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Europe
Germany detains teen with ‘extremist Islamic views’ over suspected attack plot
2024-11-13
[IsraelTimes] Suspect, 17, planning ‘serious violent’ assault arrested last week, authorities say; local media reports he intended to attack Christmas market with a truck

German prosecutors on Tuesday said that a 17-year-old had been arrested for plotting an Islamist terror attack, with media reports saying he wanted to target a Christmas market.

He is suspected of "preparing a serious violent mostly peaceful attack" and "conspiracy to commit murder," and had "extreme Islamist views," said the prosecutors in the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein.

The suspect is a German national and was arrested on Wednesday last week in the town of Elmshorn, they said.

The Bild daily reported that the suspect had planned to attack a Christmas market with a truck.

In December 2016 a truck rampage at a Berlin Christmas market killed 12 people, the deadliest jihadist attack ever committed in Germany.

Alongside several other countries, Germany has been on high alert for Islamist attacks since the Paleostinian terror group Hamas
..a regional Iranian catspaw,...
’s October 7, 2023, assault on Israel that killed 1,200 people and sparked the ongoing war in the Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
Strip.

Authorities say they have foiled several planned attacks.

However,
facts are stubborn; statistics are more pliable...
three people were killed and eight maimed in a knife attack at a street festival in the western city of Solingen in August, allegedly carried out by a Syrian asylum seeker and claimed by the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems....
group.

In June, another knife attack killed a policeman in the town of Mannheim, with an Afghan national as the prime suspect.

Deutsche Welle’s take:
Germany: 17-year-old arrested over alleged terror plot

Police have said that the teenager detained in the northern town of Elmshorn was motivated by extreme Islamism. He was reportedly planning a truck attack similar to the 2016 terror attack on a Berlin Christmas market.

Prosecutors in the northern German city of Flensburg said on Tuesday that a youth arrested last week was planning an Islamist terror attack.

He had "sufficiently concrete plans for an attack" to warrant an arrest, they added, saying there was also evidence of his radicalization.

The young man had been detained a week earlier in the town of Elmshorn and remains in custody while police continue the investigation.

Authorities have not confirmed much about the suspect, including how they caught wind of his plan or the details of his arrest.

However, they have said that he planned to utilize a large vehicle, such as a truck, for an attack.

This is reminiscent of a December 2016 assault on a Christmas market in Berlin, when Anis Amri deliberately drove into pedestrians, killing 13 people and injuring 70.

Amri fled to Italy and was killed in a shootout with police several days later.
A key detail from MSN:
U.S. intelligence agencies have given German state security a valuable tip that allowed a terror attack on a Christmas market to be avoided.
Well done, American intelligence! We do like to have reasons to be proud of you.
The Americans tracked down a 17-year-old German Muslim who had been radicalized in a short period of time. The young man planned to use a truck for his attack on a Christmas market at an unnamed location in Germany. The 17-year-old perpetrator is from Elmshorn, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, and his plans were Islamist-motivated. On Nov. 6, security forces raided his home and the teen has since been detained on suspicion of conspiracy to commit a crime.
Link


Europe
Does Germany's special network to prevent Islamist extremists' attacks work?
2022-07-26
[DW] Political and religious extremism has long been seen as a threat to democracy in Germany. The Counter Terrorism Center is where agencies and police network to prevent Islamist hard boy attacks. Is it effective?

December 19, 2016, was a particularly dark day for Germany's Joint Counter Terrorism Center. That was the day when the terrorist Anis Amri steered a stolen truck into a crowd of people at the Christmas market on Berlin's Breitscheidplatz. Twelve people died, and over 60 were maimed, some of them critically. Many victims are still suffering today from the consequences of the worst Islamist attack in Germany.

The tragic twist to the story was that police had had the attacker on their radar for a long time. The Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) had long had him on their list of "Gefährder" (potential attackers or dangerous persons), a term used for suspects who might carry out an attack at any time. The special investigator appointed by the Berlin Senate gave the security authorities a devastating report, saying "everything that could be done wrong, was done wrong."

