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Europe

Hundreds of German police swoop on members of banned Islamic group

2021-02-26

[IsraelTimes] Raids in Berlin and across Brandenburg target Jama’atu Berlin organization, said to have called for armed jihad and terrorist attacks on civilians

Hundreds of German coppers conducted coordinated raids early Thursday in Berlin and the surrounding state of Brandenburg in the investigation of an organization banned over allegations of Islamic extremism.

Some 850 police, including SWAT teams, were involved in the raids of apartments linked to members of the organization known as Jama’atu Berlin, the state Interior Ministry said.

The organization, whose name translates literally as the "Berlin Group," was banned by Berlin’s state Interior Minister Andreas Geisel ahead of the raids on the grounds it was a "very radical" group that followed the Islamic State

...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems....
group’s ideology.

"The ban is another clear signal to all religious holy warriors," Geisel said. "We will fight the roots of terror. We will tolerate no place where terror is preached and the so-called Islamic State is glorified."

Authorities said the organization espoused an anti-Semitic ideology and advocated "armed jihad and terrorist attacks on civilians." The raids were meant to secure its assets and look for evidence, authorities said, and no arrests were announced.

The organization consisted of two groups — one of women and one of men — who would meet regularly in private homes and parks, and spread their ideology over the internet and with flyers in public spaces, authorities said.

Update from Deutsche Welle at 1:00 p.m. ET:

Berlin's Senate has announced on Twitter that it has banned the "jihadist-Salafist association Jama'atu Berlin," also known as Tauhid Berlin.

The raids targeted the districts of Reinickendorf, Moabit, Wedding and Neukölln.

WHAT IS THE RADICAL GROUP ACCUSED OF?
A statement from the Senate said Jama'atu Berlin had propagated "a martyr cult," supported the "Islamic State," rejected the German constitution and called for sharia as the sole legitimate law.

The group is believed to have about 20 members, some of whom had attracted attention in the past by handing out leaflets in parts of Berlin.

LINK TO BERLIN CHRISTMAS MARKET ATTACKER
Berlin Interior Senator Andreas Geisel told a news conference the unregistered association had been under surveillance for two years.

The Tagesspiegel newspaper reported that several of the group's followers previously attended the Fussilet Mosque, which was closed down in 2017. Anis Amri, the Tunisian national who carried out an attack on a Berlin Christmas market in 2016 killing 12 people, also frequented the mosque, according to authorities.

The number of Salafists in Germany rose to a record high of 12,150 in 2019, according to the domestic intelligence agency.

Link

Europe

'Terrorist Accomplice' In Anis Amri Berlin Attack Deported, According To Report

2019-02-26

[DW] Germany deported a key suspect in the 2016 Berlin Christmas market attack before he was questioned, according to leaked documents. But authorities denied reports that Bilel Ben Ammar worked for Moroccan intelligence.

German authorities deported a Moroccan secret agent to hide his involvement in the December 2016 Christmas market attack in Berlin, according to an internal document leaked to the German magazine Focus.

However, sources within German security forces have since told public broadcaster ARD that they had no evidence that Ammar worked for any foreign intelligence agency, and were angered at the suggestion that German authorities may have protected him.

Bilel Ben Ammar, himself considered a radical Islamist who was once believed to be planning a separate attack in Berlin, was an associate of Anis Amri,

...the very connected known wolf who’d been in and out of European prisons since arriving in 2011, then registered for asylum in 2015 under at least 14 names. When his asylum request was finally rejected, he decided to make the Germans pay before they got around to deporting him, after which he fled to the comforting arms of his fellows in Italy. Quite a few of his connections from Berlin's ISIS-linked "Fussilet" mosque and elsewhere were subsequently arrested as well...

the Tunisian man who drove a stolen truck into a crowded Christmas market in central Berlin. The attack killed 12 people, injuring 60 more, while Amri himself was killed by police a few days later in Italy.

According to the document seen by Focus, Ammar met Amri a day before the attack, and took photos of the market in its aftermath, which he sent to an unknown phone number two hours later.

Ammar may even have helped the attacker to escape; CCTV footage mentioned in the document showed a man "with the appearance of Ben Ammar" hit a man on the head with a piece of wood in order to clear a path for the escaping attacker. The man is still in a coma now, Focus reported.

All this would be new evidence for the parliamentary committee tasked with investigating the attack, whose members have no knowledge of the video, though they did not rule out that it exists.

