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## Re: [CT] DISCUSSION GERMANY/CT-The Story Behind Germany's Terror Threat

Released on 2012-08-12 00:00 GMT

Email-ID | 1957039
Date | 2010-11-22 20:17:41
From | sean.noonan@stratfor.com
To | ct@stratfor.com, eurasia@stratfor.com
List-Name | ct@stratfor.com

Great work, Jaclyn
the other interesting issue here is the CI issue from the attacker's
perspective. They've gotta be hunting this "Nova" down, no matter how
accurate his story is.
On 11/22/10 1:16 PM, Sean Noonan wrote:
including Eurasia on this one.
Where else do germans get weapons?
On 11/22/10 1:13 PM, Ben West wrote:
Interesting parts I think are facts that balkan criminals were
implicated in smuggilng weapons and that Dawood Ibrahim was also
implicated. Lots of shady stuff comes out of the Balkans, so getting
weapons to Germany from there would be no easy task.
Also, I'm not sure what role Dawood would play in this scenario.
Remember Indian officials blamed him for working with naxalites a few
months back but didn't offer much evidence. He's an all around south
asian bogeyman - any reference to him sends a clear message that
somebody is up to no good.
On 11/22/2010 1:01 PM, Jaclyn Blumenfeld wrote:
Here are some of the thoughts and inconsistencies I found - I had
summarized the der spiegel to pick out the bits I found important
and added some info from other OS articles in blue.
-Call from abroad (likely Pakistan) from "Nova" a terrorist wanting
to surrender and return to his family in Germany
-now working with German Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) and
was reason behind threat increase on Wednesday, so far three calls
have taken place between "Nova" and BKA
-warned of small group attacking Reichstag on Monday and security
has since been increased, authorities are secretly monitoring
communications, conducting surveillance operations and launching
undercover investigations.
According to "NOVA":
-AQ and associate groups (Pakistan's Islamic Jihad Group) planning
together in Pakistan for attack(s) in Germany.
-One idea was to remotely detonate a bomb using a mobile phone.
Another called for a small group of terrorists to storm the
Reichstag with guns blazing, take hostages and end everything in one
calamitous bloodbath.
-Plan called for the terrorists to procure the submachine guns,
automatic rifles, explosives and whatever else they would need in
the Balkans.
-He said that two men had already traveled to Germany six to eight
weeks earlier, adding that one had the nom de guerre of "Abu
Mohammed" and that the other one was a German of Turkish origin
-Both apparently had roots in the Greater Berlin metropolitan area,
were currently unemployed and living off of welfare payments and had
immersed themselves in the anonymity provided by a major city --
until the time should come for their activation.
-Four others involved were waiting to travel to Germany at training
camps in Pakistan - including a German, a Turk, a North African and
another jihadist of unknown identity
-Attack slated for February or March (if German intel had this
knowledge why would they close the Reichstag today? are they sending
a statement to AQ and affiliate group that they are aware and ahead
of the planning?)
According to FBI (which was recieved shortly before the call from
"Nova" (there are some inconsistencies between the intelligence)
- FBI included warnings about the obscure Indian group "Saif" which
although Shiite had allegedly made pact with AQ and sent five men to
Pakistan for training - what the connection to the Germany plot not
specified - the 6 members described in the Reichstag plot were
described by caller as various nationalities - none Indian)
-FBI also shared that two members with visas allowing them to travel
freely in EU schengen zone were already enroute to Germany and would
enter via UAE on Nov 22 (compared to caller saying that two had
already entered two weeks prior - time gap - so maybe there are four
now in Germany unless FBI intel was outdated and the men came
earlier - or caller was not accurate?)
-FBI warnings claim the two in Germany were dispatched by Dawood
Ibrahim Kaskar, an Indian organised crime baron linked to al-Qaeda
based out of Karachi (this seems out of place - two mentions by the
FBI of an Indian connection)
-One of the men is supposedly named "Khan" (versus caller's info he
was named Abu Muhammed and the second guy was of Turkish descent -
Khan is not Turkish, Khan and Abu Muhammed could be the same guy
though)
Ben West wrote:
Europeans have still found a way to blame Americans for warnings
in the past.
