Category Archives: Russia

How Emwazi, the ISIS Be-header Met his Demise

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Score one for the intelligence community and the drone strike…

How the US and UK tracked down and killed Jihadi John

The killing of Mohammed Emwazi, also known as Jihadi John, was the culmination of 15 months of intensive intelligence work by MI6, GCHQ and the CIA

By Gordon Rayner, Chief Reporter

5:46PM GMT 13 Nov 2015

For Jihadi John, death could not have been more different than that of his victims. While his hostages suffered unimaginable horror as he beheaded them, for him the end came instantaneously and without warning.

For more than a year British and US intelligence agencies had been trying to gain live information on the whereabouts of the masked man whose first victim, the American journalist James Foley, was murdered in a video posted on YouTube in August 2014.

Their efforts finally paid off shortly before midnight on Thursday, when intelligence pinpointed him to a car in the centre of Raqqa, Syria, within a short walk of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant’s headquarters in the old governorate building.

Mohammed Emwazi – his real name was finally confirmed by David Cameron for the first time today – is understood to have been located by either MI6 or GCHQ, either through a human source on the ground or by monitoring his communications.

Emwazi beheaded (clockwise, from top left) David Haines, James Foley, Alan Henning, Peter Kassig and Steven Sotloff

The intelligence was passed on to the Pentagon, enabling the operators of an armed Predator drone already in the sky above Raqqa to spot the car in which he was travelling.

At 11.40pm Syrian time (8.40pm GMT) the order to kill was passed to the drone operators at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada.

Controlling their drone via a satellite link, and using a second Reaper as a “spotter” plane, they selected their target and released a Hellfire missile from 10,000ft.

Experts say the Predator may have been several miles away at the time, invisible in the night sky. Its missile, travelling at Mach 1.3 (995mph) arrived at such speed that Emwazi would have known nothing before it struck. At 11.51pm the car, and its four occupants, were blown to pieces.

The result was described by one US official as a “flawless” strike, a “clean hit” that would have “evaporated” Emwazi, with no collateral damage. “We are 99 per cent sure we got him,” the official said.

Unconfirmed reports suggested another of those killed was another of the four British jihadis nicknamed “The Beatles” by their captives because of their English accents. Emwazi, 27, was given the nickname John after John Lennon.

Emwazi’s death, if confimed, was doubly symbolic for the allied forces that hunted him down. Not only was Isil’s main propaganda tool neutralised, but the location of the strike was within sight of two of the locations most strongly identified with the terrorist group.

The missile strike happened in or next to Clocktower Square, the roundabout chosen by Isil to carry out public executions.

In 2012, the roundabout was the location of the city’s first protests against Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, as a popular uprising spread across the country. By the summer of 2013, Isil had seized control of the city, and video footage from May of that year shows three rebel soldiers, blindfolded with a green rag reminiscent of the colours of the revolution, before being shot dead.

Emwazi is understood to have been travelling from the Isil headquarters, inside what was once the office of Raqqa’s city governor. He may also have been living in the building.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said its own sources had confirmed that a British jihadi had been killed in the strike. Rami Abdulrahman, director of the British-based group, said: “All the sources there are saying that the body of an important British Jihadi is lying in the hospital of Raqqa. All the sources are saying it is of Jihadi John but I cannot confirm it personally.”

A senior U.S. official said the drone strike was the result of “persistent surveillance” and that the Pentagon knew it was Emwazi when the shot was taken.

Drones routinely fly for 16 hours or more, and the drone that killed Emwazi could have been circling overhead for several hours, waiting for an opportunity, and is likely to have stayed overhead afterwards to see if anyone got out of the car alive.

Britain and America had always maintained they were working around the clock to find Emwazi, but the apparent extent of its surveillance capabilities over Raqqa had not been clear until now.

The strike suggests he was under tight surveillance, combining human informants with sophisticated technology.

 

The hunt for Mohammed Emwazi began at the end of 2012, when the security services first suspected he was in Syria. He had been reported missing by his family in August of that year, having left the family home in Queen’s Park, north London and lied about where he was going.

Jihadi John, the then unidentified Isil executioner, became a top priority for MI6 after his video of Foley’s beheading, titled A Message to America, was posted last year.

The first step was to identify the masked, black-clad figure in the footage. With only his eyes visible, intelligence officers on both sides of the Atlantic examined other clues, primarily his voice and accent, but also his skin colour, height, physique and vein patterns on his hands. By September 14 last year his name was known to the UK and US governments.

