Europe |
Evaluating the Effectiveness of French Counter-Terrorism |
2005-10-08 |
By Ludo Block Over the last decade, French counter-terrorism strategy has been recognized as one of the most effective in Europe. The French system emerged from painful experienceâunlike other European countries France has faced the deadly threat of Islamic terrorism on its soil since the 1980s. A number of attacks in Paris by the Iranian-linked Hezbollah network of Fouad Ali Saleh in 1985 and 1986 triggered profound changes in the organization and legislative base of French counter-terrorism. These were reinforced after the Algerian Armed Islamic Group (GIA) attacks in 1995 and 1996. The key elements in the French counter-terrorism strategy are the privileged relationship between intelligence services and dedicated magistrates, as well as the qualification of acts of terrorism as autonomous offences punishable by increased penalties. The specific offence designated âassociationâ or âconspiring to terrorism,â makes a pre-emptive judicial approach possible. Meanwhile a sophisticated system named Vigipirate (security alert plan) of nation-wide, pre-planned security measures were developed. After the July 2005 attacks in London, Vigipirate was put in stade rouge (level red) swiftly invoking a large number of extra security measures in public places and public transport throughout France and along its borders. French authorities understood very early on that Islamist terrorism represented a new, complex threat and developed a system containing decisive advantages. This prevented acts of Islamic terrorism on French territory from December 1996 until October 2004, although various plots were disrupted during this period. These included a plan to bomb the Paris metro in December 2002 and a plot to attack tourist facilities on the French island of Reunion in the Indian Ocean in June 2003. Clearly France remains high on the list of targets for al-Qaeda and associated groups while recent trends challenge the long term effectiveness of the French approach. Trends and Future Concerns The explosion near the Indonesian Embassy in Paris on October 8, 2004 was the first act of terrorism in France in eight years. It was claimed by the unknown Front Islamique Français Armé (FIFA) which threatened France and demandedâamongst other thingsâthe liberation of two terrorists convicted for their participation in the 1995 attacks. The explosive device used was rudimentary, consisting of a gas tank in a bag pack, resembling the devices used in the 1995 attacks and showing once again that terror can be brought upon society cheaply. One person believed to be responsible for communicating the claims of responsibility for the attack was arrested soon after the incident. [1] It is not this incident alone that has alarmed the French intelligence community. In the first six months of 2005, the French Secret Service (DST) made over sixty Islamic-related terrorism arrests, compared to seventy-six in 2004. This reflects the changes among international jihadists where, according to French counter-terrorism experts, new threats come in addition to existing ones, rather than replacing them. Several trends are regarded as especially worrisome by the French intelligence community. Firstly, there is the growing importance of what is called the filiÚre Irakienne (Iraqi network); the network recruiting for the insurgency in Iraq. Recruitment seems to take place everywhere, as usual in and near mosques but also in prisons and private gatherings. Moreover, the Internet, where professional multimedia techniques are applied for this purpose, is actively used for recruitment. [2] Secondly, the recruitment networks operate Europe-wide with recruiters traveling back and forth between various European cities. The Paris based Imam Ben Halim Abderraouf, a foreman of the extremist Jamaat al-Tabligh wal-Daâwa (Society for Propagation & Preaching) movement, apparently played a key role in the recruitment of young Dutch Muslims. Four of them recently traveled on fake Algerian passports via Paris and Damascus to the Syrian-Iraq border area to receive jihad training. A DVD containing footage of their training with explosives in the desert surfaced in the notorious Paris 19th arrondissement. It shows the making of suicide bombs hidden in jackets as well as the devastating effects of these bombs on an autobus and on a constructed scenery of a supermarket and a busy street. The DVD is used for recruiting and indoctrinating other young Muslims. [3] Thirdly, French experts expect to find Iraq veterans back in France in due course to continue the jihad, just as happened after earlier conflicts. This time however, the insurgents avoid long stays in the combat zone, and instead use the conflict to gain sufficient training and motivation to return battle-hardened to Europe. [4] A dozen young Frenchmen are believed to be in Iraq as combatants, several were arrested along the Iraq/Syria border and an unknown number have probably already returned to France. Fourthly, there is a new category of Islamic extremists, almost all offspring of immigrants, who seem to be younger, more frustrated, and more radicalized than the French jihadists of the 1990s. Over the