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Terrorist and Security Report - Europe

11/1/2016

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​Europe/Da’esh/The West – Senior ISIS leaders have been forced to accept that they will lose their caliphate in Syria and Iraq and see terrorist attacks in the West as the way forward for jihad, according to foreign fighters who are abandoning the Islamist group as it faces an onslaught in Mosuland an impending attack on Raqqa a report claimed on the 26 Oct 16.  The killings of some of their best commanders, divisions and fear of treachery have contributed to ISIS steadily losing territory, according to two Belgian Muslims who recently deserted and fled to Turkey. At the same time, destruction of munitions has led to the group depending more and more on light weapons, suicide bomb cars and IEDs (improvised explosive devices) to try and stem the offensives being launched against it. "When Da’esh [ISIS] went into Iraq and took the armour and Humvees from the Iraqi army, it was a big success because it allowed them to move forward very fast. But once the bombing started by the Americans a lot of these armoured cars and Humvees just got smashed; moving around in them just made you a big target," said Rachid, 27, who used to work as a mechanic in Belgium before his journey to Syria. "Now the Da’esh leaders talk about ribat, which means defending territory, not going forward, so it is a different kind of warfare. Da’esh have [surface-to-air] missiles, sure. They have even built their own but how many planes have they brought down? Very few, it is not so easy with modern planes," he continued. "They still have very good bombmakers and suicide cars are very good because they are effective and really make the enemy afraid. But when the Americans and the Russians started their air strikes these cars were getting blown up before they got to the enemy, so not so effective now and also numbers of people volunteering to be suicide bombers has fallen. "But you can get people prepared to be suicide bombers in Europe and they can cause much more damage. So, the leaders of Da’esh are saying that is where the struggle should take place. A lot of the brothers now feel Mosul cannot be held, Raqqa cannot be held. So, the fight is moving to Europe". Despite Belgium appearing to become a base in Europe for Islamist terrorism, with fighters returning from Syria being responsible for murders in Paris and Brussels, Rachid and his Belgian companion, Yasin, claimed to have no knowledge of those attacks and hardly knew those who carried them out. "They did not hold a majlis [council] to discuss what they were doing. Of course we were not in the rooms with these people when they were deciding what to do," Yasin wanted to stress. "And you must know that a lot of these attacks have been planned in Europe, in America, with people carrying them out just giving bay'ah [allegiance] to the Sheikh [Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the head of ISIS]. They are not asking for instructions from Raqaa." Both the men, who are of Moroccan descent, said they had gone to Syria after being angered by violent suppression of protests by President Bashar al-Assad's regime. They had been in contact with other European nationals who were already in the country and found it relatively easy to cross the border from Turkey. "At the time they were not doing anything much to stop people going to Syria from Belgium. I think that was the case with most of the other European countries as well", said Rachid. "The European governments were against Bashar, so why would they stop us? I know it's much more difficult now, but there has been a big drop in foreign volunteers anyway." The men had joined ISIS, they claimed, after trying other jihadi groups because it was the best at fighting the regime. For Yasin, it was also because "it was the most pure and dedicated". They claimed disillusionment had set in after witnessing excesses committed by ISIS and confessed they were frightened of being killed if they had stayed in Syria. The accounts given by Rachid, slim and talkative, and Yasin, short, muscular and taciturn, were, at times, self-serving. They had fought on various frontlines such as at the capture of the towns of Manbij, Qalamun and Aleppo but had not, they insisted, taken part in executions and the violent punishments meted out by ISIS. Yasin wanted to qualify: "most people approved of what the Hisbah [the religious police] were doing, because they are Muslim and they believe in sharia. The punishments were harsh, but they made people keep to the law. That was the way it was at the beginning..." Rachid interjected: "But then it became more and more harsh and if people complained they were accused of being apostates, even traitors. They would be punished severely if they protested." The two men and a number of other opposition fighters from different groups claim that the ISIS leadership feared that the group had been infiltrated by Western intelligence agencies, led by the British. The suspicion and paranoia, they said, stretched to military planning. "If you disagreed with something a commander was saying, making bad decisions, then there was always the risk someone will say, 'why are you disrupting, are you a spy?"' said Rachid. "Those of us who had volunteered from other countries had to be extra careful. That was not the situation before, but they became more paranoid." Yet it was the death of a foreign commander which has been a major loss to ISIS, said the two men. Omar al-Shishani, a Georgian-Chechen whose real name was Tarkhan Tayumurazovich Batirashvilli, was reported killed outside Mosul in an air strike last summer. "I know that some people think he may not be dead, but there was real disappointment in Da’esh over this when the news came because he was so experienced and was such a brave leader," said Yasin. "But other commanders have been killed as well, it is a big problem for Da’esh." ISIS is also suffering from loss of revenues as it loses territory, in particular the oil fields it used to control. The group has also made considerable sums from ransoms paid by Western governments for hostages. It has been claimed that the French and Spanish governments paid sizeable sums for the release of their nationals held by jailers led by Mohammed Emwazi, the British jihadist who became known as "Jihadi John". The US and UK governments have a policy of refusing to pay ransom and American and British hostages, including the photojournalist James Foley and aid workers David Haines and Alan Hemming were beheaded by Emwazi. "First of all, we do not approve of those killings; we had nothing to do with it. But they would have been probably freed if money had been paid. Other governments had paid money, everyone knows that, I think a German woman was freed recently, how much was paid for her," Rachid asked Yasin, who said he had heard that $10m had been paid to an Islamist group linked to Jabhat al-Nusra, an al-Qaida affiliate which recently changed its name to Jabhat Fatah al-Sham. "That is a lot less than before, we heard the Spanish paid 30m," said Rachid. "But the ordinary volunteers do not know what happens to the money. We just got paid, that's all." The two men said they received around $60 a month and free housing. Those with families had food and other essentials paid for. Rachid and Yasin would face criminal charges and the prospect of lengthy prison sentences if they return to Belgium. The leaders of ISIS, they maintained, have their own escape plan and would evade capture or being killed in Mosul and Raqaa. "Look how long it took them to get to Osama bin Laden," Rashid reminded. But that was because the al-Qaida leader had found refuge in Pakistan with allies in the countries military and intelligence service, when he had to flee Afghanistan, I pointed out. "You will be surprised at what countries may want to hide Da’esh leaders and give them protection", declared Rachid. "The capture of Raqaa will not mean everything is finished."
 