And yes, something very well could be in the works, but given the
fact that jihadists constantly want to attack the west, is it
really at all significant that something is in the works?
I think we'd seen past plots with travel plans... I'd have to look
harder to get specifics, but I don't think that's all that novel.
Agree that the security officials are in a catch-22 situation.
On 11/22/2010 11:43 AM, Sean Noonan wrote:
There is a notable difference here. And that is the German
warning issued last week. It was based on their own
intelligence not American intelligence--so no blaming americans
this time. Yes, it's true that they don't have the capability
to attack the Reichstag, and theat the attack is not imminent,
as I pointed out. But on the other hand, like with cargo
parcels, it doesn't mean that something is not in the works.
Have we ever seen information this specific before on the
individuals and their travel plans?
This is the conundrum of warning intelligence, when the warning
is given (just to policymakers, or to the public), measures are
taken that prevent it. It then comes the boy-who-cried-wolf,
even if the warning was originally accurate.
Not to mention, given what happened with the last double agent
to become public (Khost), it will be interesting to follow this
one.
On 11/22/10 11:33 AM, Ben West wrote:
I agree that the spiegel article was good - but this is the
kind of thing we've seen over and over again in Europe. Source
from durkastan says that aq is going to target Europe and kill
lots of people and that attackers are en route. Everyone gets
freaked out. Nothing significant happens. Europe blames US of
scare mongering.
Certainly islamists have europe in their cross-hairs, but if
an attack is going to happen, it's not going be preceded by
this kind of publicity.
Also, attacking the reichstag? I mean, it's possible to ATTACK
it, but they've got a pretty heavy security presence there
that would prevent a hostage situation. I was there a few
years ago. The public entryway is confined to one doorway with
a heavy guard presence, metal detectors, x-ray machines, etc.
If anything, an attack could kill lots of tourists lined up
outside, but it would take a very serious force to be able to
gain entrance to the reichstag and an even more well trained
force to actually hold hostages. This sounds like a pipe-dream
to me.
On 11/22/2010 11:04 AM, Sean Noonan wrote:
thoughts?
On 11/22/10 11:00 AM, Marko Papic wrote:
It is up to you and CT how you approach this. On the
short-term, this looks like something you can handle
without me. If you want to dabble in the more long-term
view of what is going on here, I would love to help.
On 11/22/10 10:58 AM, Marko Papic wrote:
In the more long-term, I think an analysis of the German
intelligence agencies would be good too. They have been
pretty decimated by the Cold War and by all the problems
associated with running an intelligence agency in a
post-Gestapo country. If Germany is ever going to become
a world power again, however, they would need to
overcome these deamons as well. That is sort of the last
straw for Germany, the one that is going to be most
sensitive to overcome. But perhaps this case may
illustrate how they are already overcoming these issues.
On 11/22/10 10:50 AM, Sean Noonan wrote:
Main problem is that Der Spiegel is just that good,
they've at least touched on most of what I would want
to say about it. The main thing here is how the
politics of a terror threat/alert coincide with the
reality of the threat itself.
We saw that Germany was fairly relaxed bout the
earlier threat in Europe released by the US. I'm not
sure if that was the same as the info that the FBI
passed over about this shia group, Saif (I don't know
anything about them). But something changed, as we
noted last week in their interpretation. That seems
to go down to this virtual walk-in. The one thing I
was left confused about is whether BKA had ever been
in contact with this source before. It sounds like he
cold called them. It's common knowledge that
walk-ins, rather than recruits, are nearly always the
best sources. But at the same time, they are very
suspicious as double agents. If this was a US source
they would be freaking the fuck out after having
Al-Balawi turn on them. The germans seem to have
cooler heads, but they will be working 24/7 to verify
the source (let me make another plug for John
Lecarre's A Most Wanted Man here, most of his career
was in Germany).