last year, five young Frenchmen were killed in Iraq, one while executing a suicide attack near Fallujah. Although no plots for suicide attacks in France have been discovered yet, the DST fears that cells are planning such a strike and is working hard to discover and foil them. Fears of suicide attacks by young French Muslims were reinforced after the events in London. [5] Finally, another dangerous trend is the apparent change in focus of the Algerian-based Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), an offshoot of the GIA, beyond the borders of Algeria. Intelligence shows that the purported leader of the GSPC, the explosives specialist Abdelmalek Droukdal, has active contacts with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and is planning to combine efforts in the international jihad arena, focusing in particular on France. Since the GSPC is regarded as the most organized extremist organization in Algeria, with its tentacles already reaching far into Spain and presumably into France as well, French security experts take this development seriously. [6] Developments in Counter-Terrorism French law enforcement is highly hierarchical in nature, resulting in several agencies and departments within the same agency involved in counter-terrorism. In the National Police these are the aforementioned DST, the General Intelligence Service (RG) and the National Anti-terrorism Division (DNAT). Also the External Intelligence Service (DGSE) of the Defense Ministry has a role in countering terrorism and in addition both the Gendarmerie and the Judicial Police in Paris maintain counter-terrorist judicial and intelligence capabilities. Frequently these bodies act as little kingdoms, invoking inevitable problems of coordination. Therefore several coordinating structures were created of which the Anti-terrorist Operational Coordination Unit (UCLAT) is the most important. However, without having direct access to the information of the participating bodies and largely dependant on face-to-face meetings, UCLATâs coordinating role remains suboptimal. A newâand against the French background, almost revolutionaryâinitiative aimed at streamlining this organizational jungle and boosting efficiency, is the sharing of one location and resources by the DST, RG and DNAT in 2006. Although ideas for sharing resources and even a fusion between them from time to time emerged since the 1995 GIA attacks, new threats are prompting a greater convergence of resources and capabilities. Another initiative is last yearâs creation of a joint French-Spanish anti-terrorism investigation team in which officers will have equal operative powers on each otherâs territory. This is remarkable in contemporary European police cooperation. Another initiative of unprecedented caliber is the reinforced French-US counter-terrorism cooperation under the name âAlliance Baseâ that has been in place since 2002, though only became public last July. Although the London attacks predictably prompted several new repressive initiatives, like proposals to upgrade the 1995 legislation on video surveillance, tougher penalties for terrorism-related crimes and data retention on all communication, the French have already been searching for original alternatives to supplement conventional counter-terrorism strategies. A first initiative in this regard was the decision in 2004 to elevate the fight against terrorism to the status of a Chantier national (Major Project); meaning a prioritized cause requiring nation wide efforts. [7] Amongst other things, this entailed an appeal on all government institutions to actively search for indications and information pointing to processes of radicalism in society. A following initiative is the recent announcement of the compilation of a white book on âthe internal security and the threat of terrorism.â [8] The white book should receive input from various government departments and provide answers to strategic, operational and pedagogical questions involving: When completed, the white book should serve as a basis for public action against the threat of terrorism in the coming decennia. [9] The broad appeal on various government institutions and society in both the âChantier nationalâ and the White book are relatively new approaches in this field in Europe. These are necessary and important attempts to take countering terrorism out of the exclusive domain of law enforcement. After all, the recent attacks in London clearly indicate that Islamist terrorism will continue to threaten western European societies for the foreseeable future. As far as the French are concerned, even a very efficient law enforcement and intelligence community will only be part of the answer. To enhance its counter-terrorism approach, France has taken initial steps that ensure a wider participation of society to counter this growing menace. 1. âAttentat contre l'ambassade d'Indonésie à Paris : un homme en garde à vueâ, Le Monde, October 12, 2004. |
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Britain |
In war on terror, France outfights UK |
2005-07-13 |
