30-May-19: Paris, Amman, Washington: Extradition and what it can reveal about governments and terror

The landmark Jewish restaurant in Paris whose patrons were

targeted in 1982 by Palestinian Arab jihadists

and their machine guns and hand grenades.

In this post, we explain why an important court decision handed down in Jordan this week by its highest court throws a sharply negative light on Jordan's controversial 2017 claim that the kingdom's 1995 Extradition Treaty with the US in invalid and non-binding.

That earlier ruling, concerning Ahlam Tamimi, now looks contrived and unconvincing. And though the United States isn't saying much about it, we think people ought to know.

Terror and the Hashemite Kingdom

Jordan's creativity with the definition of terror is not new and hardly a secret.

But in polite circles, especially circles which view King Abdullah II as a valuable friend of the West and a strategic ally in the battle against "the terrorists", discussion of the matter is largely confined to whispers.

That's an insight we keep re-acquiring as we pursue Ahlam Tamimi, the confessed Jordanian killer of our daughter [24-Mar-17: Our daughter's smiling killer: "Shocked" that US "decided to go after her for no obvious reason"]. The Hashemite Kingdom's role in that process, and few know this as well as we do, has been obstructive, deceptive and dangerous.

Ahlam Tamimi, now a fugitive from US justice with her own "Most Wanted" poster (in English and Arabic versions), is a Jordanian woman of 39 who faces serious US Federal terrorism-related charges that were announced in Washington on March 14, 2017.

Ahlam Tamimi the fugitive

The brief version: At the age of 21 and as Hamas' first female terrorist, Tamimi masterminded the bombing of the Jerusalem Sbarro pizzeria massacre and the many Jewish children inside. (She has proudly admitted for the record that it was Jewish children she sought to kill. And why.) She carefully chose the site, scouted out the access path, brought the bomb (a human bomb - a young religious fanatic also in the service of Hamas) and then fled back to Ramallah moments before the explosion where she read the evening TV news bulletin for Istiqlal TV.

One of her many innocent victims, as regular visitors to this blog know, was our daughter Malki, 15. She was an American citizen.

In October 2011, Tamimi was released prematurely to our horror from a prison sentence of 16-life-terms in Israel in the Shalit Deal. Israel sent her off to Jordan where she came from ["19-Oct-11: Haaretz: Shalit prisoner swap marks 'colossal failure' for mother of Israeli bombing victim"]. She quickly set about developing an enhanced career in terror and terror-incitement under Jordanian protection.

Some weeks later, in early 2012, we went to Washington and asked the US Department of Justice to prosecute Tamimi. Under a Federal law, the US can go after terrorists who kill US citizens on foreign soil. Its jurisdiction is world-wide.

And indeed, this eventually happened. The background is here: "14-Mar-19: Two years after Federal charges are unsealed, Ahlam Tamimi remains free. How is this happening?"

The details of how terrorism charges were finally announced against Tamimi are not well known. For instance, the fact that the judge who signed off on the charges actually did so in 2014, three years earlier. There's a reason for those lost three years; not such a good reason.

And this:

All three of the DOJ officials quoted in the 2017 announcement have moved on to other positions during these past two years. We wrote a letter last week [i.e. in March 2019], addressed to them and to the three officials who filled their places in the DOJ. Among other things, we asked them whether the DOJ is going to address certain serious problems that we described for them. At this stage, we do not plan to publish the letter; we continue to hope that we will get a meaningful DOJ response that deals with the important issues we raised. However we do want people to know (which is why we are posting this now to our blog) that we sent that letter and that it respectfully requests the DOJ to take specific steps... [Our March 14, 2019 post]

It's distressing to report that the Justice Department has still not responded to our letter. But our concern here and now is with other aspects of the Tamimi case.

The 1982 Paris killings

Let's turn now to a murderous Palestinian Arab terror attack on one of France's best-known Jewish landmarks, a Paris restaurant called Chez Jo Goldenberg. In a 2016 post (13-Feb-16: Three decades after a terror attack on a Paris restaurant, some things remain just as they were"), we made some pungent observations about Jordan and the poorly understood, even surprising, way it approaches terrorism in general and ultra-violent antisemitic attacks in particular.

In November 2018, Mr and Mrs Tamimi, unrepentant murderers both,

were paid generous tribute on Jordan's most-watched TV channel.

Not one word about the Israelis they killed.

