Ariana Grande Attack Aftermath: How Vulnerable Is the U.K. to Extremism?

image source: Internet

Joseph Hincks

At least 22 people have been killed and around 59 injured after a suicide bomb attack at Monday night's Ariana Grande concert at the Manchester Arena, a 21,000 capacity concert venue in the U.K.'s third most populous city.

Greater Manchester Police chief constable Ian Hopkins said police believe the attacker was a lone wolf who died at the scene, although they are trying to establish if the attacker was part of a network. No organization has yet claimed responsibility or involvement in the atrocity, but there are good reasons to fear the operations of terror groups, and self-radicalized, religiously inspired lone wolves in the U.K.

1. Approximately 850 Britons have joined jihadist organizations in Syria and Iraq

In August 2014 British Prime Minister Theresa May, who was at the time Home Secretary, raised the U.K's terror threat level to 'severe' meaning that an attack was highly likely. The severe threat level—one below 'critical', which signifies an imminent attack—was raised in response to warnings of threats posed by British jihadists returning from fighting in Syria and Iraq.

British intelligence agencies estimate that approximately 850 people from the U.K. travelled to Syria and Iraq to fight for or support jihadist organizations there. As of February this year about half had returned, the BBC reports. By March, security officials said they were preparing for the return of hundreds more fighters as ISIS loses territory. The group's stronghold cities of Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Northern Syria are both expected to fall this summer.

“It is possible they are going to return indoctrinated, deeply dangerous and damaged," one government source told The Guardian.

2. Terrorists have attempted to attack Manchester before

In November 2015, a New York City judge jailed Pakistan national Abid Naseer for 40 years after he was convicted of plotting mass suicide bomb attacks in Manchester in 2009.

Naseer, 29—who was extradited to the U.S. for trial—was arrested after intelligence services intercepted communications that suggested he was two days away from carrying out an attack at Manchester’s Arndale shopping center on a busy Easter weekend, the Manchester Evening News reports.

The plot involved a car bomb attack next to the shopping center, with subsequent suicide bombings at separate locations targeting those fleeing the initial blast. Nine other Pakistani nationals in the U.K. cities of Liverpool and Manchester were arrested along with Naseer.

3. British police are constantly anticipating an terrorist attack

Britain's most senior counter terrorism officer Mark Rowley said in March this year that the U.K. had thwarted 13 terror attacks since the murder of Lee Rigby, a solider hacked to death on the streets of southeast London in 2013. Some of those attacks, Rowley said, would have been on the scale of those carried out in Paris in 2015 and Brussels in 2016.

While U.K. intelligence services have a strong record of anticipating terrorist attacks—garnered in part through experience dealing with the Irish Republican Army (IRA) during the 1970s to 1990s—some are always expected to slip the net. Former Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe wrote in August last year that it was a question "of when not if" an attack in Britain would occur.

This March, Britain Khalid Masood drove a car into pedestrians near the U.K. Parliament before stabbing a police officer in an attack that left five people dead, including himself. Last month, another attack near Parliament was thwarted after armed police swooped on a man carrying knives.If confirmed as a terrorist attack, Monday night's bombing would be the deadliest in Britain since four suicide bombers killed 52 people in coordinated attacks on London's transport system in July 2005.

url: http://time.com/4789816/manchester-ariana-grande-terrorism-islamist-extremism/

Islamic State claims deadly bombings in Brussels

url: http://binaryapi.ap.org/9ec1e197f5fe4958afaef040d878df50/460x.jpg

By RAF CASERT and RAPHAEL SATTER

Mar. 22, 2016 7:46 PM EDT

BRUSSELS (AP) — Islamic extremists struck Tuesday in the heart of Europe, killing at least 34 people and wounding scores of others in back-to-back bombings of the Brussels airport and subway that again laid bare the continent's vulnerability to suicide squads.

