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Recent Appearances... Rantburg

Britain
Staff Forge St. Andrews
2023-02-02
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.

Commentary based on Telegram posts by Alexander Hoffman
[ColonelCassad] Let's continue to https://t.me/thehegemonist/1916. St. Andrews University - 1st in Scotland, 3rd in seniority Anglo-Saxon. Founded in 1410 by Scots from the Augustinian clergy, expelled first from the Sorbonne after the Western Schism, and then from Oxbridge after the invasion of Bolingbroke. The role of the SEU is important for understanding the actions of the Anglo-Saxon intellectual apparatus after the Cold War, including the fight against international terrorism.

In 1989, Prof. Paul Wilkinson, a student of Crozier, was invited to SEU.

During this period Wilkinson's Research Foundation for the Study of Terrorism, located in the same office as the Targets, merged with the Institute for the Study of Conflict, founded by Crozier, into the Research Institute for the Study of Conflict and Terrorism, registered on December 12, 1989, very soon after the Malta Summit. Wilkinson introduces the understanding of terrorism that he formed over the previous years into the scientific environment of the SEU.

In SEU, Wilkinson introduced two new courses - International Terrorism and Comparison of Intelligence Systems. He led the first one himself, to shape the thinking of future state and corporate managers. The second is “Kremlinologist” Michael Robertson, who prepared the course with the help of retired intelligence officers.

In 1993, SEU, together with the command of the Royal Air Force, introduced a direction in the field of defense studies, including courses in environmental security, diplomacy, political economy and the study of terrorism. The direction was tested on the officers of the Royal Air Force base in Leuchars, at a distance.

In 1994, Wilkinson was appointed head of the School of History and International Relations of the SEU, left RISCT and created the Center for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence, the director of which was the Oxfordian Bruce Hoffman, who later worked for the CIA and All Souls, and at that time an analyst RAND. Subsequently, CSTPV was led by Wilkinson himself and other operators of controlled Islamophobia through the legitimization of discourse in the academic environment - the Swede Magnus Ranstorp and the Swiss Alex Schmid.

ST. ANDREWS ALUMNI INCLUDE:
Kevin Abraham - Major General of the British Army, led its reform - the development of the army reserve, senior researcher at the Institute for Statecraft (specialized in social inclusion, youth engagement and institutional reforms), one of the organizers of the terrorist attack on the Crimean bridge and a number of other operations related to Russia and the Ukrainian frontier

John Kuckney - Baron, MI5 officer, Thatcher's chief adviser on the arms trade

Alistair Crook - former MI6 agent, specialized in parallel diplomacy or secret negotiations: Ireland, South Africa, Namibia, Afghanistan, Cambodia, Colombia and Palestine

William Mountbatten-Windsor - Heir to the British Throne

David Knott - surgeon specializing in information campaigns and propaganda in war zones

Craig Oliphant - Integrity Initiative operator

Mark Sedwill - Baron, high-ranking British diplomat and official, now on the boards of BAE Systems, Rothschild & Co, Lloyd's of London

John Sawers - Head of MI6, 2009-2014.

Fiona Hill - US-British expert on the expansion of American influence in Eurasia, focused on Vladimir Putin.

Link


Europe
Ex-Islamic Radical Says Extremists Are Present in Every Swedish Mosque
2021-09-27
[Breitbart] A former radical Islamic Salafist preacher says that radicalism is present in every Swedish mosque and that Salafism is becoming more and more popular with younger people.

Anas Khalifa, who had been a radical Salafist preacher for around 20 years, was once one of the most prominent radical Moslems in the country but is said to have turned his back on fundamentalist ideology.

According to Khalifa, radicalism has become more and more prevalent in Sweden’s Moslem community. He told broadcaster SVT that there is a Salafist in every mosque in the country.

"They are everywhere online, they have hundreds of thousands of followers. I’m probably the only one who’s not a Salafist who has 60-70,000 followers," Khalifa said, claiming that he has seen young people born and raised in Sweden who have still become followers of Islamic radicals.

