Perpetrator of Terrorist attack at Brussels Jewish museum an ex Syria Jihadi?

Perpetrator of Terrorist attack at Brussels Jewish museum an ex Syria Jihadi? (HLN.be).
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Safety Specialists agree Shooter of the Jewish museum in Brussels are  to be sought in the environment of Syria Warriors. The perpetrator was very well trained and acted coldblooded. 

Update: Jewish Museum shooting suspect ex Syrian Jihadi released.

The man was arrested yesterday by the federal prosecutor in another terrorism case. In the case of the attack on the Jewish Museum, the investigators keep all avenues open and they will include whether there found no evidence in the current files are.

The man who was arrested yesterday would be an ex Syrian Jihadi . During his interrogation, in addition to the offenses for which he was arrested, the attack at the Jewish Museum were addressed because there are certain similarities between his profile and that of the perpetrator.

According to the federal prosecutor, the man could not be linked to the events of Saturday.

Hmmmm.......Which means that they’re looking for an ex Syrian jihadi

Germany - 40 cases of ammunition stolen at 'Bundeswehr' , largest theft in 30 years.

Germany - Largest ammunition theft at 'Bundeswehr' for 30 years.(Welt). HT: TundraTabloids.

From the paratrooper barracks in Seedorf 32,981 cartridges were stolen.

A secret report reveals now: The Bundeswehr ignored safety recommendations of the MAD – simply for cost reasons. From Thorsten Jungholt

The deed was done in the early morning hours of 7 February. Sometime between 4.30 und 7 clock clock stole Unknown 32,981 cartridges of various calibers from the Paratrooper barracks in Lower Saxony Seedorf.Appreciated are the approximately 40 cases of ammunition, weighing up to 600 kilograms. In the Berlin Defence Ministry declares an ammunition theft of this magnitude had not occurred in the army for 30 years.

An unfortunate individual case, then? Not at all. The embarrassing mishap is rather a renewed proof of serious safety deficiencies in the German barracks . The armed forces will in future take greater responsibility in the world according to the will of the government, are not even able to protect their own properties reliably. Between 2003 and 2013 poorly guarded military bases to the scene of all possible offenses were: Knowledgeable files are 524 burglaries, 294 property damage, 55 arsons and 460 thefts, including 14 Munitions and 30 stolen firearms.

More here.

West to Syrian Opposition: Assad to Stay following Peace Conference.

West to Syrian Opposition: Assad to Stay following Peace Conference.(Jpost).

The Western countries have signaled to the foreign-backed Syrian opposition that President Bashar al-Assad may stay in power following the international conference aimed at ending the Syri”Friends of Syria” meeting in Londonan conflict, a report said.

Reuters news agency reported that a message was delivered to senior members of the Syrian National Coalition at a meeting of the so-called Friends of Syria alliance in London last week.

Sources told the agency that this message was prompted by rise of al Qaeda and other militant groups, and their takeover of a border crossing and arms depots near Turkey belonging to the ‘moderate’ Free Syrian Army.

“Our Western friends made it clear in London that Assad cannot be allowed to go now because they think chaos and an Islamist militant takeover would ensue,” Reuters quoted one senior member of the Coalition who is close to officials from Saudi Arabia as saying.

Noting the possibility of Assad holding a presidential election when his term formally ends next year, the Coalition member added: “Some do not even seem to mind if he runs again next year.”

The agency said that such shift in the western stance, particularly the United States and Britain, is causing divisions within international powers backing the armed groups and widening gap in approach with militants’ backers in the region. However this change could narrow Western differences with Russia.

“Saudi Arabia and Turkey, however, believe that tackling militants is less of a priority,” Reuters said, noting that Riyadh is furious at what it considers US “appeasement” of Assad and Iran. Riyadh sent only a junior diplomat to the “Friends of Syria” meeting in London, the agency added.

Meanwhile, a declaration by the 11 leading Western and Middle East countries opposed to the Syrian government blamed Damascus military operation for the rise of extremists.