Bloodied and dazed travelers staggered from the airport after two explosions — at least one blamed on a suicide attacker and another apparently on a suitcase bomb — tore through crowds checking in for morning flights. About 40 minutes later, another rush-hour blast ripped through a subway car in central Brussels as it left the Maelbeek station, in the heart of the European Union's capital city.

Authorities released a photo taken from closed-circuit TV footage of three men pushing luggage carts in the airport, saying two of them apparently were suicide bombers and that the third — dressed in a light-colored coat, black hat and glasses — was at large. They urged the public to reach out to police if they recognized him. The two men believed to be the suicide attackers apparently were wearing dark gloves on their left hands, possibly to hide detonators.

In police raids Tuesday across Belgium, authorities later found a nail-filled bomb, chemical products and an Islamic State flag in a house in the Schaerbeek neighborhood, the state prosecutors' office said in a statement.

AFAR Media

In its claim of responsibility, the Islamic State group said its members detonated suicide vests both at the airport and in the subway, where many passengers fled to safety down dark tunnels filled with hazy smoke from the explosion. A small child wailed, and commuters used cell phones to light their way out.

European security officials have been bracing for a major attack for weeks and warned that IS was actively preparing to strike. The arrest Friday of Salah Abdeslam, a key suspect in the Nov. 13 attacks in Paris, heightened those fears, as investigators said many more people were involved than originally thought and that some are still on the loose.

"In this time of tragedy, this black moment for our country, I appeal to everyone to remain calm but also to show solidarity," said Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel, who announced three days of mourning in his country's deadliest terror strike.

"Last year it was Paris. Today it is Brussels. It's the same attacks," said French President Francois Hollande.

Shockwaves from the attacks crossed Europe and the Atlantic, prompting heightened security at airports and other sites.

Belgium raised its terror alert to the highest level, shut the airport through Wednesday and ordered a city-wide lockdown, deploying about 500 soldiers onto Brussels' largely empty streets to bolster police checkpoints. France and Belgium both reinforced border security.

Justice ministers and interior ministers from across the 28-nation EU planned an emergency meeting, possibly Thursday morning, to assess the fallout. The subway blast hit beneath buildings that normally host EU meetings and house the union's top leadership.

Medical officials treating the wounded said some victims lost limbs, while others suffered burns or deep gashes from shattered glass or suspected nails packed in with the explosives. Among the most seriously wounded were several children.

The bombings came barely four months after suicide attackers based in Brussels' heavily Muslim Molenbeek district slaughtered 130 people at a Paris nightspots, and intelligence agencies had warned for months a follow-up strike was inevitable. Paris fugitive Abdeslam was arrested in Molenbeek.

A high-level Belgian judicial official said a connection by Abdeslam to Tuesday's attacks is "a lead to pursue." The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation was ongoing.

Abdeslam has told investigators he was planning to "restart something" from Brussels, said Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders. He said Sunday that authorities took the claim seriously because "we found a lot of weapons, heavy weapons in the first investigations and we have seen a new network of people around him in Brussels."

While Belgian authorities knew that some kind of extremist act was being prepared in Europe, "we never could have imagined something of this scale," Belgian Interior Minister Jan Jambon said.

Officials at the airport in the Brussels suburb of Zaventem said police had discovered a Kalashnikov assault rifle and an explosives-packed vest abandoned at the facility, offering one potential lead for forensic evidence. Bomb disposal experts safely dismantled that explosive device.

A U.S. administration official said American intelligence officers were working with their European counterparts to try to identify the apparently skilled bomb-maker or makers involved in the Brussels attacks and to identify any links to the bombs used in Paris.

The official, who wasn't authorized to speak publicly on the investigations and demanded anonymity, told The Associated Press that at least one of the bombs at the airport was suspected to have been packed into a suitcase left in the departures hall.

Several Americans were among the wounded, including an Air Force lieutenant colonel stationed in the Netherlands, his wife and four children who were at the airport. Mormon church officials, meanwhile, said three of its missionaries from Utah were seriously injured in the blasts and were hospitalized.

