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Europe

2 charged in Germany over article that tied Zarqawi to Iran

2006-03-18

Two journalists were charged with exposing German state secrets on al Qaeda's frontman in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, in a case their defenders called a blow to press freedom. Prosecutors in the city of Potsdam, near Berlin, said on Wednesday they were pursuing a case against German reporter Bruno Schirra and the foreign editor of Swiss newspaper Sonntagsblick, Johannes von Dohnanyi, over an article for the German political monthly Cicero in April 2005. Authorities believe Dohnanyi obtained a classified report produced by the German federal police (BKA) and passed it on to Schirra, who quoted it in a story alleging links between Zarqawi and Iran. In an investigation of the leak at the BKA, prosecutors raided the offices of Cicero in Potsdam and Schirra's Berlin apartment and seized files and computers disks, in a move sharply criticized by journalist groups. The spokesman for the German Journalists' Association, Hendrik Zoerner, told the AFP news agency that the charges brought Wednesday were "superfluous and damage press freedom" and would have a chilling effect on investigative reporting. Investigations concerning Cicero editor-in-chief Wolfram Weimer's role in the case were recently dropped after Weimar agreed to pay a 1,000 euro ($1,200) fine. However, he claims the agreement does not translate into an admission of guilt. "I wanted to shorten the process and just concentrate on letting the court in Karlsruhe decide what a scandal the whole matter is," said Weimar. Cicero has filed a complaint against the raids with the country's highest court. The interior minister at the time of the raid, Otto Schily, was forced to appear before a parliamentary committee last October to explain his order to carry out the searches.

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Europe

German official wants to tag known hard boyz

2005-12-29

Known Islamic militants should be electronically tagged so their movements can be tracked, a regional German interior minister proposed on Wednesday. “This would allow us to monitor the roughly 3,000 Islamists who are prone to violence, hate preachers and fighters trained in terrorist camps,” Lower Saxony Interior Minister Uwe Schuenemann said in an interview with Die Welt newspaper. “Hate preachers” is how Germans describe radical Muslim clerics. Schuenemann said electronic tagging was a viable alternative to holding suspected militants in protective custody, a proposal floated by former German interior minister Otto Schily. It would not be against Germany’s constitution, he was quoted as saying. “It’s practical for all Islamists who are prone to violence and who we can’t expel to their home countries because they could be tortured,” said Schuenemann. Germany’s federal and state governments share responsibility for security services. Under Germany’s federal system, states have a great deal of control over their internal security operations and routine policing. Britain’s government also proposed electronic tagging of terror suspects in July as an alternative to jailing them without charge. Electronic tagging of criminals has become widespread in Britain where much of the work being outsourced to private companies such as Serco Group Plc.

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Europe

German Police Search Mosque, Homes

2005-11-24

Police and prosecutors searched a mosque and 22 homes Wednesday in southern Germany as part of an investigation into an outlawed Islamic group accused of spawning terrorists. Bavarian police were investigating 21 people in connection with the pre-dawn raids near the towns of Ingolstadt and Schwabach, police spokesman Heinz Rindlbacher said. Police said they could not immediately report arrests or the results of the searches due to the ongoing investigation. Authorities said the suspects may have been continuing the activities of Hilafet Devleti, or Caliphate State, which was outlawed in December 2001 under anti-terrorism powers put in place after the Sept. 11 attacks. The Cologne-based Caliphate State, led by Turkish-born Muhammed Metin Kaplan, had openly called for the overthrow of Turkey's secular government and its replacement with an Islamic state. Former Interior Minister Otto Schily described the group, which had more than 1,000 members in Germany, as "a breeding ground for Islamic terrorists" that spread anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli rhetoric. Kaplan served a four-year prison sentence in Germany for incitement in the 1997 killing of a rival cleric in Berlin. He was extradited last year to Turkey, where he was sentenced to life in prison for masterminding a failed 1998 plot to crash an airplane into the mausoleum of modern Turkey's founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. The ban on Caliphate State covered a number of affiliates, including one that was shut down in Ingolstadt. Former members rented the premises again early in 2003, saying it would be used for prayer, Rindlbacher said. "In the course of the investigation, suspicion has hardened against 21 persons from the region that they are members of a forbidden organization or that they support its continuation," he said.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

