Germany (catch all, incl. terrorism)

[OUTLAW 09]

Just got off the phone with the US and listening to the stories circulating around all the Merkel refugee mistakes and how the German security services failed....comments coming from Trump voters....BTW....

ALL comments are flying around in the States with absolutely no understanding of what actually is ongoing in Berlin...........

While we have the FBI....the Germans have their own Federal FBI...and Berlin Regional FBI....have their own version of MI5 WHICH we the US do not have and that in every German regional State....then they have a Special Police unit called Staatsschutz in every Regional State........

ALL tied to their German CIA which has an internal NSA.....AND tied as well to the German military CI.....

They probably have their Salafist scene in Germany under far better surveillance than the US does....especially our own home grown terrorists...and they are using largely Muslim officers for this......

Part of the problem or what is being called security failures in the States is really the Germans holding tightly to the rule of law built after Hitler...they would rather err on the side of the rule of law instead of running it into the ground as we have often done in the US especially with Gitmo....

[Azor]

Azor...this whole attack does not make sense nor matches the standard IS TPPs...

While he ran along the edges of the Salafist circles he did not mix that deeply with them....which has made him harder to track right now.....his family stated out of Tunisia he never even prayed as a Muslim....

BUT again Berlin and several German cities where he was residing as he moved constantly has a large number of Russian SVR/FSB agents..do not challenge me on that fact....AND we have seen a reactivation of a number of former GDR MfS agents.......taken back into the FSB/SVR fold....

Go back to my post on the Russian threat issued out of Moscow in March 2016....that threat came from a well respected inner circle advisor of Putin....

Secondly.....Merkel is holding the Russian sanctions literally in place and the Russians know this..remember the US sanctions on Russia have virtually no impact as the US had limited trade with Russia...but not the EU....AND the dropping of those sanctions runs through Merkel.....NOT Trump....

Did they have a sale on tinfoil at Aldi?

You are making so many logical fallacies, I don't know where to begin.

You are starting from a desire to make the perpetrator not:

• A practicing Muslim
• A migrant posing as a refugee
• A migrant posing as a minor
• Motivated by anti-Western or anti-European sentiment

Then you are leaping to conclusions based upon, "if this man isn't a Muslim supremacist terrorist who could he be?".

• Are their Russian intelligence officers all over Germany? Yes.
• Are they trying to reactivate Cold War networks? Yes.
• Does Russia want the EU sanctions lifted? Yes.
• Is Germany key to keeping the sanctions in place? Yes.

But answer these questions:

• Is Germany the only country that matters as far as sanctions go? No.
• Does Russia have support in Germany and other EU members for sanctions relief? Yes.
• Is sanctions relief worth staging an Article V-triggering terrorist attack? No.
• Do Merkel's opponents need help from Putin to oust her? Not really.
• Is German law enforcement stretched by the migrant crisis? Yes.
• Are there much easier ways for Russia to get what it wants? Yes.

[davidbfpo]

Not with lots of time to read today, but these items may help readers understand the puzzle pieces in Berlin and Germany.

First off, from Bellingcat:

We have found a video posted by Anis Amri, the man named by German prosecutors as a suspect in the Berlin Christmas market attack. The video was shared on September 26, 2016 in Berlin. We have geolocated it to this location

Link:https://www.facebook.com/bellingcat/...9755948212860/

A Canadian academic writes on the Germany internal security set-up, in places reminds us "all is not well":http://www.theglobeandmail.com/opini...ticle33387839/

Shashank Joshi (RUSI) has a column on this too:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016...ence-services/

By the far most useful, non-German explanation for the suspect is this rolling update:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016...asylum-seeker/

It has this item which makes me wonder at his IS credentials:

February 2011 Flees to Italy after being charged with armed robbery in home country of Tunisia. Claims asylum as a minor.
Sent to prison for four years after committing a series of crimes, including reportedly burning down a school.

Circulated via Twitter.

[OUTLAW 09]

Did they have a sale on tinfoil at Aldi?

You are making so many logical fallacies, I don't know where to begin.

You are starting from a desire to make the perpetrator not:

• A practicing Muslim
• A migrant posing as a refugee
• A migrant posing as a minor
• Motivated by anti-Western or anti-European sentiment

Then you are leaping to conclusions based upon, "if this man isn't a Muslim supremacist terrorist who could he be?".