Belgium – A Belgian shopping centre was evacuated amid reports that three masked men had fired Kalashnikovs in a jeweller it was reported on the 22 Oct 16. Panicked shoppers were evacuated from the Cora shopping centre in Chatelineau, which is about 35 miles south of Brussels. Police Commissioner Eric De Brabander told news agency Belga: 'Two explosions were heard by witnesses, but the information could not be confirmed.' Four people have been treated for shock, but no one was seriously injured. Châtelineau's mayor, Daniel Vanderlick, told RTL: 'Shots were fired with a Kalashnikov.' Initial reports from Belgium suggest it was a robbery, and was not linked to terrorism. The armed trio are believed to have escaped in a car with stolen plates. Although the shopping centre has reopened after this morning's raid, it is understood stores closest to the jeweller remain shut. 361 COMMENT: Police later confirmed the incident was a robbery and not terrorist related: COMMENT ENDS

Germany/Da’esh – Police in Germany have stormed 13 buildings across the country after reports ISIS terrorists were planning an imminent attack it was reported on the 25 Oct 16. Anti-terror raids were launched on houses in Thuringia, Hamburg, North Rhine-Westphalia, Saxony and Bavaria as officers believed the threat was credible. Armed police accompanied by sniffer dogs conducted the raids after being sent to look for weapons and explosives. The operation came as part of an investigation into a 28-year-old Russian citizen of Chechen background suspected of intending to join the fighting in Syria on behalf of ISIS. The investigation later developed into a probe of 13 further individuals, 10 men and three women, suspected of financing extremist activity. Police said all were people of Chechen ethnicity with Russian citizenship seeking asylum in Germany, and whose status has not yet been decided. Police said there was no concrete danger of an imminent attack. The statement did not say whether anyone was arrested. Germany is on high terror alert after a wave of attacks this year, heaping pressure on Chancellor Angela Merkel's open-door immigration policy. A bloody week of violence that rocked Germany began on July 18 when Pakistani teenager Riaz Khan Ahmadzai, 17, posing as an Afghan refugee, hacked at passengers on a train in Wurzburg with an axe, wounding five. He was shot dead by police. Four days later mentally unstable German-Iranian teenager Ali Sonboly shot nine people dead during a rampage through a shopping centre in Munich before taking his own life. Two days later a Syrian refugee, 21, hacked a pregnant woman to death in Reutlingen and on the same night Mohammed Daleel, 27, injured 12 people when he detonated a rucksack packed with metal shards and screws. Daleel carried out the attack on behalf of the terror group ISIS and had planned to kill hundreds by detonating him bomb at an open-air music festival. 

Germany/Da’esh – Hans-Georg Maassen, the head of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency reported on the 31 Oct 16, said that the German authorities are preparing for possible terror attacks on German soil as pressure builds on ISIS in Iraq. The U.S.-led coalition’s operation to push ISIS out of Mosul could encourage ISIS supporters in Europe to carry out attacks, Maassen told German public radio Deutschlandfunk. “That is what we want to prevent and we are preparing ourselves accordingly,” the Maassen said. The number of German – and European — ISIS fighters who have returned home as a result of ISIS military retreat has been small so far, Maassen said. The number of Germans who have travelled to Syria and Iraq has fallen steadily from the summer of 2014 to August of this year, but the numbers have now levelled off, Maassen said. “My impression is that the fighting in Syria and Iraq is currently not so attractive for German jihadists,” he explained, adding that it could be “too dangerous to get