In 2007, Belgium Was Warned

Posted on March 28, 2016March 28, 2016 by Denise Simon

CNN: in January 2015: A Western Intelligence source tells CNN 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.

The Belgian counterterrorism official said indications of ISIS ordering attacks in Europe mark an apparent significant shift by the terrorist group. Before the air campaign against it, the official said, there was little indication ISIS leaders were directly plotting attacks in the West. Instead, the group prioritized its project to create an Islamic caliphate.

The official named France, the UK and Belgium as countries facing a particular threat. Counterterrorism agencies in Germany also are on high alert because of the number of fighters who have traveled. Several European countries, including Britain, France, Belgium and the Netherlands are participating in the air campaign against ISIS in Iraq.

Why would ISIS change tack? Partly because of increased competition between ISIS and al Qaeda affiliates, including the Khorasan group in Syria, to be seen as the standard bearers of global jihad, according to the official.

The official said there is also significant concern about Khorasan attack plotting against Europe. U.S. officials previously told CNN that French al Qaeda operative and bomb-maker David Drugeon was suspected to be talent-spotting European jihadis in Syria for operations in Europe. Drugeon was injured in a drone strike in November but is believed to be still alive.

Last week, Andrew Parker, the head of Britain’s security service MI5, warned, “A group of core al Qaeda terrorists in Syria is planning mass casualty attacks against the West,” an apparent reference to the Khorasan group.

Belgium warned about emerging homegrown terrorist threat in 2007

The Belgian government was warned that the country’s intelligence agencies were ill-equipped to deal with the emerging threat from homegrown jihadists, nine years before the attacks on Brussels’ airport and subway system.

Some of the city’s suburbs were becoming an “operational base” for homegrown terrorists, according to a 2007 report by an independent committee tasked with reviewing the work of Belgium’s security services.

Faced with short-term constraints as well as evolving threats, these services have difficulty developing a vision – an in-depth and long term (strategy) on the development of radical Islam in Belgium.

Time, priorities and lack of permanent staff do not allow services to ensure that role.

– 2007 report on Belgium security

Although the report concluded that confronting extremism should not be the responsibility of intelligence agencies, it said they “(seemed) reluctant to investigate deeper causes of violent radicalisation… political, cultural, socialogical”

The report, unearthed by ITV News, warned Belgium’s parliament that “our country can at any time become the target of Jihadist terrorism.”

Belgian has been accused of not doing enough to stop the attack in Brussels. Credit: Reuters/Francois Lenoir

This week, Belgian authorities have been accused of not doing enough to act on warnings from Turkey and the United States about the Brussels attackers.

And one police chief admitted that his department had failed to share a dossier of evidence about associates of Salah Abdeslam, four months before he was arrested.

The 2007 report concluded that the Belgian government should “encourage the intensification of cooperation between law enforcement and security services of (EU) member states.”

It recommended that the spy agencies consider “the possibility of hiring… agents with specific profiles for the knowledge of cultures and foreign languages.”

Turkey says it tried to warn Belgium that one of the two brothers who blew themselves up in suicide attacks in Brussels was a foreign fighter sent back to Europe after being arrested on the Turkey-Syria border.

“One of the attackers in Brussels is an individual we detained in Gaziantep in June 2015 and deported. We reported the deportation to the Belgian Embassy in Ankara on July 14, 2015, but he was later set free,” Mr Erdogan said.

“Belgium ignored our warning that this person is a foreign fighter.”

Mr Erdogan’s office confirmed Ibrahim El Bakraoui was deported to the Netherlands.

It said he was later released by Belgian authorities as “no links with terrorism” were found.

In previous cases, officials have said without evidence of crime, such as having fought in Syria, they cannot jail people deported from Turkey.

Ambassador, Brussels, White House and Terror

Posted on March 25, 2016March 25, 2016 by Denise Simon

Based on the extensive information below, it can be argued that the France terror operations were plotted by the Libyan faction but highly connected to Iraq or Syrian ISIS command and control. But read on, nothing is a simple as the media publishes. (not really their fault either)

(BRUSSELS) —A former Belgian ambassador to the U.S. and his wife are among the 31 people who died in the Brussels terror attacks.

The Belgian Foreign Ministry confirmed Friday that Andre Adam, a former ambassador to the United States during the Clinton administration, was killed in the attack on the Brussels airport. Adam’s wife was also killed in the attacks.

In addition to his time as ambassador, Adam was also the Belgian ambassador to the United Nations during key moments in recent history including the September 11 attacks and the during the Afghanistan war.

Identifying the victims remains a slow process and Belgian authorities say just nine out of 31 victims have been identified. So far the victims were from six nations. Currently authorities have identified three Dutch citizens, two Americans and citizens from Peru, United Kingdom, China and France among the victims. More here.

Surely, the U.S. Ambassador to Belgium reads the local newspapers. Denise Bauer is an Obama groupie and got a favored gig and likely she has sent critical reports to the U.S. State Department regarding what goes on in Brussels and throughout the country. Reports that go to the State Department also go to several other U.S. intelligence agencies.

