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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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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

US to send info on 9/11 perps to Germany

2005-05-14

U.S. authorities have sent a German court new evidence for the retrial of the first September 11 terror attack suspect convicted, a court official said yesterday. The Hamburg state court has received six pages of summaries from the interrogations of two captured al Qaeda suspects, Ramzi Binalshibh and Mohamedou Ould Slahi, said Sabine Westphalen, a court spokeswoman. She refused to comment on the contents, saying that the evidence must be translated into German before being read in court on May 24. The summaries came with a letter from the German Justice Ministry saying that U.S. authorities "consider the matter closed," Miss Westphalen said -- indicating that Washington does not intend to provide further evidence or witness testimony in the retrial of Mounir el Motassadeq. The 31-year-old Moroccan is being retried on more than 3,000 counts of accessory to murder and membership in a terrorist organization on suspicion he provided logistical support for the September 11 suicide hijackers Mohamed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi and Ziad Samir Jarrah. He was convicted in 2003 on the same charges and sentenced to the maximum 15 years, but an appeals court threw out the conviction last year and ordered a retrial. It ruled that he had been unfairly denied testimony by key al Qaeda suspects in U.S. custody. The Hamburg court has for months pushed for further information from Washington, and the German government has said Homeland Security adviser Frances Townsend told German Interior Minister Otto Schily when he visited Washington in February that the U.S. would send more documents. When Motassadeq's retrial opened in August, the Justice Department had supplied summaries of the interrogations of Binalshibh -- a Yemeni believed to have acted as al Qaeda's liaison with the Hamburg cell -- and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, thought to have masterminded the attacks. A Mauritanian, Ould Slahi, is suspected to have been an al Qaeda contact in Germany. An FBI agent was also sent along with a member of the September 11 commission to testify in the Hamburg court. Motassadeq has said he was close friends with Atta and others in the group, but did not know they planned to attack the United States. That assertion was backed by Binalshibh and Mohammed in the transcripts provided last year, but the Justice Department cited "inconsistencies by at least one of the individuals" and cautioned that they may have been trying "to influence as well as inform."

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Europe

Germany shuts down Islamist newspaper

2005-02-26

Germany closed down on Friday a Turkish-language Islamist daily newspaper that has denied the Holocaust. Interior Minister Otto Schily put a banning order on the Yeni Akit publishing house, which brings out the European edition of Anadoluda Vakit. The title means "the times in Anatolia". Prosecutors have been collecting evidence against the newspaper for months. The Interior Ministry in Berlin said the closure was ordered because Vakit had incited to ethnic hate. The newspaper had attacked Israel, Jews in general and the fundamentals of western society. Schily said Friday officials had impounded property as well as evidence at the company's offices in a southern Frankfurt suburb. Despite warnings, the newspaper recently ran a letter headed "Hitler was right". In December last year, a member of parliament held up an issue that claimed "There Was No Holocaust" and appealed to the government to ban the paper. Vakit's publishers have said in the past that the paper has a daily circulation of 10,000. Hesse state's office for the protection of the constitution says the paper appears to be associated with the Milli Gorus movement of Turkey and carries its advertisements. Holocaust denial and incitement to racial hatred are both crimes under the German criminal code.

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Europe

Europeans urge swifter anti-terrorism response

2004-11-04

European investigators need sharper tools and better intelligence-sharing to be able to intercept suspected terrorists faster, French and German officials said Thursday. "We must act in real time," French investigating magistrate Jean-Louis Bruguiere told a terrorism conference in the German city of Wiesbaden. "Very often it takes much too long for appropriate action to be taken. We must position ourselves so a house search can be carried out within the hour." Europe has been seeking ways of sharpening anti-terrorism cooperation since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 in the United States, a task made still more urgent after suspected al Qaeda-linked bombers killed 191 people in Madrid in March. But it has been hampered partly by the reluctance of security services to circulate intelligence information in a European Union of 25 countries for fear of compromising sources. "We cannot deal with this threat on a local or national level ... It's about pooling and sharing intelligence on a cross-agency basis," Bruguiere said. Agencies like the EU police body Europol -- had "not reached their full potential yet," he added. In Germany, the biggest EU member, reform of the security services has been complicated by tensions between the federal government and the 16 states, each of which has its own police and intelligence services. Interior Minister Otto Schily, addressing the conference on Tuesday, said he was confident of forcing through constitutional changes to give the Federal Crime Office -- the Bundeskriminalamt or BKA -- more "preventive powers," for example to tap suspects' telephones. BKA chief Joerg Ziercke voiced frustration with the current situation where the agency is often forced to take a back seat to police forces in the federal states. "If we receive highly sensitive threat information, we don't want to get into long discussions with the states on whether they have the resources to launch surveillance if I have the resources to do that myself," he told journalists. In a drive to improve coordination between the federal police and intelligence services, the government is moving their headquarters to Berlin and setting up a joint database into which they can pool information on Islamist suspects. But this too is controversial, both with Germany's more than 3 million Muslims and with privacy watchdogs. Federal Data Protection Commissioner Peter Schaar told the conference Muslims considered to be "extremists" must not be listed in such a database unless there was concrete evidence of links to terrorism. Top intelligence officials countered that view, saying suspects could always be removed later if terrorist involvement was ruled out. "We shouldn't let (militants) exploit our freedom and data protection rules," said Ruediger von Fritsch, deputy head of the foreign intelligence agency.