Link

Europe

German police arrest Russian man over alleged terror bomb plot

2018-08-23

[IsraelTimes] Suspect with ties to Berlin Christmas market attack allegedly intended to 'maim or kill the greatest possible number of people'

German police commandos tossed in the clink
I ain't sayin' nuttin' widdout me mout'piece!
Wednesday a Russian suspected Islamic terrorist accused of having plotted an explosives attack in the country.

Identified only as 31-year-old Magomed-Ali C., he was allegedly an accomplice of Clement Baur, who was arrested in Marseilles shortly before the 2017 French elections accused of plotting an imminent attack.

The Russian man "is suspected of having plotted, together with Clement B., detained in La Belle France, a serious act of violence against the state," German federal prosecutors said in a statement.

Commandos of the elite police unit GSG 9 stormed the man’s Berlin apartment in an operation which prosecutors said was linked to the Baur case.

"No explosives were found during today’s search operations," federal prosecutors’ spokeswoman Frauke Koehler said.

Baur and another suspect, who had both pledged allegiance to the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems....
group, were arrested in April 2017 in a Marseilles apartment.

That would be his Sequedin prison buddy, Mahiedine Merabet...

French police found an IS flag, a loaded Uzi sub-machine gun, two pistols, a homemade grenade and TATP, a volatile explosive dubbed "mother of Satan."

The German prosecutors said that Magomed-Ali C. and Baur planned an explosives attack "at an unknown location in Germany, meant to maim or kill the greatest possible number of people."

For this purpose, Magomed-Ali C. had kept in his Berlin flat "a substantial amount" of TATP since at least October 2016.

However their plan was foiled by an unspecified German "preventive police operation," which led the accomplices to split up and Baur to travel to La Belle France, said the prosecutors.

TERROR CONNECTION
Prosecutors added Wednesday that a phone number used by Baur had been found saved in a mobile phone belonging to Anis Amri, the perpetrator of a December 2016 truck rampage at a Berlin Christmas market that left 12 people dead.

"We now know that Anis Amri was in contact with Clement B.," prosecutors’ spokeswoman Koehler said.

What’s more, Amri and Magomed-Ali C. both regularly visited a Berlin mosque known as Fussilet 33 that authorities later closed down over fears it was a meeting place for terrorists.

According to the BBC, the mosque was a hub for Chechen extremists.

However,
a person who gets all wrapped up in himself makes a mighty small package...
Koehler added there was "no indication" either that Magomed-Ali C. and Baur were involved in planning the truck attack, or that Amri helped them with their explosives scheme.

Since the Christmas market rampage ‐ Germany’s bloodiest in recent years ‐ the country has been targeted repeatedly by attacks with radical Islamist motives.

Link

Europe

Berlin terror cell nabbed after arrests in Italy and Germany

2017-04-29

[DW] Italian police have revealed that they helped dismantle a Berlin-based cell of Islamic Death Eaters. The suspects reportedly had links to Christmas market attack suspect Anis Amri, who was rubbed out in Italia.

Italian police said on Friday that they had helped break up an 11-person terror cell based in Berlin not long after Anis Amri allegedly plowed a truck into a Christmas market in the city, killing 12 people.

The operation to dismantle the group was completed at the end of January but is just now being revealed. The investigation into the group began after authorities picked up two of the cell's members in the Italian port of Ancona on December 4, 2016.

Congolese citizen Nkanga Lutumba and Moroccan citizen Soufiane Amri were planning to travel to Syria to join the so-called "Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems....
" (IS) terrorist group when they were picked up by the authorities, Italian police said.

From there, authorities continued their investigation into the two men, monitoring Lutumba and tracing calls back to the Berlin-based terror cell.

Links to Christmas market attacker
Three other members of the group were tossed in the clink
... anything you say can and will be used against you, whether you say it or not...
at the border between Croatia and Serbia in December.

Italian police also said members of the terrorist cell were frequently in contact with Anis Amri, who was a regular visitor at the place where Soufiane Amri and Lutumba lived.

Amri was rubbed out by Italian police on December 23, four days after carrying out the attack at the Berlin Christmas market.

Parallel German investigations led to four arrests on January 31.

The Local - Germany adds:

The departure of Nkanga, 26, and Soufiane Amri, 22, was delayed by a Greek ferry strike and it was during the unexpected delay that they were subject to an identity check which revealed that Germany had banned Amri from leaving the country.

Amri was deported to Germany while Nkanga was detained in a centre for failed asylum-seekers awaiting deportation in the southeastern port of Brindisi.