there.” U.S. military sources say that many of the foreign fighters among the 4,500 jihadists in Mosul will probably form the core of the holdout jihadist force, preferring to die fighting rather than surrendering. Maassen told Deutschlandfunk that right-wing extremism is also a growing concern in Germany. “We are concerned that there could be right-wing terrorist individuals or individual cells in Germany,” he said. Specifically, Maassen named the “Old School Society” as a possible threat. He said the group, which has a nation-wide network, planned to carry out attacks on refugees and Salafists. Members of the far-right, populist “Reichsbürger” movement attacked and wounded four police officers during a shootout on 19 Oct 16 in Bavaria, and one of the officers later died of his injuries.
Maassen noted that anti-foreigner crimes rose by 116 percent in the last year.
 
Italy/Da’esh – A new report has revealed that Italian mafia gangs are providing ISIS fighters stationed in Libya with weapons in exchange for smuggled monumental antiquities it was reported on the 18 Oct 16. The mobs later put the invaluable antiquities back to the market, to sell it to art patrons and connoisseurs from Asia and Russia. According to the Intel published by the Italian newspaper La Stampa, and examined by Al Arabiya.net, an organized crime group in relation to the Italian mafia in the southern city of Calabria, are purchasing Kalashnikovs artilleries, rocket propelled grenades as well as rocket launchers from Moldova and Ukraine. The Italian Mafia in cooperation with the Russian Mafia smuggles these weapons to devolve them in the end in the hands of the ISIS fighters, based in the city of Sirte, Libya. In exchange for weapons, the Italian mob obtains Greek and Roman antiquities that ISIS fighters burglarized during their battles in Libya. An Italian journalist working at La Stampa went undercover. Pretending to be an art collector, he reached out to the crime group in Southern Italy. He eventually received an offer to snip an exceptionally unique piece , a head made of marble , sculpted in the ancient Roman era for a mere 60 thousand Euros. He later realized that the same artefact is one of the stolen antiquities looted by ISIS fighters, and displayed for sale in Southern Italy. The mafia also put in display pictures of a bust sculpture with larger proportions that dates to the ancient Greek era, for the price of 800 thousand Euros. As claimed by the Italian newspaper, the stolen treasures are shipped to the shores of Calabria in Southern Italy to be later auctioned to art collectors from China, Russia and Japan as well as the wealthy from Gulf countries. ISIS has established local militia in Libya to execute looting and smuggling, in an attempt from the organization to make profits from contraband. This same operation has already proven effective in Iraq and Syria. The newspaper revealed and for the first time, that Libyan archaeologists and geologists responsible for the archaeological sites in the country received death threats in an attempt to scare them off from reporting the violations committed by ISIS. There are five archaeological sites in Libya that are officially registered as world heritage sites by UNESCO, the specialized agency of the United Nations UN. On the other hand, La Stampa reported that Italian investigators from the security services affirmed that they have suspicions about the involvement of Mafia gangs in weapons trafficking for ISIS. An Italian security source stated that “Islamist fundamentalist fighters are well implicated in weapon and drug trafficking since the 1990s.” It is maintained that ISIS controls a number of restricted areas in Libya, yet it is widely believed that large numbers of fighters managed to escape Syria and Iraq as a result of the repeated military strikes, and are now stationed in the Libyan city of Sirt, where Libyan forces are fighting fierce battles to free their country.
 