The Cicero article

2005-11-10

WHILE IRANIAN PRESIDENT Mahmood Ahmadinejad's recent call to wipe Israel off the map has elicited a great deal of much-needed international condemnation, relatively little focus has been paid since to Iran's long-standing support for international terrorism. Thankfully, a recent article published in the German political magazine Cicero, titled "How Dangerous is Iran?" serves as a welcome supplement to the Iranian president's remarks that, among other things, argues that Iran is currently harboring the surviving al Qaeda leadership. This information is by no means new. In September 2003 for example, the Washington Post reported that "after the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan, the locus of al Qaeda's degraded leadership moved to Iran. The Iranian security services, which answer to the country's powerful Islamic clerics, protected the leadership." But the same article also claimed that after the May 2003 Riyadh bombings "the Iranians, under pressure from the Saudis, detained the al Qaeda group." Most news reports on Iranian support for terrorism since then have claimed that the al Qaeda leaders are being held in some form of light detention or perhaps loose house arrest. According to the new information in Cicero, however, whatever the situation might have been in May 2003, it is no longer the case. After spending some time addressing the disillusionment of the Iranian reformist movement in the wake of the triumph of Ahmadinejad and his hardline backers as well as the threat posed by the Iranian nuclear program, the Cicero article shifts its focus to the issue of Iranian support for terrorism, leaving little doubt that the Iranian regime views terrorism as a legitimate means of achieving its policy objectives. A member of the Jordanian intelligence agency GID is quoted as saying, "Ahmadinezhad [sic] can and will use the terrorist card every time as extortion against the West . . . If Europe does not accommodate Iran in the dispute over the Mullahs' nuclear program, they will threaten terrorism against British soldiers in Iraq and French interests in Lebanon." If British accusations of explosives being shipped into Iraq from Iran for use against Coalition troops are any indication, this card is already being played. The article's revelations, however, go far beyond that: The author of this article was able to look at a list of the holy killers who have found safe refuge in Iran. The list reads like the Who's Who of global jihad, with close to 25 high-ranking leadership cadres of Al-Qa'ida--planners, organizers, and ideologues of the jihad from Egypt, Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia, North Africa, and Europe. Right at the top in the Al-Qa'ida hierarchy: three of Usama Bin Ladin's sons, Saad, Mohammad, and Othman. Al-Qa'ida spokesman Abu Ghaib enjoys Iranian protection, as does Abu Dagana al-Alemani (known as the German), who coordinates cooperation of the various jihadist networks throughout the world from Iran. They live in secure housing of the Revolutionary Guard in and around Tehran. "This is not prison or house arrest," is the conclusion of a high-ranking intelligence officer. "They are free to do as they please." Saif al-Adel, military chief and number three in Al-Qa'ida, also had a free hand. In early May 2003, Saudi intelligence recorded a telephone conversation with the organizer of the series of attacks in the Saudi capital Riyadh that claimed over 30 victims, including seven foreigners, in May 2003. Saif al-Adel gives orders for the attacks from Iran, where he operated under the wing of the Iranian intelligence service. For years, according to the findings of Middle Eastern and Western intelligence services, Iranian intelligence services have already worked together repeatedly with Sunni jihad organizations of Al-Qa'ida. "As an Islamist, I go to the Saudis to get money," the Jordanian GID man outlines the current practice of Islamist holy warriors. "When I need weapons, logistical support, or military terrorist training and equipment, I go to the Iranians." The journalist who authored the article, Bruno Schirra, is no lightweight. In the spring of 2005, he wrote another piece for Cicero, titled "The World's Most Dangerous Man." An exposé of Iraqi insurgent leader Abu Musab Zarqawi, Schirra quoted extensively from German Federal Office of Criminal Investigation (BKA) documents that collated data from German, American, French, and Israeli intelligence sources. These documents, some of which were classified, listed the Zarqawi's activities, passports, phone numbers, mosques used or controlled by his followers in Germany, and his benefactors. In addition to confirming much of the evidence presented by Collin Powell to the United Nations Security Council on the activities of Zarqawi's network in Europe, the documents also stated point-blank that Iran "provided Al-Zarqawi with logistical support on the part of the state." Schirra's ample use of classified documents in making his claims appear to have alarmed the German government--in September 2005, German authorities raided Cicero's Potsdam offices as well as Schirra's home at the order of then-Interior Minister Otto Schily. These efforts to learn the identity of Schirra's source prompted widespread outrage from the German parliament and, ironically, seem to have verified the truth of Schirra's original article. As the United States continues to debate both internally and with its European allies over how to deal with Iran and its new president, it would seem that this new information, coming from a country that strongly opposed the Iraq war, would be a welcome contribution to the discussion. Dan Darling is a counter-terrorism consultant for the Manhattan Institute's Center for Policing Terrorism.