"I have travelled from Boden to Ystad, lectured in associations and mosques for several years, and I have always found someone who is Salafist there," he said, added that Salafists
...Salafists are ostentatiously devout Moslems who figure the ostentation of their piety gives them the right to tell others how to do it and to kill those who don't listen to them...
 often also behave as morality police in their communities, telling others what to do.

Problems with so-called morality police have been an issue in some areas of Europa
...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum...
for years, and in 2018 Sweden’s centre-right Moderate Party proposed criminalising anyone caught acting in such a manner.

"They spread hatred against non-Moslems — Christians, Jews. They spread strong prejudices about other groups and minorities, and they sometimes cover that up nicely. They try to explain it and justify it in different ways, but the basic message is this hatred," Khalifa said.

Khalifa also added that, in the past, he had personally known many of the Swedish nationals who had travelled to the Middle East to join 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....
 terrorist organization, saying: "I’ve never sent anyone down, but I haven’t stopped anyone from leaving when I find out... I have blood on my hands."

Earlier this year in May, Swedish terrorism expert Magnus Ranstorp claimed that Moslem holy warriors were continuing to recruit and spread their ideology in Sweden.

"It’s basically been a disaster. Especially in the area of prevention, but also in terms of legislation," Ranstorp said.
Related:
Sweden: 2021-09-26 Kidnapping, assassination and a London shoot-out: Inside the CIA's secret war plans against WikiLeaks
Sweden: 2021-09-25 Covid round-up — because so many articles were submitted yesterday that they needed to be stacked
Sweden: 2021-09-23 Personnel: Taliban Names Afghan UN Envoy, Now to See if UN Accepts Him
Link


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Swedish ‘Islamophobia Expert’ Turned ISIS Fighter Arrested in Syria
2019-03-12
[Breitbart] Swedish-Norwegian "Islamophobia
...the irrational fear that Moslems will act the way they usually do...
" expert turned 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....
 jihadist Michael Skråmos has been locked away
Drop the rod and step away witcher hands up!
 by Kurdish forces in Syria, with sources claiming Norway wants to prosecute the bad boy.

The 33-year-old, born in Sweden to Norwegian parents, was captured this week in the village of Baghouz in one of the very few remaining areas under any form of Islamic State control, Swedish newspaper Expressen reports.

Skråmo had been one of the hundreds of Islamic State bully boyz still fighting Kurdish forces and attempting to defend the village. He was also not the only foreign fighter, with most of the last surviving holdouts being foreigners.

Though the Swedish citizen had told relatives that he would rather die than surrender, he was allegedly captured by the Kurds after surrendering to them following the previous capture of his seven children.
"I vuss chuss yoking!"
Swedish YPG soldier Jesper Söder described the capture of the infamous jihadist, saying, "He was arrested with a cluster of people. I think he was found in a cluster of people in a tunnel where he had dug himself in."

Söder added that around 50 Islamic State members were arrested at once, including women and kiddies.

Magnus Ranstorp, terrorist researcher at the Swedish National Defense College, commented on the arrest and his potential prosecution by the Norwegian government, explaining: "In Norway, the average penalty for participation and co-operation with IS is approximately seven years."

He also added that there was a possibility of Skråmo being handed over to the United States, where he could face a much more substantial sentence of up to 30 years for fighting for the disintegrating caliphate.

Ranstorp suggested that while Skråmo had been well-known in Sweden, calling for Islamic State supporters to commit attacks on Swedish soil in propaganda videos, he was likely not involved in planning terror attacks personally.

"He has not been an international propagandist; that is, someone who appears to speak in English or other languages in his videos. So he is big in Swedish context but he is small potatoes in the Islamic State," Ranstorp said.
Link


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
41 Swedish Citizen Islamic State Fighters Arrested in Syria
2018-03-28
[Breitbart] Kurdish forces have tossed in the slammer
Drop the gat, Rocky, or you're a dead 'un!
 41 Swedish citizens in Syria who left Sweden to fight for 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....
 with five being described as high-level members of the terror organization.