ANTI-TERROR NETWORK
Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser, who has been in office since 2021, was far away from Berlin at the time. She was a member of the Hesse state parliament. In her new role, she has paid a visit to the Joint Counter Terrorism Center, or GTAZ, in Berlin, which deals exclusively with the issue of Islamist extremism.

Here, 40 federal and state security agencies work together. The large number is mainly due to the fact that all 16 German states have their own Criminal Investigation Office (LKA) and their own domestic intelligence agency (Verfassungsschutz). Every day, the representatives meet in a long conference room to discuss the current threat levels.

The Interior Minister described this form of networking as the "most important building block" in the fight against Islamist terrorism. Since the GTAZ was founded in 2004, 21 attacks have been prevented, she said, calling this a "great achievement." But in eleven more cases, security authorities were too late, she admits. "This shows that the threat level remains high," Faeser concluded.

While the Interior Minister was upbeat in her assessment of the German "security architecture" — a label for this formalized interaction of the authorities — other politicians were more critical.

In view of the many mishaps before and after the Breitscheidplatz attack, conservative MP Stephan Harbarth came to the conclusion that, "federalism can become an obstacle to the fight against Islamist terrorism." He made his remarks following the special investigator's final report in 2017.

FIGHTING ISLAMIST EXTREMISM
Harbarth is now the President of the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe and wants to see more centralized control: "We need federal authorities to be more involved in dealing with dangerous persons," the former member of the Bundestag demanded. In his new job, he also has to deal with the issue of combating terrorism. Time and again, the Court has to deal with the security apparatus and the legislation which is the basis for the work of police agencies and intelligence services such as the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) or the domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (Verfassungsschutz, BfV).

The GTAZ is a place for networking rather than an office that has a legal remit for the comprehensive exchange of information. Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser says she could imagine changing that, but the most important thing, she says, is that the cooperation can continue.

But the lack of a clear legal basis is precisely what constitutional law expert Matthias Bäcker has been criticizing for years: "So far, there is no one who is responsible for controlling the GTAZ as such," he complained even before the Breitscheidplatz attack.

On the homepage of the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), the GTAZ is described as a "cooperation platform." The "expertise of all relevant actors" will be bundled and "effective cooperation" will be made possible. In practice, however, this can sometimes go wrong, as the failure in the Anis Amri case showed particularly painfully.

CRITICISM OF GERMAN SECURITY FORCES
Ulf Buermeyer, a lawyer and chairman of the Society for Civil Liberties (Gesellschaft fur Freiheitsrechte, GFF) sees the GTAZ as "a symptom of a misguided development in the German security architecture."

Buermeyer filed a complaint against the Bavarian Constitutional Protection Act with the Federal Constitutional Court. In that context, he also brought up the GTAZ and its operations. His observations read like an after-the-fact explanation for why it was unable to prevent the attack on the Berlin Christmas market. This is because the "overlapping of competencies and responsibilities has considerable disadvantages for the prevention of danger. Multiple responsibilities of police and intelligence services lead to a "systematic diffusion of information." He concluded with the saying "too many cooks spoil the broth."

In his statement to the Federal Constitutional Court, for which he himself once used to work as a research assistant, Buermeyer criticized what he sees as an unclear division of labor between the security authorities. If many agencies are "somehow a little bit" responsible, they each see only a partial picture of the threat. "But then no agency puts together the pieces of the mosaic into a comprehensive picture of a situation."

The Federal Interior Minister at the time, Thomas de Mazière, suggested that the many mistakes in dealing with the hard boy Anis Amri should lead to more centralizarion in the German security architecture. But he was unable to prevail against the federal states. In essence, everything remained the same.