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Europe

4 al-Tawhid convicted in Germany

2005-10-27

A German court on Wednesday convicted three Middle Eastern men of belonging to a terrorist group linked to Al Qaeda and of plotting to attack Jewish targets in Germany. A fourth man was found guilty of supporting the group. The defendants - two Jordanians, a Palestinian and an Algerian - were sentenced to between five and eight years in prison by the court in DÃŒsseldorf, Germany, which said the men were taking orders from Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a terrorist leader at the center of the bloody insurgency in Iraq. "Abu Musab al-Zarqawi should also be sitting on the defendants' bench," said the judge, Ottmar Breidling, who delivered the verdict. The decision, announced two months after a court in Hamburg, Germany, found a Moroccan man guilty of belonging to Al Qaeda and sentenced him to seven years in prison, is viewed by terrorism specialists here as further evidence that Germany is cracking down on militant Islamic groups. "This is very important because it sends a political signal that Germany is doing all it can to hunt down terrorists," said Rolf Tophoven, a counterterrorism specialist. "It's a psychological victory." The German interior minister, Otto Schily, said he welcomed the verdicts "as part of the fight against terrorism." The planned attacks, against two Jewish-owned discos in DÃŒsseldorf and a community center in Berlin, were foiled by what the judge said was decisive action by German police and intelligence agents. The four men were arrested in April 2002, with a fifth, Shadi Abdullah, who became the main witness against them after making a deal with prosecutors to testify. In addition to plotting the attacks, three of the men were convicted of belonging to a terrorist cell and of having forged documents to stay in Germany. Some even received financial support from the state. The court sentenced the group's leader, Muhammad Abu Dhess, a Jordanian, to eight years in prison. Two other defendants - Ismail Shalabi, also of Jordan, and Aschraf al-Dagma, a Palestinian - were sentenced to six years and seven and a half years, respectively. The fourth defendant, Djamel Moustfa, an Algerian, was convicted of the less serious crime of supporting the group and violating Germany's weapons laws. He was sentenced to five years. In a telephone call between Mr. Zarqawi and Mr. Dhess in 2001, intercepted by authorities, Mr. Dhess said, "I swear to you, sheik, if you ordered me to die, I would do it," according to evidence in the case. During the 55-day trial, however, Mr. Dhess insisted that he had no plans to attack Jewish facilities. "I hate the Israeli system," he testified. "But I don't hate the Jews as Jews." Lawyers for Mr. Dhess attacked Mr. Abdullah's credibility, saying he was a "notorious liar."

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Europe

Raid fuels fears German leaders are trying to muzzle press

2005-10-08

The German parliament's home affairs committee will launch an investigation on Thursday into allegations that the government is using national security as a pretext for increasingly heavy-handed attempts to muzzle the press. The dispute began last month, with a dawn raid ordered by the Potsdam prosecutor on the apartment of the investigative journalist Bruno Schirra and the offices of Cicero, a political magazine. It has since spiralled into a nationwide controversy, with media and politicians of all hues accusing the government and in particular Otto Schily, the Social Democratic interior minister, of overstepping the mark in their attempts to silence investigative reporters. "We have seen an increase in the number of such raids over the past few years. People now wonder whether there is an intimidation campaign going on," says Monika Griefahn, an MP and media expert from the Social Democratic party of Gerhard Schröder, the chancellor. "It is our duty to keep reminding our rulers that freedom of the press remains a fundamental right, even in the post-September 11 world." The raid and seizure of 15 boxes of documents from Mr Schirra's personal archive were ordered when he came under suspicion by the interior ministry of acting as "accessory to the divulgence of state secrets". The trigger was an article, published by Cicero in April, about a link between Iran and the network of the Iraq-based terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, which quoted from a confidential Federal Criminal Office document. Well you can understand the German government's position here. God forbid people wake up and realize the Islamacist threat is real and has state sponsors ... Wolfram Weimer, Cicero's editor, who has filed a complaint with the Potsdam administrative court, says the government was reluctant to see Iran portrayed as a sponsor of terrorism just as Berlin was involved in delicate negotiations aimed at curbing the country's nuclear ambitions. The timing of the raid, six months after the article's publication, he told the FT, also coincided with Mr Schröder's vocal opposition to "the military option" in the nuclear dispute with Iran as he sought to draw foreign policy into his electoral campaign. Yup, that's the issue, isn't it. "The main motivation, though, was to sniff out Schirra's sources in the Federal Criminal Office and close the leaks," Mr Weimer says. "More broadly, it was an attempt, through intimidation, to limit the scope of investigative reporting, a form of journalism which, in the era of global terrorism, is seen as counter-productive." The German Association of Journalists (DJV) says suspicion that the government may be engaged in a vast intimidation exercise - aimed at both reporters and their sources - is supported by the sharp increase in the number of raids on journalists' offices and homes in recent years. Hendrik Zörner, spokesman for the DJV, says that between 1997 and 2000, 150 such raids took place, and the frequency has risen since September 11 2001. "None of these ever led to a conviction," he told the FT. One concern among publishers is that the justifications invoked for such searches - suspicions of "prohibited publication" or "accessory to the divulgence of state secrets" - are being increasingly used to cover the intimidation of journalists whose work has little to do with national security. Last month the prosecutor's office in Chemnitz obtained permission to monitor the phones of reporters investigating the Saxony government's anti-corruption activities. Few of the government's critics think the tension between Mr Schröder, who blamed partisan reporting for his failure to win the election last month, and the Berlin press corps played a role in recent raids. Yet Mr Schily drew such a link at a media conference last week. After defending his ministry's role in the Cicero raid, saying that "journalists enjoy no exemption from the law", he slammed the electoral reporting as "malicious and mockingly deprecating". Mr Schily's appearance next week before the house's home affairs committee could add momentum to the controversy. Dieter WiefelspÌtz, the SPD's MP responsible for home affairs, has accused the minister of diverting attention from his own "leak-prone bureaucracy". Mr Zörner wants changes to the German criminal code, which protects medical doctors and priests against surveillance measures such as telephone taps. An attempt by the DJV to have the privilege extended to reporters failed last year but it will try once more when the code comes under review again.