Kurdish authorities fighting in Northern Syria revealed that they had captured Swedish citizens or permanent residents, telling Swedish media over the weekend: "Five of them have had key positions within IS. One of them has been responsible for propaganda," Expressen reports.

"We treat well those who we capture, even though they are bully boyz who have murdered innocent people," the Kurdish source told the newspaper.

One of the most famous Swedish Islamic turbans to travel to Syria was former Islamophobia
...the irrational fear that Moslems will act the way they usually do...
 expert Michael Skråmos. A convert to Islam, Skråmos had participated in propaganda for the Islamic State and called on fellow jihadists to carry out attacks in Sweden. His last known location was the former Islamic State capital of Raqqa.

Magnus Ranstorp, one of Sweden’s leading terrorism experts, slammed the government’s slow response in dealing with radical Islamic jihadists who have travelled to the Middle East to fight for Islamic radical groups like the Islamic State.

"We have had a delay effect because we have not had legislation in place. There has been a low level of expertise throughout the chain, both in terms of legislation and prevention," Ranstorp said. So far, around 150 fighters have returned to Sweden from the Middle East and few have been prosecuted under Swedish law.

Swedish Interior Minister Morgan Johansson refused to strip the citizenship of Islamic State fighters last year and Minister for Culture and Democracy Alice Bah Kuhnke suggested the fighters be welcomed back and helped to integrate back into society.

Whether or not Sweden will take back Swedish prisoners from the Kurdish militias is still unknown, though some sources have claimed that low-level talks between the Kurds and the Swedish government are ongoing.

Nasrin Abdullah, a commander of the female branch of the YPG militia, confirmed the talks were happening and argued that Sweden should take back its citizens and bring them to justice.
Link


Britain
The Latest on Subway Incident: London Ambulance says 18 22 people hospitalized
2017-09-15
LONDON (AP) ‐ The Latest on an incident at a subway station in London (all times local):

11:25 a.m.

The London Ambulance Service says 18 people have been taken to hospitals after a fire at a subway station that police are calling a terrorist attack.

The ambulance service says none of the injuries is thought to be serious or life-threatening.

Passengers reported seeing people with burns to their faces and bodies after the fire on a Tube train at Parsons Green station.

The ambulance sevrice says it was called at 8:30 a.m. Friday and the first crews were on the scene within five minutes.

11:05 a.m.

The mayor of London says the city "will never be intimidated or defeated by terrorism."

Sadiq Khan says the city "utterly condemns the hideous individuals who attempt to use terror to harm us and destroy our way of life."

He says Londoners should remain "calm and vigilant" after a fire on a subway train that police are calling a terrorism incident.

London has been targeted by attackers several times this year, with vehicle attacks near Parliament, on London Bridge and near a mosque in Finsbury Park in north London.

Khan says he will be attending a meeting of the government’s COBRA emergency committee with Prime Minister Theresa May later.
Update at 10:25 a.m. ET:
2:45 p.m.

Terrorism analyst Magnus Ranstorp with the Swedish Defense University says Londoners have been very fortunate because the bomb placed on a subway appears not to have fully detonated.

After studying photos of the device, he said Friday the bomb had only “partially” burned since much of the device and its casing remained intact. He said that will make it easy for police and security services to determine what chemicals and methods were used to make the bomb.

He says “they were really lucky with this one, it could have really become much worse.”

He said the bomber chose to conceal the device in a bucket and a plastic shopping bag rather than a backpack. He also says, from the photos, “it seems that this was hastily put together. Probably not very well mixed together.”

In all, 22 people were wounded by the bomb on Friday.
Besoeker's BBC liveblog has a photo of the bomb at 8:13 -- scroll down.
Link


Europe
Sweden's terror travellers: in stats
2017-06-18
[TheLocal.se] Almost one in five who have travelled from Sweden to join bad boy jihadi groups in Iraq and Syria is younger than 19, according to a new report.

Sweden's security services Säpo estimates that around 300 people travelled to Iraq and Syria to join bad boy groups between 2012 and 2016. Researchers at the Swedish Defence University have looked more closely at 267 of them for a study on imported muscle which sheds unique light on a key debate in Europe.

