Germany (catch all, incl. terrorism)

[OUTLAW 09]

This was spotted on a Polish truck in Austria, referring to Lukasz Urban, the hero lorry driver of the #BerlinAttack
http://444.hu/2016/12/23/hos-lett-a-terrortamadasban-meghalt-lengyel-kamionsofor#

There is talk that the German government will award him the highest non military honors possible as his actions saved the lives of many more that night....and what the forensics are indicating.... he fought until shot in the head.....and diverted the truck at the last moment

Online Crowdfunding drive to collection donations for this driver's family.....he left a wife and 17 year old son behind....German donations are surging this evening.....

[OUTLAW 09]

There is actually something to this comment....more people die from other causes in a single day across the EU and in the US than killed in terror attacks....

Example Berlin....34 bicyclists have been killed this year....20 killed crossing the street while having a green crossing light and not to mention how many killed and injured in auto accidents....

The US & EU terrorist scare is a sheer media exaggeration. It is an insignificant cause of death.

Maybe terrorist attacks shock us due to the suddenness and numbers killed and injured in a short period but in the grand scheme of things those numbers are far lower than other causes of death....

[OUTLAW 09]

This was spotted on a Polish truck in Austria, referring to Lukasz Urban, the hero lorry driver of the #BerlinAttack
http://444.hu/2016/12/23/hos-lett-a-terrortamadasban-meghalt-lengyel-kamionsofor#

There is talk that the German government will award him the highest non military honors possible as his actions saved the lives of many more that night....and what the forensics are indicating.... he fought until shot in the head.....and diverted the truck at the last moment

Online Crowdfunding drive to collection donations for this driver's family.....he left a wife and 17 year old son behind....German donations are surging this evening.....

Poland's PM decided to give special pension to the family of hero Łukasz Urban.

[OUTLAW 09]

Could not resist this comment....explains a lot of why Germans do not bend much when hit with a terrorist attack as do say the US or France....Germany has been the epicenter of terror attacks since 1967 and accept that they will continue for the next years as the solution to a number of serious global problems will actually never be resolved as the leadership need to resolve them simply fails to be there at this moment in space and time.....

Angela Merkel doing her own shopping before Christmas, as always
http://www.bild.de/politik/inland/angela-merkel/hier-kauft-die-kanzlerin-fuer-weihnachten-ein-49468930,jsPageReloaded=true.bild.html#remId=15423 51827056089021#
…

Maybe part of the problem is that our western leaders have become largely detached from their respective civil societies......AND detached from those important word combinations ......humanity....human rights...moral values.....self determination

Understand the meaning of this photo and you will understand Germans.....notice her security detachment and then compare it to Obama's or Trumps...yes while Germany is much smaller it does have "power" equal to the US...just in a different way.....actually being a former defeated enemy Germany could teach the US a thing or two about democracy......and the rule of law......and transparency....

[OUTLAW 09]

LATEST UPDATE....

1. There are some private comments ongoing that indicate that yes the attacker pledged allegiance to IS..BUT it occurred after the attack not before the attack and that is in fact a BIG difference.

2. Attacker traveled the southern France route via Lyon...not picked up in supposedly heavy French rail controls and only now seen on biometric facial recognition replays of surveillance footage...from the main Lyon rail station.

3. Still no answers to who he might have meet in Turin where he stopped for three hours instead of going straight through to Milan on the same train he arrived in Turin on...there was no need to get off in Turin...why he did is of interest.

Appears the Polish truck driver based on the final German forensics report might have been killed long before the attack and thus did not interfere in the trucks' angle of attack as many thought he had...this is being reported today but not confirmed by German government side....this is also indicated in the GPS sensor report indicating someone tried to start truck at 1600 for over 20 minutes and failed to start it...then it started up again noraml this time at 1800....attack was at 2000.

THIS might in fact have been a sudden decision attack against Germany in general under the smokescreen of IS.....an attack out of anger and frustration on the part of the attacker.

The attacker had his asylum request rejected in July and had been notified of his impending deportation..after which he went underground...the German government could not formerly arrest him and place him in deportation arrest because Tunisia had not sent the required new passport recognizing him as being a Tunisian citizen ...those papers arrived after the attack thus signaling Tunisia was willing to accept his deportation back to Tunisia probably because he was wanted there as well....and would have been arrested upon arrival....

SO did he simply lash out at the German and Tunisian governments and increased his image by claiming he was IS??????

Many asylum seekers/immigrants are illegally in Germany and other EU countries just as they are in the US....and survive on being petty criminals as that attacker was doing and or working odd jobs for cash dodging Customs searches of those job sites...he had made a number of attempts at linking into the German Salafist scene but was never really able to...probably as they viewed him as being too aggressive in his behavior.......and or they viewed him as a "possible German security service plant".....as he was reported to be trying to hard to join...

As I have indicated before this attack is not your "standard IS attack TTP".....

[davidbfpo]

Amidst the deluge a sensible explanation why:http://www.politico.eu/article/why-isil-fights-in-europe-berlin-paris-brussels-terror-attacks/

A key passage:
For ISIL, Europe is both a coveted pool of potential recruits and a dangerous counter-model of enduring coexistence. Terror attacks in Europe are intended to generate internal strife and societal tension in the hope of encouraging more young Muslim men (and more than a few women) to join the jihadist cause in Syria and Iraq. And, as importantly, to demonstrate and precipitate the failure of the democratic, European alternative to the jihadist caliphate.

This could fit in a number of threads, but sits here best today.:)

[OUTLAW 09]

Amidst the deluge a sensible explanation why:http://www.politico.eu/article/why-isil-fights-in-europe-berlin-paris-brussels-terror-attacks/

A key passage:

This could fit in a number of threads, but sits here best today.:)

Actually the author of the article has missed a critical element that he could not have known as he does not reside and or work in Germany...the vast majority of the refugees arriving in Germany were from Syria a war torn country and they fully understand terror and have largely rejected IS even in Syria.

Secondly, those same Syrians have loudly voiced an interesting view...the current German Sunni mosques are to conservative ie Salafist for them to pray in as many Syrians are secular in nature....

Thirdly....the attacker has tried a number of times to make into the German Salafist movement but he was distrusted by them for several reasons ie to aggressive and a possible undercover agent planting....

You could see this in the video footage of him walking back and forth in front of one of the well known Berlin Salafist mosques and no one talked to and or with him....AND that Salafist mosque was shut down in a raid last week....

I would argue one of the biggest problems for the IS inside Germany directly comes from the Turkish community that has deep ties into Germany...that is nationalistic/religiously conservative to it's core and thus largely ignores the IS rhetoric...you can see this in the low and I mean current low numbers of German youth being attracted to Syria and Iraq ...a Berlin born Turkish ex street rapper Deso Dog is the perfect example...the Muslim youth here have seen and heard his videos and music and were turned off by it and the violence he was pushing and they know his end result...killed by a drone...missed first and then hit a second time.

It is hard to portray a Caliphate that is just and economically viable when it already exists inside Germany....and inside a liberal democracy....and Islam is totally protected by the existing German laws....

France is totally different due to the marginalizing of Islam and Muslims inside current France....there are entire French Zip Codes of Muslim areas that are basically economically deprived with high unemployment which has created a ready recruitment ability to the IS message....just as it is in many parts of Belgium especially Brussels...

Address the economical disadvantages faced by many Muslims in Europe and the overt and sometimes blatant racism/discrimination and IS will disappear as a threat...relatively simple to address...hard through to get that into a political action plan.....

[OUTLAW 09]

Terrorism deaths in Europe since 1970

[OUTLAW 09]

German right-wing PEGIDA leader Bachmann on why anti-Merkel protesters carry Russian flags & why he wants to meet Putin.
via RUS state news

[OUTLAW 09]

Angela Merkel is MAJOR target of Moscow/RU active measures. Putin can NOT flip intl order as long as Merkel is standing as leader of EU

Even in the face of the latest German terrorist attack Merkel's poll numbers actually climbed and the neo right/Nazi numbers remained virtually unchanged.....

Germany - Forsa poll:

CDU/CSU 38% (+2 from last week)
SPD 20% (-2)
AfD 12% (+1)
GRN 10%
LINKE 9%
FDP 5% (-1)

http://www.stern.de/politik/deutschland/angela-merkel-im-wahltrend--fuer-die-kanzlerin-und-die-cdu-geht-s-bergauf-7257386.html#68% of Germans don't see connection between #RefugeeCrisis and #terrorism.

In total contrast to populistic and anti-Euro analysis, Merkel's popularity is boosted from #BerlinAttack.
Turn-to-the-leader effect.

[OUTLAW 09]

German security services still has not verified if the individual arrested had anything to do with the actual attack and or is a person of interest from having direct to the attacker....there is great emphasis on finding out his exact route taken to Milan....there is a main rail stop a ten minute walk from the attack site and if he was spotted in the area eight hours later he could have been walking on to that rail station to catch a train.....not sure that particular rail station had CCTV installed or not...


BERLIN (AP) — German prosecutors said Wednesday that they have detained a Tunisian man they think may have been involved in last week's truck attack on a Christmas market in Berlin.

The 40-year-old, who wasn't identified, was detained during a search of his home and business, federal prosecutors said.

The man's telephone number was saved in the cellphone of Anis Amri, a fellow Tunisian believed to have driven a truck into the market on Dec. 19. Amri, 24, was killed in a shootout with police in a suburb of Milan early Friday.

Of the new suspect, prosecutors said in a statement that "further investigations indicate that he may have been involved in the attack."

Twelve people died in the truck attack. The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility.

Prosecutors have until Thursday evening to determine whether the case against the 40-year-old is strong enough for them to seek a formal arrest warrant. That would allow them to keep him in custody pending possible charges.

Investigators are trying to determine whether Amri had a support network in planning and carrying out the attack, and in fleeing Berlin. They're also trying to piece together the route he took from Berlin to Milan.

Italian police have said Amri traveled through France, and French authorities said on Tuesday that he made a stop in the eastern French city of Lyon.

On Wednesday, Dutch authorities said they are checking whether he fled through the Netherlands, Germany's western neighbor.

"There are indications that he did travel via the Netherlands" on his way to Lyon, Wim de Bruin, a spokesman for the Dutch national prosecutor's office, said.
De Bruin refused to provide further details on how and from where Amri might have traveled in the Netherlands.

[OUTLAW 09]

Appears attacker travelled by train to Holland and then by bus to Lyon.....

2 days after Berlin attack,Anis Amri took bus from Nijmegen,Netherlands,to Lyon-Part-Dieu Stationhttp://www.france24.com/en/20161228-berlin-attacker-anis-amri-took-bus-netherlands-france#

[OUTLAW 09]

55,000 migrants left Germany voluntarily this year - more than twice the number deported
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-38449841?ocid=socialflow_twitter#

Germany...voluntarily gives each freely returning refugee 3000 Euros as a start help when they return home...

These returnees were virtually all from the Balkans and who would have never received German asylum........

[OUTLAW 09]

Germany is prosecuting a first #FakeNews case. The guy is looking at 3 years in prison. EXCELLENT! Although 10 years would be better.

[CrowBat]

IMPORTANT.....since Germany allows Israeli citizens immediate residency visas and they no longer need visitor visas the number of younger Israeli's bailing out of Israel into Germany is massive.....ALL because of the current Israeli government and they are tired of the constant conflict inside Israel....I noticed this about two years ago - and was really surprised at how many. Particularly considering the country from where they de-facto fled is supposed to be one of 'milk and honey'...


Resolution of the Israeli Palestinian issue will greatly ease tensions across the entire ME....a simple fact....Sure. But, this issue is not going to be solved any time soon.

[OUTLAW 09]

German federal investigators are saying that the attacker sent a selfie of himself and an attack message to the 40 year old Tunisian businessman they had arrested the day before and indicate he is probably tied to the attack thus the arrest..as his cell number was on the attackers phone and it was his last call...still no explanation of why the attacker went back to the attack site eight hours after the attack and having known his ID had been found in the truck thus knowing the Germans were looking for him....

Still appears to be no solid connections though to IS......

Travel route to Milan now appears to have been fully exploited and understood...still no apparent meeting of anyone along that escape route...at least none seen on CCTV videos...

[OUTLAW 09]

German security agencies vetted the attacker a number of times in 2016 as being a serious danger....but were overridden by the main terrorist threat analysis center....

