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France train attack shows impossibility of tracking all Islamic jihadis

Aug 23, 2015 6:58 pm By Robert Spencer

There are many more Islamic jihadis than authorities like to admit, as they like to pretend that the Islamic State has nothing to do with Islam, and to ignore and downplay the appeal that the Islamic State has for so many young Muslims in the West. Certainly the Islamic State is trying to overwhelm law enforcement agencies by the sheer volume of jihad plots they have to deal with; but the agencies make themselves more vulnerable by denying the motivating ideology of jihad terror and pretending that its causes are other than what they are.

trainattack“Train attack shows impossibility of tracking all Islamic militants,” AFP, August 22, 2015:

PARIS (AFP) – The thwarted attack by a gunman on a high-speed train between Amsterdam and Paris has underlined the difficulty faced by intelligence services in tracking the unprecedented numbers of potential Islamic militants, experts say.

The Moroccan suspect in Friday’s incident, identified as 25-year-old Ayoub El Khazzani, was first flagged by Spanish authorities as a potential extremist and had reportedly travelled to Syria.

He was overpowered by two US servicemen and other passengers before he could kill anyone in the train.

A Spanish counter-terrorism source said Khazzani had lived in Spain from 2007 to March 2014, before travelling to Syria from France.

In a timely interview published on the same day as the attack, Alain Grignard, a senior member of Belgium’s counter-terrorism police unit, said the terrorist threat has “never been higher in all the years I’ve been working”.

“It boils down to mathematics and it’s all linked to the Syria dynamic,” Grignard told CTC Sentinel, the in-house journal of the US military academy at West Point.

“There’s no way of knowing the exact numbers but I can tell you with certainty that at least 300 have travelled – that’s the number we have sufficient evidence to bring charges against. At least 100 have returned to Belgium, but we are under no illusions that there aren’t more we don’t know about. It’s impossible to do surveillance on everybody.”

It’s a point driven home by terrorism expert Raffaello Pantucci, of the Royal United Services Institute in London.

“The authorities know about a lot of people but not which ones will actually launch an attack,” he said.

“It’s a very resource-intensive job. You need three shifts with several people, and equipment and vehicles, to watch someone 24 hours a day. Intelligence agencies just aren’t big enough to do that for everyone.”…

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Filed Under: France, Jihad in the West, willful ignorance Tagged With: Ayoub El Khazzani


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Comments

  1. Nimrod says

    Aug 23, 2015 at 7:05 pm

    Time for this kind of policy:

    http://counterjihadreport.com/2015/08/23/sandboxing-islam-how-to-protect-america-from-jihad-terrorism/

  2. DP111 says

    Aug 23, 2015 at 7:06 pm

    Syria is a cause, but the real cause is that the EU has allowed millions of Muslims to settle in Europe. The situation is getting worse by the day, and the fruits of it we will know in a few years time.

  3. Angemon says

    Aug 23, 2015 at 7:21 pm

    Train attack shows impossibility of tracking all Islamic militants

    Well, duh!

    The saddest thing is that it’s going to take a needless and (very likely) preventable loss of lives to get that point across, and even then there’s no assurance that the measures taken in response won’t be more of the same: loss of personal freedoms, throwing money at the problem and hoping “moderates” will help prevent “radicalization”.

  4. Jay Boo says

    Aug 23, 2015 at 7:31 pm

    If only we were just a bit more generous they would like us so much more.
    Open our arms and all the borders so we can show them our sweet smiles.
    Give them welfare so they will tell others of our kind deeds until they will flood in by thousands to tell us about how they are so very pleased.

    What? We already tried that.
    Unpunished, goes not the good deed.

  5. Moshe Akiva says

    Aug 23, 2015 at 7:53 pm

    Soon Western Europeans will reap the fruits of their limitless stupidity. I see many beheaded, shot, stabbed, poisoned and blown up kuffars on European streets, schools, hospitals, restaurants … etc.

    Did I ever say “a coward nation doesn’t have a country”?