According to prosecuting attorney Ann Franssen, there are indications that the organization used hate speeches to fuel violence among their members. The leading members of the group, including Belkacem, could now face a prison sentence of between 15 and 20 years for belonging to a terrorist organization.

Since an attack on the Jewish Museum in Brussels at the end of May, the main concern has been that on returning to Belgium, radicalized and battle-hardened youths could also bring terrorism home with them. During the attack, two Israeli tourists, a French woman and a Belgian were killed. The alleged bomber was a French Islamist with who had spent time in Syria. Observers of the trial in Antwerp have said they believe the Belgian government wants to use the trial to dissuade potential copycats.

Islamist hub

According to the anti-terror coordinator of the European Union (EU), Gilles de Kerchove, there are currently some 3,000 Europeans fighting for Islamists in Syria and Iraq. Belgian authorities alone have estimated to have 300 to 400 self-proclaimed “holy warriors.” In terms of the total population of 11 million people, that’s the highest rate in Europe. According to the prosecution, a tenth of these Belgian jihadists alone were enlisted with the organization “Sharia4Belgium.”

Then there is the Shariah4 movement and YouTube:

Choudary’s boundary-pushing stunts have created an outcry in the United Kingdom. He received much publicity in 2009 after he declared that Buckingham Palace should be turned into the seat for the new Caliph.[7] The reaction encouraged Choudary. His subsequent releases targeting the American media market included mock-up photos indicating a jihadist take-over attached to articles on “The White Masjid,” which is an allusion to the White House. The Islamic Demolition of the Statue of Liberty is dramatized by draping a burqa over the monument. Another posting announces the creation of the International Sharia Court of Justice to replace the United Nations in New York City. One photo shows Choudary in front of the White House with a black flag of Islam.

The content of the YouTube channels is strikingly similar. Over images of Muslims suffering at the hands of Western military forces, the sound track broadcasts anasheed (a vocal musical genre favored by jihadists) and texts from the Koran, or a voice-over explaining the righteous path. Anjem Choudary, Omar Bakri Muhammad, and Abu Hamza al-Masri are the most frequently used speakers. Videos featuring Osama Bin Laden and Anwar al-Awlaki are also popular. Programs addressed specifically to particular national audiences feature local celebrity emirs and activists. Choudary officially endorsed one of the channels, Sharia4Belgium, in March 2010: “We support our brothers in Belgium under the banner of Sharia4Belgium and we are ready, whatever they need to send more people to support them in their activities, in their duty, and fulfilling their responsibility.”[8]

The YouTube channels in the Shariah4 network also cross-post many of the same videos. Some Shariah4 channels are created, with content uploaded, and then rarely updated. The most active channels include Sharia4Belgium (and its successor channels), Shariah4Holland, Shariah4Australia (and its successor channel), Shariah4Poland, Shariah4Pakistan, and Shariah4AlAndalus. The recent uprisings in the Arab world produced a proliferation of new channels with similarly themed content: Shariah4Tunisia, Sharia4Egypt, and Sharia4Yemen.

The Shariah4Tunisia channel, for instance, highlights four videos of demonstrations in which members of al-Muhajiroun call for an Islamic state in Tunisia. Two of the videos show a British Tunisian. The other two videos feature Anjem Choudary. Choudary also makes an appearance in a video titled “Shariah 4 Libya” that was uploaded to YouTube by londondawah, another channel of British jihadists that is loosely affiliated with al-Muhajiroun. The Sharia4Egypt and Sharia4Yemen channels had only one video each. Both videos have anasheed in the background with pictures from the protests and text of the Koran in Arabic and English calling for the establishment of Shariah. Much more detail here.

France, Belgium, Germany and the United Kingdom a ticking time bomb that in some cases has in fact exploded but no one heard the blasts. Why? Given the countless areas of cities and towns throughout Europe, a power keg is noted and not only al Qaeda soldiers leave Europe for battlefield destinations but with Islamic State as well.

Who recruits these people? There are several recruiters and many pay martyr fees. It is no wonder attacks in Paris and in Brussels occur, and more will. Let us go back to 2015 where there are NO intelligence failures but a failure of will due to political correctness and it is owned by leaders of Western nations including the United States under Barack Obama as well as Hillary Clinton and John Kerry’s State Department.

The investigative blogger below has done some remarkable work. This concentrates on Belgium.

A new statistical update on Belgian fighters in Syria and Iraq

The maximum number of Belgians who at one point were active in Syria or Iraq has climbed to 516. This implies that the steady flow from foreign fighters to (mainly) The Islamic State has somewhat slowed down. Since April 2015 that would be an increase of 31 (known) individuals.

This number means that out of Belgium’s Muslim population of about 640.000 individuals, there is roughly one per 1260 who has been involved in Jihad in Syria and Iraq. At this point Belgium is, pro capita, by far the European nation contributing the most to the foreign element in the Syrian war.