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Europe

Al-Ahram Smear of German Who Understands Evil Islam

2004-09-26

Al-Ahram, Cairo, Egypt Most Arabs and Muslims in Germany are all too aware of the record of German Interior Minister Otto Schily. In particular, they know him for the barrage of vitriol he often unleashes against Islam, against Arabs in general, and Palestinians in particular. So for them, Schily's recent statements in Israel will have come as no surprise. The German minister bluntly defended the apartheid wall being built by Ariel Sharon's extreme rightwing government, and proceeded to declare that Islamic terror is now the greatest danger to the "civilised" world. Islam is terror; Muslims are terrorists Schily was in Israel last week to attend a conference on terror marking the third anniversary of 9/11. One could view his remarks as simply a nod to the occasion, but the man's record suggests otherwise. He should have brought a few missles with him, to help the IDF go to town on the Pale-slime. For Schily often goes beyond the official view of his government in defending Israel's violations of international law and its continued aggression against the Palestinian people. Not content with denouncing Islamist terror, he goes on to slander Islam as a religion. But although he seems to live in a black-and-white moral world, there is a little-known puzzle hidden in Schily's past. In his youth, Schily acted as the defence lawyer for a number of major German terrorists, and in particular, for the members of the dreaded Baader-Meinhof group. Smear! Mudsling! Invective! Innuendo! One cannot blame Schily for having been an extreme leftist in his youth. The minister began his political life as a Trotskyite, before moving on to the Green Party. He then left the Greens for the Socialist Party. All of these transitions are quite normal in themselves. One does not necessarily have to see Schily's past career as an extended exercise in opportunism -- people change their minds all the time... ...and his next plans are to move to Orange County, Cal, and wait for Arnold to retire, yada, yada, yada, ad nauseum. NUKE MECCA!

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Europe

Germany to Stop Islamic Conference

2004-09-15

The German government said on Wednesday it would try to stop an "Arab Islamic Congress" taking place in Berlin next month to rally support for "resistance and intifada" in Iraq and Israel. "I will do everything I can to make sure that such a conference does not take place," Interior Minister Otto Schily told reporters. He said the government believed the event, announced on the Internet (http://www.anamoqawem.org/berlincall.htm) and planned for Oct. 1-3, was a threat to security and public order. Schily said he would coordinate with the foreign ministry to try to stop would-be participants entering the country. Organisers have confirmed their plans for the event but have not said where in Berlin they intend to hold it. On their Web site, they urge Iraqi and Palestinian resistance and advocate "the liberation of all the occupied territories and countries in (the) struggle against the American-Zionist hegemony and occupation". In a letter to Schily, the Simon Wiesenthal Centre described the planned meeting as "a political platform for radical Jihad and a market for potential European youth recruits to the ranks of terrorism". The centre -- an international Jewish human rights group best known for tracking down former Nazis -- urged the minister to stop the meeting, investigate its organisers and ban foreign participants from entering Germany.