  6. mortimer says

    Aug 24, 2015 at 12:13 am

    A few months ago, I estimated that one Muslim out of 7,000 living in the West is a jihadist. That means the US has at least 4,000 jihadists, United Kingdom has 2,000 jihadists and France has 6,000 jihadists. That’s a lot of jihadists. Many of them are ‘thinking about it’, but not ready to act. What may tip them over is an inspiring book, an inspiring conversation or an inspiring sermon.

    Jihad is an enthusiasm. Many books have been written that glorify and glamorize jihad, but there are no books in circulation telling young Muslims not to do it.

    Jihad cannot be removed from Islam, so we must remove Islam from the West. Increasing Muslim population in the West will increase jihad. That is just suicidal. Stop the immigration.

    WE DON’T WANT…WE DON’T NEED ANY MORE JIHADISTS.

  7. dumbledoresarmy says

    Aug 24, 2015 at 12:43 am

    Got Muslims?

    Got Jihad.

  8. dumbledoresarmy says

    Aug 24, 2015 at 12:48 am

    The mosque this guy and his family attended should have been surprise-raided (along with *all* associated premises whether business or residential) the moment it was known who he was.

    *any* evidence of nefarious activity – or incitement to nefarious activity, and that includes incitement to/ advocacy of the imposition of Sharia, and/ or clandestine practice of any aspect of Sharia that violates western/ European law – found on any such premises?

    Bulldoze the mosque and – after thorough interrogation (get the Israelis to help with that, they seem to know how to get usable info out of Mohammedans) deport the imam and other head honchoes (stripping them of infidel-country residency and/ or citizenship, as applicable).

    Interrogate every member of this jihadi’s family – especially his dear old dad who was busy spouting tears and pretending to be shocked! shocked! – and then give them the boot, back to Morocco.
    If necessary, just put them on a boat and dump them on the beach there.

    If something like *that* was done every time there was a jihad attack whether plotted, attempted or achieved, the number of mosques would diminish rapidly…!

  9. dumbledoresarmy says

    Aug 24, 2015 at 12:56 am

    Something to think about, while we’re thinking about numbers.

    The Mohammedan Mob had one man on that train, ready to wage armed jihad, jihad of the sword (or of the AK-47).

    But the Dar al Harb…we had no fewer than *six* men on that train who at short notice proved willing and ready to meet him. The Frenchman who saw him first and had a go at him; the middle-aged American expat in France, who saw him second, and also had a go, and got gravely wounded; and Team America (two with military training and experience) who took him down, with a bit of support from a Briton.

    I think that sometimes we underestimate our own.

    We of the counter-jihad have been handed yet another Teaching Moment and best of all it is one that *doesn’t* involve a whole pile of non-Muslim dead.

    Time to keep on keeping on; carry on Educating, because the more able-bodied infidels on board trains, planes and boats are aware of the danger, the less easy it will be for thugs like this to get away with anything. That’s in the short term. In the medium-long term, rapidly-spreading awareness of jihad – awareness that Muslims are dangerous – WILL I think force a paradigm – and policy – shift in our governments.

  10. dumbledoresarmy says

    Aug 24, 2015 at 1:27 am

    I will add one further comment.

    It’s off topic a bit, but I want to put it in on the “leading edge”, so to speak, so people will see it.

    We have been told, in virtually every report on this attempted-but-fortunately-foiled mass-murder, that there was a factor that made it somewhat easier to take the jihadist down. It appears that he exhibited a fairly typical mohammedan disrespect for a piece of Infidel technology, namely his weapon. He didn’t know how to operate it properly nor how to fix it if anything went wrong. I can say that, because we’ve been hearing it over and over.

    BUT – I shouldn’t know that. NONE of us should know why and how exactly it was that unarmed men could tackle a man who had a fully-loaded AK-47, plus a loaded luger pistol, and take him down. Not one of the guys who took him out, should have been permitted to even *mention* the enemy’s weak spot, his technical incompetence.