Of the 516 mentions in the database we identified 183 by name and surname. Another 94 individuals are only known by their kunya or nom de guerre. And so, it might be possible that the total number mentioned is slightly overestimated. It is indeed possible that some of the anonymous mentions in the database overlap with known individuals. My count however is a lot higher than the official numbers of the Belgian Government:

about 180-190 Belgians in Syria

60 to 70 killed

about 120 returned (official update dd July 26 : 118)

about 10 travelling towards Syria (numbers from late summer 2015)

about 50 tried to leave but were stopped

Since the first terrorism trial in Belgium early 2015, it has been (partly) proven that Sharia4Belgium at least inspired a lot of young Belgians. And it seems to be so indeed; as 79 of them (15,5%) are to be directly linked to Sharia4Belgium. The first Belgians who left joined a variety of groups, often small and independent groups that, in time affiliated with The Islamic State.

At least 112 of the Belgian fighters are indeed members of The Islamic State, yet the overal count of IS-fighters is most likely higher.

Around nine percent of the Belgians (47 to be precisely) are women. 14 of them have a proven affiliation with Sharia4Belgium. At least 19 of them are affilliated with The Islamic State.

Around 6% of the Belgian fighters are converts.

The ages of 202 Belgian fighters varry between 14 and 69; the average age is 25,7.

Origins in Belgium: Of 266 individuals we know where they originated from, as shown in next graph (in alphabetical order):

Group affiliations:

79 individuals can be linked to Sharia4Belgium, the most important group in Belgium contributing to the high number of foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq. 35 of these have a proven affiliation with The Islamic State. 15,5 % of the total ammount of Belgians were at some point affiliated with Sharia4Belgium.

4 are linked to Shaykh Bassam al-Ayashi’s former network Centre Islamique Belge
At least one was a former member of the Groupe Islamique Combattant Marocain (GICM)

We know of at least 5 individuals who are fighting in pro-regime ranks

At least 112 Belgians are fighters / members of The Islamic State (ISIS). Most remarkably at least 19 of them are/were members of the Lybian branch Katibat al-Battar al-Libi (see Katibat al-Battar and the Belgian Fighters in Syria)

Another 17 (most likely much more) are fighting in the ranks of Jabhat an-Nusra

Another 16 are linked to other rebel groups, the majority of them (12) joined Suqur as-Sham

Returned: At least 55 individuals have already returned to Belgium, yet this number might be doubled according to official government sources. (mid July 2015: official number was 120)

Killed:
At least 68 Belgians have been killed thus far in Syria and Iraq. Most of them in combat, at least three of them conducted a suicide operation. One of them Iliass Azaouaj was killed (beheaded) by The Islamic State for betrayal; he was suspected to sustain contacts with Moroccan and Belgian security forces.

A List of Belgians fighters killed in Syria and Iraq (in random order):

Abd ar-Rahman al-Ayashi (aka Abu Hajjar), 38, Idlib, Suqur as-Sham

Abdalgabar Hamdaoui, 34. Jabhat an-Nusra

Abdel Monaïm Lachiri (aka Abu Sara), 33, Aleppo, ISIS

Abu al-Bara’ al-Jaza’iri, Saraqib

Abu Ali al-Baljiki, Idlib

Ahmed Dihaj (aka Abu Atiq), 32, Sharia4Belgium, Jabhat an-Nusra. One of the accused on the Sharia4Belgium trial. Left Belgium in April or May 2013, killed September 2013

Anonymous, Ahmed Stevenberg, Lattakia

Anonymous (Vilvoorde)

Anonymous (Vilvoorde)

Anonymous (Brussels)

Faysal Yamoun (aka Abu Faris al-Maghribi), 30, Antwerp, Sharia4Belgium, Jabhat an-Nusra. Left Belgium on December 7, 2012. Killed February 2014. One of the accused on the Sharia4Belgium trial.

Hamdi Mahmoud Saad, 32, Latakkia

Houssien Elouassaki (aka Abu Fallujah), 22, Vilvoorde, Sharia4Belgium. Killed in Aleppo province September 2013. One of the accused on the Sharia4Belgium trial.

Isma’il Amghroud, 22, Maaseik, killed June 2013

Khalid Bali (aka Abu Hamza), 17, Antwerpen, Deir ez-Zor, Sharia4Belgium, ISIS, killed May 2014.

Mohammed Bali (aka Abu Hudayfa), 24, Antwerp, Sharia4Belgium, ISIS, killed in Hama. One of the accused on the Sharia4Belgium trial.

Noureddine Abouallal (aka Abu Mujahid), 23, Antwerp, Sharia4Belgium, killed in July 2013. One of the accused on the Sharia4Belgium trial.

Raphael Gendron (aka Abdurauf Abu Marwa), 38, Brussels, Suqur as-Sham, Idlib, killed in April 2013

Sean Pidgeon, Left Belgium in November 2012, killed in March 2013.

Tarik Taketloune, Vilvoorde, 19, Sharia4Belgium, brother returned to Belgium and free under conditions, wife still in Syria, killed in May 2013. One of the accused on the Sharia4Belgium trial.