However the Friends of Syria statement said that extremists are posing threat to the Syrian and international security, Reuters reported.


Islamists “undermine the Geneva … process and threaten Syria’s territorial integrity as well as international and regional security,” the “Friends of Syria” said in a statement.Hmmmm.....Now Turkey will harvest all the terrorism it has sow.

International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation(ICSR): "Up to 11,000 Foreign Fighters in Syria, Steep Rise Among Europeans."

International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation(ICSR): "Up to 11,000 Foreign Fighters in Syria, Steep Rise Among Europeans."HT: ICSR.

The International Centre for the Study of Radicalization offered its latest assessment of how many foreigners are fighting in Syria, which countries they hail from, and other key data.

Since ICSR published its first estimate in April, the issue of foreign fighters in Syria has become a major concern for Western governments. More reports have emerged since, though few have accurately gauged the full extent and evolution of the phenomenon.

This ICSR Insight provided an update of our April estimate, offering the most comprehensive and richly resourced account of the Syrian foreign fighter phenomenon from open sources.
Based on more than 1,500 sources, the center estimated that up to 11,000 individuals from 74 nations have become opposition fighters in Syria – nearly double our previous estimate.

Among Western Europeans, the number has more than tripled from up to 600 in April to 1,900 now.
The studies estimated that — from late 2011 to 10 December 2013 — between 3,300 and 11,000 individuals have gone to Syria to fight there. These figures include those who are currently present as well as those who have since returned home, been arrested or killed.

Based on the credibility of various sources, the center believed the “true” figure to be above 8,500. This would mean that the numbers have nearly doubled since April, with a particularly steep increase among non-Arabs, especially Westerners.

While Arabs and Europeans continue to represent the bulk of foreign fighters (up to 80 per cent), the numbers have identified individuals from Southeast Asia, North America, Australia, and non-Arab Africa. Overall, we believe that residents and citizens from at least 74 countries have joined militant opposition groups in Syria.

The number of fighters from Western Europe ranged from 396 to 1,937.Compared to April, this represented a threefold increase.

Belgian syrian fighter 

The French and Danish governments have doubled their estimates since the spring, while the figures provided by the Belgian, British and German governments have quadrupled.

Western Europeans now represent up to 18 per cent of the foreign fighter population in Syria, with most recruits coming from France (63-412), Britain (43-366), Germany, (34-240), Belgium (76-296), and the Netherlands (29-152).

Adjusting for population size, the most heavily affected countries are Belgium (up to 27 foreign fighters per million), Denmark (15), the Netherlands (9), Sweden (9), Norway (8), and Austria (7).
Individuals from Middle Eastern countries continue to represent the majority of foreign fighters (around 70 per cent). Up to 6,774 non-Syrian Arabs and an additional 523 non-Arabs from the (wider) region have gone to Syria.

The five countries with the largest numbers of foreign fighters in Syria are all part of the Middle East: Jordan is the single biggest contributor (up to 2,089), followed by Saudi Arabia (1,016), Tunisia (970), Lebanon (890), and Libya (556).


The most important regions for foreign fighter recruitment outside Western Europe and the Middle East are the Balkans and the countries of the former Soviet Union.

In the Balkans, the largest contributors of foreign fighters are Kosovo (4-150), Albania (9-140), and Bosnia (18-60), with smaller numbers coming from Macedonia (3-20), Serbia (3), and Bulgaria (1).

Among the former Soviet countries, the most significant are Russia (9-423 excluding Chechnya; 36-186 for Chechnya), Kazakhstan (14-150), Ukraine (50), and Kyrgyzstan (9-30), with all others providing a dozen or less.


The most prominent non-European Western countries are Australia (23-205), Canada (9-100), and the United States (17-60). Other notable countries of origin are Pakistan (7-330), China (6-100), Somalia (5-68), and Afghanistan (12-23).