German anti-terror experts ranked Berlin truck attack suspect Anis Amri as 'a low threat'
http://read.bi/2hQ6r6I

[OUTLAW 09]

The arrested 40 year old Tunisia businessman was released by Federal Police due to the lack of evidence tying him to the attack and are attacker......

The pistol used on the killing of the Polish truck driver and wounding the Italian police officer in Milan was from a .22 caliber ..no word on whether the slugs came from the same gun....

.22 caliber pistol is strange as that is usually used as an assassination caliber and the black market tends to not carry them as all want a larger caliber...

[OUTLAW 09]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/12/29/an-obscure-e-u-regulation-may-have-saved-lives-in-the-berlin-christmas-market-attack/?hpid=hp_hp-more-top-stories_wv-berlin-130am%3Ahomepage%2Fstory

By Andrew Roth

An obscure E.U. regulation may have saved lives in the Berlin Christmas market attack

The truck that killed 12 people after plowing into the market may have been stopped by an advanced braking system mandated by the European Union.

Is installed as part of the over GPS sensor system mandatory on all EU trucks travelling inside EU....


The#truck attack#on a Christmas market in Berlin last week may have been cut short when the truck automatically deployed its#brakes, the result of European Union regulations that require automatic braking systems on large trucks.

The new detail, revealed jointly by Germany’s#Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper and broadcasters NDR and WDR on Tuesday, may explain why the truck came to a stop after#a few hundred feet. In the end, twelve people were killed in the attack, but there are indications that the E.U.-mandated advanced emergency braking system may have prevented#more deaths.

It was previously thought that#Lukasz Urban, the Polish truck driver whose vehicle had been hijacked, may have fought with the attacker in the moments before the rampage. Urban had multiple stab wounds and had been shot, and investigators suggested that the truck’s erratic path indicated#a struggle in the cabin.

In response, a British truck driver launched a crowdfunding campaign to raise money for Urban’s family, gathering more than $210,000.#There were also calls for the Polish driver to receive a Federal Cross of Merit, an honor given out by the German government. But the German newspaper Bild later reported that a forensic examination showed that Urban had in fact been shot in the head between 4:30 and 5:30 p.m., several hours before the attack began. Though Urban may have still been alive as the attack took place, doctors believed it was unlikely he would have been conscious.

Instead, the 40-ton Scania PRT truck may have driven erratically and ultimately stopped because the brakes#were#deployed.
E.U. regulations adopted in 2012 require that all newly manufactured trucks heavier than 3,500 kilograms (3.9 tons) be fitted with an advanced emergency braking system. The systems use radar and cameras to detect obstacles and warn the driver. In the event of a crash, the brakes may stop the vehicle entirely.

Although the driver can override the brakes, an inexperienced user may not know how.
According to Süddeutsche Zeitung, there was high praise for the regulation in Berlin government circles, who said it had “saved lives” and noted that a similar attack involving an older truck in Nice, France, had killed 86 and injured hundreds.

[davidbfpo]

A German SME has a direct critique on CT after Berlin (in fact with wider implications). For example:
Policymakers and bureaucrats have consistently denied what is obvious for any attentive observer, namely that German security architecture is hardly able to cope with the increasing threat. The official complacency stands in marked contrast to the warnings of police and intelligence officials in the field. In private, many of them have argued for years that German policymakers should wake up and decide to give them the legal, financial, and technical resources they need to fight Islamist terrorists effectively.
Link:http://europe.newsweek.com/germany-politicians-must-overhaul-counter-terrorism-berlin-535157?rm=eu

[OUTLAW 09]

Agree that after the Wall came down Germany in general withdrew on the military and security side as did much of Europe with UK leading the way...in the last three years major investments in equipment and manning have been restarted and are well underway.

BUT what is not being often repeated by so called SMEs....there are 550 known dangerous Salafists and the German version of MI5 knows very well who their bad apples are as does their version of MI6 and has a very good oversight of the Salafist movements inside Germany....and opposite the rest of Europe Germany has outlawed a number of the Salafist mosques...

The problem is in order to fully surveil all 550 24 X 7 you would need 15,000 additional trained and experienced surveillance officers...thus the current ongoing internal debate on how to watch those 550...down to electronic ankle monitors which is done nowhere else in the EU....

When compared to the actual threat and the low number of actual accomplished attacks Germany is doing actually quite well...considering 1.2M more refugees....THE US has had far more deadlier attacks than in Germany and has far fewer refugees....

We urgently need to wait out the current ongoing investigation....this attack simply does not make sense....and unless the German federal agencies come up with more people connected to the attacker I still go back to my original thought...this was a false flag attack....

The key is the .22 caliber pistol...the lack of a clear tie-in into IS.....as the attacker actually appears to have been on the run back of all places to Tunisia not Iraq and or Syria....totally atypical....he was retracing his smuggle steps back to Tunisia and that alone is strange....and the current lack of any tie-in to German Salafist mosques and or individuals is totally out of place...all the Brussels and Paris attackers had some form of tie-in.....

[OUTLAW 09]

Russian Senator Pushkov Calls on Germany to 'React' to March in Memory of Bandera in Kievhttp://www.interpretermag.com/day-1050/#15852

[AdamG]

Place your bets now, people.


DUSSELDORF, Germany — Several attackers wielding axes injured around five people at the main train station in the west German city of Duesseldorf late Thursday, local police told AFP.
Two suspects were arrested, said police, who warned that others may have fled the scene.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/five-injured-in-axe-attack-at-german-station-police/ar-AAo4QMA

[davidbfpo]

From the BBC:
Seven people have been injured in an axe attack at the main railway station in the western German city of Duesseldorf, police say.The attack happened at about 21:00 local time (20:00 GMT) on Thursday.
One man has been arrested. The 36-year-old suspect from the former Yugoslavia suffers from psychological problems, Duesseldorf police said.
They said the assailant "attacked people at random". No fatalities have been reported.Link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-39225847?
As is the pattern early reports referred to several suspects and a large-scale search was needed. The suspect was arrested having thrown himself in a river.
I note the BBC also reported today that:
Public video surveillance appears set to become more commonplace in Germany after the lower house of parliament approved a package of new measures.Link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-39231046?

[OUTLAW 09]

From the BBC:Link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-39225847?
As is the pattern early reports referred to several suspects and a large-scale search was needed. The suspect was arrested having thrown himself in a river.
I note the BBC also reported today that:Link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-39231046?

Germans as a hold are reluctant to install widespread CCTV due to massive privacy issues...which are actually far more stringent than what one sees in the US....

But after a series of successful police arrests in non terror related crime incidents many are now more accepting of CCTV in critical areas...train stations...public transportation and buses...airports.......

All legislature is coupled though with the statement on exactly how long the data can be held and then how it is destroyed and that it cannot lead to mass storage of data in a central repository as is much of the data in the US is held...

WHAT is interesting is just how the German police are now using social media especially twitter...they get on it immediately and control the narrative and tell the audience how and where to go ......

This is the second attack by a true crazy and after the first incident when "terrorist attack" was making the rounds on twitter....the local police in English stated....

"WTF...this is not a terrorist attack so stop this!!

[OUTLAW 09]

Russian info war against Germany and Europe is heating up...

Lisa 2.0: how the pro-Kremlin media have been justifying last year's false story with a new one. @DFRLab
https://medium.com/@DFRLab/lisa-2-0-133d44e8acc7#.c5vmc7a1m#

Moderator adds: There is a separate thread on Operation Liza:http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showthread.php?t=23567

[OUTLAW 09]

Things are now escalating between EU/NATO and Turkey over the coming Erdogan instituted referendum on his new Presidential system which is a single leader dictatorship and no freedom of the press....with over 127 journalists currently in jail including a just arrested German/Turkish reporter for Die Welt....

In the last ten days this has escalated badly with Germany bluntly telling Turkey they cannot send their AKP and government officials to Germany to conduct political rallies on German soil....

This has led to a series of Turkish government statements of accusing Germany of being Nazi's and Hitler again...including Erdogan....this is inflammatory in nature and it is deliberate on the part of Erdogan as it makes he look as a hard leader to the 1.5M Turks residing in Germany.....

Merkel and her FM have bluntly told Turkey to stop the inflammatory Nazi statements...warning that it can in fact make moves against Turkey that will not benefit Turkey.....

Today a leading German politician who sits in the EU Commission openly questioned by the EU is providing Turkey with 4B Euros in aid to assist in merging into EU WHEN Erdogan does not want to and is going the opposite direction with creating an Islamic State and a single ruler and no democratic processes....BUT then his FM "demanded visa free travel to EU countries"...we were promised it...he "forgot it was to be part of the merging process and not a separate reward to Turkey...WHAT is interesting is that Turkey had actually fulfilled 24 of the 28 steps needed to merge into EU and was actually doing very well and then Erdogan simply applied the brakes and went the other direction....WHEN he suddenly was confronted with massive charges of corruption by the free Turkish press backed up with audio tapes of his corruption and the corruption of his sin...

Turkey depends economically right now on EU trade and support and yes Erdogan could jump to Russia but Russia cannot carry the financial burden of 6-9B Euros of aid and trade per year...as does EU....

THIS escalated even more this weekend when the Turkish FM wanted to go to Holland conduct political rallies for the Turkish referendum there....

WHEN it appeared he might be blocked he then threatened Holland with unnamed sanctions....

THEN the Dutch did in fact block him in travelling to Holland...they said basically you can come for official reasons and talks not no political rallies on Dutch soil...

Fighting fire with fire, still makes you a pyromaniac.
This is getting out of control!

Dutch withdraw Turkish minister's travel permission in rally dispute- CNN Turk
http://reut.rs/2mwxY1C

[OUTLAW 09]

AND here we go....it's the Nazi's striking again.....

The Dutch are 'Nazi remnants' and "fascists"says Turkish President @RT_Erdogan.

Erdogan calling the kettle black as he is sliding Turkey into fascism of a single authoritarian leader.

BreakingNews
Turkish president #Erdogan threatens to cancel Landing Permission for #Dutch planes in #Turkey.

REMEMBER recently when Germany critiqued him in his political rallies he held recently he would not allow even the German Minister of Defense visit her AF elements flying recce against Is from Turkey....

AND THEN this...
This is what #Turkey FM said before he was denied landing permission by the Dutch
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/11/erdogan-brands-dutch-nazi-remnants-for-barring-turkish-mp?CMP=twt_gu#

[OUTLAW 09]

German shopping mall shut on police fears of an attack
http://reut.rs/2mbV8Xz

Police stated...had concrete attack threat report from security services

[OUTLAW 09]

Wilders sees connection between decision to block Turkish FM from landing in NL and the Dutch general elections.

Typical Wilders the ultra rightist populist who was to win and now is losing badly since Trump was elected would say this....as it hurts him....

BUT he has missed the key point...many EU leaders are simply now fed up with Erdogan and are following Merkel's pushback....over the same style of Nazi statements....

NOW the Erdogan threat against Holland on their election day.....and who states the term Nazi.....

LIVE President Erdoğan on Netherlands decision for no landing permission for FM: Our people will disrupt your conspiracy on 16th April

He voiced something similar this week in his clash with Germany...for their election in SEPT....

BUT WAIT..Erdogan does not even know his own Turkish laws he has yet to change so still in effect.....

A reminder of this timely piece by @dpa_intl from last week: #Turkish election law prohibits campaigning abroad
http://dpaq.de/x5YZj
Leave it up to Germans to point out Turkish law to Erdogan....

AND yet he seems to believe he can force EU to do anything he wants to do....like visa free travel and massive Euro loans....

ANADOLU AGENCY (ENG)
✔
@anadoluagency
Turkey summons Dutch envoy to Foreign Ministry after FM's flight permit gets canceled

[OUTLAW 09]

German shopping mall shut on police fears of an attack
http://reut.rs/2mbV8Xz

Police stated...had concrete attack threat report from security services

Germany #Essen - All indications point towards police having foiled an #IS attack.

Germany #Essen - It is believed the order for the attack came directly from #IS leaders in #Syria.

German authorities reportedly sure ISIS behind Essen terror plot. German Islamist in Syria gave order via messenger.
http://www.bild.de/regional/ruhrgebiet/terroranschlag/terror-alarm-in-ruhr-50804442.bild.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter#fromWall#

[OUTLAW 09]

Wilders sees connection between decision to block Turkish FM from landing in NL and the Dutch general elections.

Typical Wilders the ultra rightist populist who was to win and now is losing badly since Trump was elected would say this....as it hurts him....

