General CT in Europe (catch all)

[AdamG]

A debate on the Forum, started a couple of days ago on the current thread on French CT, deserves a thread - for the debate and wider implications, especially as savagery is a feature (hat tip to Adam G for his post).

This post will drop from No.1 when the posts are transferred.

Awesome. Suggest migrating Slappy's Sherman reference and my response as well.

[davidbfpo]

Azor,

How does 'collective punishment' of Muslims post-Nice work when the NYT reports? My emphasis added:

When a Tunisian man drove a truck down a crowded street in Nice last week in an attack claimed by the Islamic State, more than one-third of the people he killed were Muslim, the head of a regional Islamic association said on Tuesday.

Link:http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/20/wo...lims.html?_r=0

There is a far wider application as it is a fact that more Muslims have been killed across the globe by Jihadists, than non-Muslims.

[davidbfpo]

The Soufan Group Intel Brief has an article today. BLUF:

Several recent terror attacks have involved suspects previously unknown to counterterrorism officials. • Investigators have used terms like ‘rapid radicalization’ to describe the trajectory of suspects who displayed no traditional indicators of terrorism.
• The absence of narrow terrorism indicators is not followed by the absence of indicators of radicalization and violence.
• Broadening the scope of indicators to include the propensity for violence and misogyny, among others traits, may demonstrate that radicalization is a much longer process than widely understood.

Link:http://soufangroup.com/tsg-intelbrie...-of-terrorism/


Changing the CT machinery maybe needed, with a potentially wider role for advance warning from civil institutions and the public.

[AdamG]

Anyone care to place their bets now?

MUNICH (AP) — Police were hunting Saturday for clues to explain why an 18-year-old German-Iranian man opened fire at a crowded Munich shopping mall and fast-food restaurant, killing nine people and wounding 16 others before killing himself.

The attack in the Bavarian capital sparked a massive security operation as authorities — already on edge after the recent attacks in Wuerzburg and Nice, France — received witness reports of multiple shooters carrying rifles shortly before 6 p.m. (1600 GMT). Six hours later police declared a "cautious all clear," saying the suspect was among the 10 dead and that he had likely acted alone.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/...cid=spartandhp

[AdamG]

A priest has been killed in an attack by two armed men on his church in a suburb of Rouen in northern France.

The attackers entered the church in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray during Mass, taking the priest, Fr Jacques Hamel, 84, and four other people hostage.

Police later surrounded the church and French TV said shots were fired. Both hostage-takers are now dead.

The Amaq news agency, linked to so-called Islamic State, said "two IS soldiers" had carried out the attack.

President Francois Hollande said the men had claimed to be from IS.

Speaking in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, he said the attackers had committed a "cowardly assassination" and France would fight IS "by all means".

Pope Francis decried the "pain and horror of this absurd violence".

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe...e=news_central

[davidbfpo]

One of the events in Germany, the machete attack on a woman @ Reutlingen, although not IS-related, but a crime of passion does have one relevant aspect:

A BMW driver then accelerated and knocked him down. After that he lay on the ground and did not move.

In some reports the driver appeared likely to have been a Muslim. I only cite the source of the quote:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016...thern-germany/

[davidbfpo]

First the bomb attack @ Ansbach, Bavaria, Germany and a report - in an IS magazine - that the suspect:

...had fought with al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra. It appears that Daleel later pledged allegiance to Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) after the 2013 split from Nusra....he left Syria to seek treatment after he was wounded in a mortar attack. He travelled on to Germany posing as a refugee.
(From another source) He was to be deported to Bulgaria under the EU’s Dublin rules, but the move was delayed by his claims of ill health.

Link:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016...-questions-ov/

Leaving aside whether any agency could have id'd his past in Syria, there is the scale of migration into Germany in 2015, over a million people.

Second yesterday's murderer in a church in Normandy, France:

The 19-year-old was under police supervision and wore a tag following his release in March after 10 months of preventative custody for trying to go to Syria....Ordered to live at his parents’ home, he was allowed out between 8.30am and 12.30pm on weekdays, and from 2pm to 6pm on weekends. He was, therefore, within his rights to be out at the time of the attack...

Link:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016...adel-kermiche/

Taking a wider view a French-Algerian commentator:

The vast majority of the terrorists who have now slaughtered some 250 people in separate incidents across France over the past 18 months were just as well known to the authorities as Kermiche. Many were meant to be in prison, or – again like Kermiche – at least reporting to their local police stations under strict bail terms. Instead they were given more than enough freedom to move across borders and acquire the arms necessary to carry out their carnage pretty much anywhere they chose.

Link:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016...-stop-jacques/

Kermiche clearly was a "hard case" to change, but France has almost no such state capability (like Germany).