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Fifth Column

Unholy alliance: Jihadists, Nazis

2005-08-05

As illustrated by the various RB reports of Aryan nation, Aryan brotherhood,... 's pleads of allegiance to AQ. See also http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=124130&D=2005-07-15 Officials see growing terror ties between radical Islam, skinheads By Joseph Farah and Yoram East © 2005 WorldNetDaily.com WASHINGTON – Neo-Nazi skinheads are working with radical Islamists in a growing unholy alliance that has European law enforcement officials concerned about a new front in the war on terrorism, reports Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, the premium, online intelligence newsletter published by the founder of WND. Sources in the UK, the Netherlands, Scandinavia, Italy, Switzerland and in the Middle East are warning that the world should not be surprised to see young, white males involved in terrorism and in league with Osama bin Laden. Just a few years ago, Muslims represented one of the biggest harassment targets of neo-Nazi skinheads in Europe. But anti-Muslim hate crimes by skinheads have seen a dramatic drop-off – even as their movement takes on more visibility and bigger numbers. "In business they ignore the race," said an Italian official. Law enforcement officials fear skinheads and neo-Nazis could provide not just additional numbers to the Islamic terrorist cause but also some operatives who would defy profiling efforts. Skinheads can easily cover their tattoos and wear respectable clothing to deceive police and immigration authorities, say police officials. An Italian police expert on gang activities said it is known skinheads travel as far as Australia, South Africa and the Indian sub-continent "at times looking like the boy next door or a student on vacation." He also revealed Italian agents are aware of a number of meetings between gang leaders, radical Islamic students and organized crime bosses. The chilling possibility that Muslim terrorists and neo-Nazis may combine forces was raised as a distinct possibility by Israel's president last month. On a visit to commemorate the 40th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Israel and Germany, Moshe Katsav declared, "Let us not be surprised if one day terror organizations use neo-Nazis to carry out terrorist attacks." The majority of Muslims in Europe are law-abiding citizens, he added. But Muslim extremists may form alliances with neo-Nazis, he said. What brings the groups together is a common enemy – Jews – and business interests, say law enforcement officials. Neo-Nazi skinheads are deeply involved in drug-running and human smuggling gangs – two areas of common interest with Islamists. Long before Katsav warned about the links between the neo-Nazis and the jihadists, Germany's minister of the interior, Otto Schily, the Muslim Hizb ut-Tahir, or Party of Liberation, which had ties with the neo-Nazi National Democratic Party. Hizb ut-Tahir, an organization with acolytes in many European countries, wants to unite the Muslim world in a single theocratic state under a caliph, or supreme Muslim leader. Schily banned the group in 2002 after accusing it of "spreading violent propaganda and anti-Jewish agitation" and after receiving reports its representatives had met with members of the National Democratic Party in 2001. Schily is now considering a ban on activities by Hezbollah members in Germany. Three million or more Muslims live in Germany, comprising about 4 percent of its population. There is also a community of 100,000 ethnic German converts to Islam. One of them, Steven Smyrek, was arrested and imprisoned in Israel some years ago on charges of being a Hezbollah agent. He was released in 2004 in an Israel-Hezbollah prisoner swap, and now lives in Germany as a free man. The mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, Mohammed Atta, lived and studied in Hamburg, a major port in northern Germany. Twenty-five thousand to 30,000 Muslims in Germany are members of radical Islamic organizations, according to a ministry of interior official. Meanwhile, neo-Nazi skinhead numbers are swelling throughout Europe. As Swiss President Samuel Schmid stood on the Rutli Meadow last week commemorating the Swiss Federation, he was shocked by more than 700 skinheads and neo-Nazis wearing black T-shirts who stood facing him, waving their fists in a Nazi salute. The number of militants amounted to more than one third of the people attending the event, twice the number registered in the 2004 celebrations. The skinheads, waving the Swiss national flag, were not shy about chanting slogans such as "Schmid is a traitor," and other slurs aimed at minorities, especially against refugees from the third world. As is their common routine they also voiced hate expressions against the U.S. and the Jews. Schmid was openly shaken as he realized he would not be able to finish his speech. He later expressed his anger and suggested that radical changes in future public celebrations of national day events should be seriously considered. G2 Bulletin reports it has learned from a reliable source the stunned president did not waste any time contacting members of cabinet and other officials, telling them to get their act together and put an end to what he described as "hoodlums taking over a national holiday." In reality it was the 10th year in a row that the extremists have made the journey to the legendary meadow on the shores of Lake Lucerne, and their numbers have increased each year. An analysis of the overall proliferation of skinhead movements that originated in the UK, where they first appeared as gangs in the '60s, shows the Swiss numbers probably represent only a small fraction of the total number. Overall figures of those directly involved with skinheads, who later also joined neo-Nazi and fascist movements is well over 150,000 worldwide. An Interpol source said the skinheads are well-organized, citing a number of events this year including a mass gathering during a concert near Germany. At that event, French and German police tried to stop hundreds of French and Italian skinheads and neo-Nazis from crossing the border into Germany. Other notable events this year were neo-Nazi gatherings in Germany including Berlin and neo-Nazi and skinheads’ demonstrations in the Baltic States and Scandinavia. Skinheads and neo-Nazis are a growing menace in Poland and in parts of Russia where they are accused of having committed murders, arson attacks, robberies and of cooperating with organized crime elements. Russian law enforcement agencies are witnessing constant clashes between skinhead gangs and the police and murders of foreigners. A Swiss official with the federal police, reacting on the Rutli Meadow event, bitterly emphasized agents have to divert attention from pressing issues related to the global war on terrorism to monitor skinheads, neo-Nazis, bikers and other street gangs. They need to recognize who is who in these radical movements and to prevent gangs from becoming hired guns or suppliers of forged documents, weapons and explosives later used against governments at war with jihadi Islam. The danger posed by the skinhead-Islamist alliance is being compared with the fast-growing menace of Central American street gangs, such as the Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, who are now the largest and most dangerous criminal group in several Latin American countries and in the U.S. MS-13, too, has been known to meet with al-Qaida operatives and is believed to be involved in smuggling some into the U.S. across the Mexican border.