BUT he has missed the key point...many EU leaders are simply now fed up with Erdogan and are following Merkel's pushback....over the same style of Nazi statements....

NOW the Erdogan threat against Holland on their election day.....and who states the term Nazi.....

LIVE President Erdoğan on Netherlands decision for no landing permission for FM: Our people will disrupt your conspiracy on 16th April

He voiced something similar this week in his clash with Germany...for their election in SEPT....

BUT WAIT..Erdogan does not even know his own Turkish laws he has yet to change so still in effect.....

A reminder of this timely piece by @dpa_intl from last week: #Turkish election law prohibits campaigning abroad
http://dpaq.de/x5YZj
Leave it up to Germans to point out Turkish law to Erdogan....

AND yet he seems to believe he can force EU to do anything he wants to do....like visa free travel and massive Euro loans....

ANADOLU AGENCY (ENG)
✔
@anadoluagency
Turkey summons Dutch envoy to Foreign Ministry after FM's flight permit gets canceled

ANADOLU AGENCY (ENG)
✔
@anadoluagency
#BREAKING Turkish family minister's vehicle intercepted while entering the Netherlands, Turkey's envoy says

UPDATE: Turkish delegation including 'Family Minister' being escorted to German border by Dutch police.

Tukrish minister is behind the building of the Turkish Consulate in Rotterdam. Police is not allowing her to get inside the Consulate.
Special intervention team of the Dutch Police is blocking the Turkish minister Sayan Kaya entering the Turkish Consulate in Rotterdam

Any well informed official in the Turkish Foreign Ministry will know this. Erdogan is deliberately provoking EU states for campaign purposes

BREAKING Turkish Foreign Ministry labels Dutch gov's treatment to Turkish officials as "hostile" act, "a first in 405 years of relations"

[OUTLAW 09]

BREAKING: Turkey has asked off-duty Dutch ambassador to not return for a while, says foreign ministry - @anadoluagency

BREAKING: Dutch embassy in Turkey closes due to security concerns.

Dutch diplomatic missions in #Turkey sealed off for security reasons: Turkish sources

Dutch Police has stopped Anadolu Agency and TRT, says AA.

UPDATE: Number of protesters outside Turkish Consulate in Rotterdam has reportedly risen to 700

Dutch riot police can be seen gearing up in Rotterdam

This could get ugly..

Turkish state TV has called on citizens to come to Rotterdam to demonstrate: NOS correspondent in Istanbul. Broadcasts events live

Turkish news reporting Dutch police use force to disperse crowd outside Turkish consulate

TURKEY'S ERDOGAN SET TO ADDRESS NATION, EXPECTED TO OUTLINE RETALIATION AGAINST THE NETHERLANDS

[OUTLAW 09]

Package found at German finance ministry contained explosives: police
http://eut.rs/2mODzAE

German Finance Minister says situation in Turkey enough to make you cry
http://reut.rs/2mt8D6k

[OUTLAW 09]

Package found at German finance ministry contained explosives: police
http://eut.rs/2mODzAE



Bomb was in fact a package type bomb sent from Greece by a radical left wing anarchist group....

Last year a similar package bomb was sent to Merkel's officer also from Greece......also from a radical Greek left wing terror group... and disarmed as well...

[OUTLAW 09]

Germans who believe US is a trustworthy ally

November, 2016: 59%
February, 2017: 22%

(Infratest Dimap)

[OUTLAW 09]

This is the sort of conspiracy theories being batted around by the ultra right blog sites....this story is actually a "fake news article".....

There is an interesting concept behind this article...namely the pushing of the idea of bilateral agreements with individual countries...as a way to force those countries to cave to Trump.....

Secondly...Breitbart.com is trying to smear Merkel with the lie of "fake news" which actually this article is a perfect example of....

Merkel Floats Fake News at Trump Presser: TTIP Deal is ‘Bilateral’
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2017/03/18/merkel-floats-fake-news-trump...
by Chris Tomlinson18 Mar 20171,815

In the first joint press conference between U.S. President Donald Trump and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the German leader claimed that a trade deal between the U.S. and the EU would be like a trade deal between two countries.
Trade#was the topic of much of the press conference between the two leaders as President Trump#has made the subject one of the pillars of his administration. During the press questions, a reporter from German paper#Die Welt#asked Ms Merkel if she thought that a trade agreement between the EU and the U.S. would be multilateral or bilateral.
Merkel said and agreement like the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) would be bilateral, indicating that she viewed the European Union as its own country, rather than a federation of countries.
“I believe that the president has clearly set out his philosophy as to what trade agreements have to bring about for the American side as well. I personally don’t think that Germany needs to negotiate and not the European Union.
“We’ve devolved our competences#to the European Union, so the European Union, or rather the commission, negotiates on behalf of the member states,” Merkel said outlining that it is the unelected commission of the EU, whose role it is to be at the table for trade deals.
“So that’s not going to prevent us from concluding agreements and indeed this would then qualify as a bilateral agreement between the EU and the United States if we had it,” she added.
“The question is will it benefit both countries or not?” she said.
President Trump has made it clear that he supports bilateral trade deals over multilateral deals that can often involve a dozen or more countries with different values and different economic interests.
One of the president’s first acts after assuming office was to scrap TTIP which, unlike Merkel, he did not believe was bilateral.
The view of Angela Merkel, that of pro-globalisation and of a centralised European Union, is being heavily challenged by countries like Hungary who wish to see reform in the union and more emphasis on the individual countries, than the central EU bureaucracy.
In April France will start the process of electing a new president and anti-mass migration candidate Marine Le Pen has already hit out at Merkel’s philosophy saying that she, like Trump, wants to put her country first and end the experiment of centralised supranational organisations like the EU. #A win for Le Pen would likely strike a huge blow for Merkel and her philosophy.

HERE is the separate elements of "this fake news article".....

1. TTIP would have allowed the US to trade with the entire EU and the associated EU trade areas THUS opening THUS a marketplace of 500M consumers....WITHOUT a single tariff system....
2. TTP would have allowed the US to trade with 12 Asian countries with a total of HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS without a single tariff
3. TTP would have kept the Chinese out of this trading zone...
4. No single EU member can negotiate a bilateral trade deal...the EU Commission negotiates for all 28 members as a single voice THUS the author fails to understand that in fact such a trade deal is signed by the EU Commission and then ratified by each nation state member.
THUS there is a single name on the deal as well as the US THUS the word bilateral truly fits...
5. While the author quoted Hungary NOTICE Hungary does not do extra deal trades and accepts all EU negotiated trade deals...

So while Trump supports bilateral trade as this author claims....Trump lost trade markets of over 1.8B consumers that US workers could have sold products to.....WITH NO TARIFFS on Us products AND FULL US financial services being allowed into 1.8B consumers....

[OUTLAW 09]

Worrying when US administration blocks a G20 free trade statement. Where is it heading? EU needs to stand up.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/new-rifts-emerge-as-trump-rejects-free-trade-statement-at-g20-meeting/2017/03/18/aa69b1a2-0bf3-11e7-a15f-a58d4a988474_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_econrift-1245pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.5cf6c61c7aa0#

This is the signal that will show EU that Trump/Bannon and Narravo are intent in damaging both NATO and EU.....

It is now Trump vs the world...and I am afraid US workers will in fact lose....

[OUTLAW 09]

Trump is off and running on another conspiracy myth again....the so called "Germany owes vast sums of money to NATO and US".....

FOR what exactly...the NATO 2% rule means 2% of GDP is to be invested into military defense.....

Trump is heading into a new set of Bannon/Narravo/Miller driven conspiracy theories....

Donald J. Trump‏
Verified account
#@realDonaldTrump 4h
4 hours ago
Despite what you have heard from the FAKE NEWS, I had a GREAT meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Nevertheless, Germany owes.....

Donald J. Trump‏
Verified account
#@realDonaldTrump 4h
4 hours ago
...vast sums of money to NATO & the United States must be paid more for the powerful, and very expensive, defense it provides to Germany!

[OUTLAW 09]

Sorry, Mr. President, that’s not how NATO works. The US decides for itself how much it contributes to defending NATO.

This is not a financial transaction, where NATO countries pay the US to defend them. It is part of our treaty commitment.

All NATO countries, including Germany, have committed to spend 2% of GDP on defense by 2024. So far 5 of 28 NATO countries do.

Those who currently don’t spend 2% of their GDP on defense are now increasing their defense budgets. That’s a good thing.

But no funds will be paid to the US. They are meant to increase NATO’s overall defense capabilities, given the growing Russian threat.

Europe must spend more on defense, but not as favor (or payment) to the US. But because their security requires it due to Russian threat.

US does provide large military commitment to NATO. But this is not a favor to Europe. It is vital for our own security.

A strong, united NATO, in which all contribute their fair share to defense, will secure that peace for all Alliance members.

BLUF
The only time in the history of NATO that Article 5 was triggered to protect a member nation....

Was 9/11 and all 27 NATOs joined Article 5 to defined the US....
YET Trump claims he will not trigger Article 5 until all repay the US.....

[OUTLAW 09]

Trump's press conference and his actions towards Merkel did not win him a single new friend in Europe outside of the standard far right nationalist populist party leaders...

The Atlantic article from yesterday sums it up .....

Donald and Angela's Awkward Adventure
During a press conference with the German chancellor, President Trump lied about his claims of wiretapping, berated a reporter, and poked at American allies.

David A. Graham Mar 17, 2017 Global


Early Friday afternoon, President Trump and German Chancellor Merkel held one of the more awkward photo ops in recent memory. Merkel sat, looking like she was trying hard to appear casual. Trump barely bothered, grimacing tightly. When photographers asked for a handshake, Merkel asked Trump if they should shake hands. He either did not hear or pretended not to.
As it turns out, this was only a warm-up for the dual press conference the two leaders held later Friday afternoon, during which Merkel stood beside Trump as he ridiculed a German reporter, lied about his statements on his baseless conspiracy theory that President Obama surveilled him, and refused to back down on claims that have set off a diplomatic incident with the United Kingdom.
The fact that it might be a tense conversation was clear from the two leaders’ opening statements. Trump, during his, once again complained about the cost of NATO. “I reiterated to Chancellor Merkel my strong support for NATO as well as the need for our NATO allies to pay their fair share for the cost defense,” he said. “Many nations owe vast sums of money from past years and it is very unfair to the United States. These nations must pay what they owe.”
As for Merkel, she used her own statement to issue a veiled scolding for Trump, who previously said she was “ruining” Germany with a “catastrophic mistake” of an open-door refugee policy. “I've always said it's much, much better to talk to one another and not about one another, and I think our conversation proved this,” Merkel said.
Perhaps that is so, but there was little talking to each other during the press conference; instead, Trump shot from the hip and Merkel sought to either smooth things over or stay out of the way. It wasn’t an easy task.
Trump got several questions about his continued, inexplicable insistence that President Obama surveilled him prior to the election. He ignored the first, which came from a German reporter, but answered it the second time, when a second German reporter asked if it had been a mistake for Sean Spicer to read a story in the White House briefing room on Thursday that accused the British intelligence agency GCHQ of helping to surveil Trump.
The president started off with an uncomfortable deadpan remark—joke?—about the 2013 revelation that Merkel had been the subject of NSA wiretaps.
“As far as wiretapping I guess by this past administration, at least we have something in common perhaps,” Trump said, to somewhat incredulous laughter in the room.
“And just to finish your question, we said nothing,” Trump continued. “All we did was quote a certain very talented legal mind who was the one responsible for saying that on television. I didn't make an opinion on it. That was a statement made by a very talented lawyer on Fox. And so you shouldn't be talking to me, you should be talking to Fox.”
Trump’s claim of having tendered no opinion was a lie. In a series of March 4 tweets lodging the allegation, and he most certainly did “make an opinion,” calling it “McCarthyism” and “Nixon/Watergate” and calling Obama a “Bad (or sick) guy!” And in pinning the story on Andrew Napolitano, a onetime New Jersey judge who is a Fox legal analyst, Trump implied that it didn’t matter whether he gave a platform to baseless accusations, much less endorsed them, because he hadn’t originated them. The buck doesn’t stop in Trump’s Oval Office.
The problems with this approach became clear with Britain’s fury about the GCHQ accusation. After complaints from U.K. officials, the White House issued a statement saying, “Ambassador Kim Darroch and Sir Mark Lyall expressed their concerns to Sean Spicer and [National Security Adviser H.R.] McMaster. Mr. Spicer and General McMaster explained that Mr. Spicer was simply pointing to public reports, not endorsing any specific story.”
If that explanation was intended to soothe tensions with America’s closest ally, Trump did all he could to throw things back into chaos during the press conference, managing to poke sore spots for both Britain and Germany at the same time.
Trump also berated a German reporter who asked Merkel about Trump’s “isolationism” and then asked the president why he was “scared of adversity in the news.”
“Nice friendly reporter,” he said sarcastically. “I am a trader, I am a fair trader, a trader that wants to see good for everybody worldwide, but I'm not an isolationist by any stretch of the imagination, so I don't know what newspaper you're reading, so I guess that would be another example of fake news.”
If the goal of the press conference was to present some sort of unified face on trade, however, that didn’t happen. Merkel offered a platitudinous plea for a “win-win” solution, but Trump was more interested in grievance and competition. “I would say that the negotiators for Germany have done a far better job than the United States but hopefully we can even it out,” he said.
American reporters were more interested in finding out about the state of the Republican Party’s attempt to repeal Obamacare. Trump has put his weight behind the bill and met with members of the conservative Republican Study Committee to try to make the case for the bill. The bill looks tenuous at best, beset by criticism from moderate and conservative Republicans alike, but Trump promised a happy ending.
“In the end we’re going to have a great health-care plan,” Trump said, but he didn’t say how, preferring to dwell on the existing law. “Obamacare will fail. It will fold. it will close up very, very soon if something isn't done. I've often said politically the best thing I can do is absolutely nothing. Wait one year and then even the Democrats will say, ‘Please, please, you gotta help us.’”
But Trump offered no indications on what changes were going to be made to the bill to bring more votes into the fold.
During the press conference, the American journalist Mark Halperin asked Merkel a question about whether she thought Trump’s “different style” than past president was good for the world. The chancellor gamely tried to answer.
“For Germany I can say, well people are different, people have different abilities, different traits of character, have different origins, have found their way into politics along different pathways,” she said through a translator. “Which, well, that is diversity, which is good! Sometimes it’s difficult to find compromises, but that’s what we’ve been elected for.”
The fact that Merkel had to work hard to say something diplomatic in response to such a softball question said a great deal about the press conference. But give the chancellor credit for effort—Trump didn’t even bother to try diplomacy.