Subsequent investigations and monitoring of Nkanga's telephone calls from the centre established that the two men had been travelling with false documents and were in regular contact with other members of the cell based in the central Berlin district of Moabit.

Three other members of the group were tossed in the clink
Youse'll never take me alive coppers!... [BANG!]... Ow!... I quit!
on December 4th at Bajakovo at the border between Croatia and Serbia, the Italian police said. Emrah Civelek, Feysel Hermann and Husan Saed Hussein were also said to have been trying to get to Iraq or Syria.

Mosque closed down
Civelek was described as a Berlin taxi driver who was involved in the running of the "Fussilet 33" mosque which was closed down in February because of concerns it was a meeting place for Islamists.

A Tunisian national unrelated to his Moroccan namesake, Anis Amri was rubbed out by Italian police in Milan on December 23rd.

The Berlin cell which the Italians described as "a very diverse group of Lion of Islams," were all legally resident in Germany, between 20 and 30 years of age and with identical records of radicalisation.

All members of the group have been indicted in Italia for having links to international terrorism while the two suspects initially detained on Italian soil are also specifically charged with links to Isis and raising funds for the group.

Link

Europe

Berlin criminalizes Islamic State-linked 'Fussilet' mosque activity, sends police to raid 24 sites

2017-03-01

[DeutscheWelle] More than 400 coppers took part in raids linked to the mosque. Prosecutors have launched criminal investigations into the association's activity, which is suspected of being a meeting point for radical Islamists.

Berlin's office of the interior banned the mosque association known as "Fussilet 33" on Tuesday. The organization is suspected of being a meeting point for radical Islamists, prosecutors said.

Anis Amri, a Tunisian national who launched an attack on a Berlin Christmas market in December that left 12 people dead and dozens more injured, frequented the mosque, according to authorities.

Last week, authorities in Berlin jugged
... anything you say can and will be used against you, whether you say it or not...
three men suspected of links to the self-proclaimed "Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems....
" (IS) turban group in an anti-terror raid. Police said the men had visited the mosque operated by the association.

Police raided 24 locations across Berlin early Tuesday morning with more than 400 law enforcement officers participating in the operation, local authorities said in a tweet.

Authorities closed the mosque following raids last week. The mosque has been under surveillance since 2015 for its suspected links in recruitment activities. It had also raised donations to support terrorist attacks in Syria.

Counterterrorism measures
Banning the association means that the group is formally disbanded and can no longer rent mosques for their activities.

Germany has taken proactive measures to curb terrorist threats and tackle radicalization following the Berlin attack.

The measures include launching dozens of raids across the country and proposing legislation to detain foreign nationals suspected of Lion of Islam activity who have been denied residency, a precursor for deportation.

According to Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere, more than 500 individuals have been classified as a potential threat in Germany, of which roughly half of them are non-German nationals.

Link

Europe

Three terror suspects with links to 'Islamic State' arrested in Berlin

2017-02-01

[DeutscheWelle] The men had reportedly been planning to travel out to training camps run by the so-called "Islamic State." Police also raided Berlin's "Fussilet" mosque, which has been suspected of trying to recruit new members for IS.

Authorities in Berlin incarcerated
Drop the rosco, Muggsy, or you're one with the ages!
three men suspected of links to the self-proclaimed "Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems....
" (IS) jihadist group in an anti-terror raid late on Tuesday.

The three men, aged 21, 31 and 45, were reportedly planning to travel out to combat zones and IS training camps, likely in Syria or Iraq.

Earlier reports suggested the men were suspected of planning a serious attack on German soil. However,
corruption finds a dozen alibis for its evil deeds...
a Berlin police spokesperson reportedly told news agency AFP that there was no evidence of an immediate attack.

The men's desire to travel to IS training camps may still have been in preparation for an attack, police admitted.

Police on Tuesday also reportedly raided the "Fussilet" mosque in the Moabit district of the German capital, which the men are believed to have often visited. The mosque on Perleberger Strasse is connected to the Fussilet 33 association, which has been under police surveillance for allegedly trying to recruit new members for IS.

Anis Amri, who killed 12 people in an attack on a Berlin Christmas marketon December 19, also had links to the mosque. Surveillance footage showed Tunisian national Amri entering the mosque the day after he committed the attack.

However,
corruption finds a dozen alibis for its evil deeds...
police said there was no evidence the three men detained on Tuesday had direct links to Amri.

Link

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