British and American special forces operating in Syria for the past year have been gathering human intelligence on senior jihadists, paying informers and carrying out snatch raids on low-level commanders who can then be interrogated.

Raqqa, however, has proved impossible for them to infiltrate, so instead an RAF Rivet Joint spy plane, based at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, has been crisscrossing Syria for more than a year, “hoovering up” calls and messages for analysis by spies.

Much of the communications chatter was analysed at Ayios Nikolaos, a top secret listening station in Cyprus and the largest UK overseas spy base.

Manned by UK military intelligence officers working for GCHQ, its highly sensitive dome shaped radars have the capability to “look out” over the horizon for up to 400 miles and pull in information from UK warships and submarines deployed in the region.

Despite reports that he had fled to Libya or had been expelled from Isil, the intelligence agencies remained confident he was still in Raqqa, even though he went quiet after his last beheadings, of two Japanese hostages in January.

An air strike targeting a German colleague of Emwazi last month may have been the first sign that Britain and America were hot on his trail, according to security expert Neil Doyle.

An air strike last month targeting a Denis Cuspert, a German associate of Emwazi who mixed in the same circles as him, may have been the first sign that Britain and America were hot on his trail.

David Cameron said Britain and the US had been working “literally around the clock to track him down”. He added: “This was a combined effort. And the contribution of both our countries was essential.”

Col Steve Warren, a spokesman for the US-led military coalition fighting Isil, said: “This is significant. He was somewhat of an Isil celebrity, somewhat the face of the organisation…he was a prime recruitment tool for the organisation. This guy was a human animal and killing him does probably make the world a little bit of a better place.”

He said coalition forces had been following Emwazi “for some time” and commanders had “great confidence” it was him before they gave the order to kill. The strike had been captured on video and there was no reason to believe any civilian casualties had been caught in the blast, Col Warren said.

Drills on Homeland Have a Reason

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We are always suspicious and question what law enforcement is doing and why. We ask the same when it comes to the Department of Homeland Security and we do the same regarding the military. There were huge questions and theories when Operation Jade Helm was held in 5 Southern states this past summer.

Okay, it is good we question government, it is a duty yet there are reasons why events and activities do occur. Here are two reasons why which may help us come to understand motivations for exercises and training even in either rural or urban areas.

The fuel for a nuclear bomb is in the hands of an unknown black marketeer from Russia, U.S. officials say

The presence of identical fissile materials in three smuggling incidents indicates someone has a larger cache and is hunting for a buyer

With so many nuclear explosives held by governments around the world, US officials have long worried about the possibility of a terrorist-engineered nuclear or radiological blast within the United States. Multiple federal agencies have held almost 1,400 drills in cities around the country over the last decade to train local police and emergency personnel in how to behave after such a nightmare unfolds, according to a spokeswoman for the National Nuclear Security Administration.

CHISINAU, Moldova – The sample of highly-enriched uranium, of a type that could be used in a nuclear bomb, arrived here on a rainy summer day four years ago, in a blue shopping bag carried by a former policeman.

According to court documents, the bag quickly passed through the hands of three others on its way to a prospective buyer. It was not the first time such material had passed through this city, raising international alarms: It had happened twice before. And mysteriously, in all three cases, spanning more than a decade, the nuclear material appeared to have the same origin – a restricted military installation in Russia.

This news would quickly reach Washington. But that day, the first to pick up the blue bag was the wife of a former Russian military officer, who handed it off to a friend while she went shopping in this former Soviet city’s ragged downtown.

Not long afterward, a 57-year old lawyer named Teodor Chetrus, from a provincial town near the Ukrainian border, retrieved it and brought it to a meeting with a man named Ruslan Andropov. According to an account by Moldovan police, the two men had, earlier in the day, visited a local bank, where Chetrus confirmed that Andropov had deposited more than $330,000 as an initial payment.

Andropov next examined the contents of the bag: a lead-lined cylinder, shaped like a thermos. It was meant to be the first of several shipments of highly-enriched uranium totaling 10 kilograms (22 lbs), a senior investigator here said. That’s about a fifth of what might be needed to fuel a Hiroshima-sized nuclear explosion — but almost enough to power a more technically-advanced “implosion-style” nuclear bomb. The full story is a MUST read in its entirety and exceptional work from Public Integrity.