Anonymous, known as Younis Asad Rahman (aka Asad ar-Rahman al-Baljiki), Latakkia, killed in August 2013

Saïd El Morabit (aka Abu Muthanna al-Baljiki), 27, Sharia4Belgium, ISIS, killed in March 2014. One of the accused on the Sharia4Belgium trial.

Abu ‘Umar, ISIS, Brussels

Rustam Gelayev (son of Chechen warlord Ruslan Gelayev), Aleppo, killed in August 2012

Nabil Azahaf (aka Abu Sayyaf), 21, Brussels, Sharia4Belgium, ISIS, killed in May 2014. One of the accused on the Sharia4Belgium trial.

Anonymous, known as Abu Dujana al-Mali, Brussels, ISIS, ar-Raqqa, killed in March 2014

Karim Azzam (aka Abou Azzam), 23, Brussels, killed in April 2014

Anonymous, known as Abu Salma Al-Belgiki, Deir ez-Zor province, killed in August 2013

Anonymous, known as Abu Handalah, killed in Aleppo

Anonymous, killed in clashes with tribal fighters on July 30th 2014 in al-Keshkeyyi, Deir ez-Zor province

Iliass Azaouaj, 23, Brussels, killed by The Islamic State for alledged betrayal. Raqqa, August 2014

Abu Jihad al-Baljiki, further unknown, killed on August 31st in a regime counter-attack defending the Deir ez-Zor military airport.

Abu Mohsen at-Tunisi, further unknown, killed on August 31st in a regime counter-attack defending the Deir ez-Zor military airport.

One of the Bakkouy brothers from Genk. Killed late September 2014.

Abu Yahya al-Beljiki, reported killed on October 15, 2014.

Ilyass Boughalab, killed in March 2014, Shariah4Belgium, ISIS. One of the accused on the Sharia4Belgium trial.

Abū ‘Umar al-Beljīkī, of Saudi origin, killed in Latakia province in the beginning of October 2014, Jabhat an-Nusra

Khalid Hachti Bernan aka Abu Qa’Qa, ISIS memeber from Virton, reported dead in May 2014

Abu Muhammad al-Baljiki, unknown ISIS fighter, killed in Deir ez-Zor mid October 2014

Oufae Sarrar, aka Umm Jarrah, Sharia4Belgium, ISIS, wife of Ilyass Boughalab, killed end 2013. First known Belgian women killed

Abu Sulayman al-Baljiki al-Maghribi, unknown ISIS fighter, killed in Kobanê mid November 2014

Sabri Refla, AKA Abu Turab, 19, Vilvoorde, left on August 12 2013 and killed in December 2013

Yassine El Karouni, AKA Abu Osama, 23, Dutch origin, killed in May 2014

Zakaria El Bouzaidi, Laken (Brussels), friend of Sean Pidegeon, killed in September 2014

Anonymous, AKA Abu Yahya al-Belgiki, killed in October 2014

Anonymous, AKA Abu Adnan al-Belgiki, Algerian origin, originaly affiliated with Jabhat an-Nusra, turned to ISIS late 2013, killed in September 2014

Anonymous, AKA Abu Said al-Belgiki, killed in Dier ez-Zor in December 2014

Soufiane Amghar, AKA Abu Khalid al-Belgiki, one of the killed ISIS members in Verviers on January 15 2015

Kahlid Ben Larbi, AKA Abu Zubayr al-Belgiki, one of the killed ISIS members in Verviers on January 15 2015

Haddad, no more details, from Molenbeek (Brussels), brother of Verviers plot suspect Abdelmounaim Haddad, killed in Syria

Hamza Kharbache, from Molenbeek (Brussels), brother of Younes Kharbache, killed in Aleppo province, February 2014

Younes Kharbache, from Molenbeek (Brussels), brother of Hamza, killed in Damascus province, August 2013

Anonymous, AKA Abu Bakr al-Belgiki (IS), committed a suicide attack in Ramadi, Iraq, March 11, 2015

Mesut Cankarturan, AKA Abu Abdullah al-Belgiki (IS), killed March 25, 2015 in Deir ez-Zor

Anonymous, AKA Abu Taymiyya al-Belgiki (IS)

Anonymous, AKA Abū ‘Abd Allah al-Belgiki (IS), performed a suicide op on the Irāqī-Jordanian border on April 24, 2015

Anonymous, AKA Abu Muslim al-Belgiki (IS), from Antwerpen. Reportedly killed in June 2014.

Anonymous, AKA Abu Waliyya al-Belgiki (IS). Killed in a suicide attack June 22, 2015

Anonymous, Abu Turab al-Belgiki (IS). Reportedly killed in May 2015

Anonymous, Abu Handala al-Belgiki (IS). Reportedly killed in May 2015

Junior Juma, 16. Reportedly killed in late June 2015. See here for details.