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Britain

The last days of Londonistan

2005-07-27

The London bombings have spurred the British government into proposing a series of new laws designed to put an end to the reputation of the capital as "Londonistan", a centre for militant Islam. It wants to create offences such as "indirect incitement to terrorism", "acts preparatory to terrorism" and using the internet for terrorist recruitment and training. It also wants to make it easier to deport foreign nationals who openly preach jihad and violence. However, one attempted deportation shows how human rights legislation and its interpretation by the judiciary can prevent the executive in a Western democracy from simply exercising its will. At a time when al-Qaeda and its associates are showing a resilience and ability to strike at widespread targets in London and Egypt - let alone Iraq - the government feels such legal protections must be looked at again. The case in point is that of Muhammad al-Massari, an exile from Saudi Arabia, who runs a website that shows videos of suicide bomb attacks in Iraq, including one in which three British soldiers were killed. An extended interview with Mr al-Massari was shown in a BBC television documentary about how the internet is an integral part of the far-flung al-Qaeda network, of which the Iraqi insurgents led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi are part. In the 1990s, Mr al-Massari ran a group in London called the Committee for the Defence of Legal Rights. At that time, he specialised in sending faxes into Saudi Arabia to promote his cause. According to a British official who has tracked the case, the Saudi government told the British authorities at the time that he was more Islamic militant than human rights activist. "He opposed the Saudi royal family from an Islamist point of view. He thought, and probably still does, that it was not Islamic enough, that it was corrupt and decadent," the official said. "The royal family was not greatly amused." During the Conservative government of John Major, a high-level assurance was given to Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah that Britain would send Mr al-Massari back. That is when the legal problems began. The case was handed to an unusually senior British official, a sign of how important it was deemed. For the next 18 months, this official spoke to almost every lawyer in the government but was blocked at every turn. The issue was that of the 1951 UN Convention on Refugees, which says in Article 32: "The Contracting States shall not expel a refugee lawfully in their territory save on grounds of national security or public order." Government lawyers said that British national security was not sufficiently engaged, even though the then-Home Secretary Michael Howard argued that British interests in the Gulf were at risk from Mr al-Massari's activities. Eventually, another route was explored. "We looked at whether another country might take him," said the British official. "We narrowed it down to about 10. They all said that they would like to help but always added that their relations with Saudi Arabia might be jeopardised. Finally it came down to one - Dominica." Dominica, a former British colony, is a volcanic dot in the Caribbean, one of the lushest of the West Indian islands and about as far away from the Middle East as you can get. It had been run for 15 years by a tough prime minister named Eugenia Charles, an admirer of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. Dominica agreed to take the Saudi exile. "Massari appealed and the court upheld his appeal," said the official. " It held that although Dominica had signed the 1951 Convention, this was not incorporated into its domestic law, so there was a chance he would be sent on somewhere else. We could not get rid of him." The promise to the Crown Prince could not be fulfilled. The Saudis were not pleased. Mr al-Massari was eventually allowed to stay in Britain and is now protected even more because of the European Convention on Human Rights, incorporated into British law by the Human Rights Act of 1998. It prevents anyone from being deported if there is a risk of them being tortured, which is against Article 3 of the Convention. "The Saudis have offered assurances that he would not be tortured," said the British official, "but the lawyers said this was not enough." Whether the government tries to deport Muhammad al-Massari again, especially after the considerable satisfaction he appeared to show in displaying his video of the deaths of the three British soldiers, remains to be seen. The government's frustration showed when Prime Minister Tony Blair said at a news conference on Tuesday that judges had been "blocking" deportations. "Other countries have managed perfectly well, consistent with human rights, to expel people who are inciting in other countries. "We have tried to get rid of them and been blocked. I think there has been too great a caution in saying: 'Sorry this is unacceptable.'" Some favour more radical solutions than hoping for a more compliant judiciary. Sir Andrew Green, a former senior British diplomat who now runs campaign group Migration Watch UK, says there needs to be "fundamental review of the whole system". "We should withdraw from the 1951 Convention and have a national convention for asylum which would cut out the abuse. We should also withdraw from Article 3 of the Human Rights Convention and re-enter with a new provision," he said. But a warning against such an approach has come from none other than Mr Blair's wife, Cherie Booth, a lawyer. She told a conference in Malaysia that Britain should not take measures that would "cheapen our right to call ourselves a civilised country". Other European countries are facing the same dilemma. France's Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy has said recently that he will deport more Muslim clerics preaching violence. In October last year, after a case which went right up to the highest administrative body, the Council of State, France sent an imam back to Algeria. Germany has sometimes also been accused of harbouring militant Islamist preachers and in January this year it, too, acquired new powers of deportation. The Social Democratic Interior Minister Otto Schily called the new law a "historic breakthrough" and a "blessing for Germany".