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Europe

Moroccan faces German retrial for 9/11 attacks

2004-08-09

A Moroccan man accused of helping to plot the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States goes on trial for the second time in Germany this week. But the retrial of Mounir el Motassadeq on conspiracy and terrorism charges, which starts on Tuesday, is already threatened by disagreements with the United States over evidence from a leading Al Qaeda figure currently in American custody. Motassadeq was the first person convicted in connection with the 2001 attacks and was sentenced to 15 years' jail in 2003. But he won an appeal in March this year and was freed the following month pending a new trial -- sparking anger in Washington, which called him "dangerous". Germany has been pressing the US to let judges question Ramzi bin al-Shaibah -- a leading Al Qaeda figure captured in Pakistan in 2002 who is thought to have masterminded the Sept. 11 attacks -- or to allow transcripts of his interrogation to be used at the retrial. Washington has so far resisted on security grounds. As well as evidence from bin al-Shaibah, Germany has asked for testimony, either directly or in writing, from another top Al Qaeda figure, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and suspected Sept. 11 plotter Zacarias Moussaoui, former CIA head George Tenet and FBI Special Agent Matthew Walsh, a court spokeswoman said. So far, however, the requests as well as a list of questions Germany would like put to bin al-Shaibah have gone unanswered. It is unclear whether a response will come before the end of the trial. "There has been no answer, we must wait and see what reaction comes from the United States," the spokeswoman said. Motassadeq's lawyer has said he would challenge any evidence from bin al-Shaibah on the grounds that it may have been gained through the use of torture. Hamburg became one of the main focuses of investigations into the Sept. 11 hijack attacks after it emerged that several of the plotters had lived in the northern port city. But prosecutors have faced mounting criticism after their failure to secure a conviction against Motassadeq or fellow-Moroccan Abdelghani Mzoudi, who was acquitted of similar charges in February and now faces an appeal by prosecutors. The two were part of a circle of Arab students living in Hamburg which included three of the Sept. 11 hijackers and bin al-Shaibah, who has boasted of his role in masterminding the strike on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001. Federal Prosecutor Kay Nehm travelled to the US in April to request help from authorities there but has been heavily criticised for not pursuing the investigation against suspected Sept. 11 plotters vigorously enough. According to the influential news weekly Der Spiegel, the government has become increasingly concerned about the handling of the case and Interior Minister Otto Schily has pushed vigorously for tougher controls on militant suspects. Whatever the final result of both cases, the government considers both Motassadeq and Mzoudi pose a particular threat to Germany and has served deportation orders that would come into effect at the end of the criminal cases, subject to appeal.

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Europe

Muslims Alarmed as Germany Plans Islamist Database

2004-07-08

Germany said Thursday it would create a central database on suspected radical Islamists, provoking concern from the country’s large Muslim community. Interior Minister Otto Schily also announced plans to boost the fight against terrorism by pooling intelligence from the three national security agencies in a new joint analysis center. The moves, announced after two days of talks between Schily and interior ministers from the 16 states or ’Laender’, are designed to strengthen Germany’s defenses against terrorism by making its complex security structure work more efficiently. Germany has stepped up its guard against radical Islamists since 2001, when three of the suicide hijackers involved in the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States turned out to be Arab students from Hamburg. Authorities are investigating about 150 cases involving alleged Islamic militants, and have conducted several prominent trials. But a Muslim leader, reacting to news of the database, said innocent Muslims risked falling under suspicion unless the term ’Islamist’ was properly defined. "When you speak about Islamism, you have to clarify what you mean by it. We are concerned that every Muslim could fall under this catch-all term, which is unacceptable," said Nadeem Elyas, chairman of the Central Council of Muslims in Germany. "We’re worried that people may be caught up arbitrarily who have nothing to do with terrorism. By arbitrarily, I mean at the discretion of officials or authorities, which would be a violation of data protection rules." Of course, no such "discretion" is employed by jihadist imams as they advocate wholesale slaughter of innocent Westerners. However, all of us must walk on eggshells for fear of offending Muslim sensibilities. Perish the thought that Islam might become identified with terrorism in general. A spokesman for the federal data protection commissioner said it was important to establish clear rules on who could enter or view data on suspects, and how long entries would be held in the system. Because of its historic experience of Nazi and Communist dictatorship, Germany has strict rules on data protection and on separating the functions of the police and the intelligence services. With its federal structure, it also has more than 30 bodies responsible for security -- a federal crime office and two spy agencies, plus police and domestic intelligence services in every state. To avoid duplication and the risk of vital information falling between the cracks, Schily last month proposed bringing the state services under the direct control of their federal equivalents. But the idea has been vigorously resisted by interior ministers in the 16 Laender. The national police union said it was baffling to ordinary Germans why such questions were still being ponderously thrashed out nearly three years after Sept. 11. "One can only hope that international terrorism will show due consideration for German thoroughness," it said in a statement. Germany was pretty thorough in how they attempted to thwart the liberation of Iraq. Doesn’t that count for something back in Mecca?

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