Anonymous, Abu Ilyas al-Belgiki (IS). Reportedly killed in ar-Raqqa province on July 18, 2015

Lucas Van Hessche, 19. AKA Abu Ibrahim (IS). Left Belgium on June 11, 2014. Declared KIA on August 12, 2015

Ahmed Daoudi, 31 from Turnhout. AKA Abu Mohsin. Former Sharia4Belgium member. Left Belgium on August 22, 2012. Seems to have been a humanitarian worker. Killed after the chemical attacks in Eastern Ghouta on August 21, 2013. The last time he contacted his family in Belgium was in August 2014. Daoudi was sentenced by absence in the Sharia4Belgium trial to 10 years in prison.

Anonymous, Abu Mariyya al-Belgiki (IS), Indian descent. Early 20’s. Left Belgium late October 2014. Reported killed around August 17, 2015 in Syria during his first battle. See here for details.

Anonymous, Abu Ayman al-Belgiki (IS). Killed in the UK drone strike on August 21, 2015 over Raqqa, targetting British IS-fighter Reyaad Khan (see here for more info on the UK drone strike). Death confirmed by a French speaking foreign fighter on Twitter

Fayssal Oussaih aka Abū Shahīd (IS) originated from Maaseik http://t.co/YqP45mtZRo

Brian De Mulder aka Ibrahim Abu Abderrahmaan aka Abu Qasim al-Brazili (IS) 21 years old. Former Sharia4Belgium member. Allegedly died in Syria on Friday October 23 of previously sustained wounds during a jet-strike. (see: De Standaard, De Morgen, Knack)

Additional posts of his are here and here. Noted in part below:

Katibat al-Battar al-Libi and alleged links with some Belgian fighters we accidently stumbled on solid proof that a lot of Belgian fighters are directly linked to this group.

******

All mentioned were killed fighting in the ranks of Katibat al-Battar sometime in 2014.The pictures of the list, as posted on Twitter mid October 2014 See below:

Names are translated here.

Belgium/French Terrorists and Their Weapons

Posted on March 25, 2016March 25, 2016 by Denise Simon

In part: Container after Container

Hat tip to Spiegel: The shop where Coulibaly’s weapons were purchased is called AFG Security and it is located in the town of Partizánske, a two-and-a-half hour drive from Vienna. The store is in the basement of a two-story apartment building on a dead-end road near the train tracks. Stairs lead down below street level and inside, a camouflage net hangs from the ceiling. A bottle of Cabernet, emblazoned with a picture of Adolf Hitler and the words “Mein Kampf,” stands in a display case.

This shop, located in the middle of nowhere, is the source of thousands of deactivated weapons that have been sold across Europe. Firearms from here have ended up in the hands of Islamist terrorists in France, gangsters in Great Britain and a man who was once one of Germany’s most dangerous neo-Nazis. Over the course of years. The AFG website continues to claim that the weapons are just “for fun” — for the reenactment of World War II battles, for example. But the key part comes later: “Most of the expansion weapons (Eds. Note: alarm weapons) are originals (originally ‘sharp’) with minor modifications which disable the shooting with original – ‘sharp’ ammunition.” The word “sharp,” in the clumsily written English version of the website, refers to the ability to fire live ammunition.

The guns are mostly decommissioned weapons from the Slovak military. Container after container of these firearms wound up in the hands of companies like Kol Arms, which then converted them from lethal weapons into alarm rifles. By the time the weapons left AFG Security, they were considered harmless — at least according to the law. For the lawless, however, they were the hottest new thing on the market. AFG sold an estimated 14,000 alarm weapons abroad, mostly over the Internet, according to the German Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA). The agency currently has 33 open investigations into customers in Germany.

Many of the shop’s customers apparently appreciated how quickly the weapons could be re-converted into active firearms. French investigators recently tried it out for themselves: It took only two hours for a locksmith of modest talent to reopen the barrel. Doing the same with German-made alarm guns isn’t nearly as easy.

Investigators from several EU countries have been monitoring the shop since 2014 after being tipped off by packages from Germany mailed to Alexander M., alias “Smokey,” a serial burglar from London who has since been sentenced to life in prison. The packages included four fully functioning vz.61 Scorpion submachine guns, which are as small and deadly as the name implies. Smokey ordered the guns from jail using his smartphone.

Initially, the authorities had no idea who the supplier was. They knew only that the person had been active on the anonymous trading platform Agora on the so-called Darknet. British and German police dispatched cyber investigators to order weapons in a sting operation. The tracking number of the packages led them to a mechatronics student named Christoph K. in the Bavarian city of Schweinfurt. Christoph K. is a slender young man in his mid-twenties with technical ability, good business acumen and few scruples. One morning in January 2015, police raided the campus of the University of Applied Sciences in Schweinfurt where Christoph K. was pursuing his studies. Further arrests and legal proceedings followed all across Europe.

‘Unaware of the Consequences’

Christoph K. had been reactivating the AFG alarm weapons in his basement workshop and then reselling them for 10 times the price. Four weeks ago, the Schweinfurt regional court sentenced him to four years and three months in prison. Defense attorney Jochen Kaller said his client had been “unaware of the consequences” of his actions.

Christoph K. wasn’t AFG’s only regular German customer. The company’s weapons registry, which the BKA has obtained, also includes the name Alexander R., 39, who bought two Kalashnikovs and three dozen Scorpions. In Ferlach, a hub of the Austrian weapons industry, he obtained raw tubes for the new barrels needed to reactivate the weapons.