We wrote this:

We wish there was much wider awareness of how Jordan has provided a friendly environment since 2011 for the woman who masterminded the murder of our daughter, allowing her to operate freely from within Jordan's borders; to speak as an honored guest at its universities, professional guilds, law courts and other venues; to record her television program "Naseem Al Ahrar" (translation: “Breezes of the Free”) week after week for beaming out to the Arabic-speaking world throughout the past 4 years; and to emerge as a genuine pan-Arab celebrity.

In a Jordanian courthouse

So now to the events of this week. Ben Cohen's fine report today ["Jordanian Refusal to Extradite Paris Kosher Restaurant Killer to France Renews Concern Over Amman’s Terrorism Policy"] on The Algemeiner website sets the stage:

The Kingdom of Jordan’s highest court has rejected a French appeal for the extradition of a suspect in a deadly attack on a Jewish restaurant in Paris more than 30 years ago — raising further concerns that the stalwart ally of the West continues to offer safe haven to terrorists wanted by the courts of other countries, including the United States.
On Tuesday, Jordan’s Court of Cassation ruled against the extradition of 57-year-old Nizar Tawfiq Mussa Hamada, one of the alleged participants in the Aug. 9, 1982 attack at Chez Jo Goldenberg, a kosher restaurant in the traditionally Jewish Marais district of Paris.
After exploding a grenade inside the packed restaurant during its lunchtime service, two terrorists then opened fire on the diners with machine guns. Six people died and 22 more were wounded in the assault.
The atrocity was carried out by the Abu Nidal Organization — a radical Palestinian terrorist group that was active during the 1970s and 1980s, when it carried out attacks in over 20 countries. Named after the nom de guerre of its founder, Sabri al-Banna, the Abu Nidal group was backed at different times by the Iraqi, Syrian and Libyan regimes.
Speaking after Tuesday’s decision in favor of his client, Hamada’s lawyer, Mazan al-Tawil, praised the Jordanian judges for “categorically refusing” the French extradition request. Al-Tawil referred to the court’s decision to reject an earlier extradition request for Hamada in Feb. 2016 for the same reason — that a period of more than 30 years had elapsed since the atrocity, exceeding Jordan’s “limitation period” for extradition.
Al-Tawil’s co-conspirators in the attack on the restaurant have similarly escaped French justice because of the intervention of Jordanian courts.
The suspects in the Chez Jo Goldenberg attack were not formally identified until 2014, when two anonymous informants associated with Abu Nidal’s group supplied the French authorities with the missing information.
The following year, France’s top magistrate tasked with combating terrorism, Marc Trévidic, issued arrest warrants for several suspects, including Hamada and fellow Jordanian citizen Souhair Mouhamed Hassan Khalid al-Abassi — aka Amjad Atta — reputedly the mastermind behind the attack.
A French request to the Jordanian courts for al-Abassi’s extradition was similarly rejected in Oct. 2015 — just three months after the Hashemite Kingdom signed an extradition treaty with the French government.
But France is not the only country to have been turned down by Jordan after submitting an extradition request in connection with terrorism... [The Algemeiner today]

The Tamimi extradition

Ben Cohen is of course right.

That very same Jordanian tribunal, the Court of Cassation in Amman (the equivalent of a Supreme Court), handed down a highly problematic ruling in an unrelated extradition case two years ago. That 2017 case is about Mrs Tamimi. Its larger importance is that it considers the legality of an extradition treaty between Jordan and the United States that the US considers - without any doubt - in effect and binding.

The US had made a formal request years earlier (we think in 2013 but can't be sure) for Jordan to hand Tamimi over to them for bringing her to the US as required in their treaty. Jordan had persisted for the following three-plus years in its refusal.

The Jordanian court was asked, in effect, to rule on whether Jordan could, should or had to extradite Tamimi to face US terror charges.

It decided within the same week as the announcement of Federal charges against Tamimi, in fact just days later. In a somewhat bizarre ruling it first confirmed what everyone already knew, that there is indeed an extradition treaty with the US and has been since 1995. The Clinton Administration had signed it with King Hussein's government when it wanted to get its hands - and did get its hands - on Eyad Ismoil, one of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing plotters.

But, said the court, embarking on a Save Tamimi strategy, a constitutional flaw in the process meant that the treaty with the US could not be used to send the confessed killer to a Washington courthouse. Moreover, the treaty was not only invalid now. It had been invalid since the day it was signed.

This is an astounding thing for a US ally to claim.

It gets worse. Jordan has in reality happily extradited other Jordanian terrorists after 1995, The most recent was sentenced in the US just last year. None of them, as it happens, targeted Jews. (Could that be the missing key?)