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Europe

Reichstag plane crash sparks security debate in Germany

2005-07-25

A plane crash in the heart of Berlin's government quarter and the series of deadly terrorist attacks in the Red Sea resort of Sharm al-Sheikh and London have triggered a debate about security risks to Germany just as the nation gears up for an election. While Germany Transport Minister Manfred Stolpe has announced plans to ban flights by private planes over central Berlin, the government and opposition have been battling it out over whether the army should be deployed within the country to help tackle terrorist threats. After a weekend of attacks in Egypt, Istanbul and Iraq, German Interior Minister Otto Schily warned in an interview with the daily Bild against hysteria resulting from the series of explosions but conceded that Germany too faced threats from Islamic terrorists. "If we allows ourselves to be moved by fear and concern, then the terrorists would have already achieved their goal," Schily said. "Watchfulness and calmness are the best means against terror." "Germany also faces threats from Islamic terrorism," Schily said, adding that the security authorities have already uncovered and as a consequence prevented several attempts at mounting attacks in the country. The move to introduce the small aircraft ban came after a single-engine plane crashed Friday evening on the expansive lawn between Berlin's historic Reichstag parliament building and Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's office. Officials quickly ruled out a terrorist link in the crash. But coming at a time of heightened terrorist alert, the incident immediately raised questions about planes flying into such highly sensitive areas in the German capital and as a result provoking calls for additional security measures. Police say the 39-year-old pilot committed suicide and have linked his death to the disappearance of his wife. "We will introduce a no-fly zone for recreational planes over the government quarter," German Transport Minister Manfred Stolpe told reporters Sunday. "This will prevent hobby pilots and private planes from flying over the area near the Reichstag and the Chancellery," he said. But with an election now looming over the country, the plane crash and the bombings means that a debate about what action needs to be taken to head off the risks posed by terrorism threatens to hijack the campaign for the September 18 poll. Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democrat-led (SPD) government has announced plans to create a special anti-terrorist file. However, a controversial call by the opposition Chancellor Angela Merkel to use the army to prevent terrorist attacks has sparked criticism, in particular from within the ranks of Schroeder's ruling SPD-Green coalition. Rejecting Merkel's proposal, German Justice Minister Brigitte Zypries said in an interview with the daily Die Welt on Monday there were good reasons why there was a separation betweeen the military and the police. Moreover, she said "our police have their tasks under control and do not need the support of the army."

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Europe

Germany Mulls Spying on all Mosques

2005-07-19

German Interior Minister Otto Schily said Monday, July 18, the government is considering placing all mosques under scrutiny through closed-circuit TV cameras. Schily, in an interview with Der Spiegel magazine, said German Muslims should prevent those he termed as hatred-inciting imams from taking the pulpit. His remarks echoed those of Bavarian Interior Minister Guenther Beckstein who proposed on Saturday, July 16, planting spies inside mosques, censoring sermons and monitoring Muslim organizations using tiny cameras. In statements published by Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper, Beckstein said state security services should have free hand in dealing with Islamic organizations that prefer their religion to the country’s constitution. He further called for dialogue with moderate Muslims, asking the minority to publicly denounce violence in all its forms before such a dialogue. The anti-Muslim rhetoric was fueled by the London blasts that targeted three underground stations and a double-decker bust on Thursday, July 7, killing at least 55 people. The mooted restrictions on the Muslim places of worship, however, drew diatribe from the Greens party, government officials and minority leaders. Greens leader Claudia Ruth said it is embarrassing that the Beckstein’s Christian Socialist party takes advantage of the London attacks for electoral gains. She was referring to the expected early parliamentary elections in the country, where right-wing parties are expected to play the terror card to win votes.

