General CT in Europe (catch all)

[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).

[davidbfpo]

CTC's current issue of Sentinel has a focus on Germany and two analysts from two regional offices of the Federal Office of the Protection of the Constitution and with my emphasis:

CTC: Several members of the Paris and Brussels attack cell transited through Germany, including through a refugee center in Ulm. To what degree has the migrant crisis produced a security threat to Europe?
Said: There has been a public outcry bringing together the two big current issues of terrorism and migration. And of course Paris, Brussels, and also Wrzburg and Ansbach showed us there has been a link between the two in some particular cases. But paranoia and hysteria are at risk of overshadowing the actual facts. Since 2015 more than one million refugees have come to Germany, but the federal police office (BKA) has so far received terrorism tips on 400 individuals and has undertaken 40 investigations in this context. The majority of the hints turned out to be unsubstantiated. So when it comes to refugees, you can speak of a very small and dwindling number of suspicious persons who are subject to investigations. Of course there is the danger that persons whom security authorities are not aware of might be involved in plots. But this was also the case before the exodus of Syrian and Iraqi people began, and it should be noted we also had a history of failed or foiled plots in Germany by German citizens or residents well before the recent migrant flows. All in all you can say that the migration wave is an additional challenge for the security apparatus, but it is not the cause for the unprecedented terror threat. The cause for that is the Islamic State and its global supporters

Link:https://www.ctc.usma.edu/posts/a-vie...fassungsschutz

[davidbfpo]

The last sentence from David Wells thoughtful column in the Australian e-bulletin of the Lowy Institute:http://www.lowyinterpreter.org/post/...Dol8CY.twitter

A "taster":

While lone actors or self-starters were certainly a concern, they typically struggled to build explosive devices or get access to weaponry without contacting known terrorist or criminal entities. Unfortunately, isolated actors and their cheerleaders overseas have realised this too. As Nice, Orlando and potentially Wurzburg all demonstrate, these unconnected individuals or networks are instead focusing on softer and typically more local targets. And utilising an attack methodology that challenges intelligence agency notions of what behaviour makes an individual 'look like a terrorist'. After all, possessing a knife or renting a truck is no obvious precursor to a terrorist attack.

[davidbfpo]

Simplicity via a tweet by Professor John Horgan, a SME (which does not copy):

Bottom Line

Violent extremism is diverse

Violent extremism is complex

Violent extremism is detectable

But that doesn't mean it always is preventable