[OUTLAW 09]

Angela Merkel has a PhD in quantum physics.

Donald Trump misspelled "tap."

Not exactly a meeting of the minds.

Further proof that Trump in fact does not get on well with strong women and especially say a Merkel who had been in politics for years.....

So #Trump definitely heard #Merkel asking for a handshake. Why be so pathologically rude in front of cameras?
pic.twitter.com/2LIJ2skjSA
This one single action on the part of Trump has virtually sealed his image in Germany where over 87% view Trump as a serious danger to Germany....
The second Trump WH misstep with Merkel was having her seated next to Trump's own daughter...there is a media photo now floating in German online media depicting the Merkel look towards the daughter....

That moment when you realize your high level Washington trade discussions are actually an infomercial for a new broach & pendant set.
Mutti wears her well-known "you're so stupid that I'm embarrassed for you" face.


BTW...Mutti in German is an endearment form for mother..regardless of political party most German's highly respect Merkel...

In some aspects you must now ask yourself did in fact the Trump WH want this meeting to fail?

Many in Germany are saying ...yes...as it was clearly apparent to many that Trump does not like Germany nor the EU and NATO.....

[OUTLAW 09]

EU chief Juncker warns against EU-US trade war: Bild am Sonntag
http://reut.rs/2meWmq8

[OUTLAW 09]

The polling numbers that were reported German Die Welt in Feb. Russia's trustworthiness was at 21% compared to US 22%.
https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article161766668/Deutsche-verlieren-wegen-Trump-Vertrauen-in-die-USA.html#

[OUTLAW 09]

"One individual case after another
A very usual week in Merkel's Germany"

German right-wing #AfD aims for #Russian minority voters.

[OUTLAW 09]

Hmm...so the closed notes version is that Yemen has always been a royal goatf*ck... ;)

What happens when Arabs living in poverty and chaos are unwanted by their more prosperous and secure co-ethnics? Oh wait...

Maybe Merkel can stretch her arms even wider?

Bashing of Merkel will not get one far....yes a hassle for Germany but all those refugees created a grand total of 23,000 paying jobs and the economy is booming without effecting it at all...what many commenters actually miss....and all those overfilled relocation centers IE gyms..will be emptied by May....AND all refugees will have been biometrically registered as well.....

Of the thousands of refugee status requests that were in backlog..only 43,000 remain not decided and those will be finished by JUN...so all in all....over 1M registered..fed..clothed and a large number of children in kindergartens and schools and tens of language classes later...a majority of Germans do not give a single thought...

AND what is interesting is the secular impact of those refugees especially coming from Syria and Iraq on the more conservative Turkish population...

Side note....far more "tips" about radicalize individuals" are now coming in from those "refugees" than ever before....as they fully understand the "threat" far better than most.

BTW...an interesting security development that even the US does not have....

There has been massive development on AI driven speech recognition software as part of internet and comms legal monitoring that now allows a person to simply read a set number of paragraphs in their native language and the AI software can identify down to the tribe and location where the individual is from allowing for a better identification of those arriving without passports and or IDs....

Will at some point be marketed/sold to the US.

[OUTLAW 09]

Politician from Germany's far-right AfD party wants to ban new book by @MelAmann. Could also just burn it.
https://kress.de/news/detail/beitrag/137313-klage-gegen-buch-ueber-afd-von-storch-schiesst-scharf-gegen-spiegel-journalistin-amann.html#
In German

[OUTLAW 09]

MIT hands BND a list of Gulenists in Germany with surveillance data. Berlin is furious, start investigating MIT
http://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/exklusiv-tuerken-in-deutschland-werden-ausspioniert-1.3438995

[OUTLAW 09]

BUT THEN......

German court convicts Pakistani for espionage for IRGC/QF, specifically pre-attack terror targeting intelligence

Moderator Adds:http://bigstory.ap.org/article/291f2d0792db41b581fb46d11fc2485b/pakistani-sentenced-prison-germany-spying-iran

[OUTLAW 09]

Sad...really sad.....says exactly what the national security FP of the Trump WH is....nothing really....

German officials concluded Ivanka, who wasn't supposed to be there, was the most prepared Trump at Merkel meeting

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/03/28/opinion/the-offender-of-the-free-w...



When Donald Trump met Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany earlier this month, he put on one of his most truculent and ignorant performances. He wanted money — piles of it — for Germany’s defense, raged about the financial killing China was making from last year’s Paris climate accord and kept “frequently and brutally changing the subject when not interested, which was the case with the European Union.”
This was the summation provided to me by a senior European diplomat briefed on the meeting. Trump’s preparedness was roughly that of a fourth grader. He began the conversation by telling Merkel that Germany owes the United States hundreds of billions of dollars for defending it through NATO, and concluded by saying, “You are terrific” but still owe all that dough. Little else concerned him.
Trump knew nothing of the proposed European-American deal known as the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, little about Russian aggression in Ukraine or the Minsk agreements, and was so scatterbrained that German officials concluded that the president’s daughter Ivanka, who had no formal reason to be there, was the more prepared and helpful. (Invited by Merkel, Ivanka will attend a summit on women’s empowerment in Berlin next month.)
Merkel is not one to fuss. But Trump’s behavior appalled her entourage and reinforced a conclusion already reached about this presidency in several European capitals: It is possible to do business with Trump’s national security adviser, Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster, with Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, and with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, but these officials are flying blind because above them at the White House rages a whirlwind of incompetence and ignorance.
Trump’s United States of America has become an unserious country, the offender of the free world.
The German debt to the United States is vast since the federal republic was crafted from ruin through enlightened American postwar involvement. Germans never forget this. But that debt is not material, something Trump’s lazy, a historic little mind cannot grasp. Germany owes the United States no NATO debt. America is not Europe’s defense contractor, paid to deliver services like, say, the caterers at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort.
This is not rocket science. As Adam Schiff, a Democratic representative, tweeted about NATO: “Unlike health care, it’s not that complicated.”
NATO is a successful organization dedicated to the collective security of its 28 members, which have pledged to defend each other if attacked and maintain defense budgets to that end. By bringing stability it has contributed enormously to American prosperity. Trump did not discover, as he boasts, that Europeans have been underspending on defense. That has long been an American concern. Germany increased its military spending by 8 percent last year but has not reached the target, set by NATO in 2014, of spending 2 percent of gross domestic product on defense. These are pretty elementary facts.
Yet Trump tweeted: “Despite what you have heard from the FAKE NEWS, I had a GREAT meeting with Angela Merkel. Nevertheless Germany owes vast sums of money to NATO & the United States must be paid more for the powerful, and very expensive, defense it provides to Germany!” And later, in an interview with Time magazine’s Michael Scherer: “What I said about NATO was true, people aren’t paying their bills. And everyone said it was a horrible thing to say. And then they found out.” Trump added, “I got attacked on NATO and now they are all saying I was right.”
Yes, Mr. President, everyone is saying you are right! And they’re saying, wow, you made a BIG discovery about NATO spending! They are also saying there’s an unidentified lying object in the White House.
Trump, as noted above, showed no interest with Merkel in the European Union. The E.U. just marked its 60th anniversary in Rome with vows of indivisible union and renewal. It did so as Theresa May, the British prime minister, prepares to submit Britain’s formal exit demand this week, and just after the French rightist Marine Le Pen, who may soon lead France, met with Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin. Putin is deploying money and propaganda to back Le Pen and fast-forward E.U. unraveling. Trump, as allergic to multilateralism as he is susceptible to autocracy, has welcomed the unstitching of Europe.
It is the hour to stand up for the European Union. Its democratic shortfall, weak external borders and shared currency mistakes have contributed to a political backlash. Less appreciated are the peace and stability it has provided to hundreds of millions of people over generations and the myriad ways — from disappearing cellphone roaming charges to cheap borderless travel — it has improved life for Europeans whose forebears lived in a charnel house. No miracle ever marketed itself so miserably.
Merkel is the personification of the Union’s values; she was just bolstered by a local election victory. Russians have taken to the streets to protest against Putin’s corrupt regime and been brutalized. This is not over. Truculent Trump has abdicated responsibility. Europe must step into the void.

[OUTLAW 09]

Sad...really sad.....says exactly what the national security FP of the Trump WH is....nothing really....

German officials concluded Ivanka, who wasn't supposed to be there, was the most prepared Trump at Merkel meeting

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/03/28/opinion/the-offender-of-the-free-w...

WHEN someone says we have now a President that is about as prepared for National Security and FP as a "fourth grader"..it is time to move out of the States....

[OUTLAW 09]

POLITICO Europe
✔
@POLITICOEurope
Russia is “actively involved” in the upcoming French and German elections, according to the US
http://politi.co/2ojR0XV

[OUTLAW 09]

Germany ForMin @sigmargabriel: "our defense spending should not be driven by quantitative targets only"
http://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/nn_729116/EN/Infoservice/Presse/Meldungen/2017/170331_BM_NATO.html?nnm=729004#

Germany to #Trump: #NATO agreement on 2% "was formulated in Wales as a guideline & not as a goalpost"
http://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/nn_729116/EN/Infoservice/Presse/Meldungen/2017/170331_BM_NATO.html?nnm=729004#

[OUTLAW 09]

Germany ForMin @sigmargabriel: "our defense spending should not be driven by quantitative targets only"
http://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/nn_729116/EN/Infoservice/Presse/Meldungen/2017/170331_BM_NATO.html?nnm=729004#

Germany to #Trump: #NATO agreement on 2% "was formulated in Wales as a guideline & not as a goalpost"
http://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/nn_729116/EN/Infoservice/Presse/Meldungen/2017/170331_BM_NATO.html?nnm=729004#

Germany rejects US pressure for #Nato spending rise
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-39460685#

[OUTLAW 09]

No joke: Germany acted like America of old, taking in a million refugees. Its economy strengthened & unemployment keeps going DOWN. Chart:

[OUTLAW 09]

Germany criticizes Trump orders on trade deficits, import duty evasion
http://reut.rs/2nrnzBr


U.S. President Donald Trump's executive orders on trade deficits and import duty evasion are a sign that Washington plans to move away from free trade and international agreements, German Economy Minister Brigitte Zypries said on Saturday.
Trump instructed his administration on Friday to study the causes of U.S. trade deficits and clamp down on countries that abuse trade rules in two executive orders he said would open a new chapter for U.S. workers and businesses.
Zypries said that while the executive orders were initially only reviews, "they show, however, that the U.S. obviously wants to move away from free trade and trade agreements."
"We must seek constructive dialogue and explain that the reasons for the U.S. trade deficit are not just abroad," the minister said, adding that she would raise the issue in talks with U.S. counterparts during a trip to Washington in May.
For years, the United States has been importing more goods from Germany than it exports to Europe's biggest economy, due to the relatively strong competitiveness of German firms and the high demand among U.S. customers for 'Made in Germany' goods.
The resulting U.S. trade deficit with Germany has nearly doubled in the past 10 years from some 28.8 billion euros in 2006 to 49 billion euros in 2016, according to data from Germany's Federal Statistics Office.
Trump's trade adviser Peter Navarro has accused Germany of exploiting other countries through a "grossly undervalued" euro. This sparked a sharp response from German Chancellor Angela Merkel who said the European Central Bank is in charge of the euro and the central bank is a politically independent body.
In a further sign of increased tensions between Germany and the United States, German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel urged the European Union on Friday to consider filing a complaint with the World Trade Organisation (WTO) against the United States over its plan to impose duties on imports of steel plate from five EU member states.