Europe turns blind eye on home-bred radical Muslims to preserve ‘pool of agents’.

Europe turns blind eye on home-bred radical Muslims to preserve ‘pool of agents’.(RT).

RT: Do you agree those European Muslims who go to fight in Syria present a threat to their home countries - or is that an exaggeration?

Mark Almond: I think there is a threat. Obviously we are talking about a relatively small number of people out of the millions of Muslims who live in the European Union. The problem however is that even if 0.1 percent of people risk being radicalized, and we are talking now well over a thousand, possibly several thousand people from the European Union countries have either gone to Syria or involved in the kind of pipeline of radicalization and supplying people going there. We do have therefore a subgroup that is a threat. And we had actions, violent actions in France, in Britain and in other countries where this has come to the surface of people who have been radicalized elsewhere, sometimes in Syria and other parts of North Africa for instance or in Somalia.

RT: What do you think prompts those people to join the Islamists in Syria - do they share their political aims of toppling Assad - or is it religious ones?

MA: I think we have two sorts of angles. On one hand, the individuals themselves may have all sorts of frustrations including teenage adolescent angers and frustrations of being part of a minority in a society that they perhaps don’t feel wholly integrated in. They become in some ways more religious than perhaps their parents were.

But also there are people who seek out and recruit them. And I think we do have to accept, particularly in Britain that we have paradox of contradictory situation that some of the groups the British government sponsors domestically in what they call counter radicalization groups, foundations found by the tax payer to in sense come down the radicals, actually also acts as conduits for people going into Libya in 2011, now going to Syria today.  So we have to face the problem.

To some extent, there is an intermixing of a kind of personal psychological and other reasons why some might become very radical with people who are recruiting, grooming and sending off. And some of those people have found official connections in Britain, in Norway, in France too.



RT: Is there an argument to say the European countries, by openly supporting the Syrian opposition, are unwittingly encouraging their Muslim citizens to join their ranks?

MA: I think there is a risk of this. Now perhaps belatedly we see people like the British Foreign Secretary William Hague suddenly noticing that this radicalization is there. It has been going on now for almost three years, perhaps even before that.

One problem is the element of collusion. Remember that the intelligence services in countries like Britain and France see their migrant Muslim communities as a pool of potential recruits to provide them with agents, informants and so on in the wider Middle Eastern world where Muslims live.

And so there has been a few hyper tendencies to turn a blind eye to the problem of ‘blowback’ as they called it from Afghanistan. The West has supported radical groups in the past going back to 1980s in Afghanistan, overlooking that these groups do have their own agenda; they don’t necessarily just want to do what the puppet master has asked them to do. And they certainly turn and bite their hand. But the hand is not necessarily that of the person who has helped to groom them and send them but ordinary civilians, ordinary citizens in the society, whether people shopping at West Gate Center in Nairobi a few weeks ago or walking down the street in Woolwich back in May in this country for instance.

Video - Syrian fighters: “Israel is a friend, not an enemy. The Israelis showed us their humanity.”

Video - Israel Treats Wounded al-Qaeda Militants and Syrian Christians Immigrate to Europe
Read the full story here.
This two-part report from Lebanese al-Mayadeen TV discusses in its first part how 106 wounded militants from Jabhat al-Nusra (al-Qaeda in Syria) are currently being treated at Nahariya Hospital close to Acre in northern Israel. The wounded militants are first moved to a specific location close to the Syrian-Israeli border in the Golan, and they get then transported to the hospital via ambulances that belong to the Israeli Army while being heavily guarded.

The second part of the report discusses how Syrian Christians are increasingly being targeted by hardline Jihadist militants in a war that has become more and more sectarian in nature. This is forcing many Christians to immigrate to Europe, where many European countries are facilitating their immigration.

Related: FSA rebels in Syria: “Israel is a friend, not an enemy. The Israelis showed us their humanity.”