    When you are at war, and your Enemy attacks, and screws up – and the attack is foiled *because* of the screw-up – you DO NOT mention what it was that he did wrong, that allowed you to Get him.

    Loose lips sink ships.

    By all means let passengers laud the heroism of those who tackled a heavily-armed man. But the US army and the French army and French intelligence should have debriefed those men very, very carefully – and debriefed, also, *every* passenger who witnessed events.

    Because odds are pretty good that a mistake or incompetency of this sort will not happen again. Best to assume, given the amount of publicity it’s garnered, that it won’t; and next time, the jihadi – or jihadis – WILL have a functioning weapon and know how to use it. And that will be partly due to our sheer STUPIDITY in trumpeting all over the place the specific manner in which this particular jihadi slipped up.

    Future Infidel heroes will have a tougher time.

    Like I said, Loose Lips Sink Ships.

    If our Enemy makes a mistake, if our Enemy is incompetent and careless, we want our Enemy to **go on doing it*. The more mistakes he makes, the less care he takes of his equipment etc, the better for us.

  11. Baucent says

    Aug 24, 2015 at 4:26 am

    In an article I read by a former French intelligence agent, he said that the French security services have about 6,000 potential Jihadists “on their books”. These are people who could launch an attack at any time. So we would assume that they are being monitored. But apparently not, 24 hour surveillance ties up about 30 agents and 12 vehicles for one suspect. If they move around from country to country it could be 80 agents. Add to that the dangerous associates, radical Imams and Jihadist recruiters and the number of dangerous people rises to about 20,000. An impossible number of people to watch. Counter-terrorism needs to develop a new model of how to deal and minimize this growing threat.

    • ECAW says

      Aug 24, 2015 at 9:11 am

      And remember that the Hebdo/Jewish delicatessen attacks have resulted in 7,000 French troops who should be defending France from external enemies now being pemanently stationed on the streets protecting one group of French citizens from another.

      It’s very much like a DDOS attack isn’t it?

      • Caroline says

        Aug 24, 2015 at 9:31 am

        As our politicians are happy to allow waves of Jihadis into Europe, posing as refugees, it is only a matter of time before we see major attacks launched on citizens of European countries with massive loss of life. The upside is, the politicians will no longer try to peddle the ROP line as the people will have had enough. War will be waged but as Muslims still form small minorities, they will lose. We will then see mass exodus of Muslims, either voluntarily or by force, to whatever ME hell-hole will accept them.
        The Muslims got impatient. They were doing quite well advancing themselves by stealth but now they have showed their hand, too soon. The game is up for them in Western countries as they will forever be viewed as hostiles.

      • dumbledoresarmy says

        Aug 26, 2015 at 8:11 am

        Yes, exactly.

        And they even have a word for it – “the jihad of the needle”.

        Here’s the repulsive Abu Hamza al-Masri, talking about exactly that.

        The quote is from a report in the Times Online,
        January 13, 2006

        Abu Hamza’s video ‘call to arms’

        By Sean O’Neill

        “…The key evidence in the prosecution case against him is contained in video and audio tapes of sermons and lectures delivered by Abu Hamza between 1997 and 2000.

        “The first of these to be aired was recorded seven years ago at a public meeting in Whitechapel, East London…

        “In one long passage, responding to a request from an audience member for a “clear instruction” on how to wage jihad, Abu Hamza was specific about the need for violence.

        “He said: “The first thing to do, number one, to be trained of what you can do. There’s no real need to go and train for tanks and aeroplanes, where are you going to find these, you can’t buy these in a market, you can’t make them yourselves…

        To be trained of what is available to you, this is number one.

        “Number two, to monitor the targets which are the enemies of Islam . . . every court is a target and every brothel is a target.

        “This is from the Shawkat al-Nekaya, the needle of bleeding the enemy. You have to bleed the enemy, whether you work alone, you work with a group or you work with your own family.”

        “The first phase is called the Shawkat al-Nekaya, it is called the needle of bleeding the enemy.