Link


Europe
Hundreds of German police swoop on members of banned Islamic group
2021-02-26
[IsraelTimes] Raids in Berlin and across Brandenburg target Jama’atu Berlin organization, said to have called for armed jihad and terrorist attacks on civilians

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

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

The organization, whose name translates literally as the "Berlin Group," was banned by Berlin’s state Interior Minister Andreas Geisel ahead of the raids on the grounds it was a "very radical" group that followed the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems....
group’s ideology.

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

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

The organization consisted of two groups — one of women and one of men — who would meet regularly in private homes and parks, and spread their ideology over the internet and with flyers in public spaces, authorities said.
Update from Deutsche Welle at 1:00 p.m. ET:
Berlin's Senate has announced on Twitter that it has banned the "jihadist-Salafist association Jama'atu Berlin," also known as Tauhid Berlin.

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

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

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

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

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

The number of Salafists in Germany rose to a record high of 12,150 in 2019, according to the domestic intelligence agency.
Related:
Berlin: 2021-02-23 German special forces mistaken for terrorists after training mix-up in Arizona
Berlin: 2021-02-21 Europe migrant colonist briefs (Feb 14-19)
Berlin: 2021-02-15 Greece Calls Migrant Pushback Claims 'Fake News'
Related:
Brandenburg: 2021-02-21 Europe migrant colonist briefs (Feb 14-19)
Brandenburg: 2020-08-19 German police arrest suspected Syrian militant near Berlin
Brandenburg: 2020-06-17 German police place regional chapter of far-right AfD under surveillance
Related:
Anis Amri: 2020-04-18 Palestinian al-Qaeda supporter illegally seeks $19,564 over coronavirus
Anis Amri: 2019-12-21 Berlin police Foiled ISIS Terror Attack at Christmas Market
Anis Amri: 2019-11-16 German Interior Ministry Allegedly Ignored Informant Close to 2016 Berlin Christmas Market Attacker
Link


Europe
Palestinian al-Qaeda supporter illegally seeks $19,564 over coronavirus
2020-04-18
[Jpost] Preaches at mosque with links to ISIS terrorist who killed Israeli in 2016

The Berlin authorities announced on Thursday that the Paleostinian jihaidist Ahmad Abul Baraa, a supporter of the terrorist movement al-Qaeda, was accused of fraudulently seeking $19,564 from a bank in connection with the coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague)
...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men...
crisis.

"The 46-year-old accused Ahmad A. is suspected of having used the situation of the corona crisis together with his partner to snatch a total of € 18,000 in funding from the Investitionsbank Berlin by misrepresenting the extent of a commercial activity while both actually received social benefits," the Berlin police and prosecutor’s office wrote in a joint statement.

The authorities said that Sherlocks seized money and electronic devices during a search of the rooms of the suspects as well as from a radical mosque in the district of Wedding.

The As-Sahaba mosque, where the Paleostinian Abul Baraa preaches, has been the focus of intelligence surveillance due to its connections with 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....
. Berlin’s intelligence agency has documented that the As-Sahaba-mosque is a meeting place for alleged Islamists from the Salafist movement.

The authorities wrote that whether the payments should also be used to implement projects for coronavirus crisis "is the subject of ongoing investigations, which, however, due to the quick access, meant that the funds from the Investitionsbank Berlin could be completely secured."

Abul Baraa operated a shop within the mosque. In 2018, the police raided the mosque because Baraa was accused of sending money to an Islamist fighter in Syria "for purchasing military equipment to carry out terrorist criminal acts," according to prosecutors. The German-Egyptian Islamist Reda Seyam founded the mosque in 2010. Reda Seyam was charged with taking part in a terrorism attack in Bali. Reda Seyam travelled to Syria to become the education minister for the Islamic State.