They've clearly got enough corroborating information
that they consider this a real threat. But
politically they are faced with the universal 'damned
if you do, damned if you don't' alert problem. If the
Interior ministry doesn't say something, they will be
liable if an attack occurs. Look at the constant
press over information on the warning intelligence for
Mumbai. As we've said before, simply issuing the
warning may help to deter the attackers.
The real important bit here, is that it seems the
germans have fairly good intelligence. While this
attack is still not happening tomorrow, they have a
lot of details about what might be in the works,
rather than a single-source intercept that indicates
some vague threat. It seems they've increased
security pretty well at the Bundestag, and want to add
to the presence at any possible target. This is where
we seem them scrambling, and where their intelligence
holes are.
The task now for the germans is to verify this
source. Maybe even pick him up and put him on ice
somewhere (Fred/Stick?), not in GErmany but in
Pakistan/Afghanistan. That will require some
cooperation with either/both the Americans and
Pakistanis. They also need to verify all the bio
information they have on these 4-6 guys trying to get
into germany and watch travelers very carefully. The
germans seem to be very good at surveilling these
threats within Germany, so their best luck may come
when one of the guys overseas contacts a local already
under surveillance.
At minimum, this could be a pretty interesting
tearline this week. Both the walk-in issues and the
CIA/FBI liaison conflicts that I havne't gotten into
here.
On 11/22/10 10:34 AM, Marko Papic wrote:
Any thoughts on where you guys are thinking of going
with this?
Der Spiegel article is indeed interesting.
On 11/22/10 9:28 AM, Sean Noonan wrote:
Great report from Der Spiegel (thanks Mikey). I
suggest anyone interested to read the whole
thing. They ask the right questions, and while
not as much detail as I hoped, give us a much
better understanding on the threat in Germany.
The BKA (germany's FBI) must be extremely busy
verifying the details of this virtual walk-in. It
obviously caused the germans to shit their pants.
But the real questions are buried in the
article---how real was this plot, how real is the
source, is the source just trying to get back to
the land of brezeln and bier? Trying to
double-cross them somehow?
Also note the tip off from the FBI (cue fred), not
the usual CIA liaison with BND.
For Eurasia, there's a lot in here on the internal
politics of the interior minister position, and
the relation between state and federal
government.
On 11/22/10 8:55 AM, Michael Wilson wrote:
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [OS] GERMANY/CT-The Story Behind
Germany's Terror Threat
Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2010 08:38:21 -0600
From: Graham Smith
<graham.smith@stratfor.com>
Reply-To: The OS List <os@stratfor.com>
To: os@stratfor.com
11/22/2010 11:38 AM
Fears of a Mumbai Redux
The Story Behind Germany's Terror Threat
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,730377,00.html
By Matthias Bartsch, Yassin Musharbash and
Holger Stark
Germany is currently in a state of high alert.
Security officials are warning that they have
concrete information pointing to a possible
terror attack on the federal parliament building
in Berlin, a massively popular tourist
attraction. The days of Interior Minister Thomas
de Maiziere's reserved stances in dealing with
such warnings appear to be over.
The call came from abroad, and the man speaking
hurriedly on the other end of the line sounded
as if he feared for his life. He wanted out, he
told the officers of the German Federal Criminal
Police Office (BKA) -- out of the terrorist
scene. He wanted to come back to Germany, back
to his family. Then he asked if German officials
could help him.
Right now, they're trying to do just that. The
BKA is pursuing the case under the codename
"Nova." The apparently remorseful man could be
an important possible whistleblower from a
dangerous region of the globe. In fact, he is
also the most recent reason why German Interior
Minister Thomas de Maiziere put the entire
country in a state of fright on Wednesday.
During a hastily called press conference that
day, de Maiziere stated that Germany faced the
threat of terrorist attacks that might be
launched against the country at some point in
November. As he put it, Germany is "presently
dealing with a new situation."
Just two days earlier, the source had called for
the third time in just a short period and
provided more information. He told officials
that a small group of terrorists wanted to
conduct a raid on the Reichstag building in
Berlin, which houses the federal parliament, and
that that was only one of the targets included
in their attack plans.