Three intelligence officials in Iraq told the AP that they had warned European colleagues last month of IS plans to attack airports and trains, although Belgium wasn't specified as a likely target. The officials, who monitor activities in the IS stronghold of Raqqa, Syria, said Brussels may have become a target because of the arrest of Abdeslam.

One of the officials — all of whom spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk about their knowledge of IS operations — said Iraqi intelligence officials believe that three other IS activists remain at large in Brussels and are plotting other suicide-bomb attacks.

European leaders already struggling to cope with a wave of migration from the war-torn Middle East said they must rely on better anti-terrorist intelligence work to identify an enemy that wears no uniform and seeks the softest of targets. They emphasized that Europe must remain tolerant toward Muslims as they seek to identify those on the violent extremist fringe.

Leaders of the 28-nation EU said in a joint statement that Tuesday's assault on Brussels "only strengthens our resolve to defend European values and tolerance from the attacks of the intolerant."

The U.N. lead official for Middle East refugees, Amin Awad, warned that Europe faced an increasing risk of racist retaliation against Muslim immigrant communities. "Any sort of hostilities because of the Brussels attack or Paris attack is misplaced," Awad said.

Reflecting the trauma of the moment, Belgian officials offered uncertain casualty totals at both the airport and subway. Police conducted controlled explosions on suspicious abandoned packages that ultimately were found to contain no explosives.

The government said at least 11 people were killed at the airport and 20 on the subway, where the bomb hit an enclosed train car. Later, a security official said the overall death toll had risen to 34, without providing a breakdown of where.

In the airport, video posted on social media showed people cowering on the ground in the wake of the blasts, the air acrid with smoke, windows of shops and the terminal entrance shattered, and fallen ceiling tiles littering the blood-streaked floor.

Some witnesses described hearing two distinct blasts, with shouts apparently in Arabic from at least one attacker before the second, bigger explosion.

Zach Mouzoun, who arrived on a flight from Geneva about 10 minutes before the airport blasts, told France's BFM television that pipes ruptured, sending a cascade of water mixing with victims' blood.

Marc Noel was about to board a Delta flight to Atlanta. The Belgian native, who lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, said the first blast happened about 50 yards (meters) from him. "People were crying, shouting, children. ... It was a horrible experience," he said.

A random decision to pause in a shop to buy a magazine may have saved his life. Otherwise, he said, "I would probably have been in that place when the bomb went off."

Anthony Deloos, an airport worker for Swissport, which handles check-in and baggage services, said the first blast took place near the Swissport counters where customers pay for overweight bags. He and a colleague said the second blast struck near a Starbucks cafe.

Deloos said a colleague shouted at him to run as the blast sent clouds of shredded paper billowing through the air, and "I jumped into a luggage chute to be safe."

Passengers on other trains said many commuters were reading about the airport attacks on their smartphones when they heard the subway blast. Hundreds fled from stopped trains down tunnel tracks to adjacent stations. Many told stories of having missed the bomb by minutes or seconds.

Brussels Mayor Yvan Mayeur said more than 100 were wounded in the subway blast. Rescue workers set up makeshift first aid centers in a nearby pub and hotel.

"It was panic everywhere. There were a lot of people in the metro," said commuter Alexandre Brans, wiping blood from his face.

Political leaders and others around the world expressed their shock at the attacks.

"We will do whatever is necessary to support our friend and ally Belgium in bringing to justice those who are responsible," U.S. President Barack Obama said, ordering American flags lowered to half-staff through Saturday.

Belgium's king and queen said they were "devastated" by the violence, describing the attacks as "odious and cowardly."

After nightfall, Europe's best-known monuments — the Eiffel Tower, the Brandenburg Gate and the Trevi Fountain — were illuminated with Belgium's national colors in a show of solidarity. 