[OUTLAW 09]

Yesterday three roadside IEDs exploded when the Dortmund soccer team bus passed by seriously injuring a player and police officer....

A note claiming the attack was found nearby...totally unusual for a jihadist attack...they claim online not by a note that might not get found...

Letter at BVB bus has Islamist intention, mentions German Tornados in Syria and Berlin truck attack.
http://m.bild.de/news/2017/news/eilmeldung-islamistenbezug-51087806,la=de.bildMobile.html#

Police are investigating claim of responsibility from Antifa, published online. Looks rather fake/trolling to me.
http://m.bild.de/sport/fussball/borussia-dortmund/das-protokoll-des-bomben-abends-51260498,la=de.bildMobile.html#

The Islamist letter has very unusual wording for an ISIS attack, looks as if perpetrator is either not familiar with the language or...he tried to gave the misleading impression of an Islamist attack. Some aspects of the letter read rather like leftwing terrorism.

1st of May demonstrations throughout Germany for the radical left and anarchists are coming up....

Police are seen investigating of what looks like the effects of some kind of recoilless gun. Device would have fired through hole in fence towards the bus.

[OUTLAW 09]

BREAKING No evidence to link detained 'Islamist' suspect to Dortmund blasts: German prosecutors

BUT by accident they happened to pickup a potential Islamist who just happened to be walking in the nearby area of the attack....again by accident...

[OUTLAW 09]

BREAKING No evidence to link detained 'Islamist' suspect to Dortmund blasts: German prosecutors

BUT by accident they happened to pickup a potential Islamist who just happened to be walking in the nearby area of the attack....again by accident...

The German Federal Prosecutor is indicating that they are looking at the extreme right as those that fired the very well (professional) made IEDs that were well coordinated.....in their timing......the IEDs were designed to kill the entire team....so that means there is an extremely talented extreme right wing bomb maker in Germany somewhere or they came from outside Germany.....this is a total new development.....

Anschlag auf @BVB-Bus in #Dortmund: Laut @BILD wird auch im Umfeld von #Legida und rechten Hools ermittelt
http://www.bild.de/news/inland/bombenanschlag-auf-bvb-bus/jagd-auf-bvb-bomber-51280698.bild.html#
…

[OUTLAW 09]

Merkel overtakes challenger Schulz 46% to 40%. Her approval rating rises to 62%, highest since 2015 refugee crisis.
https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/deutschlandtrend/#

[OUTLAW 09]

The German Federal Prosecutor is indicating that they are looking at the extreme right as those that fired the very well (professional) made IEDs that were well coordinated.....in their timing......the IEDs were designed to kill the entire team....so that means there is an extremely talented extreme right wing bomb maker in Germany somewhere or they came from outside Germany.....this is a total new development.....

Anschlag auf @BVB-Bus in #Dortmund: Laut @BILD wird auch im Umfeld von #Legida und rechten Hools ermittelt
http://www.bild.de/news/inland/bombenanschlag-auf-bvb-bus/jagd-auf-bvb-bomber-51280698.bild.html#
…

A third letter has been received by German federal police.....

Letter sent to Tagesspiegel probably fake, authorities see rightwingers as likely behind BVB bus attack.
http://m.bild.de/sport/fussball/borussia-dortmund/zuendeten-rechtsextreme-die-bomben-51300736,la=de.bildMobile.html#

What many Americans do not know is the German radical right is just about if not more so violent than the extreme left...and many were former German military...

[OUTLAW 09]

Evidently the explosives used in the IED attack on a soccer team bus....comes potentially from German military sources...

Der beim Anschlag auf den #BVB-Bus verwendete Sprengstoff stammt offenbar aus #Bundeswehr-Bestnden
https://www.welt.de/politik/article163729610/Sprengstoff-koennte-aus-Bundeswehr-Bestaenden-stammen.html

[OUTLAW 09]

Far-right claims responsibility for Borussia Dortmund blasts
http://news.sky.com/story/far-right-claims-responsibility-for-borussia-dortmund-blasts-10838440#

[OUTLAW 09]

Anis Amri, Berlin market attacker, was ordered directly by #IS, according to UAE intelligence.

Noted in the report on #IS's foreign attacks: Amri was deeply tied to #IS infrastructure, in Germany and even Libya
http://henryjacksonsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/FINAL-Foreign-Terrorist-Attacks-Paper.pdf#…

[OUTLAW 09]

German police found nearly a half-ton of cocaine hidden in bananas
http://read.bi/2pjy0fj

Fifth such find in the last year.....appears that the transnational gangs cannot find the right shipment when it clears customs and get it on the right truck....

[OUTLAW 09]

Far-right claims responsibility for Borussia Dortmund blasts
http://news.sky.com/story/far-right-claims-responsibility-for-borussia-dortmund-blasts-10838440#

Dortmund attackers wanted to incite backlash against Muslims
@bopanc
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/66a34b32-21e6-11e7-84e8-86f619ed3761#

[OUTLAW 09]

I never said that the Sunni Arabs have turned the conflict sectarian; that was Assad’s doing. Nevertheless, they have committed their own acts of sectarian violence, albeit nowhere near the level of Assad.

I would imagine that Syrian Sunni Arabs would treat Syrian Kurds, Syrian Alawis, Syrian Christians and Syrian Druze, far better than foreign Shia militias would treat them.



That might win the FSA a few battles, but would lose them the war to be sure. They want to be included in the settlement process and continue to receive TOWs.

I am well aware of the sectarian cleansing at work in Syria, however, I would put the onus on Damascus and Teheran, with Moscow being a collaborator rather than instigator. Arguably, Merkel’s bid for sainthood has been conducive to this cleansing as Syrian Sunni Arabs are welcomed into Europe and taken off of Assad’s hands.

No, Hitler would not be “envious”. Stalin would be disappointed and complain at the slow and chaotic pace of the cleansing process. I did not bring these mass murderers up to compare them to Assad, because he is more akin to Karadzic and Tudjman, but to reiterate that this is a very old way to deal with restive populations.

For those that believe the story about Merkel's sainthood really do need to fully and completely understand Germany since WW2.....

Germany fully and completely understands refugees when a major portion of them were uprooted in Poland...and the Czech Republic...Crimea....Ukraine and physically tossed out at the end of the war with many dying along the way...and then having to resettle all of them into both the GDR and BRD....

The second refugee wave came with the Wall coming down from GDR.....and that resettlement phase is just now ending with more coming back East than going West...25 years after the Wall came down....

So when a country has "empathy" for refugees then Trump and many others declare them "crazy"....

[Azor]

Germany fully and completely understands refugees when a major portion of them were uprooted...and physically tossed out at the end of the war with many dying along the way...and then having to resettle all of them into both the GDR and BRD...

Yes, after centuries of German imperialism, and after a German attempt to exterminate the Slavic peoples, albeit with a few dozen million to be kept as slave labor.

The Germans received their just desserts after launching the most horrendous campaign of destruction and mass murder in history. Although the Communist Parties of the Soviet Union, China, Vietnam and North Korea were never held to account for their crimes, Hitler was outdone only by Mao, unless one examines the intensity of Hitler's spree.

The Germans have also attempted to minimize the role of the Wehrmacht in Germany's war crimes as well as the knowledge and therefore complicity of the average German.


The second refugee wave came with the Wall coming down from GDR...and that resettlement phase is just now ending with more coming back East than going West...25 years after the Wall came down...

IDPs are different.


So when a country has "empathy" for refugees then Trump and many others declare them "crazy"...

The German government has admitted that most of the people are in fact migrants and not genuine refugees.

In any event, in 1939, the Germans set out to destroy Europe by transforming it into Greater Germany and killing off other Europeans. Now, Germany is at it again by opening its borders to all migrants and demanding that its neighbors allow themselves to be colonized as well. In both cases, Germans care naught for the sovereignty of Europe's nation-states.

[OUTLAW 09]

Yes, after centuries of German imperialism, and after a German attempt to exterminate the Slavic peoples, albeit with a few dozen million to be kept as slave labor.

The Germans received their just desserts after launching the most horrendous campaign of destruction and mass murder in history. Although the Communist Parties of the Soviet Union, China, Vietnam and North Korea were never held to account for their crimes, Hitler was outdone only by Mao, unless one examines the intensity of Hitler's spree.

The Germans have also attempted to minimize the role of the Wehrmacht in Germany's war crimes as well as the knowledge and therefore complicity of the average German.



IDPs are different.



The German government has admitted that most of the people are in fact migrants and not genuine refugees.

In any event, in 1939, the Germans set out to destroy Europe by transforming it into Greater Germany and killing off other Europeans. Now, Germany is at it again by opening its borders to all migrants and demanding that its neighbors allow themselves to be colonized as well. In both cases, Germans care naught for the sovereignty of Europe's nation-states.

NO the German government has not openly and privately admitted that all refugees are migrants and not refugees....

Of the 1.2M that arrived....there are a number from North Africa and African countries that are migrants and their refugee requests are largely refused and then told they must leave and many do....the interesting and non reported fact is that their own countries do not want to take them back...

The remaining 1.1M are actually Syrian and Iraqi refugees with already over 800K refugee status requests being approved via their court system......and the remaining number will be court cleared by the end of the year...

Show me any Western country who could have organized such a massive undertaking on the fly and then registered biometrically all and moved their requests through a legal system in the speed the Germans have done....no one can match it.....

You seem to forget the GDR citizens who flooded Berlin in the 50s until the Wall was built...almost the same size of a problem....but handled and mastered as well.

So please get the narrative straight....

If you noticed the video footages coming out of the Med yesterday where they are 3K in the Med floating around...largely African and North African....and some numbers of Syrians.........

Since the clamp down on the EU border many Iraqi's and Syrians are holding up inside Turkey right now....or they are arriving in an orderly fashion via family reunification programs.

At 3K USDs a pop or 8-10K for a family the human smugglers are making great money these days....end that you end the problem....end the wars in Iraq and Syria and you end that flow...

In the end at the least Germany has created over 32K jobs around immigration and at 350-550 Euros a month for a family or single individual which is literally millions that is being injected into the economy every month...they have one heck of a stimulus program ongoing and it is growing the economy and lowering over joblessness....the lowest rate since 1989 now.....and the US is what at and the economy is overall slowing down again?????

And yet those outside Germany complain and complain and complain about how bad it is....

AND the secondary effect is that those Iraqi and Syrian refugees are pointing often to radicalized jihadists who have been living in Germany for a long while as they feel that it is their duty since Germany took them in.......

Actually quiet simple if you think it through......

[OUTLAW 09]

Evidently the explosives used in the IED attack on a soccer team bus....comes potentially from German military sources...

Der beim Anschlag auf den #BVB-Bus verwendete Sprengstoff stammt offenbar aus #Bundeswehr-Bestnden
https://www.welt.de/politik/article163729610/Sprengstoff-koennte-aus-Bundeswehr-Bestaenden-stammen.html

Now I am hearing from a close German security friend of possible Russian connections to the sources of the stolen military grade explosives and who the bomb maker is/was...

Device was extremely professional and reflects someone with extensive EOD or bomb making experience....

These two capabilities has never been seen inside extreme right wing groups before this attack...

The extreme right group NSU that is on trial did not even have those abilities...and the government is tracking a number of other extreme right wing groups capable of violence...