*** Then last week, there was yet another event off the coast of California that forced air traffic to be halted and re-routed as well as some automobile traffic. A peculiar set of beams of light were noted in the sky. Bigger questions were asked. Some thought the U.S. military was training to bomb the homeland. Ah….not so much.

There Is a Secret U.S. Spy Plane Flying Over the Pacific

Here’s what we know … and what we don’t

In 2013, the U.S. Air Force sent a secret spy plane out over the Pacific region. The unknown aircraft – possibly a drone – flew “national collection missions” – a euphemism for strategic intelligence against states like North Korea or China.

It was one of five different types of aircraft flying these missions. The Pentagon’s top headquarters asked the flying branch to use its U-2 Dragon Ladies and RC-135V/W Rivet Joints to take high resolution pictures and scoop up radio chatter, according to an official history of the Air Force’s Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Agency – a.k.a. AFISRA – for that year.

“Other USAF aircraft flying national collection missions included the RC-135U Combat Sent, the RC-135S Cobra Ball and the aforementioned [redacted],” the history stated.

So what is the mystery aircraft? The blacked-out portion of the document suggests the missing portion is five to seven characters long. With that in mind, the super secret RQ-170 Sentinel – a six character designation that would fit in the redacted segment – is one possibility.

Lockheed built an estimated 20 to 30 RQ-170s – also known as Wraiths– for the Air Force sometime in the early 2000s. The 30th Reconnaissance Squadron at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada owns all of these bat-winged pilotless spies.

In 2007, journalists first spotted the Wraith at Kandahar Air Field in Afghanistan, earning the nickname “the Beast of Kandahar.” On Dec. 4, 2009, the Air Force formally announced the Sentinel to the world … and little else.

That same year, the drones were flying missions in the Pacific from Andersen Air Force Base on Guam and Kunsan Air Base in South Korea, according to previous Air Force histories we obtained through FOIA. During the latter deployment, the Wraiths likely gathered information about North Korea’s nuclear, ballistic missile and space programs.

In December 2011, one RQ-170 crashed in Iran.

And as of April 2014, at least one of these stealthy flying wings was still on duty, according to an accident report in Combat Edge, Air Combat Command’s official safety magazine. ACC owns the bulk of the Air Force’s combat aircraft, including its spy planes and the RQ-170s.

If the RQ-170s are still in service, the flying branch would have every incentive to keep using them. And the Sentinels and their crews already had experience in the Asia-Pacific theater.

Of course, the censored plane could be something entirely new. For decades, the Pentagon and the CIA have repeatedly acknowledged advanced aircraft projects — after the fact — only to decline to release any significant information about them. Hat tip to War is Boring for doing the investigative work, the rest of the work is found here.

Ooops Moment, Russian Dirty Bomb Broadcasted

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Status-6-1.jpg

Russian TV stations broadcast secret nuclear torpedo plans

Document was left out in view when NTV and Channel One filmed Vladimir Putin meeting with military officials in Sochi

The Kremlin has admitted that Russian television accidentally showed secret plans for a nuclear torpedo system on air. Two Kremlin-controlled channels, NTV and Channel One, showed a military official looking at a confidential document containing drawings and details of a weapons system called Status-6, designed by Rubin, a nuclear submarine construction company based in St Petersburg. The nuclear torpedoes, to be fired by submarines, would create “zones of extensive radioactive contamination making them unsuitable for military or economic activity for a long period”, says the document, which is clearly visible in the footage for several seconds.

The images were filmed during a meeting of President Vladimir Putin with military officials in the Black Sea city of Sochi on Monday.

The footage was aired on Tuesday and later deleted by the channels, but several websites still published screenshots from it.

“It’s true some secret data got into the shot, therefore it was subsequently deleted,” Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told journalists.

“In future we will undoubtedly take preventive measures so this does not happen again.”

It remained unclear how the images ended up being broadcast on the tightly controlled channels.

The document was shown at a meeting where Putin warned that “Russia will take necessary retaliatory measures to strengthen the potential of our strategic nuclear forces”

*** The project is called “Ocean Multipurpose System ‘Status-6′” with the TsKB MT Rubin design bureau listed as the lead developer (Rubin is the design bureau that built virtually all submarines that are currently in service). A brief paragraph describes the mission of the proposed system as follows:

Damaging the important components of the adversary’s economy in a coastal area and inflicting unacceptable damage to a country’s territory by creating areas of wide radioactive contamination that would be unsuitable for military, economic, or other activity for long periods of time.