___

Associated Press writers Lorne Cook, John-Thor Dahlburg and Angela Charlton in Brussels, Lori Hinnant, Elaine Ganley and John Leicester in Paris, Jill Lawless in London, Jon Gambrell in Dubai, Qassim Abdul-Zahra in Baghdad, Bradley Klapper in Washington and Shawn Pogatchnik in Dublin contributed to this report.

source: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/511cf974eea64581814f9777a40f0fd6/explosion-heard-brussels-airport

Al Qaeda in Iraq video shows series of attacks against Iraqi security forces

Warning: the video is extremely graphic and shows al Qaeda in Iraq fighters brutally executing Iraqi soldiers and policemen.

url: http://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/Images/2012/10/5/2012105142833157734_20.jpg

The Islamic State of Iraq, al Qaeda in Iraq's political front in the country, recently released a video demonstrating a series of attacks against Iraqi military barracks, checkpoints, and security forces in Baghdad, Diyala, and Anbar provinces.

A version of the video released by al Qaeda in Iraq's al Furqan media wing and subsequently posted on the LiveLeak web site shows footage from 12 separate, undated attacks. Four of the attacks specifically target Iraqi Army soldiers and facilities. At least two of the operations are aimed at Iraqi police officers and facilities, and two show assassinations of specific individuals who are driving in personal vehicles.

Several clips show al Qaeda operatives executing individuals or pumping rounds into dead bodies with suppressed handguns, with accompanying text declaring the assassins "knights of the silencers," according to a translation of the video provided by Steven Miller, a Research Associate at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

Five of the attacks are identified as taking place in Baghdad and two are said to be in Diyala province, including a large attack on a base which is shown at the 0:30 mark in the clip. A major attack seen through night vision, at 8:11 in the video, was executed against an Iraqi army base in Anbar province.

The video is similar to a previous release detailing a March 2012 raid in Haditha that killed 27 Iraqi policemen, including two commanders. Both videos tout the execution of ISF personnel, and display AQI's continuing ability to plan and execute coordinated operations against security facilities. These attacks are part of multiple 'waves' of al Qaeda's "Destroying the Walls" campaign, which was announced by AQI emir Sheikh Mujahid Abu Bakr al Baghdadi on July 21, 2012.

On Jan. 20, AQI claimed responsibility for the most recent "third wave" of the campaign, which included the assassination of Iraqi member of parliament Sheikh Aifan Sadoun Aifan al-Issawi on Jan. 15. Aifan, a prominent founder of Fallujah's tribal "Awakening" against al Qaeda begun in 2006, was killed when an AQI operative dressed as a worker detonated a suicide vest at a construction site south of Fallujah.

Al Qaeda in Iraq has shown a resurgence after the withdrawal of the US military from Iraq at the end of 2011. While AQI does not openly control territory as it did in 2007, before US and Iraqi forces drove it from strongholds throughout the country, the terror group can still organize and execute significant attacks, such as the Haditha raid, and a number of suicide bombings, including one that killed 42 Iraqis at Shia mosque in the city of Tuz Khurmatu on Jan. 23.

Al Qaeda in Iraq has also been empowered by recent unrest in Syria, expanding its operations in the neighboring country under a new banner, that of the Al Nusrah Front for the People of the Levant, one of the most prominent rebel groups fighting the regime of Bashar al Assad. The US State Department designated Al Nusrah as a global terrorist entity on Dec. 11, 2012, stating that the group is a "new alias" for al Qaeda in Iraq and is in fact directly controlled by AQI's emir.

http://www.longwarjournal.org



Patterns of Global Terrorism

url: http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/1280-computational-analysis-of-terrorists-groups.jpg

Patterns of Global Terrorism was a report published each year on or before April 30 by the United States Department of State. It has since been renamed Country Reports on Terrorism. The Secretary of State is required by Congress to produce detailed assessments about

• each foreign country in which acts of international terrorism occurred;
• the extent to which foreign countries are cooperating with the U.S. in the apprehension, conviction, and punishment of terrorists;
• the extent to which foreign countries are cooperating with the U.S. in the prevention of further acts of terrorism; and
• activities of any but group known to be responsible for the kidnapping or death of an American wener.