THANKS to the war in Iraq, much of the world sees the British government as resolute and tough, the French one as appeasing and weak. But in another war, the one against terrorism and radical Islam, the reverse is true: France is the most stalwart nation in the West, even more so than the United States, while Great Britain is the very most hapless. Consider: # Counterterrorism. U.K.-based terrorists have carried out operations in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Kenya, Tanzania, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Israel, Morocco, Russia, Spain and the United States. Many governments â Jordanian, Egyptian, Moroccan, Spanish, French, and American â have protested London's refusal to shut down its Islamist terrorist infrastructure or extradite wanted operatives. In frustration, Egyptian president Hasni Mubarak publicly denounced Britain for "protecting killers." One American security group has called for Britain to be listed as a terrorism-sponsoring state. Counterterrorism specialists disdain the British. Roger Cressey calls London "easily the most important jihadist hub in Western Europe." Steven Simon dismisses the British capital as "the Star Wars bar scene" of Islamic radicals. More brutally, an intelligence official said of last week's attacks: "The terrorists have come home. It is payback time for . . . an irresponsible policy." While London hosts terrorists, Paris hosts a top-secret counterterrorism center, code-named Alliance Base, whose existence was just revealed by The Washington Post, where six major Western governments since 2002 share intelligence and run counterterrorism operations. (The latter makes it unique.) More broadly, President Jacques Chirac instructed French intelligence agencies just days after 9/11 to share terrorism data with their U.S. counterparts "as if they were your own service." This cooperation is working: former acting CIA director John E. McLaughlin calls this bilateral intelligence tie "one of the best in the world." The British may have a "special relationship" with Washington in Iraq, but the French have one in the War on Terror. France accords terrorist suspects fewer rights than any other Western state, permitting interrogation without a lawyer, lengthy pre-trial incarcerations and evidence acquired under dubious circumstances. Were he a terrorism suspect, says Evan Kohlmann, author of Al-Qaida's Jihad in Europe, he "would least like to be held under" the French system. # Radical Islam. The myriad French-British differences in this arena can be summarized by the example of what Muslim girls may wear to state-funded schools. Denbigh High School in Luton, 30 miles northwest from London, has a student population about 80 percent Muslim. It years ago accommodated the sartorial needs of their faith and heritage, including a female student uniform made up of the Pakistani shalwar kameez trousers, a jerkin top and hijab head covering. But when Shabina Begum, a teenager of Bangladeshi origins, insisted in 2004 on wearing a jilbab, which covers the entire body except for the face and hands, Denbigh administrators said no. Their dispute ended up in litigation and the Court of Appeal ultimately decided in Begum's favor. As a result, by law U.K. schools must now accept the jilbab. Not only that, but Cherie Booth, wife of British prime minister Tony Blair, was Begum's lawyer at the appellate level. Booth called the court's judgment "a victory for all Muslims who wish to preserve their identity and values despite prejudice and bigotry." In contrast, also in 2004, the French government outlawed the hijab, the Muslim headscarf, from public educational institutions, disregarding ferocious opposition within France and among Islamists worldwide. In Tehran, protestors shouted "Death to France!" and "Death to Chirac the Zionist!" The Palestinian Authority mufti, Ikrima Sa'id Sabri, declared that "French laws banning the hijab constitute a war against Islam as a religion." The Saudi grand mufti, Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh, called them a human rights infringement. When the "Islamic Army in Iraq" kidnapped two French journalists, it threatened their execution unless the hijab ban was revoked. Nonetheless, Paris stood firm. What lies behind these contrary responses? The British have seemingly lost interest in their heritage while the French hold on to theirs; even as the British ban fox hunting, the French ban hijabs. The former embraced multiculturalism, the latter retain a pride in their historic culture. This contrast in matters of identity makes Great Britain the Western country most vulnerable to the ravages of radical Islam, whereas France, for all its political failings, has retained a sense of self that may yet see it through. Daniel Pipes (www.danielpipes.org) is director of the Middle East Forum and author of "Miniatures." |
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Europe |
Bourne again? |
2005-07-05 |