The picture that follows shows that at the core of the weapon system is an underwater autonomous drone (“self-propelled underwater craft” or SPA), which could be delivered by one of the two submarines – Project 09852 or Project 09851. For some reason, the drone is shown as attached to the bottom of the 09852 submarine, but not to the 09851 [UPDATE: Colleagues tell me that the vehicle attached to the 09582 sub is not the drone pictured later on the slide]. The text is hard to read, but it appears that Project 09852 submarine will carry four drones and Project 09852 – either 3 or 6. Given that 09852 is a smaller submarine (its displacement is shown as “10000 t” vs. what looks like a larger number for 09852), it’s probably 3. It certainly does not look like “1”, although “2” is a possibility. [UPDATE: I am told that a better quality photo shows that the number is “6”.]

Interestingly, these two submarines are relatively recent projects. Project 09852 was laid down at Sevmash in December 2012. It is said to use the hull of the Belgorod submarine of the Project 949A/Oscar II class. The first Project 09851 submarine, Khabarovsk, was laid down in July 2014. (Project 09851 was also mentioned in the R&D known as Kalitka-SMP.)

*** In 2013, the Pentagon decided: NO

http://www.defenseone.com/management/2013/10/no-more-nuclear-tipped-cruise-missiles/73010/The Pentagon is expected to decide soon whether to spend $30 billion on nuclear-tipped cruise missiles. Bad idea.

Abu Osama al-Masri Behind the Russian Plane Bomb?

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Here is a link to several interviews with terrorism experts that offer clues of what is going on in Egypt and the Sinai with regard to symptoms of Islamic State and the Muslim Brotherhood having some collaboration which could give rise to the notion of new alliances and mission objectives against Egypt, the West and a new balance of power.

Frankly nothing can be ruled out, which is to say loyalty and relationships change often but the bottom line objective does not.

Revealed: Jihadi leader suspected of blowing up Russian jet is a former rag merchant who pledged allegiance to ISIS after Egypt’s crackdown on Islamists

  • Abu Osama al-Masri, 42, is leader of Islamic State affiliate Sinai Province
  • Studied at historic Egyptian Islamic centre that supports the government
  • He fled to Syria after President Morsi was toppled in military coup in 2013
  • Returned to Sinai and embraced ISIS’s goal of creating a Muslim caliphate

The Islamic State mastermind suspected of blowing up the Russian holiday jet is a former clothes importer who sought revenge for Egypt’s bloody crackdown on Islamists after the 2013 coup.

Secretive Egyptian cleric Abu Osama al-Masri, 42, has been named by Western intelligence chiefs as the prime suspect behind the attack on Metrojet Flight 9268 which killed 224 people.

He is leader of Sinai Province – formerly known as Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis – which swore allegiance to ISIS chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi last year and has targeted Egyptian soldiers and police since the military toppled President Mohamed Mursi after mass protests two years ago.

A picture of one of the crashed Airbus A321’s doors show it bearing ‘pockmarks’ on the inside, which could be evidence of shrapnel from a bomb that has gone off inside the plane

The secretive 42-year-old former clothes importer studied at Al-Azhar, a 1,000-year old Egyptian centre for Islamic learning that supports the government, said the officials.

But like others who learned in a centre known for its moderation, he was radicalised and took up arms in Sinai before heading to Syria with about 20 followers when security forces clamped down on Islamists after Mursi’s departure, sources said.

There, he and the other fighters gained experience that would prove useful upon their eventual return to the Sinai, when they were approached by Islamic State and embraced its goal of creating a caliphate across the Muslim world.

It seems they were mesmerised by Islamic State’s mysterious Iraqi leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, said the officials.

Islamic State sent arms and cash by boat from Iraq to neighbouring Libya, where militants have thrived in the chaos that followed the fall of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, said another intelligence official.

A porous border then enabled Baghdadi’s supporters to travel to Sinai, on the other side of Egypt, to deliver the goods to Islamist militant comrades, the officials added.

‘Other militants taught them how to evade capture and they learned how to shoot accurately and assemble bombs,’ said one of the intelligence officials, speaking on condition of anonymity.

‘They became experts.’

Dangerous: A militant with Ansar Bayt al-Maqdisi, later renamed Wilayat Sinai shoots down an Egyptian military helicopter in the Sinai in January 2014

If solid evidence emerges it attacked the aircraft, that would instantly propel the group and Masri to the top of the jihadi ladder, with one of the deadliest attacks since Al Qaeda flew planes into the World Trade Center in New York in 2001.