ALL of this in front of the coming German elections.....

IE security services are hinting at possible Russian active measures as their German election info war efforts are not gaining any traction and the right wing populist party is sinking in the polling...now at 6.3% down from a high of 14% and it was always rising....

[Azor]

Certainly the M.O. of this attack is curious and it would be premature to attribute this to Islamists. Note that until the December atrocity in Berlin, far-right political violence directed at foreigners in general, and Muslims specifically, was far worse in Germany (from 2001 on) than Islamist terrorism in Germany.

In fact, until the end of last year, Germany was the only Western country in which anti-Muslim violence was worse than Islamist violence; in contrast to the U.S., France, Spain, U.K., Sweden, Belgium, Denmark, Australia and Canada.

Whereas the suggestions of false flags in the U.S. and the growing list of fake hate crimes stand in contrast with the evidence of political violence, it would not surprise me if the Borussia Dortmund attack was in fact a false flag perpetrated by anti-Muslim Germans.

We will see...

[OUTLAW 09]

Certainly the M.O. of this attack is curious and it would be premature to attribute this to Islamists. Note that until the December atrocity in Berlin, far-right political violence directed at foreigners in general, and Muslims specifically, was far worse in Germany (from 2001 on) than Islamist terrorism in Germany.

In fact, until the end of last year, Germany was the only Western country in which anti-Muslim violence was worse than Islamist violence; in contrast to the U.S., France, Spain, U.K., Sweden, Belgium, Denmark, Australia and Canada.

Whereas the suggestions of false flags in the U.S. and the growing list of fake hate crimes stand in contrast with the evidence of political violence, it would not surprise me if the Borussia Dortmund attack was in fact a false flag perpetrated by anti-Muslim Germans.

We will see...

Allegedly 5 claims in total: 3 Islamist; 1 far-left; 1 far-right.

Important not to jump to *any* conclusions at this stage.

IS might surprise us yet.....but the wording of the IS claims was way way off.....

[Azor]

NO the German government has not openly and privately admitted that all refugees are migrants and not refugees...

I said “most” not “all” and was mistakenly referring to Frans Timmerman, although Thomas de Maziere seems to share Timmerman's view. Yet on balance of the migration flows and rejected asylum applications from 2014 through 2016, more than 50% of the migrants would be economic migrants from the Balkans and Africa, and not refugees. Within the “refugee” pool, I take a dim view of Afghans and Iraqis, as most of those countries are not warzones; by contrast, almost no place is truly safe in Syria.

Yet even from Syria, a number of the “refugees” include middle and upper-middle class Alawis, Christians and Druze fleeing conscription in the NDF. Does the average Syrian in the refugee camps of Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan, or living in rebel-held areas have USD $3,000+? I doubt it. How can a fighting-age male Alawi with Shabiha connections fleeing conscription in the NDF truly compare to a Sunni Arab of the Civil Defense who responds first to the Russo-Syrian shelling, bombing and gassing? Even the Kurds of Rojava are far more secure than the Sunni Arabs.

In 2015, 1,092,000 migrants arrived in Germany. Only 44% (447,000) filed asylum applications and 12% “disappeared” (130,000). Of these asylum applications, only 59% (283,000) were processed, of which 50% (141,000) were recognized and 50% (142,000) were rejected i.e. economic migrants. A further 300,000 migrants arrived in Germany in 2016...

Of the 550,000 migrants whose asylum applications were rejected in Germany from 2014 to 2016, only 25% 138,000 have been deported or left. But what of the 412,000 rejected migrants who refuse to leave? The 279,000 migrants who have not yet filed? The 130,000 “missing” migrants? At least 1% of the resident German population is illegal.

RE: Syria Thread

By the way, the entire discussion of Germany’s border and immigration policies only came up because I asserted that Merkel is enabling Assad by allowing him to transfer the undesirable or restive part of his population to the European Union, and Germany in particular. Yet instead of addressing that point, we have now ventured into arguing over the postwar deportation of Germans and Merkel’s policies. Most of your comments after my last reply were focused on Trump rather than Syria, despite the fact that Trump is not a major actor in the Syrian Civil War, save for rapping Assad across the knuckles once.

[OUTLAW 09]

I said “most” not “all” and was mistakenly referring to Frans Timmerman, although Thomas de Maziere seems to share Timmerman's view. Yet on balance of the migration flows and rejected asylum applications from 2014 through 2016, more than 50% of the migrants would be economic migrants from the Balkans and Africa, and not refugees. Within the “refugee” pool, I take a dim view of Afghans and Iraqis, as most of those countries are not warzones; by contrast, almost no place is truly safe in Syria.

Yet even from Syria, a number of the “refugees” include middle and upper-middle class Alawis, Christians and Druze fleeing conscription in the NDF. Does the average Syrian in the refugee camps of Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan, or living in rebel-held areas have USD $3,000+? I doubt it. How can a fighting-age male Alawi with Shabiha connections fleeing conscription in the NDF truly compare to a Sunni Arab of the Civil Defense who responds first to the Russo-Syrian shelling, bombing and gassing? Even the Kurds of Rojava are far more secure than the Sunni Arabs.

In 2015, 1,092,000 migrants arrived in Germany. Only 44% (447,000) filed asylum applications and 12% “disappeared” (130,000). Of these asylum applications, only 59% (283,000) were processed, of which 50% (141,000) were recognized and 50% (142,000) were rejected i.e. economic migrants. A further 300,000 migrants arrived in Germany in 2016...

Of the 550,000 migrants whose asylum applications were rejected in Germany from 2014 to 2016, only 25% 138,000 have been deported or left. But what of the 412,000 rejected migrants who refuse to leave? The 279,000 migrants who have not yet filed? The 130,000 “missing” migrants? At least 1% of the resident German population is illegal.

RE: Syria Thread

By the way, the entire discussion of Germany’s border and immigration policies only came up because I asserted that Merkel is enabling Assad by allowing him to transfer the undesirable or restive part of his population to the European Union, and Germany in particular. Yet instead of addressing that point, we have now ventured into arguing over the postwar deportation of Germans and Merkel’s policies. Most of your comments after my last reply were focused on Trump rather than Syria, despite the fact that Trump is not a major actor in the Syrian Civil War, save for rapping Assad across the knuckles once.

Merkel enabled Assad's forced refugee flows?? I thought it was starvation...ethnic cleansing..constant cluster munitions, naplam and bunjerbusters driving IDPs and refugees??

Really.....

Trump is now a serious contender for his Syrian failed policies...actually he is worse than Obama as he has virtually no idea what to do other than continue Obama's agenda.....

Outside of a politically at home motivated TLAM strike what else has he actually done...increasing SOF but Raqqa is bogged down as well....

REMEMBER we are talking about "the Donald"...the same one who stated "I will eradicate IS/AQ from the face of the earth and do it immediately"...well 100 days in and outside of TLAMs what else has he done??

BUT WAIT...now he is in NKs face....AND Syria....??

He remains me of a 12 year old with ADAH on Ritalin....who cannot figure out how to use the TV remote.....

[Azor]

Allegedly 5 claims in total: 3 Islamist; 1 far-left; 1 far-right.

Important not to jump to *any* conclusions at this stage.

IS might surprise us yet.....but the wording of the IS claims was way way off.....

Yes, and the fact is that Germany does have a very anti-Muslim and very violent far-right fringe.

[OUTLAW 09]

BTW..traditionally a violent far right with deep ties to first KBG and now FSB...that dates back to the early 70s.....

Evidence pointing to right wing extremists responsible while trying to make it look like work of Islamic terrorism.

Explosives came from a recent well conducted theft on a German military base that had the explosives under solid physical control...

[davidbfpo]

From the BBC:
Police in Germany have charged a man suspected of being behind an attack on the Borussia Dortmund team bus.Rather than having links to radical Islamism, he was a market trader hoping to make money if the price of shares in the team fell, prosecutors say.
(Later) ....the 28-year-old, who has German and Russian nationality, had been charged with attempted murder, setting off explosions and causing serious physical injury.Link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-39664212

The investigation had some help by the suspect, he used the hotel's web connection to place a trade option and was in a room overlooking the scene.

Now was his motive really financial or was this a "false flag" action trying to implicate jihadists or others? No doubt one day local reporters will provide a more in-depth explanation.

[OUTLAW 09]

Originally posted on the SWJ thread on Gerasimov.....

NOTICE this Russian criminal tie in to the recent IED bombing of the BVb bus....and Russian spetsnaz and eastern Ukraine.

My sources are saying he definitely was Russian trained Spetnaz...experienced in eastern Ukraine having arrived in Germany in the last year and has a residence permit as do many Russian expats living in Germany....


German police on Friday arrested the suspected perpetrator of a bomb attack on Borussia Dortmund's team bus, the public prosecutor's office said, indicating his motive was financial and not terror-related.
Police commandos working on behalf of the federal prosecutor's office "have#arrested a 28-year-old German-Russian national, Sergej W.," a statement said.

It said the suspect was hoping to profit from a drop in the football team's#share price as a result of the attack.

REMEMBER if a Russian can prove even a 1/100th of an ounce of Jew heritage they get an automatic residence permit and that has led to a massive counterfeit program inside Russia cranking out such documents...which are actually very good and the Russia government has refused to assist German BKA to find the source...

NOTE while he might have been the potential firer of the three IEDs there is per sources of mine no indication he physically built the actual IEDs nor emplaced them...

So while he was obviously shorting the stock of BVB and potentially the individual that detonated the IEDS and the "fall man"....Germans are on the hunt for the bomb maker....who evidently thoroughly understood how to emplace the three IEDs in order to cover the entire length of the bus..meaning he has had experience in real IED emplacements... and understood how to judge distances of travelling buses....

[OUTLAW 09]

Added by Moderator

This post has been copied from the Manchester (UK) bomb attack thread and has been edited slightly:
What is interesting about this particular attack...the UK slams down an info wall and yet on the Berlin truck attack killing just ten less and having the same number of injured the German authorities were open and forthcoming with all information...or in the Paris attacks all information was flowing as fast as the authorities would actually allow it.

One thing French, German and Brussels authorities have learned..open up all channels of communications to the public and ask for as much help as they can provide...videos...photos...tweets..observations etc....

The failures around the German truck attacker are even played out in public and thus the public has no feeling that the government is not trying to coverup mistakes and is in fact learning from their own mistakes....something the UK is not doing right now....

Example..German investigators had learned about the trucker attacker being involved in drug sales as a finance mechanism....they raided six locations inside Berlin yesterday rolling up 10 major drug dealers and 6 of them were high value jihadist targets....

Ever since that Dec attack German authorities have been raiding and raiding and raiding and arresting along the way....after the London car attack yes you saw some activity but not to the levels seen in Brussels, Paris and Berlin....

Very interesting article on German counter-terrorism system and jihadists....

Excellent, detailed work by @janraudszus ~> The Jihadist terrorist threat and German Counter-terrorism http://www.capesic.cat/en/2017/05/25/the-jihadist-terrorist-threat-and-german-counter-terrorism/#

Germany has long maintained that to fight any terrorist problem it is strictly an intel service and police fight.....and long term.....AND I seriously doubt there is any western nation state that has been hit with terror attacks that openly debates the failures by police and security services as does Germany...

In some ways this quite public debate allows the public to understand that the police and security services are admitting if they failed and are learning from their mistakes and allows for the public to feel that their security concerns are being taken seriously....

[OUTLAW 09]

Well worth reading this interview by the Economist....
http://www.economist.com/blogs/kaffeeklatsch/2017/05/new-germany?zid=307




So although it is long, I am publishing the transcript of our conversation.

Among Mr Ischinger’s most striking points were his arguments that:
Germany is increasingly open to military action
Brexit makes EU defence integration easier
Germany’s deployments in Afghanistan, Mali and Lithuania mark a real turning point
NATO’s 2%-of-GDP target for defence spending is not sufficient on its own
The 2% should be replaced with a 3% target encompassing defence, foreign policy and aid
Mr Trump’s statements make it harder for European leaders to contribute more to NATO
Germany should not contemplate its own nuclear weapon
Mr Macron’s election is an “enormous and unique” opportunity to relaunch the Franco-German partnership as a model for the whole EU
The Kohl-Mitterrand era of co-operation (in the 1980s) can be (partly) revived, starting with joint military procurement
Mr Macron understands Germany “perfectly”
Germany and France should consider a rewrite of the Elysée Treaty in 2018, codifying the alliance between the two countries
Germany should consider backing EU majority voting on foreign and security affairs
Germany and France might eventually share nuclear weapons and an army, but only in the very long term#
Notions of Germany as the new leader of the liberal world are “totally unhelpful”
Russia’s current belligerence towards the West may not last
Germany and the West must keep the door open to Mr Putin
Europe and Canada cannot reform their relationship with Russia without America
Mrs Merkel’s patience and Russian language skills give her unique advantages in talks with Mr Putin
Germany must “engage, engage, engage” with Mr Trump
Mr Trump has “good and experienced pros” in his team but “believes in unpredictability as a negotiating strategy”

[Azor]

From Der Spiegel: http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/german-intelligence-also-snooped-on-white-house-a-1153592.html

But I thought that spying "among friends, that isn't done"? Well, what of it, Angie?