Germany on High Alert
Since then, Germany has been in a state of high
alert. The Reichstag is surrounded with
barricades and its popular cupola tourist
attraction temporarily closed to visitors.
Police armed with submachine guns are patrolling
major railway stations and airports. And
vacations have been called off for officials at
the country's security agencies. Wherever they
have cause for doing so, the authorities are
secretly monitoring communications, conducting
surveillance operations and launching undercover
investigations. At the moment, investigators
seem to be at a loss; their modus operandi:
"We'll prod the shrubs and see if we can flush
out any birds."
"There is cause for worry, but no cause for
hysteria," de Maiziere assured his listeners.
But while he has never been much of an agitator,
his colleagues at the state level have described
the situation in much more drastic terms. Uwe
Schu:nemann, for example, who has been the
interior minister of the northwestern state of
Lower Saxony since 2003, stated that he had
"never experienced a heightened security
situation like this one." And Berlin Senator for
the Interior Ehrhart Ko:rting, whose position is
tantamount to that of a government minister in
the city-state, has already even gone so far as
to call on the inhabitants of the German capital
city to report suspicious-looking individuals of
Arab origin to the police. "If you suddenly see
three somewhat strange-looking men who are new
to your neighborhood, who hide their faces and
who only speak Arabic," Ko:rting said, "you
should report them to the authorities."
Under heightened pressure, officials in
Germany's 16 federal states are now checking to
see when and where major events are scheduled to
take place this coming week within their
boundaries. And nothing suggested as a possible
target is being discounted, no matter how
unlikely. For example, officials in
Rhineland-Palatinate warned the state's interior
minister, Karl Peter Burch, that there was
always a lot going on at IKEA stores on
Saturdays.[WTF]
Serenity, Scaremongering and Strategy
Since last week, German politicians at both the
state and federal levels have once again had to
figure out how they will handle themselves when
making warnings about terrorist attacks. They
have had to come up with a language that can
simultaneously convey both an alert and a sense
of calm.
This is no easy task. For one thing, this isn't
the first time this has happened. In September
2009, for example, right before federal
elections were held, there were concrete threats
that resulted in a heightened security
situation. But, in the end, nothing happened.
This time around, people are wondering whether
they are on the precipice of an emergency or
whether these are once again empty threats.
Still, one thing is certain: For the time being,
Germany has become a different country -- more
nervous, more anxious, more agitated. And
Germany's domestic security policies are being
put to the test.
When Interior Minister de Maiziere assumed his
office in October 2009 in conservative
Chancellor Angela Merkel's government, he aimed
to cool down the heated sense of alarm regularly
fanned out by his predecessors. What's more, the
man who had served as Merkel's chief of staff in
Chancellery until being moved to the role of
interior minister in her new government, was
given the task of nurturing a more relaxed
relationship between her party, the Christian
Democratic Union (CDU), and its new coalition
partner, the business-friendly Free Democratic
Party (FDP). In particular, it was his job to
not draw out the long-standing conflict over
domestic security policies with the Justice
Ministry, which has been led since the 2009
election by Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger,
a member of the FDP. Indeed, Merkel feared that
the quarrelsome FDP might try to capitalize on
the issue to win over more voters, so she
assigned de Maiziere to prevent that from
happening.
In fact, the plan was to repeat the same
strategy that the CDU and its Bavarian sister
party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), had
used when they were in the so-called "grand
coalition" with the center-left Social
Democratic Party, between 2005 and 2009. At the
time, they made a point of undermining the SPD
by championing what had traditionally been the
latter party's issues.
A Game-Changer
But now the game plan has changed. This November
will drastically alter de Maiziere's
understanding of his role in office. If he tries
to return things to their previous state of
calm, he's going to have a very tough time. In
fact, it's much more likely that he will be a
completely different interior minister.
For a while now, de Maiziere's softer stance has
prompted opposition by politicians on the right
involved with domestic security issues. But they
are now calling louder than ever for a tougher
course to be followed. Merkel is also adjusting
to the new situation and is reportedly happy
with the way de Maiziere handled himself last
week. Likewise, no one seems to have voiced any
criticism last Thursday evening during a meeting
of the Coalition Committee, a regular gathering
of the parties that are part of the government.
