“I am not telling you a secret when I say that I am concerned about the high number of migrants whose identities we don’t know because they had no papers when they entered the country,” Maassen said.

PARIS ATTACKS

The number of migrants entering Germany reached peaks of more than 10,000 a day last autumn, but has fallen dramatically in recent months due to the closing of the Greek border with Macedonia and a deal between the European Union and Turkey that has discouraged refugees from crossing the Aegean Sea.

The reduction in the numbers has eased pressure on German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who came under fierce criticism last year for welcoming hundreds of thousands of migrants fleeing war in the Middle East with the optimistic slogan “We can do this”.

A spokeswoman for the Bundeskriminalamt (BKA), or federal police, said there had been 369 warnings about possible extremists entering the country since the influx of refugees accelerated last year, of which 40 merited further investigation by federal and state authorities.

That represents a sharp increase from the 213 warnings and 18 investigations that the police had recorded in early January.

“German security officials have indications that members and supporters of terrorist organisations are being smuggled in with refugees in a targeted, organised way in order to launch attacks in Germany,” the BKA spokeswoman said, noting however that there was no definitive confirmation of this.

Two of the suicide bombers from the Nov. 13 attacks in Paris that killed 130 people came into Europe through the Balkan route and so did two men who authorities believe were meant to participate in those attacks but were delayed and arrested in a refugee centre in Salzburg in December.

There is also evidence that Saleh Abdeslam, believed to be the lone surviving suspect from the attacks, picked up three unidentified militants who entered Europe with the refugees in the southern German city of Ulm in October of last year.

In early February, German authorities arrested a 35-year-old Algerian man and his wife at a refugee centre in the town of Attendorn. The man, a suspected Islamic State member, reportedly posed as a Syrian when he entered Germany in the autumn of 2015.

Days later, a 32-year-old man was arrested in the city of Mainz who is suspected of having fought with the militant group in eastern Syria before travelling to Germany via Turkey.

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Almost 700 Iranian troops and militia fighters ‘killed in Syria’ to preserve Bashar al-Assad

Telegraph: Almost 700 Iranian soldiers and militia fighters have been killed in Syria’s civil war, laying bare the scale and cost of Tehran’s intervention to preserve Bashar al-Assad’s grip on power.

 

Officially, Iran maintains that only “military advisers” have been deployed in Syria.  But the state media has reported numerous battlefield casualties, with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) disclosing last week that 13 of its fighters were killed near Aleppo.

About 2,000 troops from the Quds Force – the special forces wing of the IRGC – are present in Syria, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). In addition, 13 Shia militias have been identified among the forces fighting for Assad’s regime.

The IRGC provides these units with recruits, weapons, training and military planning. In total, at least 3,000 Iranian military personnel are believed to be in Syria.

Their losses on the battlefield are becoming increasingly severe. About 280 Iranians were killed in Syria between the onset of Russia’s intervention on Sept 30 last year and May 2, according to a tally compiled by the Levantine Group, a risk consultancy. The Iranian media reported another 400 “martyrs” in Syria between 2013 and mid-2015.

The 13 deaths in the most recent battle near Aleppo would bring the total number of Iranian dead to 693 in the last three years. Given that the first IRGC personnel arrived in Syria in 2012 and many losses have probably gone unreported, the real toll is almost certainly higher.

But the scale of the casualties casts doubt over Iran’s denials of any combat role. On Feb 16, Mohammad Javad Zarif, the Iranian foreign minister, told the European Parliament: “Iran does not have boots on the ground in Syria.” He added: “We have military advisers in Syria, as we have them in other places.”

As Mr Zarif spoke those words, Iranian military personnel were helping Assad’s forces to break through rebel lines and encircle Aleppo from the north. In the 16 days before Mr Zarif’s denial, at least 51 Iranian troops were killed in Syria, amounting to Tehran’s heaviest combat losses since the beginning of the war, according to the Levantine Group.

The presence of Iranian forces in Syria – along with their allies from Hizbollah, the Lebanese militia – has proved “indispensable” for Assad’s regime, said Emile Hokayem, a senior fellow at the IISS. “It is complicated, but certainly Iran’s support – both material and financial – has been a decisive factor in Assad’s survival,” he added.

Assad is one of Iran’s few allies in the Arab world. His survival in office provides Iran with a crucial overland supply route to Hizbollah in Lebanon.

But Iran has been less anxious to conceal its military role in Syria since the emergence of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) as a formidable threat in 2014. Since then, Iran has presented itself as being foremost in the struggle against Isil.

“The emergence of Isil has given the Iranians a retrospective pretext for their presence in Syria,” said Mr Hokayem. “It’s easier for them today to justify the intervention in Syria. They have martyrs to celebrate.”

The mask slipped still further last month when the regime disclosed that soldiers from the army’s 65th Airborne Brigade had been sent to Syria. This was Iran’s first deployment of regular troops – as opposed to IRGC fighters – in a war outside the country since the conflict with Iraq in the 1980s.

At least two soldiers from the 65^th Brigade have since been killed. The arrival of regular soldiers could be the army’s attempt to claim credit for joining the struggle against Isil. Their presence may also be a sign that the IRGC is short of manpower, particularly as its personnel are also present in Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen.

“It could be that the Revolutionary Guard is overstretched,” said Mr Hokayem. “It has many missions around the region and it could need the manpower.”