They found that a total of 18 percent of people who left Sweden to fight for jihadi groups were 19 or younger, compared to 60 percent who were aged between 20 to 29. Most of them were men (76 percent) and 24 percent were women, but the number of women taking part in the armed conflict rose from only a handful in 2012 to making up around 40 percent of imported muscle in the conflict zone in 2014 and 2015.

Three quarters were Swedish citizens and 34 percent were born in Sweden. Those born abroad came from a total of 38 different countries, states the report, primarily Northern Africa, the Horn of Africa and the Middle East. However some came from former Yugoslavia and Russia. "In this aspect, it is not a homogenous group but rather a multi-ethnic one," write report authors Magnus Ranstorp and Linus Gustafsson.

Four in five lived in one of four of Sweden's 21 counties: Västra Götaland in western Sweden, the capital Stockholm, Skåne in the south and Örebro in central Sweden. More than 70 percent lived in an area of Sweden considered socioeconomically vulnerable. "It is clear socioeconomic aspects are contributing factors alongside group- and peer influences, ideological factors and local recruitment drives," write the authors, whose aim is to present facts and figures about the Swedish jihadi fighters in Iraq and Syria.

"For the first time we have exact figures ‐ not estimates ‐ about Swedish citizens who have left for Syria and Iraq since 2012 to join jihadist terror groups. We can say with confidence where they come from, how old they are and the proportion of men, women and kiddies," said Ranstorp, research director at the Centre for Asymmetric Threat Studies at the Swedish Defence University.

"This report is unique in that it also provides an analysis of what we know about imported muscle from other European states."

The number of imported muscle has dropped since the start of the conflict. A total of 98 first-time travellers are thought to have left Sweden in 2013 compared to five last year. Two in five have returned to Sweden, as of September 2016, while 49 of the 267 people part of the report are believed to have died in the conflict.

Some of the past years' terror attacks in Europe have involved imported muscle returning home, but the report states that so far, this is unusual: "The reality so far indicates that very few of the returnees intend to commit terrorist acts in Sweden or Europe, in that their focus is primarily aimed at the conflict in Syria and Iraq. Important to say is that both 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....
 and al-Qaeda affiliated groups have officially declared that Europe is a legitimate target, so that it cannot be excluded that future terrorist plots will involve returnees loyal to these organizations and movements."

Read the report, 'Swedish Foreign Fighters in Syria and Iraq: an analysis of open-source intelligence and statistical data', here.
The report, in English, is a PDF file containing a mere 138 pages.
Link


Europe
Sweden Realizes It's Been Financially Supporting Hundreds Of Terrorists For Years
2017-03-13
[Daily Caller] Close to every person who left Sweden to fight for terror groups in the Middle East received welfare to support themselves abroad, according to a new government report.

A study of 300 Swedish citizens who fought in Syria and Iraq between 2013 and 2016 shows jihadis are getting increasingly good at getting away with welfare fraud. The individuals often use a person in Sweden to handle paperwork and create the illusion that they’re still in the country.

"It’s not surprising, we’ve seen the same pattern in other countries," Magnus Ranstorp, one of the authors behind the report, told state broadcaster SVT. "What’s most surprising is that close to everyone received it in some form. The oversight process needs to get better."
"What you subsidize, you get more of."
The most attractive option are government loans to study abroad. The loans are easy to get and thousands of dollars are paid out at once.
Very good. Now that this has been both realized and admitted, what will the Swedish government do about it?
Link


Europe
Sweden paid ISIS fighter $600 a month in child benefits
2016-11-21
A Swedish fighter for the terror group ISIS claimed over 50,000 Swedish kroner in benefits while living and working in its Raqqa stronghold. Michael Skråmo, who goes by the name of Abdul Samad al Swedi, took his wife and four small children to Syria in August 2014, settling in Raqqa. He has since appeared in a string of propaganda videos, sometimes with his children, posing with a Kalashnikov assault rifle.