Seyam was killed in Iraq in 2019.
...and found himself enjoying the myriad hospitalities of Hell instead of 72 beauteous houris and matching boys with faces like pearls immediately thereafter...
The As-Sahaba mosque is widely viewed as the most important center for radical Sunni Islam in Berlin. The Islamic state terrorist Anis Amri, who drove a truck into a Berlin Christmas market in 2016, attended the mosque. Amri’s vehicular terrorism attack murdered 12 people and injured 56 people. One of the victims was the 60-year-old Israeli woman, Dalia Elyakim. The former Berlin rapper and Islamic State fighter Dennis Cuspert also was a visitor of the As-Sahab mosque.
It sounds like it’s past time to close the mosque after picking up all the members and tracking all their connections. 80-20 Rule, donchaknow.
Related:
Berlin: 2020-04-16 Elon Musk: "What I Find Most Surprising is That CNN Still Exists"
Berlin: 2020-04-13 Russia launches criminal investigation after Prague removes Soviet military statue
Berlin: 2020-04-07 Coronaplague update: Norway under control - reproduction rate below 1
Related:
As-Sahaba mosque: 2018-12-19 German police raid Berlin mosque over suspected 'terror financing'
Related:
Abul Baraa: 2018-12-19 German police raid Berlin mosque over suspected 'terror financing'
Abul Baraa: 2014-01-16 Car Bomb Kills 26 in North Syria, Mostly Rebels
Related:
Reda Seyam: 2018-12-19 German police raid Berlin mosque over suspected 'terror financing'
Reda Seyam: 2009-09-02 German court allows suspected terrorist to name son 'Jihad'
Reda Seyam: 2007-03-01 Berlin court upholds parents' right to name child "Jihad"
Related:
Anis Amri: 2019-12-21 Berlin police Foiled ISIS Terror Attack at Christmas Market
Anis Amri: 2019-11-16 German Interior Ministry Allegedly Ignored Informant Close to 2016 Berlin Christmas Market Attacker
Anis Amri: 2019-03-23 German police arrest 10 people on suspicion of planning Islamist attack
Link


Europe
Berlin police Foiled ISIS Terror Attack at Christmas Market
2019-12-21
BERLIN, December 22. /TASS/. Berlin's police officers have likely foiled a new terror attack at a Christmas market organized at the Breitscheidplatz square, the scene of a 2016 attack when Tunisian Anis Amri drove a truck into the market and its guests, German Die Welt reported on Saturday citing sources in German security agencies.

According to the newspaper, plainclothes officers took notice of two suspicious men at the market. After checking their identities, one turned out to have confirmed contacts with the Islamic State terrorist organization, while the other men had an arrest warrant issued for him by the United States. Both men were of Syrian decent and were detained. Germany's Bild tabloid reports that they are placed on a list of potentially dangerous Islamists and have experience in handling explosives.

The police are now checking a suspicious package that could have been left by the men. Die Welt's sources are claiming that it might be an improvised explosive device.

Earlier on Saturday, Berlin's police evacuated people from the Breitscheidplatz market and the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church located in the same square. Due to the special operation, Berlin S-Bahn railway trains are not stopping at the Zoologischer Garten station nearby.

On December 19, 2016, terrorist Anis Amri hijacked a truck and deliberately drove into the Christmas market at Breitscheidplatz. The terror attack left 12 people dead and 48 more were rushed to hospitals. After the attack, Amri managed to flee the scene and escaped Germany. On December 23, 2016, he was killed in a shootout with Italian police in the outskirts of Milan.
Link


Europe
German Interior Ministry Allegedly Ignored Informant Close to 2016 Berlin Christmas Market Attacker
2019-11-16
[SPUTNIKNEWS] Suspected ISIS* sympathiser Anis Amri killed 12 and maimed dozens more when he rammed a truck into a Christmas market in the German capital in 2016. A bombshell testimony by a German policeman in the country’s parliament suggests that authorities, including officials at the very top, simply let things slide.

A criminal chief inspector from North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) has raised mishandling allegations against the German Interior Ministry and the German Criminal Police Office, along with its Berlin branch, in his testimony to the investigative committee of the deadly 2016 terrorist attack on the Christmas market in Berlin.