The almost complete lack of protest has a lot to
do with where the alarming information is coming
from. In fact, information regarding the
supposedly imminent attacks has come from two
independent sources. Shortly before receiving
the telephone call about the planned attacks,
BKA officials had received a cable from their
American counterparts at the FBI, America's
federal police force, warning of possible
attacks.
Still, what truth is there in these
"security-related" pieces of information coming
from both domestic and foreign sources? And,
given all the discrepancies in the warning
messages, just how much do they deserve to be
trusted? Indeed, even among security officials
themselves, there is some doubt about how
legitimate these statements are -- and about
just how acute the danger threatening Germany
really is.
An Attack Modelled after Mumbai[plot details in
this section]
What the caller reported was undeniably
alarming. According to him, al-Qaida and
associated groups based in Pakistan were making
joint preparations for an attack in Germany. One
idea was to remotely detonate a bomb using a
mobile phone. Another called for a small group
of terrorists to storm the Reichstag with guns
blazing, take hostages and end everything in one
calamitous bloodbath. Indeed, BKA officials
learned that the latter plan had been modeled on
the storming of luxury hotels in Mumbai, the
Indian capital, almost exactly two years ago, in
a massacre that left 175 people dead.
According to the caller, the plan called for the
terrorists to procure the submachine guns,
automatic rifles, explosives and whatever else
they would need to storm Germany's parliament
building in the Balkans. He said that two men
had already traveled to Germany six to eight
weeks earlier, adding that one had the nom de
guerre of "Abu Mohammed" and that the other one
was a German of Turkish origin. Both apparently
had roots in the Greater Berlin metropolitan
area, were currently unemployed and living off
of welfare payments and had immersed themselves
in the anonymity provided by a major city --
until the time should come for their activation.
Likewise, there were allegedly four other
volunteers -- including a German, a Turk, a
North African and another jihadist of unknown
identity -- in the training camps run by
al-Qaida and related groups waiting for the
signal to travel to Germany. And, according to
the telephone source, al-Qaida's plan was to
attack in February or March.
The only question now relates to just how
credible the caller's statements are. He is an
insider who joined up with armed groups several
months ago and has earned a reputation as a
fanatic fighter.
But could it be that he is only trying to tell
German officials the juiciest things possible in
order to raise his own market value and thereby
prompt them to extract him from the terror
scene? Or could it be that al-Qaida is even
planning a second spectacular coup like the one
in December 2009, when the Americans allowed a
supposedly top-level turncoat onto an American
military base without any sort of pat-down, who
went on to detonate his explosive vest and blow
seven CIA officials to bits?
A Strange Message
A clear picture has yet to emerge. And one
reason for this is also the fact that it was
only two weeks ago that the FBI first decided to
share information about another possible attack
with German officials.
In this case, even the way contact was made was
unusual. Under normal circumstances, liaisons
from the CIA station in Germany are the ones to
communicate American warnings to their German
counterparts. But, this time around, it was an
apparently particularly anxious FBI that chose
to directly notify the BKA.
The FBI told the Germans about an obscure Indian
group called "Saif," or "sword." Despite being a
Shiite group, it had allegedly made a pact with
al-Qaida, a Sunni organization, and sent five of
its men to the Pakistani province of Waziristan
for training. According to the FBI, two
volunteers -- who were already equipped with
visas allowing them to travel freely within the
25 European countries belonging to the Schengen
zone -- were supposedly already en route to
Germany and would enter the United Arab Emirates
on Monday, Nov. 22. There, they would allegedly
be provided with new travel documents before
traveling on to Germany. One of the men is
supposedly named "Khan," which is about as
common in that part of the world as "Smith" is
in English-speaking countries. And no firm
conclusion had been made about their
nationalities.
The FBI agents even named the presumed
masterminds behind the operation. A certain
Mushtaq Altaf Bin-Khadri, who is in charge of
finances and training for "Saif," allegedly
dispatched the terrorist squad. But the FBI was
not in a position to comment on the targets of
the two men in Germany.