According to Sweden’s Göteborgs Tidning (GT) newspaper, it took more than a year for Sweden’s welfare agency Försäkringskassan to sent a letter to Skråmo’s Gothenburg address informing him that his child and housing benefit had been discontinued.

"Försäkringskassan has stopped payments of child benefits and housing benefits for your children,” the letter, which has been passed to the newspaper, reads.

Magnus Ranstorp, a terrorism researcher at Sweden’s National Defence University, said he suspected that even the 5,814 kronor Skråmo and his wife received each month in child benefits would have been enough to support them in Raqqa, even without their payments for housing benefit.

“It exposes how weak the system seems to be in its control mechanisms,” he told GT. “Michael Skråmo has been one of the most well-known IS sympathisers for quite some time. Police should be able to somehow sound the alarm and inform all the authorities when someone has journeyed down there.”

According to the newspaper, Skråmo’s payments appeared to have been stopped eight months after he and his family left Sweden. He also owes 61,842 kronor in unpaid rent to his old landlord.

His wife sent an email in April to Gothenburg’s court, advising a debt collection agency to lay down the cases against her, as she was not planning to return to Sweden.

“To make it simple for you, you don’t need to send more papers to me,” she wrote in the email. “I am not in Sweden and am probably never in my life going to come back… so for your own sake, can you just drop it all ;).”
Link


Europe
Paris attacks suspect Mohamed Abrini arrested
2016-04-09
Paris attacks suspect Mohamed Abrini was arrested on April 8, a police source told AFP after a Belgian television station said he was detained in a Brussels district. The police source gave no details about the location or circumstances of Abrini's arrest but VRT television said it took place in the Anderlecht district of Brussels, home to several other suspects linked to the Paris attacks.

Abrini, a Belgian of Moroccan origin, was seen at a petrol station north of Paris two days before the attacks with key suspect Salah Abdeslam, who drove one of the vehicles used in the Nov. 13 assaults across Paris that killed 130 people.

The Belgian federal prosecutor's office said they would provide more details later about the arrests in connection with the Brussels attacks.
More details from The Times of Israel at 12:15 p.m. ET:
Belgium still unsure whether suspect Abrini is ‘man in hat’

Belgian authorities said the remaining fugitive suspect in the Nov. 13 Paris attacks was arrested in Belgium on Friday, after a raid linked to the deadly March 22 Brussels bombings yielded five detentions in all.

The suspect, Mohamed Abrini, could be the mysterious “man in the hat” who escaped the double bombing at the Zaventem airport, but federal prosecutors said they still needed further verification.

“We are investigating if Abrini can be identified as the third person at the Brussels national airport, the so- called man with the hat,” said prosecutor Eric Van der Sypt.

Another man arrested on Friday, Osama K., alias Naim al Ahmed, was seen with Brussels subway bomber Khalid El Bakraoui just before the March 22 attacks, the prosecutor said. Osama K. was also filmed by security cameras in the City 2 shopping mall when the bags were bought that were used by the suicide bombers who attacked Brussels Airport the same morning.

Belgian prosecutors said fingerprints and DNA from Abrini had been found in a Renault Clio used in the Paris attacks, and in an apartment in the Forest area of the Belgian capital that was used by Salah Abdeslam, another Paris suspect, as a hideout until police stumbled upon it.

Friday’s arrest of five suspects came a day after Belgian authorities released photos and video of the “man in the hat” airport suspect. Five hours after the initial detentions, authorities were still carrying out a raid in the same Anderlecht area of Brussels.

Abrini’s precise role in the Paris attacks has never been clear, as is his full link to the Brussels. He is a 31-year-old Belgian-Moroccan petty criminal believed to have traveled early last summer to Syria where his younger brother died in 2014 in the Islamic State group’s notorious francophone brigade. He had not resurfaced since the emergence of surveillance video placing him in the convoy with the attackers headed to Paris. He had ties to Abdelhamid Abbaoud, the ringleader of the Paris attacks who died in a police standoff on Nov. 18, and is a childhood friend of brothers Salah and Brahim Abdeslam.

