German intelligence: al-Qaeda all over Syria

English: Nasser ar-Refai, sheikh of Hawran (Daraa Governorate, Syria) with Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Jul 24, 2012
By John Rosenthal

 

German intelligence estimates that “around 90″ terror attacks that “can be attributed to organizations that are close to al-Qaeda or jihadist groups” were carried out in Syria between the end of December and the beginning of July, as reported by the German daily Die Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ). This was revealed

by the German government in a response to a parliamentary question.

 

In response to the same question, the German government admitted that it had received several reports from the German foreign intelligence service, the BND, on the May 25 massacre in the Syrian town of Houla. But it noted that the content of these reports was to remain classified “by reason of national interest”, Like many other Western governments, Germany expelled Syria’s ambassador in the immediate aftermath of the massacre, holding the Syrian government responsible for the violence.

 

Meanwhile, at least three major German newspapers – Die Welt, the FAZ, and the mass-market tabloid Bild – have published reports attributing responsibility for the massacre to anti-government rebel forces or treating this as the most probable scenario.

 

Writing in Bild, longtime German war correspondent Jurgen Todenhofer accused the rebels of “deliberately killing civilians and then presenting them as victims of the government”. He described this “massacre-marketing strategy” as being “among the most disgusting things that I have ever experienced in an armed conflict”. Todenhofer had recently been to Damascus, where he interviewed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for Germany’s ARD public television.

Germany reveals secret techie soldier unit, new cyberweapons

Main building of the University Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We have ways of making you pwned

By John Leyden • Get more from this author  8th June 2012 11:29 GMT

CyCon 2012 Germany has confirmed that its military maintains an operational cyberwarfare unit with offensive capabilities.

The admission, which appeared in parliamentary documents published on Tuesday, gave no details of the size of the unit much less any operations that it might have run. However documents delivered to the German federal defence committee did reveal that the unit has been operating for six years since 2006, a year before the cyber-attack on Estonia and four years before the discovery of the infamous Stuxnet worm.

http://ds.serving-sys.com/BurstingRes/Site-27237/Type-2/e53ce8c1-9790-4f5e-b89e-03b2539b45a7.swf“The initial capacity to operate in hostile networks has been achieved,” the papers explain, adding that the Computer Network Operations Unit had carried out “simulations” of attacks in a “closed laboratory environment”, German press agency DPA reports.

The unit reports to the joint forces strategic intelligence command. Legislators reportedly expressed surprise at the existence of the unit and questioned whether military commanders had the legal authority to launch attacks on foreign networks.

Prof Dr Wolff Heintschel von Heinegg, a professor of law at European University Viadrina Frankfurt in Germany, told El Reg that the armed forces of many nations are probably building up an offensive cyber capability. The only difference is that Germany and (also recently) the Obama administration is the US are publicly talking about it.

“The German MoD see a potential in having an offensive cyber-op capability as well as an ability to defend critical infrastructures”, most notably military systems, Dr Heintschel von Heinegg explained.

The Germans Are Shocked, Shocked. . .

English: i.n.s. dolfin עברית: אח”י דולפין (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

June 8, 2012:

German media are running stories revealing proof that German built Israeli submarines were equipped, in Germany, with a special hydraulic ejection (from torpedo tubes) systems for launching missiles with nuclear warheads. This is actually misleading, as well as being old news. The German built Dolphin class subs have long had the ability to launch Harpoon anti-ship missiles and longer range cruise missiles from the torpedo tubes. It makes no difference is the warhead has high-explosives or a nuclear bomb in it.

For over a decade Israel and Germany have played down this capability. For example, a decade ago Israel denied that it had submarines capable of firing cruise missiles equipped with nuclear warheads. But the U.S. navy had reported spotting such missiles being tested by an Israeli sub in the Indian Ocean two years earlier.

Twelve years ago it was widely reported that Israeli’s Dolphin class subs were being equipped with nuclear weapons. The 135 kilometer range Harpoon missiles were being modified to carry a nuclear warhead and Israel was developing a submarine launched 350 kilometer range cruise missile. Both of these weapons were launched from the subs torpedo tubes. Since then Israel has developed a new cruise missile, with a range of 1,500 kilometers and carrying a 200 kiloton nuclear warhead. These nuclear equipped subs were to provide an extra degree of security as all other Israeli nuclear weapons were in land bases and, in theory, could be wiped out by a surprise missile attack. A nuclear missile equipped submarine at sea would be a much more difficult to find target.

Germany – Cops ‘quizzed neo-Nazi terror cell woman’ in 2007

Published: 29 Jan 12 12:38 CET

Police questioned a member of a neo-Nazi terror cell just months before the gang killed a policewoman – but asked her about water damage to a flat, having no idea she was connected to a string of shootings, it emerged on Sunday.

In what will be an embarrassing revelation for the authorities, Der Spiegel magazine reported that officers questioned Beate Zschäpe in 2007, but did not realise that her inconsistency could have been connected to anything sinister.
She is considered a crucial member of the self-styled National Socialist Underground (NSU) which claimed responsibility for killing nine small business owners and workers between 2000 and 2006. Eight of the victims were of Turkish origin and one was Greek.
The gang are thought to have shot a policewoman to death and stolen her weapon in 2007, three months after Zschäpe was questioned.