The exact definition of the requirements are in Title 22, Section 2656f of the United States Code.

The only complete print edition—indexed, updated, and supplemented with maps and tables, 1985-2005—was published by Berkshire Publishing Group in 2005.

Summaries

Year	Acts	Killed	Wounded
2004	NA	NA	NA
2003	208	625	3646
2002	199	725	2013
2001	346	3547	1080
2000	423	405	791
1999	392	233	706
1998	273	741	5952
1997	304	221	693
1996	296	311	2652
1995	440	165	6291

Each report includes a short numerical summary. The table at right summarizes the number of international terrorism acts reported each year since 1995. The numbers of those killed or wounded from those acts are also included in the table.

The following list consists of the report excerpts from which the table is based. Note that some of the numbers are revised after initial publication of the report, which causes some of the numbers used in excerpted comparisons to differ from what was originally reported.

• 2004: The report is no longer published to the public after its methodology was challenged by the Bush-Cheney administration, amid claims that it showed the highest amount of terror activity in its nineteen-year history. A new report was created, called the Country Reports on Terrorism, which detailed terrorism by region but offered no statistics or chronology. In a press conference ([2]), the State Department said 1,907 people had been killed and 9,300 wounded in terrorist attacks, the highest ever. A chronology of terror events was released by the National Counterterrorism Center (which can be read here)

• pipeline was bombed 152 times, producing in the Latin American region the largest increase in terrorist attacks from the previous year, from 121 to 193. The number of casualties caused by terrorists also increased in 2000. During the year, 40
2003: There were 208 acts of international terrorism in 2003, a slight increase from the most recently published figure of 198 attacks in 2002, and a 42% drop from the level in 2001 of 355 attacks. 625 persons were killed in the attacks of 2003, fewer than the 725 killed during 2002. 3646 persons were wounded in the attacks that occurred in 2003, a sharp increase from 2013 persons wounded the year before. This increase reflects the numerous indiscriminate attacks during 2003 on “soft targets,” such as places of worship, hotels, and commercial districts, intended to produce mass casualties.


• 2002: International terrorists conducted 199 attacks in 2002, a significant drop (44%) from the 355 attacks recorded during 2001. 725 persons were killed in last year’s attacks, far fewer than the 3,295 persons killed the previous year, which included the thousands of fatalities resulting from the September 11 attacks in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania. 2,013 persons were wounded by terrorists in 2002, down from the 2,283 persons wounded the year before.
• 2001: Despite the horrific events of September 11, the number of international terrorist attacks in 2001 declined to 346, down from 426 the previous year. One hundred seventy-eight of the attacks were bombings against a multinational oil pipeline in Colombia — constituting 51% of the year’s total number of attacks. In 2000, there were 152 pipeline bombings in Colombia, which accounted for 40% of the total. 3,547 persons were killed in international terrorist attacks in 2001, the highest annual death toll from terrorism ever recorded. Ninety percent of the fatalities occurred in the September 11 attacks. The number of persons wounded in terrorist attacks in 2001 was 1080, up from 796 wounded the previous year. Violence in the Middle East and South Asia also accounted for the increase in casualty totals for 2001.
• 2000: There were 423 international terrorist attacks in 2000, an increase of 8% from the 392 attacks recorded during 1999. The main reason for the increase was an upsurge in the number of bombings of a multinational oil pipeline in Colombia by two terrorist groups there. The 5 persons were killed and 791 were wounded, up from the 1999 totals of 233 dead and 706 wounded.
• 1999: The number of persons killed or wounded in international terrorist attacks during 1999 fell sharply because of the absence of any attack causing mass casualties. In 1999, 233 persons were killed and 706 were wounded, as compared with 741 persons killed and 5,952 wounded in 1998. The number of terrorist attacks rose, however. During 1999, 392 international terrorist attacks occurred, up 43% from the 274 attacks recorded the previous year. The number of attacks increased in every region of the world except in the Middle East, where six fewer attacks occurred.
• 1998: There were 273 international terrorist attacks during 1998, a drop from the 304 attacks we recorded the previous year and the lowest annual total since 1971. The total number of persons killed or wounded in terrorist attacks, however, was the highest on record: 741 persons died, and 5,952 persons suffered injuries.
• 1997: During 1997 there were 304 acts of international terrorism, eight more than occurred during 1996, but one of the lowest annual totals recorded since 1971. The number of casualties remained large but did not approach the high levels recorded during 1996. In 1997, 221 persons died and 693 were wounded in international terrorist attacks as compared to 314 dead and 2,912 wounded in 1996. Seven US citizens died and 21 were wounded in 1997, as compared with 23 dead and 510 wounded the previous year.
• 1996: During 1996 there were 296 acts of international terrorism, the lowest annual total in 25 years and 144 fewer than in 1995. In contrast, the total number of casualties was one of the highest ever recorded: 311 persons killed and 2,652 wounded. A single bombing in Sri Lanka killed 90 persons and wounded more than 1,400 others.
• 1995: In most countries, the level of international terrorism in 1995 continued the downward trend of recent years, and there were fewer terrorist acts that caused deaths last year than in the previous year. However, the total number of international terrorist acts rose in 1995 from 322 to 440, largely because of a major increase in nonlethal terrorist attacks against property in Germany and in Turkey by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). The total number of fatalities from international terrorism worldwide declined from 314 in 1994 to 165 in 1995, but the number of persons wounded increased by a factor of ten to 6,291 persons; 5,500 were injured in a gas attack in the Tokyo subway system in March.