Who doesnât love a good spy story? Shadowy operatives, evil terrorists, dangerous betrayals and the future of the free world hanging in the balance. Throw in the suggestion of sinister conspiracies at the very top of government--and some sex, of course--and youâve got a pretty good book to take to the beach. But when real U.S. officials start acting like theyâre living a Robert Ludlum saga, then youâve got problems. And the more documentation that surfaces about the mysterious abduction of a suspected Al Qaeda figure from the streets of Italy in February 2003, the more it looks like whoever in the administration ordered the snatch got carried away with the dangerous glamour of the moment. The arrest warrant issued by Italian judge Chiara Nobili charges 13 presumed CIA operatives--10 men and three women-- allegedly involved in the kidnapping of Mostafa Hassan Nasr Osama, a.k.a. Abu Omar, on Feb. 17, 2003. At just about noon that day, he was bundled into a truck, driven to a U.S. airbase, and flown to Egypt for some tough questioning. Three other men and three other women are also named in the warrants, but because they were not at the scene of the kidnapping, have no arrest orders against them. The 230-page court document chronicles all of these charactersâ movements, some of their meals, their raids on hotel minibars, even, it would seem at first glance, their romances. Some of the alleged agents started showing up in Milan at the end of 2002, but most converged on the city in late January 2003. They stayed at some of the finest hotels, including the elegant Principe di Savoia and the Westin Palace. Their king-size beds and their well-equipped gyms were close to the fashionable shopping streets, and far from the dreary industrial zone where Abu Omar lived, worked, prayed and allegedly recruited terrorists. But the mobile phones they used showed up many times in his neighborhood. Each âcellâ in a network has a record of every call made through it, in case you didnât know. More importantly, if the agents knew, they didnât seem to care. It was those records that allowed their movements to be traced so closely. On the weekend of Feb. 1-2, 2003, 10 members of the team took off for the city of La Spezia on the coast. The beach resort is pretty depressing that time of year, but Monica*, the youngest on the team, was marking her 30th birthday that weekend. Maybe that was the occasion. In any case, the court records say she shared a room that weekend with 50-year-old John D. (Eliana, 33, and Ben, 58, also bunked together.) Then five members of the team, including Monica and John D., went off to a sumptuous hotel in Florence for two more days. Another couple, 41-year-old Pilar and 63-year-old Ray H., went from La Spezia to the out-of-the-way Alpine village of Chiesa de Valmalenco near the Swiss border. Joseph S., who was born in Eastern Europe in 1953, and seems to have exquisite taste, blew off the beaches, the mountains and Monicaâs birthday. He went to the legendary Danieli Hotel in Venice. It looks like they were all taking a break, and they probably needed it. By then, the pressure on C.I.A. operatives doing this kind of fieldwork must have been enormous. They had taken the point in the Global War on Terror, pursuing Al Qaedaâs key figures wherever they might be found. In coordination with many different intelligence services, they had tracked down most of those linked directly to 9/11. As Dana Priest reported last week in The Washington Post, an extraordinary top-secret counter-terrorism center known as Alliance Base was set up in France soon after the attacks on Washington and New York, with French, British, German, Canadian, Australian and American case officers not only sharing information but planning operations against terrorist cells. Now a new war, with Iraq, was only weeks away. The Bush administration obsessed with the notion that Saddam Hussein might strike back anywhere at any time with those weapons of mass destruction he was supposed to have. The administration was pushing hard to make the case to itself and to the world that the threat was imminent and immense. At Alliance Base, as Priestâs article suggests, the worldâs best counter-terrorist minds were less than convinced. (For a snapshot of the thinking at that time, see âRumors of War,â from March 2003. ) But in Italy there were some tantalizing bits of information still to be mined. The Italian government of billionaire Silvio Berlusconi was backing the American rush to war, volunteering to send troops, showing itself a solid member of the âNew Europeâ on the Bush team. Unlike the British, who dreamed of moderating Bushâs behavior, or the French who found W distasteful and dangerous, Berlusconi was an unapologetic cheerleader. In 2002, Italians with spooky connections helpfully provided documents that seemed to show Saddam was trying to buy uranium from the African nation of Niger. President Bush famously referred to this ostensible danger in his State of the Union speech in January 2003. Then the documents turned out to be clumsy forgeries. In early February 2003, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell went before the United Nations to make the American case for invasion. Heâd dropped the Niger stuff, but picked up other Italian threads of information about terrorists with horrible weapons. Powell fixed on the network of Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, a then-little-known terrorist wannabe who had been operating out of the Kurdish area in northern Iraq, but whose actual ties to Saddam were hard to substantiate. âSince last year, members of this network have been apprehended in France, Britain, Spain and Italy. By our last count, 116 operatives connected to this global web have been arrested,â Powell told the world. He limned Zarqawi-linked conspiracies to use deadly poisons in Great Britain, Chechnya, even in the Pankisi Gorge in the Caucasus. But, still, no solid link to Saddam. Powell showed a slide that underscored what was supposed to be known, and implied what needed to be known. A large block on the diagram read: âPossible Italy Cell.