German Taliban Part Of Al-Qaida´s Euro-Plot | Jih@d

by Florian Flade

Yusuf O. from Berlin in terror propaganda tape (September 2009)

Two European Islamists have been charged in Berlin with being members of Al-Qaida. Yusuf O. of Berlin and Maqsood L. from Vienna have been trained in the terror camps of Waziristan and are allegedly part of an Al-Qaida plot to carry out attacks in Europe.

Berlin Islamist Yusuf O. traveled to Pakistan in May 2009 alongside his friend Fatih T. and joined the “Taifatul Mansourah” Group in Waziristan tribal area. Later the German Jihadi militants together with several other German Islamists who arrived in Pakistan in September 2009 founded a new group named “German Taliban Mujahidin” (DTM).

In a propaganda tape released just prior to the September 2009 German Parliamentary Elections the DTM threatened attacks in Germany. Spokesman in that video was 26 year-old Yusuf O. aka “Abu Ayyub al-Almani”.

According to the complaint filed by German prosecutors in November Yusuf O. left the DTM somewhere around May 2010 and joined Al-Qaida. During the training program he received, Yusuf O. met Maqsood L., a 22 year-old Austrian national of Afghan descent. The two befriended and were than choosen by Al-Qaida´s Chief of External Operational, Sheikh Younis al-Mauretani who was arrested in Pakistan back in September.

The Al-Qaida commander tasked Yusuf O. and Maqsood L. to return to Europe and recruit Islamists for terrorist attacks in European cities. Documents discovered by German counter-terrorism officials lead to the conclusion Al-Qaida wanted the German Islamists to carry out kidnappings and killings. Al-Mauretani´s plot involved assault attacks in which hostages would be killed in long standoff with police – the “Mumbai Style” of terrorist attacks.

In May 2011 Maqsood L. and Yusuf O. traveled to Budapest (Hungary) via Iran and Turkey. Yusuf O. made his journey to Austrian capital Vienna and arrived in the city carrying a audio tape recorded by Maqsood L.. He played the tape to Maqsood´s old friends, urging them to support the Jihad and join the terror network.

After Yusuf O. returned to Budapest he sent Maqsood L. to Berlin. Apparently Yusuf O. thought sending a foreigner instead of traveling himself would not alert the authorities. Yusuf O. was wrong. Maqsood´s task was recruit about a dozen of Yusuf´s friends from several radical mosques in the German capital. The Austrian Jihadi was able to rally supporters amongst Berlin´s Islamist community and collect about 1.000 EUROs in donations, before he was arrested on May 16.

Low Levels of Radiation detected throughout Europe

The International Atomic Energy Agency is reporting that “very low levels of iodine-131 have been measured in the atmosphere,” in the Czech Republic and elsewhere in Europe.

The agency is not saying where the Iodine-131 is coming from or what other countries are being effected, but they are saying it’s not the result of Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. The IAEA said the current levels of iodine-131 are not high enough to justify a public health scare but they’re not saying much more than that.

Despite little information coming from the IAEA, some officials are reporting that the release appears to be continuing and that tests were under way to identify the source of radiation.

In Prague, an official at the Czech State Office for Nuclear Safety said he was “100 percent sure” that the radiation was not from any Czech nuclear power plant or from any other source on Czech territory. Authorities in Austria and Germany have also reported an increase in radioactive particles and Austrian officials believe the particles are coming from the south east.

Court withdraws passports from alleged terror camp recruits

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 16:27:10 GMT

Berlin – Alleged Islamists can have their passports removed to prevent them from travelling from Germany to attend terrorist training camps, a Berlin court announced on Friday. The ruling came in a case brought by three men who were stopped as they attempted to board planes to Istanbul last September, since there was reason to believe they aimed to reach Pakistan or Afghanistan to join jihad, or holy war.

It was acceptable to confiscate a passport if there was reason to suspect that German interests were under threat, the administrative court said.

Germany’s Merkel: 500 More Troops For Afghanistan

26/01/2010 @ 13:12

BERLIN -(Dow Jones)- Germany will increase its deployment in Afghanistan by 500 troops and nearly double aid for reconstruction in the northern regions where it operates, Chancellor Angela Merkel said Tuesday.

The larger deployment and more than EUR400 million in reconstruction aid are designed to help the Afghan government move toward greater ownership of the country‘s security by 2014, Merkel told reporters in Berlin

“We emphatically support President [Hamid] Karzai in his declaration that by 2014 we want to have a situation in which Afghanistan can guarantee its own security,” Merkel said.

The additional German soldiers will help train Afghan security forces that Merkel wants to see playing a much broader role in securing the country by the end of 2011.

Read more:

http://www.advfn.com/news_UPDATE-Germanys-Merkel-500-More-Troops-For-Afghanistan_41257073.html

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