One name came up time and again in the
communique, and one that pricked the Germans'
ears: Dawood Ibrahim. The 54-year-old arms
trader is "India's most-wanted man." The US
government has listed him as a "global
terrorist" and persuaded the United Nations to
place his name on a list of supporters of
terror. Ibrahim is rumored to be the head of
D-Company, a criminal syndicate named after
himself, and is believed to be in charge of
smuggling the suspected terrorists into Germany.
Both the FBI and the BKA are attaching a lot of
importance to the information in the FBI
communique. But the intelligence services of the
two countries -- the CIA in the United States
and the BND and Office for the Protection of the
Constitution in Germany, the country's foreign
and domestic intelligence agencies, respectively
-- point to internal contradictions as reasons
for their skepticism. As they see it, for
example, it is highly unlikely that a Shiite
group would team up with Sunni terrorists,
especially since a good part of al-Qaida
propaganda vilifies Shiites. Other reasons for
doubt include the facts that none of the
intelligence agencies was previously familiar
with an organization called "Saif," that there
have been no previously recorded threats against
Germany by Indian extremists, and that the whole
scenario seems rather implausible.
On the other hand, the FBI information is
uncommonly concrete. In addition to the names of
the suspects, it also provides information about
the exact day on which they are supposed to
arrive in the United Arab Emirates. Moreover,
Ibrahim is believed to be one of the men behind
the terror attacks in Mumbai. If he really is
involved, that alone would be reason enough for
worry.
Abnormal Circumstances
Under normal circumstances, a message of this
kind from the United States would no doubt be
cause for serious-minded scrutiny, but it would
not be a cause for alarm. For example, the BKA
would go through all recent visa applications,
and federal police officers would take a closer
look at all the people entering Germany from
Arab states. And the intelligence services would
make the rounds to see if any of its partners
had any helpful information on the matter.
Indeed, under normal circumstances, there are
always a lot of these communiques, most of which
turn out to be false alarms. But these are no
normal circumstances. Germany is in a state of
emergency. Other countries, such as the United
States, employ a system of official warning
levels based on color codes that change -- from
yellow to orange, for example -- when the danger
level is thought to increase. But, in Germany,
the interior minister is the barometer: He
consults with experts -- and then it is he who
must call the shots.
For the minister, a situation like this presents
a dilemma. If he remains silent and something
happens, he's a failure. If he makes loud
warning and nothing happens, he's just a
rabble-rouser trying to push through
controversial tougher security laws. And, of
course, the public never thanks you if everyday
life continues in a normal, peaceful way.
Absolute Security Remains a Pipe Dream
When de Maiziere became Germany's interior
minister, he had planned to lead the ministry in
a level-headed way. For example, he prefers to
use phrases such as "internal calm" rather than
"internal security." And it was only six weeks
ago that he uttered the sentence: "There's no
cause for alarm." But, since then, the chorus of
warning voices has only ballooned in size.
This change in course is the combined result of
everything that happened beforehand. It might
very well turn out that the alleged Indian
terror squad stays home and that the raid on the
Reichstag never happens. But what will remain is
a well-founded supposition that there is a
critical mass of terrorists in the border region
between Afghanistan and Pakistan that is
thinking about launching attacks in Europe --
and certainly in Germany, as well.
Raw Nerves
Given such circumstances, there is a major sense
of alarm among German officials. Last Thursday,
just a day after de Maiziere's shocking press
conference, the BKA issued a press release "in
connection with the current high-risk
situation." It reported that a piece of
suspicious luggage had been discovered a day
earlier in Windhoek, the capital of Namibia,
before being loaded onto a plane bound for
Germany. The laptop bag contained batteries,
wires, a detonator and a clock -- in other
words, all the ingredients you need for a
potential airborne catastrophe.