The man, whose identity remains concealed, reportedly said during questioning in the German parliament that an official from the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) had told him that NRW's informant who had alerted Sherlocks about the attacker-to-be Anis Amri before, "creates too much work". The conversation allegedly happened on the side-lines of a meeting at the Federal Attorney General’s Office on 23 February 2016, months before the terror attack.

He reportedly also told the witness that this opinion was shared at the "very top". Asked about who was meant by "top", the official allegedly said that it was the Interior Ministry ‐ or its then-head Thomas de Maizière, a member of Angela Merkel
...chancellor of Germany and the impetus behind Germany's remarkably ill-starred immigration program. Merkel used to be referred to by Germans as Mom. Now they make faces at her for inundating the country with Moslem colonists...
’s Christian Democratic Union ‐ and the senior criminal director of the BKA's State Protection Department.

According to the policeman, this conversation left him "stunned and shocked", prompting him to reach out to two prosecutors right away. He was reportedly under the impression that his colleague from the BKA, known to be a very competent official, had conveyed this opinion about Amri in the same way as it was given to him.

Berlin Overlooked the Danger?
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung cites the NRW policeman as saying that his office had made it clear to the central office and their colleagues in Berlin, where Amri often was at the time, that the informant was credible and had been working for them for many years.

"If an informant, who was the only source of signals about the danger from Anis Amri, had been silenced, and if it was on the interior minister’s initiative, that would be a shattering scandal", Chairman of the Investigation Committee Benjamin Strasser said, noting that the questioning of ex-Interior Minister de Maizière has now become inevitable.
Related:
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Daesh: 2019-11-11 Azerbaijan Encroaches Into Georgian Territory
Daesh: 2019-11-11 'I want to have my own car': American-born ISIS bride begs to return to US
Related:
Anis Amri: 2019-03-23 German police arrest 10 people on suspicion of planning Islamist attack
Anis Amri: 2019-03-06 Berlin Christmas market attacker accomplice charged with bomb plot
Anis Amri: 2019-02-27 Friend Of Berlin Truck Attacker In France During Nice Attack: Reports
Related:
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Thomas de Maizière: 2017-09-15 European migrant colonist briefs
Thomas de Maizière: 2017-05-31 German Interior Minister Praises Trump for Intel Cooperation Against Islamic Terrorism
Link


Europe
German police arrest 10 people on suspicion of planning Islamist attack
2019-03-23
[BBC] Police in Germany have arrested 10 people on suspicion of planning an Islamist attack.

The arrests were made after some 200 police officers carried out raids in the states of Hesse and Rhineland-Palatinate. The men had plotted to "kill as many 'non-believers' as possible" using a vehicle and guns, prosecutors said.

A 21-year-old man from Offenbach, near Frankfurt, and two 31-year-old brothers from Wiesbaden are the main suspects.

"They had already made contact with different arms dealers, rented a large vehicle and collected financial assets to use for the purchase of guns and the execution of the planned murders," a spokeswoman for the prosecutor's office said.

The suspects are aged between 20 and 42 and several are German nationals, the spokeswoman added. The men have been detained on charges of terrorism financing and criminal conspiracy.

Police seized 20,000 euros (£17,000; $22,500) in cash during the raids, as well as several knives, drugs, a number of electronic devices and documents.

Germany has been on high alert following several jihadist attacks in recent years. The most deadly was in December 2016 when a man drove a lorry into a crowded Christmas market in Berlin, killing 12 people.

Anis Amri, the Tunisian behind the attack, was shot and killed in Italy four days later.
Link


Europe
Berlin Christmas market attacker accomplice charged with bomb plot
2019-03-06
[DW] State prosecutors have charged an Islamist with planning a kaboom in Germany alongside Anis Amri. The plot to "kill as many people as possible," was foiled by police in 2016.

A 31-year-old Russian who knew Berlin Christmas market attacker Anis Amri has been charged with alleged plans to carry out a bombing, German federal prosecutors said on Tuesday.