• Are their Russian intelligence officers all over Germany? Yes.
• Are they trying to reactivate Cold War networks? Yes.
• Does Russia want the EU sanctions lifted? Yes.
• Is Germany key to keeping the sanctions in place? Yes.

But answer these questions:

• Is Germany the only country that matters as far as sanctions go? No.
• Does Russia have support in Germany and other EU members for sanctions relief? Yes.
• Is sanctions relief worth staging an Article V-triggering terrorist attack? No.
• Do Merkel's opponents need help from Putin to oust her? Not really.
• Is German law enforcement stretched by the migrant crisis? Yes.
• Are there much easier ways for Russia to get what it wants? Yes.

Ah...a tad aggressive are we......

1....he is known to have not prayed in any of the "more conservative mosques" in any city he stayed in...does that mean he is did not pray and or prayed in private apartments as did the Hamburg 11???

2. he entered Italy in 2011...did 4 yrs in jail and then hit Germany in June 2015.....A FULL year before the immigrant wave actually

3. he applied for asylum and was denied within one year...speedy for this decision actually as he could not prove any reason for being politically/physically at risk even from the Tunisians other than his sentence for 5 yrs in absentia.....

4. he never poised as a minor....always gave age as being between 21-24...but gave different names as he was arrested for minor crimes....

5. motivated by anti European thoughts....no comments about this has drifted up yet.....assume so if in fact a true member of IS but here is the problem...no one has connected him to an active cell and or an active conservative mosque anywhere in Germany as of yet

[*]Are their Russian intelligence officers all over Germany? Yes.[*]Are they trying to reactivate Cold War networks? Yes.[*]Does Russia want the EU sanctions lifted? Yes.[*]Is Germany key to keeping the sanctions in place? Yes.

Glad you fully agree with me on these points.....

BUT...how would you know that the FSB/SVR has in fact reactivated their key Stasi former agents? That is not a truly proven and known fact outside a certain group....actually some of these former agents are active in the German neo right AfD....

But answer these questions:
Is Germany the only country that matters as far as sanctions go? No.
Does Russia have support in Germany and other EU members for sanctions relief? Yes.
Is sanctions relief worth staging an Article V-triggering terrorist attack? No.
Do Merkel's opponents need help from Putin to oust her? Not really.
Is German law enforcement stretched by the migrant crisis? Yes.
Are there much easier ways for Russia to get what it wants? Yes.

1. Germany is the paymaster for EU and follows what the pay master leads on....and right now the pay master wins every single sanctions debate within EU

2. Yes Russia has EU support including the German SPD but Merkel has been largely able to isolate the SPD in those demands but using Russia's own actions in eastern Ukraine and Syria

3. YOU have failed to notice that NATO has already triggered Article 5 ONCE...only once before ....to support the US right after 9/11..check your records....so why would not Article 5 be again triggered for a major attack on another NATO member...precedent has be already set...

4. Merkel's opponents in this case AfD..Pegida....need every assistance they can get as their potential percentage of votes will never cross more than 14% as their numbers are actually falling since Brexit and Trump....all other parties....CSU..SPD..Greens...will and or could form a coalition and she will remain ...

IF they did not assistance then why has Russian unleashed a cyber and info war against Merkel...

What is interesting is that in the face of all previous attacks and this one she has not taken a major hit on her popularity thus still presents a serious threat to Putin and keeping the sanctions in place....

5....stretched to the limit...not sure exactly what you mean by this....effectively by the end of Sept ALL 1.2M refugees have been biometrically handled and recorded ........security around the refugee centers is done largely by private security companies....

Stretched to the limit is the sheer volume of Federal Police overtime now at 6.7M hours.....which if the overtime was to be worked down and eliminated would require 13,000 new police.....but over the years of reductions started by Schoerder and the SPD as a way to lower the government costs...that is hurting them...not the refugees....

Example...3000 are to be hired in 2017 but 2000 are retiring....

Stretched on the security services side...yes as well but planned is a massive hiring in 2017 .........

BTW..being stretched is not only due to refugees...but a sheer unlimited it seems constant demonstrations in Berlin..over 1400 in 2016 that suck up manpower....and the increased patrolling in the rural areas to increase presence due to criminal activities in the rural areas of Germany...