The flaw, said the court, was in the fact that the treaty needed to get the approval of Jordan's rubber-stamp parliament. But it somehow never did. And it continues not to get it. Never getting it meant, the court implies, that Jordan's constitution prohibits the treaty from going into effect. And so Ahlam Tamimi could not be handed over to the US for prosecution. Case closed.

The US government reward

In its March 14, 2017 announcement, the DOJ did more than just unveil charges against Tamimi. It also added her to the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorists list where she still is today. A $5 Million reward for "information that leads to [her] arrest or conviction" was announced nine months later by the Rewards for Justice Unit (RFJ) of the Department of State.

Never in hiding: The Tamimis in their Amman apartment

in March 2017 where Associated Press reporters and

video people visited them [link including video]

That reward, which we pressed for is a curious thing. Why?

Because Tamimi has never been in hiding. She lives free-as-a-bird in Jordan today in a pleasant, well-equipped apartment with her family in Amman. Her husband, who is her cousin and also a convicted murderer was also released in the Shalit Deal. News crews, among them Associated Press visit regularly and interview her there.

The DOJ and the State Department's RFJ clearly know this.

Jordan's legal stance

Consider now what Jordan's Court of Cassation did in the Jo Goldenberg Massacre decision on Tuesday. It said (our words, not theirs):

We would simply love to do the right thing and extradite these evil shooters back to Paris. But - such rotten luck - the 2015 France/Jordan extradition treaty doesn't help since the statute of limitations has expired. Yes, it's too late. Our judicial hands are tied.

To which a pair of grieving parents in far-away Jerusalem say: So which one is it, Your Honors?

In your French decision, you treated that 2015 extradition treaty as legal and binding but you discovered an unrelated problem that meant the alleged perpetrator of the Paris massacre didn't have to be handed over to the French prosecutors. But in your American decision, you found the US treaty was invalid; some additional signature was needed, you said, and 22 years later Jordan's rulers still hadn't found the pen (except when it was needed for that French treaty). So Tamimi is saved the trouble of being prosecuted in Washington.

What a farce.

Did the 2015 France/Jordan extradition treaty get approved by the Jordanian rubber stamps that, according to the 2017 Tamimi decision, had to approve it? Apparently yes. Jordan's most senior judges aren't claiming the agreement with France is tainted constitutionally (as the 1995 US/Jordan one is, they say). If the French treaty was flawed, they would have said it. And they didn't.

We say: So then let that same Jordanian rubber stamp come now, this afternoon, right this hour, and at the king's command fix Jordan's allegedly invalid US Extradition Treaty. Isn't that how rubber stamps are supposed to work?

Or take the opposite view. Let's say the French treaty was never rubber stamped by Jordan's parliament. Yet the judges, who are silent on this point, treat it as being perfectly effective. No constitutional flaw. No need for it to be rubber stamped because, well, you know. But, oops, sadly there's this statute of limitations.

Taken together, the two Jordanian Court of Cassation decisions, one from 2017, one from this month, underscore the very high likelihood that the Jordan/US Treaty is in reality perfectly valid. That is precisely what the US says though it has not yet said it in public for reasons that bother us a great deal. (We have it in writing from multiple US government sources).

Without being excessively blunt on this, let's just say there's much room to be deeply cynical about Jordan's claims and its highest court's decision to refuse the US extradition request in the specific case of Tamimi. (Jordan's government itself, as distinct from its Court of Cassation, has never said a word in public about their refusal to extradite Tamimi.)

"Stop bothering Jordan"

Respected observers have noted that the kingdom of Jordan is going through a rocky period. There seems to be a sense that its dear friends in the West need to cut it some slack, not press too hard and do what needs to be done so its widely admired anti-terrorism monarch, King Abdullah II, can get on with the job of fixing the economy and building a stable, prosperous Western-facing state.

The man speaking is the Palestinian Arab father of the human bomb who

was brought to the Sbarro site by Ahlam Tamimi. (The Middle East bureau
chief of Australia's national broadcaster, ABC, at the time of the Sbarro 

massacre tried to persuade us to be interviewed with because he's so opposed
to violence and so pro-peace.) She fled to the safety of Ramallah
after instructing him to explode a few minutes later. Which he did.

We don't agree.

Jordan, entirely unreported by the news industry, has turned the Sbarro savage, Tamimi, into a pan-Arab hero from her safe, government-guaranteed perch in Amman, Jordan's capital.

Since 2011 via TV, social media and Internet-streamed video all over the Arabic speaking world and even into Israel's security prisons, she has become an inspiration to the powerful and very large forces inside the kingdom (and far beyond it) who want more bloodshed and conflict, more killing of Israelis and Jews, more "dignity" for the 80+ percent of Jordanians who call themselves Palestinians.