Magomed-Ali C, whose full name was not disclosed due to German privacy laws, wanted to "kill or at least injure as many people as possible" in a terrorist attack, prosecutors said. He was tossed in the slammer
... anything you say can and will be used against you, whether you say it or not...
in August pending investigations.

The plan involved Magomed-Ali C and a French national, Clement B,
...that would be the highly connected Clement Baur, arrested in Marseilles amid of an interesting collection of toys...
who was earlier arrested in 2017 in La Belle France for plotting a terrorist attack. The two procured or produced the explosive TATP in a Berlin apartment in October 2016, prosecutors said.

CONTACT WITH CHRISTMAS MARKET ATTACKER
Amri, a Tunisian national who killed 12 people in a December 19, 2016 truck attack on a Berlin Christmas market, was also allegedly in contact with the other two Islamists around this time.

However,
by candlelight every wench is handsome...
the plans for the bombing were cancelled because the Islamists were alarmed following a police visit at one point to Magomed-Ali C. The terrorist cell later separated.

Prosecutors said Magomed-Ali C. and Clement B. were unaware of Amri's plans. Amri fled after the Christmas market attack to Italia, where he was shot and killed by police.

The charges against Magomed-Ali C come as a parliamentary probe is examining shortcomings in the investigation of the Berlin attack.

The interior ministry has come under fire for the hasty deportation of Tunisian Bilel Ben Ammar, who had dinner with Amri the night before the Christmas market attack and may have been in Nice around the time of the July 14, 2016 truck ramming in the French city that killed 86 people.
Link


Europe
Friend Of Berlin Truck Attacker In France During Nice Attack: Reports
2019-02-27
More leaking from the unknown, well-informed entity:
[DW] A friend of Anis Amri who was deported to his native Tunisia following the 2016 Berlin Christmas market attack may have been in Nice around the time of the Bastille Day truck attack, German media have reported.

According to a German criminal police document seen by the dpa news agency, Bilal Ben Ammar
...previously spelt Bilel Ben Ammar in our archive...
met with Anis Amri the night before he killed 12 people in a truck attack at Berlin's Breitscheidplatz on December 19, 2016.

Media outlets ARD, Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg (RBB) and the Berliner Morgenpost reported that Ammar may have also been in Nice around the time of the July 14, 2016 truck ramming attack that killed 86 people.

BOARDING PASS TO NICE
RBB presented a screenshot obtained from German police documents that showed Ammar had a boarding pass on his phone for a flight from Berlin to Nice dated July 6, 2016 — eight days before the Nice attack. The name on the boarding pass was an alias.

Ammar applied for asylum in Germany under different names and separately claimed to be from Morocco, Egypt and Libya.

Investigators found the boarding pass on Ammar's confiscated phone after he had already been deported to Tunisia, Amri's home country. Other photos on the phone showed Ammar in Paris with friends in the days before and after the Nice attack.

The Islamist attacker in Nice used a truck to run down people on Nice's beach boulevard and had scouted the area beforehand. Like Ammar and Amri, he was Tunisian.

It's unclear if Ammar had any contact with the Nice attacker, who is suspected of having had accomplices.

INVESTIGATION INTO LAPSES IN BERLIN ATTACK CASE
Ammar's hasty deportation from Germany has come under renewed scrutiny as a parliamentary inquiry examines shortcomings in the handling of Amri and the investigation into the Berlin attack.

Following his deportation, German police had zeroed in on Ammar as a potential terrorism suspect who may have been planning another attack.

There have also been media reports that Ammar worked for Moroccan intelligence, something German authorities have denied.
Link


Europe
'Terrorist Accomplice' In Anis Amri Berlin Attack Deported, According To Report
2019-02-26
[DW] Germany deported a key suspect in the 2016 Berlin Christmas market attack before he was questioned, according to leaked documents. But authorities denied reports that Bilel Ben Ammar worked for Moroccan intelligence.