Alone for the last Obama visit 3000 were pulled into Berlin and even German military police were used as well....

Stretched thin on their surveillance teams..they sure are but not even the US could constantly monitor with surveillance teams 550 individuals all at the same time...

If it was easier for Russia to get what it wants then why the massive spending on info warfare and the large number of cyber attacks in the last.
year????

AGAIN back to the core issue...this attack is not your norm IS attack for a surprisingly large number of reasons...and that alone is strange...

WHAT bothers me is actually the US role in this attack..if the attacker has been as NYTs reports on the US NF list for months..apparently this was not passed to the Germans.

There was a US travel alert for US tourists/military who would be visiting Christmas markets about a possible threat..but that was the standard normal yearly warning as part of their anti terror prevention alerts....some UK reporters are alluding to the fact in Sky that this warning came from the NSA because the Germans do not have a NSA equal...which reflects no knowledge of the German Federal Security Service BND and their abilities...

SO why was the attacker on the NF list and why did the US evidently not pass their info onto the Germans....

German surveillance did in fact pickup his plans to either commit a robbery and or sell drugs in order to get money for a weapon and or weapons....that led then to the twice 90 day surveillance which resulted on no evidence that could convict him of anything....

There are media rumors that he had offered himself as a suicider..not confirmed and if so...then what cell did he tag into to make this offer and if offered then why a truck jacking when he was prepared to commit suicide????

German law strictly controls surveillance both physical and electronic and it cannot exceed 180 days and if nothing happens during that period..security service are sh...t out of luck.....unless than can provide additional actual evidence that will lead then to an additional 90 days...

[OUTLAW 09]

Hunting the Berlin Christmas Market Attack Suspect on Social Media via @bellingcathttps://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-a...social-media/#

Now we have dashcam video of the horrific Berlin Xmas market #TruckJihad attack which killed 12 + wounded 48.Try this link, very short video:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-38411665

This link did not work: http://www.bild.de/news/inland/terrorberlin/der-moment-des-anschlags-49455400.bild.html#

[Azor]

Ah...a tad aggressive are we...

Well, your insinuation is in the realm of conspiracy theory I'm afraid. It isn't even in the same dimension as Ockham's Razor.

Amri may well be self-radicalized, which would not be unusual. Daesh takes credit for various lone wolf attacks throughout the West.

BUT...how would you know that the FSB/SVR has in fact reactivated their key Stasi former agents? That is not a truly proven and known fact outside a certain group...actually some of these former agents are active in the German neo right AfD...

It is a reasonable assumption based upon Russia’s increasing intelligence operations in the West during Putin’s tenure. Having said that, there is a major difference between a German person acting on behalf of the GDR and/or Communism, and one acting for Russia.

Over 15% of the population of the GDR informed to the StaSi at one time or another, so that would not surprise me. Yet both the GDR and FRG allowed many former National Socialists to occupy key military, political and intelligence positions. The Poles were much more thorough with their lustrationpolicy.

I would imagine that the SVR/GRU would have more luck recruiting Germans in the wake of the Iraq War, when anti-American sentiment was sweeping through Western Europe. Disapproval of one’s own side’s conduct provides fertile ground for being turned, as the Vietnam War and the crushing of the Prague Spring demonstrated.

1. Germany is the paymaster for EU and follows what the pay master leads on...and right now the pay master wins every single sanctions debate within EU

Yet there is dissent. Do you have any data on how the EU Council has voted with respect to the sanctions, and whether that vote has changed over time? At least 1/3 of the votes would be decidedly against sanctions, given the statements made by those EU members’ leaders.

2. Yes Russia has EU support including the German SPD but Merkel has been largely able to isolate the SPD in those demands but using Russia's own actions in eastern Ukraine and Syria.

Merkel and the CDU/CSU will likely be ousted by a combination of the SPD, Greens and The Left. The CSU would be open to any re-alignment that promises tough immigration and border control policies.

3. YOU have failed to notice that NATO has already triggered Article 5 ONCE...only once before ...to support the US right after 9/11...check your records...so why would not Article 5 be again triggered for a major attack on another NATO member...precedent has be already set...

Which is exactly my point. A Russian act of terror in Berlin would would be grounds for Article V. So why would Russia conduct such a risky operation?