Officials at the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the German domestic intelligence agency responsible for monitoring extremism, had already had Alexander R. on their radar. Back at the end of the 1990s, he had been part of weapons deals with a former leader of Hoffmann, a right-wing extremist paramilitary sports group. At the time of their arrest, police seized close to a dozen submachine guns along with five hand grenades. After his conviction, R. spent more than four years in prison. While in jail, he wrote to his comrades that he planned to destroy “the regime of the Federal Republic of Germany.” Police found a pamphlet in Alexander R.’s possession stating that the undercover agents who caught him should be shot and their corpses left with a warning note in their mouths. “Perhaps together with his dick and balls.”

After his release from prison, Alexander R. initially kept a low profile. But beginning in mid-2013, he began purchasing large quantities of weapons from AFG in Slovakia. Operating under the assumption that the company was under BKA surveillance, R. drove several times directly to Partizànske, where he paid in cash rather than ordering over the Internet. On the telephone, he once spoke of a “Big Chainsaw,” a friend of “Beans,” terms a regional court in Rhineland-Palatinate is convinced refers to weapons and ammunition. A few months ago, the court sentenced Alexander R. to six years in prison. His application for appeal was rejected on all major points. Meanwhile, the convict hasn’t revealed the location of the three dozen submachine guns.

Claude Hermant, 52, who had previously worked for the right-wing populist Front National party’s security service in France, also placed a major order with AFG in 2014. The stalwart right-winger has paramilitary training and is also known to have spent a few months in jail in Africa, where rumors circulated about his alleged links to a failed coup attempt. Read the full investigative summary here.

Operation Hemorrhage

Posted on March 24, 2016March 24, 2016 by Denise Simon

It has been said often, either fight the enemy in a true war theater on the battlefield with real war tactics or fight them at home. Brussels and Paris and in the United States in Boston and San Bernardino to mention a few, the hybrid war gets real expensive. These costs are rarely measured or questioned. We are also not measuring the cost of freedoms are giving up. Add in the cost of the cyber war…..well….going back much earlier than 9-11-01 the costs cannot be calculated.

Operation Hemorrhage: The Terror Plans to Wreck the West’s Economy

The Western economy is a key underlying target in attacks like the one that the Islamic State perpetrated in Brussels.

DailyBeast: Every European who flies frequently knows the airport in Zaventem, has spent time in the ticketing area that was strewn with blood, limbs, broken glass, battered luggage and other wreckage.

It was another attack on aviation that pulled the United States into the conflict sometimes known as the “global war on terror” in the first place. Since then, airports and airplanes have remained a constant target for Islamic militants, with travelers being encumbered by new batches of security measures after each new attack or attempt.

After the ex-con Richard Reid managed to sneak a bomb aboard a transatlantic flight in December 2001, but failed to detonate the explosives, American passengers were forced to start removing their shoes on their way through security. After British authorities foiled a 2006 plot in which terrorists planned to bring liquid explosives hidden in sport drink bottles aboard multiple transatlantic flights, authorities strictly limited the quantity of liquids passengers were allowed to carry. When Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab snuck explosives hidden in his underwear onto a flight on Christmas Day 2009, he ushered in full-body scans and intrusive pat-downs.

Those are the misses. There have been hits, too. In August 2004, two female Chechen suicide bombers, so-called “black widows,” destroyed two domestic Russian flights. In January 2011, a suicide bomber struck Moscow’s Domodedovo airport in an attack that looked almost identical to the one that rocked the airport in Brussels: the bomber struck just outside the security cordon, where the airport is transformed from a “soft” target to a “hard” one. Just months ago, the self-proclaimed Islamic State (ISIS)—the perpetrator of the Brussels attacks—destroyed a Russian passenger jet flying out of Egypt’s Sinai, killing 224 people.

The targeting of airports and airplanes has been so frequent that in lighter times—back when the terrorists seemed so much worse at what they do—some pundits openly mocked their continuing return to airplanes and airports. In one representative discussion from early 2010, a well-known commentator described jihadists as having a “sort of schoolboy fixation” with aviation.

But the reason for this targeting, of course, is neither mysterious nor quixotic, and it’s one the jihadists have explained for themselves. Following the November Paris attacks, ISIS released an infographic boasting that its slaughter on the streets of Paris would force Belgium “to strengthen its security measures … which will cost them tens of millions of dollars.” Moreover, the group claimed, “the intensified security measures and the general state of unease will cost Europe in general and France in specific tends of billions of dollars due to the resulting decrease in tourism, delayed flights, and restrictions on freedom of movement and travel between European countries.”

And that was before the group successfully attacked the Brussels airport, despite those costly new security measures.

Even before 9/11, jihadists saw bleeding the American economy as the surest path to defeating their “far enemy.” When Osama bin Laden declared war against the “Jews and crusaders” in 1996, he emphasized that jihadist strikes should be coupled with an economic boycott by Saudi women. Otherwise, the Muslims would be sending their enemy money, “which is the foundation of wars and armies.”