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

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

Bilel Ben Ammar, himself considered a radical Islamist who was once believed to be planning a separate attack in Berlin, was an associate of Anis Amri,
...the very connected known wolf who’d been in and out of European prisons since arriving in 2011, then registered for asylum in 2015 under at least 14 names. When his asylum request was finally rejected, he decided to make the Germans pay before they got around to deporting him, after which he fled to the comforting arms of his fellows in Italy. Quite a few of his connections from Berlin's ISIS-linked "Fussilet" mosque and elsewhere were subsequently arrested as well...
the Tunisian man who drove a stolen truck into a crowded Christmas market in central Berlin. The attack killed 12 people, injuring 60 more, while Amri himself was killed by police a few days later in Italy.

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

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

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


Europe
Suspected terrorist surveillance detected at Stuttgart airport
2018-12-21
[BBC] Germany's biggest airports are on alert after four suspected terrorists were spotted staking out Stuttgart airport, reports say.

Police are said to be hunting for a son and father from North Rhine-Westphalia and two others seen taking photos of the airport's terminal and grounds. Details of the suspects were passed to German police by Morocco's secret service, reports say. This comes a week after a terror attack across the border in France.

Three people were killed by Cherif Chekatt near a Christmas Market in Strasbourg, which is some 150km (93 miles) from Stuttgart.

Police told public broadcaster ARD that security forces were on alert at German airports, while Bild website said warnings had been extended to all 14 major hubs.

'SPYING ATTEMPTS' DETECTED
Since the Strasbourg attack, suspicious activity had been spotted at both Stuttgart Airport and at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, public broadcaster SWR reported. The father and son were captured on surveillance cameras taking photos around the airport, but had disappeared by the time police arrived.

The Stuttgart airport suspects' names as well as details of their communications were reportedly given to police by intelligence officials in Morocco. German police would not confirm the reports, with spokesman Roman Strohmayer saying only "we have information that for the moment cannot yet be judged conclusively."

But, he told Bild website: "We have detected spying attempts at Stuttgart Airport and have massively tightened our security measures at the airport in cooperation with the state police. "

Germany was targeted just before Christmas in 2016, when Tunisian jihadist Anis Amri ploughed a lorry into a Christmas market in Berlin, killing 12 people and leaving dozens more wounded.
Link


Europe
Czech Prime Minister: ‘Illegal Immigration Is a Threat to European Civilisation’
2018-09-04
[BREITBART] Czech prime minister Andrej Babiš has condemned the past approach of Merkel’s Germany and the European Union
...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing...
to illegal immigration, branding it a "threat to European civilisation".

Andrej Babiš, a Slovak-origin populist and billionaire tycoon sometimes described as the ’Czech Trump’, told national television: "We do not want to live here in Africa or the Middle East. We have to stop [immigration from these places]."

He predicted that if immigration was not brought under control, public anger and disillusionment would grow, warning "Chemnitz is around the corner" ‐ a reference to the large-scale public protests against Germany’s migrant policy following the fatal stabbing of a local man, allegedly by a Syrian and an Iraqi with a string of previous convictions.

"We have 1.5 million illegal migrants colonists here. Our return policy is bad," added the ANO leader, referring to the EU’s weak record on returning bogus asylum seekers, including the aforementioned Iraqi in Chemnitz, and killers like Anis Amri, who should not have been in Germany at all when he drove a stolen lorry into a packed Christmas market, having lied about his nationality, used multiple false identities, and been scheduled for deportation but was not detained while it was arranged.

As the leader of one of the Visegrád group of Central European nations opposed to mass migration and multiculturalism, now allied with Austria’s new conservative-nationalist coalition government and Italia’s murderous Moslem populist coalition, Babiš was blunt on those Western European countries still pushing open borders policies.

"If they want to have more 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....
supporters in La Belle France, the Netherlands or Belgium than they have now, that’s up to them," he said.

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