He went multiple times to Birmingham, England, last year, meeting with several men suspected of terrorist activity, a European security official has told The Associated Press. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to provide details on the investigation. He said the meetings, including one later last summer, took place in several locations, including cafes and apartments. He was traveling with Salah Abdeslam, who is in jail in Belgium for involvement in the Paris attacks, in the convoy headed to Paris in the 36 hours leading up to the attacks.

The man in the hat was with the two suicide bombers who killed 16 people at Brussels airport on March 22. A second arrest could also be linked to the Maelbeek subway bombing that killed another 16 people during rush hour that morning.

On Thursday, authorities released photos and video of a man wearing a dark hat, leaving the airport on foot, walking to the nearby town of Zaventem and then into Brussels, where all traces of him were reportedly lost.
And from An Nahar:
Swedish media said Osama K. was Osama Krayem, 23, who grew up in the southern city of Malmo, and published photographs of him holding a Kalashnikov assault rifle in front of an IS flag said to have been taken in Syria.

Osama Krayem is the product of a "now classic cocktail of social marginalization, ideological radicalization" and criminality, Magnus Ranstorp, an expert on radical Islamic movements at the Swedish National Defense College, told AFP.
Link


Europe
Cyprus Bomb-Plot Suspect Admits Hezbollah Ties
2013-02-21
[Jpost] Lebanese-Swede accused of July terror plot against Israeli tourists in Cyprus sheds light on Hezbollah activities in court testimony.
Lots of hyphenated Lebanese lads getting in trouble all of a sudden...
Hossam Taleb Yaacoub, one of the suspects in a thwarted terrorist attack against Israelis in Cyprus in July, admitted on Wednesday in court that he is a member of Hezbollah.

Yaacoub, a 24-year old Lebanese-Swedish citizen, faces eight charges in the criminal court in the city of Limassol. The Cypriot authorities charged him with membership in a criminal organization whose aim is "carrying out missions in any part of the world, including the Cyprus Republic, against Israeli citizens," among seven other crimes -- reduced from an original 17 terrorism-related charges.

The Jerusalem Post has learned that Yaacoub said under oath on Wednesday that while he came to Cyprus without Hezbollah connections, he met with an operative named Ayman from the Lebanese terrorist group. Yaacoub said he knew how to use weapons but that the purpose of his visit to Cyprus was business.

It is unclear if Yaacoub's meeting with the Hezbollah operative took place in Cyprus, Leb or Sweden.

The New York Times
...which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize...
 reported on Wednesday that Yaacoub told the court, "I never saw the face of Ayman because he was always wearing a mask," and that Ayman picked Yaacoub up in a van. Yaacoub conducted surveillance of places where Israelis would visit, including a "parking lot behind a Limassol hospital and a hotel called the Golden Arches," the Times reported.

Magnus Ranstorp, a Hezbollah expert at Sweden's National Defense College, told the Post on Tuesday that Hezbollah uses "talent scouting" to recruit operatives for its activities abroad. Though Hezbollah had no "overt presence" in Sweden, he said, its members from Sweden keep "popping up regularly."

Last year, Thai authorities charged Atris Hussein, a Hezbollah operative and a Swedish-Lebanese citizen, with planning to use explosives to strike against American and Israeli citizens.

The Cypriot prosecution is slated to cross-examine Yaacoub on Thursday, and the case may run until March 7, with a verdict anticipated in mid-March.

"I'm only trained to defend Leb," the Times quoted Yaacoub as saying. It noted that "he was jugged
Drop the rod and step away witcher hands up!
 in July with the license plates of buses ferrying Israelis written in a small red notebook."

He "said that he wrote them down because one of the license numbers, LAA- 505, reminded him of a Lamborghini sports car, while the other, KWK-663, reminded him of a Kawasaki cycle of violence," the Times wrote.

The Cypriot paper Simerini reported last week that Yaacoub "apologized" for his role in the planned attack.