It sounded as if another terror plot had been
foiled. Had there been a plan to blow up Air
Berlin Flight 7377 en route to Munich? And had
the authorities, yet again, discovered an
explosive device at the last minute? In the end,
all the worry was unfounded. As it turned out,
the piece of luggage was a test device built by
a company that designs "real test" suitcases to
be used to test security measures. It remains
unclear who checked the bag in. But the fact
that the BKA was so quick to go into alarm mode
-- and publicly so -- has been a communications
debacle.
Of course, these days, nobody wants to be the
one that wasn't sufficiently circumspect, the
one who took too long to speak up. No one wants
a replay of situations like the one from the
beginning of November, when de Maiziere didn't
know for hours whether the package that had
arrived at the Chancellery contained actual
explosives or was just a false alarm. Now, the
threshold for sounding the alarm is already much
lower.
Bonded by Fear
Of course, you can never be too sure. Over the
last 12 months, a series of attacks concocted in
the Afghan-Pakistani border region have been
foiled in the West. For example, in May, a car
bomb set in New York's Times Square by a man
with ties to the Pakistani Taliban failed to
properly detonate. In Copenhagen, al-Qaida had
made plans to storm the offices of the
Jyllands-Posten newspaper as revenge for its
2005 publishing of caricatures of the Prophet
Muhammad. In October 2009, David Headley, an
American citizen with Pakistani roots, was
arrested after having already visited the
newspaper's offices in order to scout them out
before the planned attack. Other targets
reportedly included the subway systems of New
York City and Washington.
On the other hand, absolute security is a pipe
dream. For example, British authorities had even
conducted rehearsals for how to respond to
possible attacks. But, even so, when attacks
claiming 56 lives (including those of four
attackers) did strike London, on July 7, 2005,
they were unable to prevent them. Likewise, US
intelligence services had warned India a number
of times that terrorists were planning attacks
in Mumbai.
The new situation in Germany has at least had
one positive side effect: For the time being,
the traditionally quarrelsome interior ministers
from both the state and the federal levels have
refrained from their usual bickering. Following
informal talks held last Thursday in Hamburg,
Minister Bruch of Rhineland-Palatinate noted
that he had "never experienced such harmony
within this group" that has apparently been
bonded together by their shared fear.
Translated from the German by Josh Ward
--
Sean Noonan
Tactical Analyst
Office: +1 512-279-9479
Mobile: +1 512-758-5967
Strategic Forecasting, Inc.
www.stratfor.com
--
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Marko Papic
Geopol Analyst - Eurasia
STRATFOR
700 Lavaca Street - 900
Austin, Texas
78701 USA
P: + 1-512-744-4094
marko.papic@stratfor.com
--
Sean Noonan
Tactical Analyst
Office: +1 512-279-9479
Mobile: +1 512-758-5967
Strategic Forecasting, Inc.
www.stratfor.com
--
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Marko Papic
Geopol Analyst - Eurasia
STRATFOR
700 Lavaca Street - 900
Austin, Texas
78701 USA
P: + 1-512-744-4094
marko.papic@stratfor.com
--
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Marko Papic
Geopol Analyst - Eurasia
STRATFOR
700 Lavaca Street - 900
Austin, Texas
78701 USA
P: + 1-512-744-4094
marko.papic@stratfor.com
--
Sean Noonan
Tactical Analyst
Office: +1 512-279-9479
Mobile: +1 512-758-5967
Strategic Forecasting, Inc.
www.stratfor.com
--
Ben West
Tactical Analyst
STRATFOR
Austin, TX
--
Sean Noonan
Tactical Analyst
Office: +1 512-279-9479
Mobile: +1 512-758-5967
Strategic Forecasting, Inc.
www.stratfor.com
--
Ben West
Tactical Analyst
STRATFOR
Austin, TX
--
Ben West
Tactical Analyst
STRATFOR
Austin, TX
--
Sean Noonan
Tactical Analyst
Office: +1 512-279-9479
Mobile: +1 512-758-5967
Strategic Forecasting, Inc.
www.stratfor.com
--
Sean Noonan
Tactical Analyst
Office: +1 512-279-9479
Mobile: +1 512-758-5967
Strategic Forecasting, Inc.
www.stratfor.com