Yet Der Spiegel has clearly violated sections 90A, 164, 185, 186 and 187 of the StGB with this article, by clearly engaging in:


Insult
Malicious gossip
Defamation
Disparagement of the state
Incitement of popular hatred


Perhaps Angie can censor Der Spiegel and get her friends at Google, Facebook and Twitter to help out?

Introduction:


The chapter is only a few pages long, but it addresses a potentially explosive suspicion: Did Germany's foreign intelligence agency, the BND, spy on its most important partner, the United States, in the past?

For Chancellor Angela Merkel's government, the answer is clear. The BND has never spied on the United States, members of both the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) and their government coalition partner, the center-left Social Democrats, are fond of saying, quoting former BND President Gerhard Schindler. And if it was true, then it was only a "coincidental capture" of data, that has since been deleted.

After three years of work, the German parliament committee of inquiry investigating NSA spying on Germany will release its final report next week. It will also contain a chapter drafted by the coalition on "findings about EU and NATO partners." The committee, the draft version of the report states, had no doubts about the statements made about the U.S.

But it should.

Documents that SPIEGEL has been able to review show that the BND, until a few years ago, actually had considerable interest in the United States as a target of espionage. The document states that just under 4,000 search terms, or selectors, were directed against American targets between 1998 and 2006. It is unknown whether they continued to be used after those dates.

[OUTLAW 09]

From Der Spiegel: http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/german-intelligence-also-snooped-on-white-house-a-1153592.html

But I thought that spying "among friends, that isn't done"? Well, what of it, Angie?

Yet Der Spiegel has clearly violated sections 90A, 164, 185, 186 and 187 of the StGB with this article, by clearly engaging in:


Insult
Malicious gossip
Defamation
Disparagement of the state
Incitement of popular hatred


Perhaps Angie can censor Der Spiegel and get her friends at Google, Facebook and Twitter to help out?

Introduction:

Interesting comment in that it does not reflect that all NATO member ICs which includes the USG ICs all 17 of them....ALL "spy" on each other.....

This type of "spying" while not intended to actively recruit employees of those governments is considered to be normal...why it is designed to fill the gap on exactly what their decision makers are up to so the the "spying" country can adjust accordingly their FP or if they are in a FP decision cycle.....

BUT watch US reactions when say Mossad actively recruits a US Jewish citizen to reveal highly classified materials ie Pollack....

BUT if one knows the Cold War days the BND was never really trusted by US and UK and other NATO partners due to the closeness of the GDR, the Stasi and KGB....not because the Germans provided "bad" information when intel sharing.....

BTW..right now Germany is one of the leading intel services providing extensive HUMINT and SIGINT to the USG ICs on Trump and company.

WHEN using the German law paras be sure to mention that until a State prosecutor states and files an actual court case using one of those paras...it is only words, more words and more confusion....

BTW...notice that while you highlight this article the Steel Dossier on Trump which was raw HUMINT reporting never seems to get to the level of solid low level spying thus has creditability as 80% was verified....and is disregarded by many for that exact reason...low level raw HUMINT...

[OUTLAW 09]

Germany warns Turks not to bring security officials who face U.S. warrants
https://www.wsj.com/articles/germany-warns-turks-not-to-bring-security-officers-who-face-u-s-warrants-1498490404#

OR they could be actually arrested by Europol under US warrants....

[OUTLAW 09]

New Rules for SIGINT Collection in Germany: A Look at the Recent Reform
By Thorsten Wetzling
Friday, June 23, 2017, 3:00 PM

https://lawfareblog.com/new-rules-sigint-collection-germany-look-recent-reform

[OUTLAW 09]

Berlin: McDonald's restaurant evacuated after gas cylinder with attached detonator was found.
http://www.bild.de/regional/berlin/polizeiliche-massnahmen/verdaechtiger-gegenstand-mc-donalds-52375642,la=de.bild.html#

[Azor]

Interesting comment in that it does not reflect that all NATO member ICs which includes the USG ICs all 17 of them...ALL "spy" on each other...

Nevertheless, this state of affairs did little to assauge the U.S. with regard to Pollard, or Germany et al with regard to the NSA. I didn't realize that the U.S. had 17 intelligence communities; I had understood that it had a single intelligence community comprised of 17 agencies ;)


This type of "spying" while not intended to actively recruit employees of those governments is considered to be normal...why it is designed to fill the gap on exactly what their decision makers are up to so the the "spying" country can adjust accordingly their FP or if they are in a FP decision cycle...

BUT watch US reactions when say Mossad actively recruits a US Jewish citizen to reveal highly classified materials ie Pollack....

BUT if one knows the Cold War days the BND was never really trusted by US and UK and other NATO partners due to the closeness of the GDR, the Stasi and KGB...not because the Germans provided "bad" information when intel sharing...

BTW..right now Germany is one of the leading intel services providing extensive HUMINT and SIGINT to the USG ICs on Trump and company.

WHEN using the German law paras be sure to mention that until a State prosecutor states and files an actual court case using one of those paras...it is only words, more words and more confusion....

BTW...notice that while you highlight this article the Steel Dossier on Trump which was raw HUMINT reporting never seems to get to the level of solid low level spying thus has creditability as 80% was verified....and is disregarded by many for that exact reason...low level raw HUMINT...

Oh, the record seems to be broken again...More cut and paste from other threads. I had thought that MI6 and the EIB were assisting the U.S. IC?

You really must have a thing for Angie, given your adulation of her. Unfortunately, discussing Germany and the EU with you is akin to discussing Assad and Syria with the "Syrian Electronic Army".

[Azor]

From Reuters: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-security-idUSKBN19P1MY

According to Hans-Georg Maassen, head of the German Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (Bundesamt fuer Verfassungsschutz or BfV):


We must expect further attacks by individuals or terror groups...Islamist terrorism is the biggest challenge facing the BfV and we see it as one of the biggest threats facing the internal security of Germany



The BfV's annual report for 2016 claimed that there are 24,400 Islamists in Germany, including 9,700 Salafists (increased to 10,100 for 2017) and 10,000 members of the Turkish Islamist Milliu Gorus movement


The report indicated the hundreds of jihadists had entered Germany over the past two years among the 1 million+ migrants


Maassen estimated that 930 people had left Germany to fight with Islamic State in Syria or Iraq, of whom about 20 percent were women, and of which an estimated 145 of the total people had since died,


Interior Minister de Maiziere noted that the BfV was monitoring 680 potential Islamist threats, most of which were Salafist-influenced

[OUTLAW 09]

From Reuters: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-security-idUSKBN19P1MY

According to Hans-Georg Maassen, head of the German Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (Bundesamt fuer Verfassungsschutz or BfV):


The BfV's annual report for 2016 claimed that there are 24,400 Islamists in Germany, including 9,700 Salafists (increased to 10,100 for 2017) and 10,000 members of the Turkish Islamist Milliu Gorus movement


The report indicated the hundreds of jihadists had entered Germany over the past two years among the 1 million+ migrants


Maassen estimated that 930 people had left Germany to fight with Islamic State in Syria or Iraq, of whom about 20 percent were women, and of which an estimated 145 of the total people had since died,


Interior Minister de Maiziere noted that the BfV was monitoring 680 potential Islamist threats, most of which were Salafist-influenced


In the same report and largely overlooked is the figure of 18,000 ultra rightists of which 12,000 are seen as ready to use violence...with a strong increase in ultra right violent acts in this year.....far more than anything from jihadists.....

Interestingly is the number of ultra leftists.....which has remained steady with attacks from the ultra left actually decreasing....

Part of the problem is that while German security is constantly watching jihadists it is losing the oversight of ultra right and left....

[OUTLAW 09]

Germany warns about increased spy activity of Russia & China as well as Turkey & Iran before G20
http://qha.com.ua/en/politics/espionage-activity-of-rf-observed-in-germany-before-g20/141227/#

[Azor]

In the same report and largely overlooked is the figure of 18,000 ultra rightists of which 12,000 are seen as ready to use violence...with a strong increase in ultra right violent acts in this year.....far more than anything from jihadists.....

Interestingly is the number of ultra leftists.....which has remained steady with attacks from the ultra left actually decreasing....

Part of the problem is that while German security is constantly watching jihadists it is losing the oversight of ultra right and left....

Germany warns about increased spy activity of Russia & China as well as Turkey & Iran before G20

The head of the BfV, Maassen, stated that Islamist terrorism is the BfV's "biggest challenge", not right-wing or left-wing terrorism, or foreign intelligence operations such as Russia's active measures. As head of the BfV since 2012, Maassen would know.

[OUTLAW 09]

The head of the BfV, Maassen, stated that Islamist terrorism is the BfV's "biggest challenge", not right-wing or left-wing terrorism, or foreign intelligence operations such as Russia's active measures. As head of the BfV since 2012, Maassen would know.

THEN you are missing the massive fighting ongoing in Hamburg from these not so called left wing terrorists.....right now there are ongoing "true street battles" in a guerrilla hit and run style...

Things are really getting ugly in Hamburg, with violent G20 protests (mostly hardcore antifas) doing real damage.

Per German media coverage, Melania's hotel was besieged, 160+ police injured, and lots of things are on fire.

Police won't clear @FLOTUS to leave residence in Hamburg right now b/c of protests, her spox confirms: ""It's unfortunate."

However, the actual situation in Hamburg is a good deal worse than the media is reporting. My friends in German intel/LE have the goods.

I've known them for years; they tell me that police from all over Germany are being dispatched to Hamburg before the #G20 gets overrun.

Situation is so serious that Berlin has secretly ordered military units (incl armor) to Hamburg in case things get totally out of hand.

Several Hamburg-area hospitals are already overflowing with casualties; others have been placed on war/mass casualty footing, in prep.

Three highly trained and very experienced anti riot police teams have headed to Hamburg and it is not even night time yet where then it will be getting worse...if last night was any indcator


Three major violence focused left groups are involved....antifa, automone, and anarchists.....rumors are that there are left radical groups that have joined them out of Greece and Sweden and Spain.....estimates indicate a total of roughly 10,000 radical leftists ready for violence...facing an equal number of police for a total of 20,000 mixing it up on the streets..

German BfV ie their MI5 have reported the arrests of radicals out of France, Netherland and Switzerland....and that a large number from outside Germany arrived over the last weeks to avoid border controls....

They are mixing themselves into peaceful G20 demonstrators then they hit and run out of that peaceful group on the police creating a large amount of chaos and confusion....

Reporting press is trying to stay close to the events but move out of the way immediately when the "radicals show up"....the radicals are now being called the "Black Bloc"...

Right now it is one massive cat and mouse game underway with a certain level of violence not seen for a long time in Germany AND it is not coming from jihadists....

REMEMBER violence directed against the government is shared by both the extreme right and extreme left....the extreme right attacks government objects ie buildings etc....the extreme left attacks representatives of the government ie the police .....both share though a general hatred of the government ........

[Azor]

THEN you are missing the massive fighting ongoing in Hamburg from these not so called left wing terrorists.....right now there are ongoing "true street battles" in a guerrilla hit and run style...

Things are really getting ugly in Hamburg, with violent G20 protests (mostly hardcore antifas) doing real damage.

Per German media coverage, Melania's hotel was besieged, 160+ police injured, and lots of things are on fire.

Police won't clear @FLOTUS to leave residence in Hamburg right now b/c of protests, her spox confirms: ""It's unfortunate."

However, the actual situation in Hamburg is a good deal worse than the media is reporting. My friends in German intel/LE have the goods.

I've known them for years; they tell me that police from all over Germany are being dispatched to Hamburg before the #G20 gets overrun.

Situation is so serious that Berlin has secretly ordered military units (incl armor) to Hamburg in case things get totally out of hand.