The Israelis have kept a fairly low profile in regard to the civil war in Syria. They have rebutted the notion that their security would be compromised in any outcome of the conflict, but otherwise have tried to keep their mouths shut. That doesn’t mean that Israel has had no contact with the conflict, though. McClatchy reported earlier today that some of the moderate rebels have turned to Israeli medical care in a pinch — and that may be more influential in the end:

Syria and Israel are formally at war, and the idea of Syrians being treated in an Israeli hospital once would have been unthinkable. But the brutality of the Syrian civil war has driven some 200 wounded Syrians in the past six months to seek help at the Israeli frontier on the Golan Heights, according to the Israeli army.

Soldiers take them to a field hospital for treatment and triage, with more serious cases sent to hospitals in northern Israel. About 100 have been treated at the Nahariya hospital, with more arriving as news of the Israeli medical aid spreads by word of mouth.

For the man in the bed, who declined to be named for fear of retribution against his family back home, treatment in Israel has been a profoundly transforming experience.

“I thank the Israeli army,” he said. “Two and a half years of revolution have changed my opinion of Israel. Look what Bashar Assad” – Syria’s president – “has done to his people. Everything he says is a lie. He spreads hatred of Israel, but Israel is a friend, not an enemy. The Israelis showed us their humanity.”

It’s not an isolated case, either:

In one hospital room, a 22-year-old fighter from the Free Syrian Army was recovering from a gunshot wound in the shoulder. The Syrian army, he asserted, had committed atrocities, destroying mosques and raping women. “The Free Syrian Army will never fight Israel,” he said. “Assad’s army is the enemy, not the Israeli military.” …

A 17-year-old who entered the room in a wheelchair said that at the border he’d been frightened by Israeli soldiers pointing their rifles at him and ordering him to raise his hands. After an examination and transfer for medical treatment, he said he was surprised by the “compassion, sympathy and humanity” shown him at the hospital.

This won’t change the face of the Middle East on its own … but it’s a start, and a good reminder of the differences between the regimes’ propaganda and reality in the region.


The Righteous Among The Nations. "“Whosoever saves a single life, saves an entire universe" - (Mishnah, Sanhedrin 4:5)

Canada - 'Depressed' Turk treathens Mass murder aboard diverted Toronto-Turkey flight.

Canada - 'Depressed' Turk treathens Mass murder aboard diverted Toronto-Turkey flight.HT: SunNewsNetwork.

MONTREAL - It was mass-murder threats allegedly uttered aboard a Toronto-to-Istanbul flight that led to serious charges against a Turkish national, QMI Agency has learned.

"You will hear 'bang bang' and everyone is going to die," a flight attendant was told on Air Transat flight TS100, a source says.

The pilot of the Airbus A330 with 316 passengers on board turned back 90 minutes out of Montreal's Trudeau Airport on Sunday.

Dogan Akkaya, 25, of Toronto, was arrested and charged with committing a hoax regarding terrorist activity as well as assault, threats and criminal harassment. The terror-related charge could land him a 10-year-prison term.

Sources tell QMI that the disturbance began shortly after the flight departed Montreal at 6:35 p.m. on Sunday. A man tried to go to the toilet during takeoff, but was stopped by a flight attendant, provoking an altercation.

Akkaya's bail hearing, scheduled for Tuesday, was postponed after his lawyer requested a psychiatric evaluation.

Quebec Court Judge Jean-Paul Braun agreed to the evaluation, which irked the defendant.

"I do not have psychiatric problems," Akkaya said in Turkish. "I did not kill anyone, I did not hit anyone, I apologized to the crew."

The defendant then launched into a rant about his dreams, and also asked that Turkish officials intervene in the matter.

A friend of Akkaya's told reporters the defendant had psychiatric problems and that he was travelling toTurkey to seek mental help at his mother's request. "(Akkaya) doesn't want to admit it, but he's depressed," the friend said.Hmmm.....Amazing the number of mental health probs in such 'cases'.