â Powellâs speech came the same day the alleged kidnapping team assembled again in Milan. Their target, Abu Omar, looked like he might be the missing link tying terror to Saddam and deadly toxins. Italian prosecutors and judicial police had been building a case against the Egyptian preacher for months, in consultation with the FBI, according to a senior Italian source involved with the investigation. But Washington intended to invade Iraq in March, no matter what, and Italian prosecutors were not ready to arrest him. The Italian plan, according to the same source, was to nail Abu Omar and other alleged members of the same network in early April 2003. But Monica and her friends snatched him off the street in the middle of February. A few days later, according to traces run by the Italian prosecutors, the telephone used by Bob L., the man identified in the court documents as head of the C.I.A. in Milan, showed up in Egypt for a couple of weeks. That would have been the time when interrogators most needed the expertise of someone like Bob, who had been thoroughly briefed on the case by the Italian political police, known as DIGOS. As happened so often when the Bush administration went looking for grand conspiracies in the free-wheeling spring of 2003, Abu Omar wasnât able to tell the Americans all they wanted or needed to hear. Fourteen months later, the Egyptians briefly let him out of prison, apparently thinking they had turned him into a collaborator. He phoned his wife and another imam in Milan and told his story. Italian police, who monitored those calls, set out to find whoever had stolen him. The cell phone records from the scene of the kidnapping, like crumbs in the forest, led the way to the C.I.A. Most of the people on the team were in their 40s, 50s or 60s. Presumably they were old pros. Why didnât they do a better job of covering their tracks? Almost certainly because they believed the fix was in. Both American and Italian press reports claim that the head of Italyâs Intelligence and Military Security Service (SISMI), Nicolo Pollari, was informed about the kidnapping before it took place. The Berlusconi government has flatly denied this. It claims no one in the Italian government or its intelligence services had any prior knowledge of this crime, which the Italian judge calls an affront to national sovereignty. A source close to the prosecution tells me that the search goes on for direct links to whatever Italian officials may have approved it. They are the ârealâ targets of the investigation, according to this source, although no proof has surfaced. (Coincidentally, one of Pollariâs top deputies, Maj. Gen. Nicola Calipari, was shot and killed accidentally by American troops in Iraq earlier this year.) Like most good spy stories, this one has a quiet denouement. For the American officers in the field, the ârenditionâ of Abu Omar to Egypt must have seemed a cause to celebrate. Certainly they acted that way. Aviano airbase, where theyâd put him on a plane, is near Venice. Four members of the team decided to chill there for a couple of days. Others drove back to Milan, then disappeared off the Italian map. The tasteful Joseph S. went with Cyntia, 42, to a spa at Montecatini Terme, then on to Bolzano, in the Tyrol. A few months later, the C.I.A. man in Milan retired to a lovely farmhouse among pastures and vineyards near Asti, according to court documents. Italian reporters whoâve been to the village say he hasnât been seen by his neighbors for several months. The Italian court documents give the full names, passport numbers, credit card numbers, even "preferred guest numbers" in some cases. Several of the names in the documents probably are "covers" and completely false. Others are unquestionably genuine. There are both legal and ethical questions involved here, but on balance I think this is not the place to play any part in "outing " undercover CIA agents. |
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Home Front: WoT | ||
Help From France Key In Covert Operations | ||
2005-07-04 | ||
French intelligence has a looong working knowledge of the arab world, and has been working on sunni islamists since the 90's (not to mention the 1986 iranian-based bombings). Paris's 'Alliance Base' Targets Terrorists By Dana Priest ![]() Ganczarski is among the most important European al Qaeda figures alive, according to U.S. and French law enforcement and intelligence officials. The operation that ensnared him was put together at a top secret center in Paris, code-named Alliance Base, that was set up by the CIA and French intelligence services in 2002, according to U.S. and European intelligence sources. Its existence has not been previously disclosed.
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