Indeed, when bin Laden first had the opportunity to publicly explain what the 9/11 attacks had accomplished, in an October 2001 interview with Al Jazeera journalist Taysir Allouni, he emphasized the costs that the attacks imposed on the United States. “According to their own admissions, the share of the losses on the Wall Street market reached 16 percent,” he said. “The gross amount that is traded in that market reaches $4 trillion. So if we multiply 16 percent with $4 trillion to find out the loss that affected the stocks, it reaches $640 billion of losses.” He told Allouni that the economic effect was even greater due to building and construction losses and missed work, so that the damage inflicted was “no less than $1 trillion by the lowest estimate.”

In his October 2004 address to the American people, dramatically delivered just before that year’s elections, bin Laden noted that the 9/11 attacks cost Al Qaeda only a fraction of the damage inflicted upon the United States. “Al Qaeda spent $500,000 on the event,” he said, “while America in the incident and its aftermath lost—according to the lowest estimates—more than $500 billion, meaning that every dollar of Al Qaeda defeated a million dollars.”

Al Qaeda fit the wars the United States had become embroiled in after 9/11 into its economic schema. In that same video, bin Laden explained how his movement sought to suck the United States and its allies into draining wars in the Muslim world. The mujahedin “bled Russia for ten years, until it went bankrupt,” bin Laden said, and they would now do the same to the United States.

Just prior to 2011, there was a brief period when jihadism appeared to be in decline. Al Qaeda in Iraq, the group that later became ISIS, had all but met with defeat at the hands of the United States and local Sunni uprisings. Successful attacks were few and far between.

Valentin Bianchi/AP

Representative of those dark times for jihadists, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula released a special issue of its online magazine Inspire celebrating a terrorist attack that claimed no victims. In October 2010, jihadists were able to sneak bombs hidden in printer cartridges onto two cargo planes. Due to strong intelligence efforts, authorities disabled both bombs before they were set to explode, but the group drew satisfaction from merely getting them aboard the planes.

“Two Nokia phones, $150 each, two HP printers, $300 each, plus shipping, transportation and other miscellaneous expenses add up to a total bill of $4,200. That is all what Operation Hemorrhage cost us,” the lead article in that special issue of Inspire boasted. “On the other hand this supposedly ‘foiled plot’, as some of our enemies would like to call [it], will without a doubt cost America and other Western countries billions of dollars in new security measures.” The magazine warned that future attacks will be “smaller, but more frequent”—an approach that “some may refer to as the strategy of a thousand cuts.”

The radical cleric Anwar Al Awlaki, writing in Inspire, explained the dilemma that he saw gripping Al Qaeda’s foes. “You either spend billions of dollars to inspect each and every package in the world,” he wrote, “or you do nothing and we keep trying again.”

Even in those days when the terrorist threat loomed so much smaller, the point was not a bad one. Security is expensive, and driving up costs is one way jihadists aim to wear down Western economies.

Unfortunately, Al Qaeda’s envisioned world of smaller but more frequent attacks proved unnecessary for the jihadists. Less than two months after the special issue of Inspire appeared that celebrated an at best half-successful attack, the revolutionary events that we then knew as the “Arab Spring” sent shockwaves through the Middle East and North Africa.

This instability would help jihadism reach the current heights to which it has ascended, where the attacks are not only more frequent but larger. Unfortunately, the United States—blinded at the time by the misguided belief that revolutions in the Arab world would devastate the jihadist movement—pursued policies that hastened the region’s instability. The damages wrought by these policies are still not fully appreciated.

The silver lining to the jihadist economic strategy is that they, too, are economically vulnerable. The damage inflicted on ISIS’s “state” by coalition bombings and other pressures forced the group to slice its fighters’ salaries at the beginning of this year. But as Al Qaeda watches its flashier jihadist rival carry out gruesome attacks on Western targets and get bombarded in return, it discerns further proof of the wisdom of its strategy of attrition.

As it watches these two sets of foes exhaust each other, Al Qaeda believes that its comparative patience will pay off. It believes that its own time will come.

ISIS Stealth European Operations, on Display

Posted on March 24, 2016March 24, 2016 by Denise Simon

AtlanticCouncil: Even though Belgian authorities have been on high alert for several months, attackers were able to strike Brussels in three separate but seemingly coordinated attacks, killing at least 31 people on Tuesday.

Part of the challenge for security officials in Belgium, where home-grown radicalization is a major problem, is the lack of information-sharing between intelligence agencies and “numerous types of local law enforcement,” according to Jorge Benitez, an international security expert at the Atlantic Council.

Brussels is home to 19 different municipalities, two intelligence agencies, and six police zones in a city home to only around 1 million people.

“Even in the tightest-wound societies in terms of security services, you can still hide in nooks and crannies,” Tom Sanderson, a terrorism expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Mashable. “And in Belgium, the nooks and crannies are huge.”