If a bomb knocked Airbus A321 out of the sky, that would challenge Egypt’s assertions that it had brought under control militants who have carried out high-profile attacks on senior government officials and Western targets.

Security experts and investigators have said the plane is unlikely to have been struck from the outside and Sinai militants are not believed to have any missiles capable of striking a jet at 30,000 feet.

Sinai Province is partly the product of Egypt’s efforts to eliminate militancy, which has threatened the most populous Arab country for decades, according to the intelligence sources.

The three officials, who closely follow the Sinai-based insurgency, say many of its fighters fled to Syria after Mursi was removed and then army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi unleashed security forces on Islamists, both moderate and radical.

Will McCants, director of the Center for Middle East Policy at the Washington-based Brookings Institution, said that not a lot is known about the working relationship between the Islamic State’s Sinai affiliate and the movement’s central leadership.

But the Egyptian group – like other affiliates – appears to enjoy considerable autonomy.

The state security crackdown launched against the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists has gained the Islamic State’s Sinai branch significant local support, allowing its fighters to hide and operate among ordinary people, he said.

Egypt security forces have been fighting militants for years in concerted counter-terror efforts. They face frequent bombings of police stations and attacks on military bases. Officials suspect the group have inside army informants given the accuracy and timings of attacks

During Mursi’s time, security officials allege, militants from Al Qaeda, including some who had travelled from as far away as Afghanistan, had a free hand in Sinai.

They included about 4,000 fighters who would form the core of Sinai Province, which was called Ansar Beyt al-Maqdis before declaring its support for Islamic State last year, said the officials.

The crackdown on Islamists by Sisi – now president – led to many militants being killed, jailed or fleeing for countries like Syria and Libya.

Sinai Province now consists of only hundreds of militants scattered into groups of 5-7 men, which have few links to reduce the chances of capture, said the officials.

‘They are very secretive,’ one of the intelligence officials said. ‘Each cell doesn’t know about other cells.’

Another said: ‘It’s a small number of militants but it takes just one person to carry out a suicide bombing.’

Last year, security officials said Masri and a few other leaders had been killed.

He later appeared in a video that purported to prove he is alive and reaffirmed his loyalty to Baghdadi.

Masri could be seen kneeling beside weapons he said were seized from 30 Egyptian soldiers killed in an attack.

A military armoured personnel carrier burned in the background.

A tribal leader in the Sinai told Reuters he had recently noticed pro-Islamic State militants driving around in new Toyota Land Cruisers. Some had Apple computers.

‘It seems they are getting more and more ambitious,’ he said.

United States Ranks #3 in Refugee Destinations

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From the UN: The current refugee crisis arising from civil upheaval in the Middle East and Africa has caused over 4.1 million people to flee Syria alone since 2011. While the majority of asylum seekers in the region initially flee to neighboring countries (more than a quarter of the population resident in Lebanon is Syrian) most aspire to establish refugee status in Europe.

Despite the European Union’s Dublin Treaty, which states that an asylum seeker must apply for asylum in their country of first entry into the union, many are moving north to places that promise higher economic chances. At the top of their list: Germany, which expects to receive 1.5 million asylum seekers in 2015. This recent influx has resulted in diverse reactions in the European political and social spheres. Photographs of fences erected around Hungary and Austria’s border to Slovenia, and Hungarian camerawoman tripping a man fleeing with his son evidence the exclusionary sentiment present on the continent, supported by growing right wing movements.

And yet some countries and politicians have insisted that they can and will accommodate large numbers of refugees.

What makes a country a ‘good’ country for refugee resettlement, fairly assuming their burden in the global community? Here are four countries on three continents that both quantitatively and qualitatively stand out.

With as many refugees arriving in Europe last month than all of last year, this question of where they can and should resettle is all the more urgent.

1)   Germany. The huge migration of refugees seeking asylum in Germany in autumn of 2015 has dominated the news for months. Many believe that this sudden influx arose from rumors spread through co-nationals living in Germany that refugees would encounter both physical and economic security, if they made it to this EU leader. Angela Merkel made headlines with her strong position in favor of processing the huge numbers of refugees. “If Europe fails on the question of refugees, then it won’t be the Europe we wished for.” German Interior Minister Thomas de Maizere characterized the influx as “challenging but not overwhelming.” Germany now expects 1.5 million asylum applications this year alone, the highest in Europe. Last year, Germany accepted 40,000 applications, granting asylum to more individuals than any other European country.