According to the Greek-language newspaper's report, Yaacoub's attorney asked for a week-long postponement of the trial in order to prepare in writing the avowed apology of his client. The court determined that there is evidence for a prima facie case against Yaacoub.

La Belle France, Germany and Sweden have resisted including Hezbollah in the EU terror list, but a conviction in Cyprus might be a tipping point toward sanctioning the Lebanese militia.

Bulgarian Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov announced earlier this month that Hezbollah operatives were responsible for the July kaboom in Burgas that killed five Israelis and their Bulgarian bus driver, which occurred several weeks after Yaacoub's arrest.

Tsvetanov announced the two suspected Burgas perpetrators "were members of the beturbanned goon wing of Hezbollah," and added that Sherlocks have found information "showing the financing and connection between Hezbollah and the two suspects."

The suspects in the Burgas case observed the Black sea resort town -- a popular destination for Israeli vacationers -- from late June to July 18, when the attack took place.

Yaacoub is believed to have engaged in a similar method of surveillance of Israeli tourists in Cyprus.

Yaacoub is not married and lived in the Swedish town of Lidköping, where his father runs a pottery business. The Post could not confirm a report that when Yaacoub was arrested he was studying journalism in Leb.

Ranstorp told the Post there was a pattern by Hezbollah "to use individuals to bypass Israeli security," citing the example of the two Burgas bombing suspects using Australian and Canadian passports to enter Bulgaria and plan their terrorist attack.

"Hezbollah and Iran are two sides of the same coin," Ranstorp said. "They form a nexus, sometimes more overt, sometimes less. That Hezbollah is involved in terrorism with Iranian intelligence is what makes them so dangerous. One should not take them lightly," he said.

"With Burgas, Hezbollah has crossed a rubicon," because the attack was on European soil, said Ranstorp, adding that "now it is easy to close the door on Hezbollah" because there have been too many such incidents.
Also, two pages of details from the New York Times, including this tidbit:
Mr. Yaacoub’s testimony offered unaccustomed insights from an active Hezbollah member into the militant group’s secret operations. But it carried potentially greater significance for the European Union, which has thus far resisted following Washington’s lead in declaring the group a terrorist organization. Experts say that a conviction here would substantially raise the pressure on the bloc for such a designation.

“Foreign ministries around Europe are watching this quite closely because many Europeans, particularly the Germans, have laid such a stress on courtroom evidence being the basis for a designation,” said Daniel Benjamin, until December the top counterterrorism official at the State Department, who visited Cyprus last year after the arrest.
Link


Europe
Terror In Europe Fuels Immigration Tensions
2012-03-31
LONDON: An al Qaeda-inspired gunman kills paratroopers and Jewish children in southern La Belle France. A far-right fanatic enraged by Moslem immigration guns down dozens of youths at a summer camp in Norway.

Two atrocities in the space of the year, coming from opposite ends of the spectrum, are raising fears across Europe that a growing climate of ethnic and religious hostility is inspiring thug violence, and creating the conditions for deadly festivities. The attacks in La Belle France and Norway represent the most horrific extremes of two trends of intolerance troubling Europe: strengthening far-right sentiment that has sometimes bled into the mainstream, and growing Islamic radicalisation in Europe's disadvantaged, immigrant-heavy neighbourhoods.

With Europe still stunned by last week's killings in Toulouse, La Belle France, a loosely knit group of xenophobic "defence leagues" plans to rally in Denmark on Saturday against what they call the growing Islamic presence in western Europe.

The rally was organised by one of the rising forces of Europe's far-right scene -- the Danish Defence League. It's backed by the English Defence League, which gained prominence in Britannia amid urban rioting last summer. Similar groups from Russia, Finland, La Belle France, Germany, Norway, Poland, Romania, and Sweden are expected.

"These terrorist events are creating sparks, and a small spark can set off a huge fire," said Magnus Ranstorp, research director of the Centre for Asymmetric Threat Studies in Sweden. "It can set off huge social polarisation, and this is what the hard boyz want to achieve. Now there is an increased rightwing climate -- the counter-jihad movement -- feeding off these Islamophobic forces."