*****

FC: Jake Wallis Simons writes on the March 23, 2016 Daily Mail Online, that “the seeds of the terror blasts that shook Europe, were planned by a brotherhood of childhood friends who grew up just a few doors away from each other in a part of Brussels dubbed “the crucible of terror.” “Police following the trail of the terrorists murderers behind the atrocities in France and Belgium have repeatedly arrived at a single block of housing in Molenbeek, a district of Brussels known as a hotbed of jihadism.”

“The center of the deadly network is the Abdelslam family home, a first floor apartment on Gemeenplaats, behind the police station — and just around the corner from the home of Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the ‘brains’ behind the Paris attacks,” Mr. Simons wrote. “Questions remain,” he adds “about how a gang of young men, all of whom were Belgian citizens,” were “transformed into death-loving monsters, showing loyalty to each other; but, [demonstrating] a profound hatred of their country and fellow citizens.”

“Belgian authorities were so focused on Molenbeek, known as the hotbed of jihadism, that they were unaware that Europe’s most wanted man was forming a new terror network in Schaerbeek, another Muslim-dominated area just three miles down the road,” Mr. Simons wrote. “The local community there views police with contempt,” the locals told The Daily Mail Online, “and are unlikely to report terrorists to the authorities, even if they do not have jihadist sympathies themselves.” “Frankly, I wasn’t surprised,’ a policewoman who wished to remain anonymous told The Daily Mail Online. “Nobody takes what happens in the district seriously. Every day, we arrest well known criminals, and the next day they are back on the street. It is frustrating that we are doing our work; but, the justice system doesn’t back us up. These people aren’t being prosecuted, or fined, they are just being released. We arrest them,and nothing happens. One or two hours later they smile and mock us, believing they are on the winning side. The lack of respect for police and for Belgium in the local multicultural community meant that the terror cell could operate without fear of being reported. This made Schaerbeek — which has been ‘off the radar’ for terror police — the ideal place for the terror jihadi to hideout. We have been asking for the higher authorities to take this district more seriously; but, it hasn’t happened,” she said. The Daily Mail Online added that the policewoman’s commanding officer, who also wanted to remain anonymous, agreed with her observations. “We have not been blind to the fact that something serious has been going on here.”

**** What is there to be cultivated is real and handy:

SkyNews: Buried in the midst of thousands of Islamic State files passed to Sky News we discovered a spreadsheet different to the rest of the documents.

The names of Islamic fighters, their pseudonyms, their countries of origin and contact numbers for family members, we had seen before.

What marked this file out was its title: The Martyrs.

Previously unheard of, this was a totally secret brigade. A brigade made up of men who had joined Islamic State to die as suicide bombers.

The files revealed the names of 123.

They came from a variety of countries: France, German, Spain, Tunisia and Egypt.

What is interesting in the files is the number of times that Belgium or Belgian cities are mentioned.

We can reveal that 25 Belgians are identified.

There are 48 references to Belgian nationals within the registration papers.

There are 70 references to the country which include their sponsors who guaranteed their entry to the terror group, family members and telephone numbers.

Islamic State, like many previous jihadi groups, has used suicide attackers to overrun their enemies’ positions from Libya to Pakistan and Afghanistan. All in traditional war zones. What marks this brigade out as different is that it appears to have been made up, in the large part, by killers trained to carry out attacks in the peaceful cities of Europe and beyond.

Death squads sent out to attack away from Syria and Iraq, away from the battlefield.

The files we have published over the past week or so list all the fighters’ intended specialisms.

Fighter, infiltrator and Martyr were standard pieces of information requested. All these men ticked the Martyr box. In translation it is suicide attacker.

The registration form of Mohammed Belkaid, first reported by Sky News from our files after he opened fire on police in Brussels last week and was killed, showed that he too was part of the Martyrs’ Brigade.

In Syria he is likely to have joined one of the training camps and the Islamic State training programme in their stronghold of Raqqa.

Sky News has previously revealed the existence of these foreigners’ camps, which train fighters to carry out attacks outside Syria and Iraq.

Counter Terrorism expert Professor Andrew Silke said ISIS seeks out recruits for its martyrs’ brigade that have a series of qualification.

He said: “One of the things that the movements are interested in is ‘have we got a candidate who is willing and able to carry out a suicide attack? Because there’s a value in that.

“Another issue … is ‘could this person operate in the West? Have they got the language skills? Do they fit in with the culture? Do they come from that particular region, because if they do, their ability to go back and operate (there) … is much greater than sending somebody from the Middle East.”

Some of the Belgians we can easily identify.

Redwana Mohammed Hajaoui also known as Abu Khalid al Maghribi, crossed into Syria in February 2014. He later appeared in an Islamic State propaganda video.

Mesut Cankarturan also known as Abu Abdullah al Beljiki from Bruges, crossed into Syria in March 2014. He later died near Deir ez-Zor.

During our investigations Sky News has learned from former ISIS members that the recruits were trained not just to carry out attacks but to be trainers as well, raising the specter of further developing terror cells.

The analysis of these files will take a long time; certainly the security services are gearing up for a long fight against Islamic State and its terror gangs.