Several Hamburg-area hospitals are already overflowing with casualties; others have been placed on war/mass casualty footing, in prep.

Three highly trained and very experienced anti riot police teams have headed to Hamburg and it is not even night time yet where then it will be getting worse...if last night was any indcator


Three major violence focused left groups are involved....antifa, automone, and anarchists.....rumors are that there are left radical groups that have joined them out of Greece and Sweden and Spain.....estimates indicate a total of roughly 10,000 radical leftists ready for violence...facing an equal number of police for a total of 20,000 mixing it up on the streets..

German BfV ie their MI5 have reported the arrests of radicals out of France, Netherland and Switzerland....and that a large number from outside Germany arrived over the last weeks to avoid border controls....

They are mixing themselves into peaceful G20 demonstrators then they hit and run out of that peaceful group on the police creating a large amount of chaos and confusion....

Reporting press is trying to stay close to the events but move out of the way immediately when the "radicals show up"....the radicals are now being called the "Black Bloc"...

Right now it is one massive cat and mouse game underway with a certain level of violence not seen for a long time in Germany AND it is not coming from jihadists....

REMEMBER violence directed against the government is shared by both the extreme right and extreme left....the extreme right attacks government objects ie buildings etc....the extreme left attacks representatives of the government ie the police .....both share though a general hatred of the government ........

Yawn. This is par for the course when G20 Summits come to town. It's a traveling circus. I'll stick with what Herrs Maassen and de Maziere are saying, thank you.

[Azor]

The Economist: The German problem:Why Germany’s current-account surplus is bad for the world economy (http://discovery.economist.com/german-election/why-germanys-current-account-surplus-is-bad-for-the-world-economy-2887104)

Introduction:


THE battle-lines are drawn. When the world’s big trading nations convene this week at a G20 summit in Hamburg, the stage is set for a clash between a protectionist America and a free-trading Germany.

President Donald Trump has already pulled out of one trade pact, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and demanded the renegotiation of another, the North American Free-Trade Agreement. He is weighing whether to impose tariffs on steel imports into America, a move that would almost certainly provoke retaliation. The threat of a trade war has hung over the Trump presidency since January. In contrast, Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor and the summit’s host, will bang the drum for free trade. In a thinly veiled attack on Mr Trump, she delivered a speech on June 29th condemning the forces of protectionism and isolationism. An imminent free-trade deal between Japan and the European Union will add substance to her rhetoric (see article ).

There is no question who has the better of this argument. Mr Trump’s doctrine that trade must be balanced to be fair is economically illiterate. His belief that tariffs will level the playing field is naive and dangerous: they would shrink prosperity for all. But in one respect, at least, Mr Trump has grasped an inconvenient truth. He has admonished Germany for its trade surplus, which stood at almost $300bn last year, the world’s largest (China’s hoard was a mere $200bn). His threatened solution—to put a stop to sales of German cars—may be self-defeating, but the fact is that Germany saves too much and spends too little. And the size and persistence of Germany’s savings hoard makes it an awkward defender of free trade.

Washington Post: The United States and Europe are on a collision course over Iran (https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/the-united-states-and-europe-are-on-a-collision-course-over-iran/2017/07/14/e7b70108-657c-11e7-94ab-5b1f0ff459df_story.html?utm_term=.bbd53e71415a)

Introduction:


When the French energy giant Total signed a landmark gas deal with Iran this month, the company’s chief executive lauded the nearly $5 billion investment as a trailblazing initiative for peace.

“We’re here to build bridges, not walls,” Patrick Pouyanné said in an interview with Agence France-Presse at the signing ceremony in Tehran.

The venture, which includes China’s National Petroleum and the Iranian company Petropars, will develop the South Pars gas field under a 20-year contract. It is Iran’s first major energy contract with a European firm since a nuclear deal with world powers lifted sanctions on Iran last year.

“Economic development is also a way of building peace,” Pouyanné said.

Pouyanné’s remarks reflect a broader vision among European leaders for improving ties with Iran, in part by encouraging firms such as Total to invest now that major sanctions are gone. But his comments also highlight the growing rift between the United States and Europe over how to engage with Iran, which the Trump administration has identified as a global menace and singled out for sanctions and isolation.

Since President Trump took office, Europe and the United States have pursued increasingly different courses on Iran, casting doubt over the future of the nuclear accord, which limits Iranian nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief and other trade.

[davidbfpo]

The BBC report starts:
The man who killed one person and injured six in a supermarket knife attack in Hamburg was a "known Islamist", officials say."He was known as an Islamist but not a jihadist," Hamburg's Interior Minister Andy Grote said, noting the suspect also had "psychological" issues.
The man, a failed asylum seeker born in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), attacked customers at random on Friday.
Link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-40763369


Via Twitter citing a German press report in Bild:
Hamburg locals who cornered and overwhelmed Islamist knifeman on Friday: Afghan, Egyptian, German, Turkish

[davidbfpo]

Mistakes happen in many investigations, but it appears the Berlin terrorist attack with a hijacked lorry was far worse. Here is one passage:
The special investigator found that, although Berlin police considered Amri to be the most dangerous Islamist in the city, they only put him under surveillance for a few weeks. Even then, the monitoring stopped on weekends and on public holidays.Link:https://www.thelocal.de/20171012/official-investigation-slams-police-over-handling-of-berlin-terror-attacker

[AdamG]

BERLIN (Reuters) - German police seized large quantities of guns and ammunition in raids on four locations in Berlin linked to a 40-year-old German man with suspected Islamist ties, the Berlin prosecutor’s office said on Wednesday.

The man, a German citizen with a Turkish background, had previously been convicted of weapons violations, and frequented a mosque which was under surveillance by state security, said prosecutor spokeswoman Silke Becker.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-security-raids/german-police-raid-places-linked-to-suspected-islamist-militant-seize-guns-idUSKBN1CU0W3?il=0

[davidbfpo]

More revelations about the Berlin truck attacker, just as the first anniversary comes, on the 19th December. The title and sub-title says enough:
Christmas market terrorist Anis Amri may have been used as 'lure': German newspaper According to data obtained by Welt newspaper, German authorities knew more than a year in advance that Anis Amri presented a clear danger. Intelligence services may have hoped that he would lead them to other terrorists.Link:http://www.dw.com/en/christmas-market-terrorist-anis-amri-may-have-been-used-as-lure-german-newspaper/a-41828681

[davidbfpo]

Odd timing for such an article after recent publicity over the mistakes made, but this is Germany. At a minimum it is a pointer to the assessment tool developed and in use. Here is a key phrase:
But it's no great skill to identify people who are highly violent...The skill is in categorizing the people who are not dangerous among the people defined as endangerers.
Link:http://www.dw.com/en/only-half-of-dangerous-islamists-actually-dangerous-german-police/a-41848406?

[davidbfpo]

Via Twitter @Joseph_Roehmel (https://twitter.com/Joseph_Roehmel) reports:
Majority of German foreign fighter returnees walk free due to lack of evidences and incentives for key witnesses. State of Bavaria, for example, imprisoned 3 of 22 returnees, Hamburg only 1 of 25!

[AdamG]

German Chancellor Angela Merkel made a major concession to Europe's populist movement this week when she admitted the existence of so-called “no-go zones” in Germany.
Conservatives and populists have long warned of the existence of such zones as the partial consequence of mass Muslim migration from the Middle East and Africa, particularly after Merkel opened Germany’s borders in 2015 as a response to the Syrian refugee crisis. Such areas are said to be dogged by high-levels of crime and are described as "no-go zones" because outsiders, including police and other authorities, are unable to enter.
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2018/03/01/angela-merkel-admits-that-no-go-zones-exist-in-germany.html

By The Associated Press
BERLIN — Feb 28, 2018, 11:58 AM ET

In an interview Monday with German broadcaster n-tv, Merkel said she favors a zero tolerance policy on crime and that includes preventing no-go areas, "that's areas where nobody dares to go."
She added: "There are such areas and one has to call them by their name and do something about them."
Asked to name the areas, Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert told reporters Wednesday that "the chancellor's words speak for themselves."
https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2018/02/28/world/europe/ap-eu-germany-no-go-areas.html

[davidbfpo]

With almost no reporting outside Germany a year long trial of the 'Freital Group' ended today, after lengthy legal arguments:
Eight people have been found guilty of numerous crimes including deliberate attacks on refugee shelters in Germany. After a yearlong trial, the legal points hinged on the very nature of the group's structure and intent.Link:http://www.dw.com/en/freital-group-members-found-guilty-of-terror-related-crimes/a-42852954? (http://www.dw.com/en/freital-group-members-found-guilty-of-terror-related-crimes/a-42852954?maca=en-Twitter-sharing)

[AdamG]

BERLIN (AP) — Six people were detained in connection with what police and prosecutors allege was a plan to carry out an attack on Berlin's half-marathon Sunday, German authorities said. A police spokesman later said that no athletes or spectators had been in danger.


The German daily Die Welt first reported that police foiled a plot to attack race spectators and participants with knives.The main suspect allegedly knew Anis Amri, a Tunisian who killed 12 people and injured dozens more when he drove a truck into a Christmas market in Berlin in December 2016, Die Welt reported.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/german-media-knife-attack-berlin-half-marathon-foiled-145628100.html

Moderator adds: all six men were released without charge.


(https://www.yahoo.com/news/german-media-knife-attack-berlin-half-marathon-foiled-145628100.html)

[davidbfpo]

Strange and I think his arrest was reported here. A German article that opens with:
One year ago, a right-wing extremist German army officer was arrested on suspicion of terrorism, then it was discovered he was also leading a double life as a Syrian refugee. The case is anything but closed.In early February 2017, Franco A., a career soldier in the German army, the Bundeswehr, was apprehended by Austrian authorities as he attempted to retrieve a French pistol and ammunition that he had hidden in a bathroom at the Vienna airport. After checking his fingerprints in a database, authorities discovered that the man, born the son of an Italian father and a German mother in the Hesse region of Germany, was actually registered as a Syrian refugee and living in Bavaria. Despite the fact that he spoke hardly any Arabic and was supposed to be serving full-time at a Bundeswehr base in Alsace, nobody had realized he was leading a double life.
Link:http://www.dw.com/en/a-german-right-wing-extremist-soldiers-double-life/a-43540639

[davidbfpo]

Back to the completed trial in July 2018 of XRW murderers, a wider commentary that concludes:
These findings, though, do not lead to the conclusion that we experience a rigorous criminal prosecution against radical right offenders in Germany. On the contrary, when it comes to neo-Nazi violence (https://www.stern.de/politik/deutschland/rechte-gewalt--im-hass-vereint-6541096.html) in general (such as arson attacks, assaults, or riots), law enforcement often works slowly and hesitantly....This observation reveals an ambiguity in dealing with radical right violence in Germany. A consistent and decisive handling of this challenge by the prosecuting authorities is far off.

The article is by a UK-based observer of the XRW, CARR; oddly this commentary is not on their website (link:https://www.radicalrightanalysis.com/) and is on a website not seen before.

Link:https://rantt.com/the-under-discussed-recent-history-of-the-radical-right-terrorism-in-germany/
(https://www.radicalrightanalysis.com/)

[davidbfpo]

Hardly believable: a fax was sent last summer from a Frankfurt police station's fax to the lawyer representing some of the victims in the long running (NSU) Neo-Nazi murder spree trial. So the first link is to a commentary:https://www.dw.com/en/opinion-neo-nazis-in-germanys-police-put-out-the-fire/a-46794541

Second is an August 2018 report of a Neo-Nazi cell inside the German Army SOF:https://www.dw.com/en/cases-of-far-right-extremism-on-the-rise-in-german-military/a-43352572

[davidbfpo]

Alerted by Twitter to these arrests, but nothing readily found on the BBC. Then AM today a series of tweets from @andrewflood (https://threadreaderapp.com/user/andrewflood) and summarised as and complete with links to various articles, some in German:
Truly shocking revelations from Germany this morning of a far-right cell mostly composed of cops connected to the recent murder of a politician which had used their access to police computers to draw up a death list with 25,000 targets on it & stole 10,000 bullets + machine gun.
Link:https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1144537224505151489.html

(Added) Or a UK newspaper, which is a summary only:https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/28/german-far-right-group-used-police-data-to-compile-death-list?CMP=share_btn_tw

Oddly the first Google hit I did went to this Trotskyite website, which appears to have the same news and some commentary.
Link:https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/06/24/meck-j24.html