The mood is volatile, Ranstrop said, made more so by the methods of the killers -- citing how in La Belle France, Mohamed Merah shot video of his attacks that was mailed to the Al-Jazeera television network.

For decades, western Europe has been the envy of the world with its high standard of living and tolerant social climate. Today, Europe is gripped by a profound economic crisis and festering conflict over immigration, religion and cultural identity. Tensions over immigration from northern Africa and other countries with large Islamic populations have fuelled the rise of far-right movements across Europe.

In La Belle France, the ultranationalist National Front is expected to make gains in upcoming presidential and legislative elections. Xenophobic parties in Austria, Finland, Sweden and the Netherlands have all gained support in recent years.

As anti-immigration rhetoric grows more strident, ideas that were once considered on the fringes of political dialogue have entered the mainstream -- with French President Nicolas Sarkozy
...23rd and current President of the French Republic and ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra. Sarkozy is married to singer-songwriter Carla Bruni, who has a really nice birthday suit...
 often seeming to borrow from National Front rhetoric as he campaigns for re-election.

At the same time, anti-Western diatribes on the Internet and sometimes in local mosques have played a role in radicalising some young Moslems in Europe, even as Moslem community leaders try to steer young people toward productive futures. The long wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have also enflamed passions among Moslems. ap
Link


Europe
Teens sign up for jihad at Stockholm youth centre
2009-11-13
Swedish taxpayers helped fund a youth recreation centre in the north Stockholm suburb of Rinkeby which served as a recruiting station for the Somalia-based Islamist group al-Shabaab.

More than ten young people from the predominantly immigrant neighbourhood who spoke with Sveriges Radio (SR), said that the recruitment drive was led by a youth leader at the Kreativitetshuset recreation centre.

The recreation centre was started by a mosque and received a total of 480,000 kronor ($70,400) from the Stockholm city sports and recreation administration over four years before closing down in 2008.

"It's horrible. There was no suggestion of this when we had contact with the association when it was created," Per Johansson, head of the city's department for clubs and associations, told SR.

"Their paperwork was in order when they submitted it. And during the visits we made to the facility during the first year we didn't see anything to indicate something like this."

The head recruiter, said to be in his thirties, showed young people video clips from YouTube which encouraged viewers to sacrifice themselves for their beliefs.

“I saw how they showed images of war victims, decapitated heads, and all sorts of horrible things while repeating the same message the whole time. It had a big impact on those who weren’t strong enough to stand up to it,” one young person who resisted the youth leaders urges to join al-Shabaab, told SR.

According to Swedish security service Säpo, al-Shabaab successfully recruited around 20 young people from Sweden, some of whom who have been killed in battle.

The news comes on the same day as the magazine Neo previewed an interview by journalist Per Gudmundson with the wife of another man from Rinkeby who was recruited by al-Qaeda in Iraq.

“I don’t think he’s done anything wrong. I see it as a part of our religion,” the man’s wife told Gudmundson, who traced the man’s journey from the Stockholm suburbs to the battlefields of Iraq after reviewing documents confiscated by the US military from al-Qaeda in Iraq hideouts near the Iraqi border with Syria.

The documents, known as the Sinjar Records, contain details about 606 foreign jihadist fighters, including the man from Sweden.

According to Magnus Ranstorp, head of research at the the Centre for Asymmetric Threat and Terrorism Studies (CATS) at the Swedish Defence Research Agency (FOI), there are hundreds of jihadists in Sweden, but the number has remained constant for several years.

“What we can see is that the number of jihadists in Sweden hasn’t increased in recent years. The size of the group is relatively constant. The security police are good at keeping tabs on these people, which occurs either through their own investigations or by having Swedes highlighted in investigations abroad,” he told the Nyheter24 news website.

He added that many Swedish jihadists attempt to join terrorist groups in order to fight with the Taliban in Afghanistan as well as in other conflict zones like Iraq and Somalia.

Ranstorp also confirmed that al-Shabaab carries out “intensive recruiting” in Sweden, often using Somali associations and groups to help their efforts.
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