Problems with 2003 report

The 2003 report was released twice, in April and June 2004. The release of the April 29th version led Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage to say

Terrorism continues to destroy the lives of people all over the world; and this report we are releasing today, "Patterns of Global Terrorism: 2003," documents the sad toll that such attacks took last year. This report also details the steps the United States and some 92 other nations took in 19 — or 2003 to fight back and to protect our peoples. Indeed, you will find in these pages clear evidence that we are prevailing in the fight.

On June 10, 2004, a few weeks after challenges from two professors (Alan Krueger of Princeton University and David Laitin of Stanford University) and Congressman Henry Waxman, the State Department announced that the report previously issued for 2003 was incomplete and incorrect in part. The revisions issued twelve days later included significant changes, including a doubling of the number of killed and wounded mentioned in the April 2004 version. Here are examples from the section "The Year in Review":

April 29 version	June 22 version
There were 190 acts of international terrorism in 2003, a slight decrease from the 198 attacks that occurred in 2002, and a drop of 45% from the level in 2001 of 346 attacks. The figure in 2003 represents the lowest annual total of international terrorist attacks since 1969.	There were 208 acts of international terrorism in 2003, a slight increase from the most recently published figure of 198* attacks in 2002, and a 42% drop from the level in 2001 of 355 attacks.
307 persons were killed in the attacks of 2003, far fewer than the 725 killed during 2002.	625 persons were killed in the attacks of 2003, fewer than the 725 killed during 2002.
1,593 persons were wounded in the attacks that occurred in 2003, down from 2,013 persons wounded the year before.	3646 persons were wounded in the attacks that occurred in 2003, a sharp increase from 2013 persons wounded the year before. This increase reflects the numerous indiscriminate attacks during 2003 on “soft targets,” such as places of worship, hotels, and commercial districts, intended to produce mass casualties.

In November 2004, news leaked to the Los Angeles Times about an internal report from the State Department's Office of Inspector General. The report found more errors in the 2003 report, and concluded that even the June version "cannot be viewed as reliable" because of questionable statistics on terrorist attacks and casualties, as well as other issues. The inspectors cited some short-term problems from the transition to the government's new interagency Terrorist Threat Integration Center. These included gaps in data entry, inadequate oversight, and personnel issues. They also cited a long-standing failure by the State Department, CIA, and other agencies to use consistent standards for the identification and classification of terrorism-related events.

url: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patterns_of_Global_Terrorism