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Europe

Al-Qaeda at home in Europe

2005-07-12

Needs to be p.49-ed. By Kathleen Ridolfo A group calling itself the al-Qaeda of Jihad in Europe has claimed responsibility for the July 7 attacks on the London transport system that left at least 37 dead and hundreds wounded, according to a statement posted on the Internet. The group called its attacks "a blessed raid", adding: "We have repeatedly warned the British government and people. We have fulfilled our promise and carried out our blessed military raid in Britain after our mujahideen exerted strenuous efforts over a long period of time to ensure the success of the raid." The statement warned the governments of Italy and Denmark "and all the crusader governments" that they would be punished if they do not withdraw their troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. The attacks may be retaliation for a crackdown by European states, including the United Kingdom, in recent months against Islamic militants. The attacks are reminiscent of the Madrid train bombings carried out by an al-Qaeda-affiliated group on March 11, 2004 in retaliation for Spain's participation in coalition forces in Iraq. Those attacks left 191 people dead and prompted Spain to pull out of Iraq. 'Homegrown' terrorist networks The extent of the presence of al-Qaeda and its affiliated groups in Europe has come to light in recent months after a series of arrests and investigations in Germany, France, Great Britain, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands. The success of such networks lies in the fact that they are "homegrown", operated by Muslims living in European states who know the terrain and possess European passports that enable them to move easily throughout Europe and the Middle East. A number of jihadi websites supporting al-Qaeda have reportedly boasted about the group's European martyrs in Iraq in recent weeks, and Iraq-based terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has appealed to Muslims in Europe to join al-Qaeda. Many of the suspected terrorist leaders in Europe gained experience in Afghanistan in the 1990s, while others may be new recruits bent on seeking what they see as justice against the United States and its allies for a whole range of transgressions - be they economic or political - but most notably for the multinational operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. Terrorist networks across Europe that were reportedly dormant have been reactivated in the past six months, making Europe a major center for recruiting suicide bombers - ahead of the Middle East, North Africa, and Asia, London's The Observer reported on June 19. The report cited unidentified intelligence sources as saying that up to 21 networks were active in Europe, some of which were linked to over 60 groups in North Africa - not surprising since the majority of Muslim immigrants to Europe come from the North African states of Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia. The networks are responsible for training and recruiting volunteers, particularly for jihadi operations in Iraq, the report contended. A May 17 statement by German Interior Minister Otto Schily cited Islamist extremism and terrorism as the "greatest threat" to national security. Schily cited the 2004 "Protection of the Constitution Report" as saying the number of "members and followers" of Islamist organizations in Germany was 31,800, with the number of "potentially extremist foreigners" in Germany at approximately 57,500. The statement did not allude to the classification guidelines that produced those numbers. Schily added in his statement that 171 preliminary proceedings had been initiated in Germany against suspected Islamist militants, including one person arrested on January 24 who was suspected of taking part in al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan "on several occasions". That person admitted to having been instructed by al-Qaeda to recruit suicide assassins in Europe. Since December, at least 30 people have been arrested in Germany for their alleged role in Islamist terror networks, including at least six members of Ansar al-Islam, the Iraq-based group that grew into the Ansar al-Sunnah Army, which is affiliated with Zarqawi's Tanzim Qaidat al-Jihad fi Bilad al-Rafidayn. Ansar al-Islam's founder and spiritual leader, Mullah Krekar, has been living in Norway since 1991. Members of Ansar al-Islam-affiliated groups have also been arrested in France in recent weeks. Seven people were arrested on June 21 as part of a French judicial investigation into networks that recruit and provide logistical support to al-Qaeda in Iraq. The arrests marked the fourth operation this year by French intelligence against Islamist networks operating in support of militants in Iraq. Meanwhile, the Algerian Salafi Group for Preaching and Combat has reportedly formed an alliance with Zarqawi's group to target French nationals in Iraq and worldwide, London's al-Sharq al-Awsat reported on July 3. The Algerian group was targeting France for "supporting the Algerian regime", the newspaper reported. In one recent UK operation against homegrown terror, police arrested a man in Manchester in late June on suspicion that he was recruiting suicide bombers in Britain to attack multinational forces in Iraq. The threat to Britain was well-known after September 11, when intelligence indicated the presence of a number of radical groups in the country who recruited British Muslims through various means, including English-language propaganda and the establishment of "study cells" on university campuses, Jane's Intelligence Digest noted. Britain is also home to a number of Islamist publications and websites, including Islamic Renewal Organization - a website forum run by Saudi national Muhammad al-Ma'sari, which regularly posts statements for al-Qaeda. Failure to anticipate new groups European governments largely ignored the threat of terrorism on their soil before the Madrid attacks, and security analysts have said that European laws and outdated intelligence-gathering procedures have worked to the detriment of law-enforcement agencies, which operate under guidelines different from those in the United States. For example, European law-enforcement, security and intelligence services after September 11 continued to target only known terrorist cells. The intelligence apparatuses in Europe failed, however, to address the growing number of associated groups or support cells that provided assistance to al-Qaeda in terms of recruitment and financial transfers. It was considered politically incorrect to revise the legislative framework to target several hundred terrorist-support cells active on European soil. In addition, European states in the post-September 11 environment did not take the terrorism threat seriously. In the two-and-a-half years since September 11, al-Qaeda had carried out only one terrorist attack a year, while groups associated with al-Qaeda had carried out four times that number - on average, one attack every three months. Lack of law-enforcement tools Security analysts have said that Europe will continue to be hindered in its fight on terror as long as insufficient laws remain in place that inhibit the investigation of terrorist activities. France's top antiterrorism judge, Jean-Louis Bruguiere, told BBC Radio 4 in a May 31 interview that practices such as wire-tapping needed to be legalized in Britain. "We have a lot of legal means you [Great Britain] don't have and these legal means allow us to control and possibly prevent terrorist activities," he said. He added that terrorists could easily enter the UK from France or continental Europe with false papers. "If you don't have this possibility to have a database, to know exactly and to control individuals who would be suspected to use false papers in terrorist activities, you miss things," he said, suggesting France's compulsory identification-card system has helped stem attacks there. Copyright (c) 2005, RFE/RL Inc.