IF they did not assistance then why has Russian unleashed a cyber and info war against Merkel...What is interesting is that in the face of all previous attacks and this one she has not taken a major hit on her popularity thus still presents a serious threat to Putin and keeping the sanctions in place...

Yet Merkel also relies upon censorship and cooperation with social media to suppress discussion and reporting on the migrant crisis. Germany’s definition of what constitutes expressions of hate has expanded over the decades well beyond that associated with National Socialism, allowing swathes of free expression to be criminalized. There are good reasons why the First Amendment is enshrined in the US Constitution, even though this freedom is abused by all types of supremacist and separatist groups.

5...stretched to the limit...not sure exactly what you mean by this...effectively by the end of Sept ALL 1.2M refugees have been biometrically handled and recorded ...security around the refugee centers is done largely by private security companies...

I mean that law enforcement is unable to protect migrants in their facilities from violence by other migrants, nor Germans from migrant violence, of which Koeln and Freiburg are examples.

Given the censorship noted above, I can only assume that statistics on ethnicity and crime in Germany are manipulated.

I know that you will have quite the response to my statements here, but I have been following this issue in Europe for many years before the recent wave of migrants, including the official disinformation on the subject. Angie may be concerned about rumor and gossip, but free press and social media would be preferable to Germans relying upon foreign sources, including British and Swedish tabloids.

If it was easier for Russia to get what it wants then why the massive spending on info warfare and the large number of cyber attacks in the last.
year?

Putin can hold a grudge for many years and revenge informs much of his aggression. But what keeps him up at night? The United States? Nope. Germany and China. Putin knows that birthrates and economic activity are more pertinent to Russian national security than tanks and submarines. As far as the AFD and NPD are concerned, they are mere sideshows, Russia’s real target is sympathetic elements of the CDU/CSU and SPD.

AGAIN back to the core issue...this attack is not your norm IS attack for a surprisingly large number of reasons...and that alone is strange...WHAT bothers me is actually the US role in this attack..if the attacker has been as NYTs reports on the US NF list for months..apparently this was not passed to the Germans...

It is not unusual as far as a Muslim supremacist terrorist act is concerned, irrespective of whether he had contact with Daesh or other groups.

Information falls through the cracks. Allegedly the Russians warned DHS or the FBI about the Tsarnaevs…

Perhaps the US shared the information and it was lost by the Europeans or Germans. If the Americans didn’t, there may be valid reasons. At present there is no “US role”.

German surveillance did in fact pickup his plans to either commit a robbery and or sell drugs in order to get money for a weapon and or weapons...that led then to the twice 90 day surveillance which resulted on no evidence that could convict him of anything...

So the BND had no mandate to surveil a non-citizen beyond 90 days? At this point, it appears as though the Germans dropped the ball on this one, despite their proficiency compared to the French. GSG-9 can tear-ass around Germany all they want. It won’t bring back any of the dead. And why were there no vehicle barriers?

[OUTLAW 09]

Azor...you reflect much of what many do not fully understand about German law which is built on the principle of personal privacy/personal rights..actually head and shoulders above what Americans claim is a civil right and only American can/is providing those rights...due to that famous individual Hitler.... his SD and Gestapo........

Even in serious espionage cases they are held to a strict standard of 180 days...and yes that even includes non Germans as the case they are driving must survive a court trial for any civilian..........that is why they refrain from surveillance until they have a firm idea of what they will see and or find...

In the case of this attacker....they backed off from arresting him which they could have in theory done as a preventive measure but then his rights would have been violated because the Federal prosecutor would have had no case to present to the court.....in the US they would have simply arrested him....held him and then try to find evidence to charge him....here no one can be in fact charged unless there is solid evidence linking him or her to a specific criminal charge...again thank Hitler...when he is picked up the clock starts ticking for the prosecutor....

Again this whole attack does not make sense.....he is filmed on a surveillance camera of being in front of a known Salafist mosques several hours after the attack but approaching no one...he is then filmed again EIGTH full hours after the attack ACTUALLY at the attack site.....thus indicating he has not fled Berlin and that is a fatal mistake on his part....as the 100K reward is bringing info hourly....THAT has never been done in any previous IS attack....return to the scene....and he has released nor statement or video...all Paris attacks had prerecorded attacker statements released after the attacks...

Again his family is appealing to him stating you have brought shame on the entire family and Tunisia and indicating that if he committed the attack he alone must pay........