United Kingdom – Security has been stepped up around the transport network in London, after a man was arrested over the discovery of a suspect device on a Tube train. The 19-year-old suspect was detained by armed police on the 21 Oct 16 afternoon in Holloway Road, north London. A Taser was discharged during the arrest. A controlled explosion was carried out on the suspicious item at North Greenwich station on Thursday morning. The suspect was taken to a London police station and was still in custody. Scotland Yard said the device was due to be forensically examined. Passengers have been told to expect to see more officers, including armed police, in and around transport hubs, while patrols by British Transport Police are in place on the Underground and at railway stations. The suspicious object was discovered on an eastbound Jubilee Line train at the south-east London station at about 1100 hrs BST. A source said the device was found by a member of the public and handed to a Tube driver. The driver treated it as a suspicious and said it contained "wires and possibly a clock". The station was evacuated and members of the Met's bomb squad carried out the explosion, after the item was described as looking "real enough". The Met said officers were keeping an open mind regarding any possible motive but said they were not looking for anyone else in relation to their investigation at this stage.
 
United Kingdom/Da’esh – The U.K. National Crime Agency (NCA) and Scotland Yard’s counter-terrorism command reported on the 31 Oct 16, in a rare public statement, said that terrorists had tried to get their hands on a large quantity of weapons in order to launch wide-scale gun attacks in Britain. The details have emerged as a result of investigations in the wake of five jihadist terror plots which have been foiled in the last two years. The investigation into the origins and background of the five foiled plots has also discovered that 800 legally owned guns had gone missing. The Daily Mail reports that the National Crime Agency and Scotland Yard’s counter-terrorism command urged the public to report suspicions about lax gun security and gun handling by legal owners of guns, as well as criminals handling firearms. The two security agencies say that the public appeal – and intensified activity by the two agencies’ agents – come against the backdrop of British law enforcement, security, and intelligence services trying to thwart terrorist attacks similar to those which ISIS carried out in Paris in November 2015. Britain has much stricter gun safety laws than the United States — where would-be terrorists can buy guns at gun shows because these shows do not require background checks — so terrorists would more likely get firearms from criminals. The British police say they have noticed an upsurge in guns on the streets in London and some other big urban areas. Mark Rowley, in charge of counter-terrorism for the U.K. police, said: “Despite our good work we know that firearms can enter the criminal market through a variety of means, including thefts from legitimate holders or dealers. Law enforcement, together with security and intelligence services, are working tirelessly to locate these weapons, confront the terrorist threat and keep the public safe.” Rowley said of ten plots disrupted in the last two years, half had involved jihadists wanting to get guns. The NCA director general, Lynne Owens, said: “Suppressing the availability of illegal firearms in the U.K. has never been a more significant priority for the law enforcement community. Criminal networks, who think nothing about who they sell firearms to, present a significant route by which extremist groups will try to access the sort of weapons used in recent attacks in Europe.”
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