2)   Sweden. It is important to discern between countries that process and temporarily provide residence to, and those that actually recognize large numbers of asylum seekers (the above case of Germany does both). When considering the total accepted asylum applications in relation to the overall country population, Sweden tops the charts. Sweden has historically accepted refugees from across the globe, beginning with those fleeing authoritarian rule in Chile during the 1970s. In 2013, the Swedish Migration Board granted Syrian refugees permanent residence in Sweden. In Sweden, the rights granted to refugees on account of this permanent status—immediate capacity to work, choosing place of residence and family reunification—are notable and vital for quality of life.

3)   The United States. Influenced by its political and military position regarding conflict in Syria, the U.S. has not favorably made the news on the current refugee crisis, offering to resettle only approximately 10,000 Syrian refugees. Yet looking holistically at its system reveals a sunnier picture of U.S. refugee policy. The United States permanently resettles more refugees than any other country in the world, historically taking half of all applications received via the UN Refugee Agency. Last year, this amounted to about 70,000 refugees worldwide who, for the most part, were living in limbo in the country to which they fled.  The USA may not be a viable option for Syrian refugees, but large numbers of refugees from elsewhere are routinely resettled in the USA.

4)   Brazil. Comprehensively evaluating policies though a survey rating refugees’ actual access to the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, as well as national human rights legislation, the World Refugee Survey 2013 grades countries based on refoulement/physical protection; detention/access to courts; freedom of movement and residence; and right to earn a livelihood. The only country reciving an “A” grade in all categories is Brazil. Additionally, the reciprocal entry policy between Brazil and numerous African countries allows asylum seekers to circumvent dangerous routes and smuggling often used by those attempting to reach the United States or Europe. Brazil, whose little known refugee system may not excel quantitatively (although asylum requests have exploded from a mere 560 in 2010 to 12,000 in 2014), excels qualitatively in its refugee resettlement policies.

Meanwhile, who is among those refugees?

Al Qaeda Terror Boss Discovered On Migrant Boat, Authorities ‘Tried To Hide News’

A convicted terrorist has been caught trying to smuggle himself into Europe by posing as an asylum seeker, in a stark event proving correct those who warned of terrorists taking advantage of the European Union’s lax border controls.

BreitbartLondon: Ben Nasr Mehdi, a Tunisian who was first arrested in Italy in 2007 and sentenced to seven years imprisonment for plotting terror attacks with an Islamic State-linked group, was caught trying to re-enter the country last month.

Authorities discovered him among 200 migrants who were rescued at sea and taken to the island of Lampedusa. Although he gave a false name, migration officers identified him through finger print records, the Independent reports.

German channel n-tv claims the Italian government initially tried to hide the story to avoid “panic” and “scare tactics”. The news did not emerge until several days after Mehdi had been detained last week.

Mehdi was then interrogated for several days before being deported back to Tunisia, where he was handed over to local police.

The revelation will likely add to fears that Islamist terrorists are using the migrant crisis as a means to enter Europe.

In April, UKIP leader Nigel Farage told the European Parliament that terrorists would try to exploit the crisis. He told MEPs: “When ISIS say they want to flood our continent with half a million Islamic extremists they mean it, and there is nothing in [the Common European Asylum Policy] that will stop them.

“I fear we face a direct threat to our civilisation if we allow large numbers of people from that war torn region into Europe.”

The following month, Italian authorities arrested Abdel Majid Touil, a Moroccan accused of being involved in a terror attack on the Bardo museum in Tunisia. He had smuggled himself into Italy on a migrant boat in February.

Italian Interior Minister Angelino Alfano has until now insisted there is no evidence that Islamist terrorists are smuggling themselves into the country among the thousands of migrants, but his ministry has admitted that Ben Nasr Mehdi is exceptionally dangerous.

When police arrested him in 2007, they found explosive detonators, poisons and guerrilla warfare manuals. Prosecutors said he had been part of a group that was setting up militant cells that had recruited potential suicide bombers.

Authorities intercepted phone calls in which he indicated he had supplied instructions and contacts to terrorists in Damascus, thus marking him out as a senior operative.

European leaders are becoming increasingly worried about the potential terror threat from the migrant crisis. Last month, German Interior Minister Thomas de Mazière said his country had become a “focus of international terrorism” thanks to migration. NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg has also expressed similar fears.