Tamimi no longer takes part in the weekly terror-promoting TV program we mentioned earlier. (Leaving it was not her choice - another story.) But she continues to play a key role in Jordan's fascination with Arab-on-Israeli terror. For a good example, see "24-Nov-18: How Jordan's mainstream media showcase a couple of role-model jihadist murderers".

Justice

The thwarted Jo Goldenberg extradition underscores what we already learned as we have tried (and continue to try) to bring our child's killer to justice since 2012:

You can have healthy bilateral relations based on justice, openness and honesty. Or you can pander to the powerful pro-terror forces operating inside Jordan. No one and certainly not a government that aligns itself strategically with the US can expect to have both.

It's a message we still hope (and fully expect) to hear articulated by officials of the US government.

18-Apr-17: So what, in reality, is Marwan Barghouti?

Barghouti, convicted on multiple counts of murder by shooting,

is a candidate for the next Nobel Peace Prize [Image Source: Arab media]

There are serious efforts underway this week to re-engineer the public image of the convicted Palestinian Arab felon, Marwan Barghouti.

Those efforts, based on disinformation, partial information and lots of spin, are directed at concealing the facts of his crimes and imprisonment and putting some wind into the sails of this ambitious man's on/off political career.

Outrageously, the key thing to know about Barghouti, according to one of the world's most influential newspapers which provided him yesterday ["Why We Are on Hunger Strike in Israel’s Prisons", New York Times, April 17, 2017] with an invaluable op ed platform to megaphone his extreme views, is that

Source: New York Times

In the following 24 hours, the Times found itself in the midst of a storm of protest. We have little sympathy for how the NYT's public editor summed things up today.

A side issue: Barghouti's English is poor. Yet "his" op ed, datelined Hadarim Prison, is a slickly-written piece of eloquent self-promotion. We think there's a teensie-tiny possibility it was written by professional pubic relations people in his name. Ah, but truly, who pays attention to such trivia when the cause is so compelling?

Barghouti has an interesting group of admirers who help his self-promotion process move forward. Here are just a few.

Desmond Mpilo Tutu, the South African church leader who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984, regularly sings Barghouti's praises. On one view, this is exceedingly odd, given how the Nobel committee specifically noted Tutu's own "nonviolent path to liberation" in its citation. So then is Tutu unware of Barghouti's lethal criminality, as widely outlined in the media for anyone who cares to look (for instance Dr Emmanuel Navon's cogently argued "Desmond Tutu is Wrong about Marwan Barghouti")? No, it does not seem that he is unaware. Instead, like many at that extreme end of the political spectrum, he seems to feel criminality of Barghouti's kind just doesn't count. And to show he means it, he has lately been touting the deeply offensive notion that Barghouti ought to get the same rich prize that Tutu himself did ["Bishop Tutu Nominates Jailed Palestinian Leader Barghouti for Nobel Peace Prize", Michael Friedson, June 8, 2016].

Al Jazeera, referring to the noble hero of the South African struggle to defeat apartheaid, calls Barghouti "the Palestinian Mandela". So do the Ma'an News Agency and a commentator at The Guardian. On the other hand, Le Monde, in the course of an interview with Barghouti, calls the comparison "debatable".

Adolfo Perez Esquivel, an Argentine human rights activist who received the 1980 Nobel Peace Prize and is a leader of the non-violent Latin American Christian group Servicio Paz y Justicia, is another supporter of a Barghouti Nobel [May 2016 source]. So is the parliament of Tunisia [source]. And so are sixteen mayors of towns in France [source] including Valenton and Bergerac (unfortunately we don't know the names of the other metropolises).

A cluster of Belgians, all of them involved in their country's national politics, followed suit and wrote to the Nobel committee in May 2016, improbably calling Barghouti "a peace activist":

“Peace requires the freedom of Marwan Barghouti and of the political prisoners, and more generally the freedom of the Palestinian people living for decades under occupation.”

Thinking logically, we might have surmised that the Belgians meant to exclude homicidal thugs from the list of those to be freed because what possible basis can there be to label such felons "political prisoners"? But then they do seem serious about wanting Barghouti to go to Oslo. So evidently they - like Tutu - don't see a conflict between being (a) a convicted murderer and (b) a peace activist. Sort of like being both a cheese-burger addict and an activist for veganism.

But for those to whom facts and realities still mean something, here's a brief excursion through the contemporary reports that accompanied his journey into the Israeli penal system. To emphasize the point, we refer to news reports carried by Haaretz which is much closer to Tutu's views than to ours.