You see the Salafist world in Berlin being totally quiet and not uttering a word out of fear of being associated to him instead of cheering him as a IS fighter as did IS.... you

As I previously indicated the German security services know their bad apples as the arrest yesterday of two brothers that in fact were planning a Mall attack...the arrest of four in a Berlin apartment which the government has not said a single word on........

My complaint is the countless comments coming from US..UK interviews claiming that the Germans "failed on this and or that" or he slipped through the cracks etc.....all the while not fully understanding the legal ramifications the Germans jump through to ensure the "rule of law".....and these comments coming from US and UK sources all the while both US/UK claiming to be the epicenters of the rule of law....

While it is great to hear for the masses..."if he was so bad then why did they stop surveillance" ...without understanding what it takes to conduct manpower wise such a surveillance and with 550 known and identified bad apples that would require 14-15,000 surveillance personal and not even the US has that many...NOR does the US "know and track their own bad apples" as the repeated US homegrown attacks have shown us......

No one seems to mention that simple fact......

WHAT CrowBat mentioned to you recently....the German ability to raid in 200 locations at the exact same time when they forbid the Islamic religious group shows their ability to act in the face of "religious freedom" and protecting this civil society rule of law rights....has not been matched even by the US and UK...

[davidbfpo]

BBC News reporting on this development, which has aspects not in the public domain:

1. Berlin market attack suspect Anis Amri has been shot dead by police in Milan, prosecutors say
2. Police say he was approached by officers during a routine patrol in the Sesto San Giovanni area on Friday
3. German officials have confirmed Amri's fingerprints were found inside the truck used in Monday's attack

Link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-europe-38416137 and a little more on:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-38415287

[OUTLAW 09]

UPDATE....

The attacker was identified in a video of the attack scene eight hours after the attack…..there is a main train station stop within a ten minute walk from where he was videoed……

When he was stopped by a routine Carbineria person control point he opened fire……..he was carrying a rucksack with rail tickets inside….he first traveled to southern France and then via France to Milan……

Rumored that the Italian Carbineria was doing routine stops in the area where he had previously lived before going to jail in Italy……

Since he was being searched for across Europe surprised both the French did not check train passengers and the Italians checking on train arrivals in Milan which has one major exit point……

Amri pledges allegiance to Baghdadi in selfie video:
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/246891...r-al-baghdadi/

Appears this video was done after the attack which would confirm that he “joined” after the attack not before……this is reinforced by the fact that when IS released their claiming statement they did not name him...because they probably did not know who he was....

Secondary info…..he was seen in front of a well known Salafist mosque here in Berlin but talking with no one…….rumors have it the Berlin Salafist scene basically avoided him as he was to aggressive…..so again supports the fact he was not “radicalized” before the attack…….he seemed to have floated along the edges of the Salafist scene....

Another strange point….he elected to not go down shooting with Berlin police at the market after the attack and fled BUT chose to shot it out with the Italians….when he could have made a run for it....

Another strange point …his fleeing to France…….six weeks ago a Bulgarian resident here in Berlin was caught on CCTV kicking a young woman in her back and down a flight of concrete steps breaking her arm….the police went on social media and TV showing his photo…he was arrested on a bus arriving in Berlin from southern France……

There seems to be a southern France route known to local Berlin criminals….if they are fleeing Berlin…..and he was a common sight in those circles as he was dealing drugs at a number of the Berlin night scene locations......

[OUTLAW 09]

1. Attacker video was made here in Berlin...a certain bridge in Alt Moabit during the daytime...from the weather in the background...was made day after the attack.....

2. Italian police stopped him at 0300 on a routine stop in a town near Milan..(there is a Salafist mosque in that town but no indication that he was headed there) as he was acting suspiciously to the police patrol..when they stopped him and asked for papers he opened fire on them....

3. Italians called him a "ghost" as he had no ID/travel documents on him...no cell phone ....just the train tickets in his rucksack

4. he had come via the French Alps into Turin....where he spent three hours before traveling on to Milan.... no indication why he spent 3 hours waiting in Turin when he could have gone straight through to Milan....

Northern Italy has a strong Salafist background.....how he got to the French town near the Italian border is not known at this time.....

[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-...l-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-...l-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/an...1827056089021#
…

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-i...error-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-i...error-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/deutschl...-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.