        “Like you imagine you have one small knife and you have a big animal in front of you . . . You have to stab him here and there until he bleeds to death . . . This is the first stage of jihad, destruction of the enemies of Allah”….

        
“We ask Muslims to . . . bleed the enemies of Allah anywhere by any means.

        “You can’t do it by nuclear weapon, you have to do it by kitchen knife, no other solution.

        (See that – “you have to do it by kitchen knife”. Which is *exactly* what Muslims are doing, or trying to do, in Israel, ALL THE TIME. There are stabbings, and attempted stabbings, **all the time**. Day in , day out, week in, week out. And it’s what that Muslim did in the Ikea shop in Sweden the other day…he went into the kitchenware section, grabbed a knife, and murdered the nearest infidels – dda)

        “You can’t do it by chemical weapons, you have to do it by mice poison”.

        (Anybody here feel like hiring any Muslim to do anything at all anywhere in the food or pharmaceuticals industry, after hearing *that*?? Anybody feel like eating at a Muslim-owned restaurant? – dda)

        DDOS attack. Precisely. Lots and lots and lots of ‘little’ attacks. Lots of suspects, too many to track.

        And think about it – it’s *also* the method that was used to ‘bleed’ and wear down Byzantium…cross-border raids, raids, raids. The Barbary pirates did it to the nations along the northern shore of the Mediterranean, and beyond. The Somali Muslim pirates were doing it, all those hijackings and killings. The Somali Muslims are doing it now, to Kenya: cross-border raids damaging tourism, frightening people.

        Individual jihad + raids by small seemingly-autonomous armed groups. And, of course, both allow the Ummah as a whole, the Mohammedan mob, the ‘community’ from which the jihadis pop out and then melt back into, and the Mohammedan countries from which the raiders cross borders into non-Muslim lands (e.g. the Muslim jihad raid on Mumbai) to pretend they didn’t know nuthin’ about it. That they’re not responsible. Plausible deniability.

  12. Caroline says

    Aug 24, 2015 at 6:54 am

    It feel like we are in a ‘phoney war’ stage at the moment. We know it is coming, we are waiting for the other side to kick off big time. Lots of isolated incidents at the moment, but I have no doubt many of those young, single ‘refugees’ flooding into Europe will be getting themselves armed and ready for the fight. Why, oh why can’t the politicians see what is obvious to everyone else?

  13. DiMu says

    Aug 24, 2015 at 8:21 am

    It is the duty of every citizen to know how to handle a gun a and to learn self-defense. WHEN this happens again, the mob ought to kill the Muslim enemy and throw his body from the train!

    • Baucent says

      Aug 24, 2015 at 8:59 am

      I disagree. We show the superiority of our culture and values by doing what the four heroes did, that was to disarm and restrain the Jihadi (where possible) so he can face a court of law. A lynch mob mentality is exactly what you could expect in muslim countries like Pakistan.

  14. Jay Boo says

    Aug 24, 2015 at 9:55 am

    Aren’t we being overly — Defensive?

    Muslims need a DETERENT
    If Muslims attack a recruitment center in Chattanooga the kneejerk reaction is simply to hire security guards — yet again and hope for the best.

    That does not get at the root of the problem.
    For example: Why hasn’t Russia or China dared to launch nuclear missiles at the US. (yes, because there are consequences))
    We need to hit them where it hurts and without hesitation — no half stepping without repeated follow through.
    Islam is exceedingly and uniquely vulnerable.
    If we burn a Qur’an they will just call us bigots and play the victim.
    But if we mock the Qur’an and the ridiculous notion that Islam is a religion simply because Muslims compensate for all that Islam lacks with five vainglorious prayer mat “displays” a day then they are totally defenseless.

  15. Charli Main says

    Aug 24, 2015 at 10:41 am

    Tracking every potential Jihadist in Europe means tracking every muslim in Europe.
    All muslims sing from the same songsheet, only some sing louder than others while the rest wait in the shadows.

  16. richard courtemanche says

    Aug 24, 2015 at 6:12 pm

    Such impossibility can only be helped with some drastic, even draconian action,

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