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Europe

What's red and green and in trouble?

2005-05-28

BERLIN Germany's Greens, once a protest party of Marxists, Maoists and Trotskyites that first tasted power 20 years ago by joining a Social Democratic government in the state of Hessen, are gearing up for another fight. This time, the stakes are much higher. "The big question is whether the red-green experiment is over," said Ralf Fuecks, director of the Heinrich Böll Foundation, which is affiliated with the Greens. Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, who stunned Germany's political parties Sunday after his Social Democrats lost in North Rhine-Westphalia by announcing that he would hold early elections in September, said his party would again form a government with the Greens, his coalition partners since 1998. But the Greens, which in the late 1990s seemed invincible and even set to become a permanent political fixture on the regional and federal political scene, are in a mess. And to make matters worse, the Social Democrats are divided over running any election campaign on a red-green ticket. So are the Greens. Each feels damaged by each other's policies. One of the Green leaders, Reinhard BÃŒtikofer, said Tuesday: "Of course, the Greens want another red-green coalition. But we will not run a red-green campaign. We will run a Green campaign." The tide, however, is not in the Greens' favor, judging from a string of election defeats it suffered after joining Schröder's first government in 1998. Since then, like a house of cards tumbling down one by one, the red-green coalitions fell. The first to fall was in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt in 1998, then in Hessen a year later, followed in 2001 by Hamburg. There was worse to come. The red-green coalition was thrown out in February from Schleswig-Holstein and on Sunday in North Rhine-Westphalia, both states once considered Social Democratic and Green bastions. "The federal government is the last of the red-green coalitions," said Fuecks, who warned that the only chance for the Greens during the coming election campaign was to clearly define what they stood for. No, the only chance is for the Greens is to obfuscate what they stand for. So what has gone wrong with a political constellation that generated so much hope in trying to modernize Germany's economic and social system? "It is always difficult being the junior partner," said Daniel Cohn-Bendit, a German who leads the Green grouping in the European Parliament. Ever since joining the Schröder government, the Greens have repeatedly made compromises or remained silent over issues that represented their core constituency. They failed to criticize the human rights record of President Vladimir Putin of Russia because Schröder had developed a close relationship with him and had won several large contracts for German companies. And they failed to block tough new immigration laws drawn up by the Social Democrat interior minister, Otto Schily. The Greens managed, however, to secure new rights for gay couples, including approval of a partnership that falls just short of marriage. They belatedly started to speak out against Schröder's decision to back European Union plans to lift the arms embargo that had been imposed on China when it became clear the party was losing support. The Greens had another falling-out with Schröder when they said that they would not back a new missile defense system that was intended to provide better protection for German troops involved in peacekeeping missions. The Social Democrats were furious and publicly criticized the Greens in a way that exposed serious tensions in the coalition. After enormous pressure, the Greens caved in, yet, paradoxically, it was a Greens member of the government, Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, who led a fundamental shift in Green ideology by agreeing in the late 1990s to send troops abroad. The Greens also want social and economic changes to go much farther while the left-wing of the Social Democrats want to slow down the reforms because of rising unemployment that has eroded support for the Schröder government. Indeed, younger and more leftist Social Democratic legislators, such as Andrea Nahles, have often blamed the Greens for the growing unpopularity of her party because the Greens want further reforms. There are other differences but the biggest is one of outlook. "The Greens," said Fuecks, "whose voters are professionals and academics, are still the party for minority rights, environmental and ecological issues for sustainable development. They jar with real existential issues such as having a job. The Greens stance has confused their voters. They will have to spell out clearly what they stand for in the coming weeks if they are to survive and if the red-green experience is to survive." The Greens are banking on Fischer, the student protester and first-ever Greens minister, to rescue them. Even though he has withdrawn from the day to day running of the party, until recently he was still Germany's most popular politician. That was until he became embroiled in a visa controversy in which lax controls by German embassies in Ukraine and other countries led to hundreds of thousands of people entering Germany under dubious circumstances. The Fischer case was eventually examined by a special parliamentary committee, with the hearings broadcast live on television. "Fischer ist Geschichte" (Fischer is History), Tageszeitung, Germany's satirical and investigative newspaper, rumbled Tuesday. But Fuecks said it was too early to write him off. "Fischer is a crisis management man. He is best when he is put out on front, when there is a crisis facing the Greens, like now." Schröder, trying to keep his Social Democratic Party united before campaigning starts for the September federal elections, took a blow Tuesday when his arch rival and former finance minister, Oskar Lafontaine, said he would leave the Social Democratic Party and even try to run for an alternative leftist party. A leftist Social Democrat who has never supported Schröder's changes or attempts to modernize the German economy, Lafontaine could mobilize disillusioned voters and erode support for Schröder. Lafontaine said he would run against the Social Democrats if the Democratic Socialists, made up of former East German Communist Party members, combined forces with a leftist splinter party called Wahl Alternative, founded by former Social Democrats and trade unionists. So far, no Social Democrats in Parliament, some of whom oppose Schröder's changes, have said they would join Lafontaine.

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