The capture:

Wiretapping revealed that Barghouti was hiding in a safe house. The commander of the army’s Ramallah Brigade... told Haaretz: “When the intelligence arrived that he was in a building in the heart of a Ramallah neighborhood... an armored brigade surrounded the site and the baton was passed to me. The Duvdevan unit was under my command. We understood that he was in the building. One of the soldiers saw him through the window, taking cover close to what looked to us, at least, like an old woman who was lying on a bed. We removed everyone from the building... ["Will Marwan Barghouti be the Palestinian Nelson Mandela?", Haaretz, July 5, 2016]

The conviction

The Tel Aviv District Court convicted former West Bank Tanzim commander Marwan Barghouti in the deaths of five people on Thursday. Barghouti was convicted of three terror attacks in which the five were murdered, as well as in another charge of attempted murder, membership in a terror organization and conspiring to commit a crime. However, the court acquitted him of 33 other murders with which he was charged, noting that there was no evidence that he was a full partner to those incidents...  The court ruled that Barghouti was directly responsible for a January 2002 terror attack on a gas station in Givat Zeev in which Israeli Yoela Chen was murdered. The attack, the judges said, was carried out at his direct order in revenge for the assassination of Raed Carmi. Barghouti had admitted his responsibility for this attack. The attack in which a Greek monk was murdered in Ma'aleh Adumim on June of 2001 was also carried out at the instruction of Barghouti, the judges said. The former Tanzim leader, the court ruled, also approved the March 2002 attack at Tel Aviv's Seafood Market restaurant in which three people were murdered, as well as a car bomb attack in Jerusalem... [He] was charged with leading dozens of terror operations against Israeli targets since the outbreak of the Palestinian uprising, including suicide and shooting attacks that led to the death and injury of hundreds of Israeli citizens and Israel Defense Force soldiers. According to the charge sheet, Barghouti headed the Fatah, Tanzim and Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade terror groups in the West Bank and was subordinate to Arafat... The state prosecutor said Barghouti funded and planned terror attacks and is not the political activist he claimed to be... Barghouti's supporters in the European parliament were expected to show up for the ruling... ["Barghouti Convicted in Deaths of Five People", Haaretz, May 20, 2004]

Barghouti was sentenced by judges Sarah Sirota, Amiram Benyamini and Avraham Tal to five consecutive life terms plus an additional 40 years. The judges observed that

Barghouti used to receive reports of the attacks carried out by his associates only after they were completed. This was an effort to preserve his image as a political leader not involved in armed attacks against Israelis... [Haaretz, June 6, 2004] 

And some occasionally overlooked points, via JTA:

When Israeli authorities chose to put Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti on trial in a criminal court rather than a military court, prosecutors may have set the stage for an even bigger prize: Yasser Arafat. That possibility was given a boost last week with Barghouti’s conviction on five counts of murder, for Israelis killed in three separate shooting ambushes... The judges said Barghouti could be convicted only in cases where it was proven that he had prior knowledge of imminent terrorist attacks and that he approved the attacks... [He] was acquitted on 21 other counts of murder for lack of evidence. Both outcomes bolstered the argument for putting Palestinian terrorists on trial in regular Israeli courts rather than in military courts, where the standards of evidence are not as strict. Barghouti’s conviction shows that there is sufficient evidence to put terrorists behind bars using standard criminal procedures, and his acquittal on the other counts lends legitimacy to the argument that even Palestinian terrorists will get fair trials in Israel... ["Barghouti conviction could foretell Arafat trial", JTA, May 24, 2004]

Some additional overlooked dimensions:

• Marwan Barghouti publicly boasted of his role in igniting what many call the Second Intifada in 2000. We published his direct quotes (translated to English) here. This may come as a surprise to those who think of Ariel Sharon visiting the Temple Mount in September 2000 as being the real story. 
• He personally laid out $500 [source (no longer on-line) and here via Wayback Machine quoting a November 30, 2004 Margot Dudkevitch report in the Jerusalem Post] for the making of the explosive-filled guitar case that was brought to, and exploded inside, Jerusalem's Sbarro pizzeria destroying it on August 9, 2001 and killing fifteen innocent people including our daughter Malki. The bombmaker was Abdullah Barghouti, a clansman.
• When another clansman Bilal Barghouti, a senior Hamas operative, was on the run from the Israeli security forces because of his involvement in the massacre at the Sbarro pizzeria (he was later convicted for his part), Marwan Barghouti sheltered him for a time in his home. Bilal Barghouti said for the record that, during his stay there, "he saw a number of weapons, and when he left the house Barghouti armed him with a gun for his use." [Source: CAMERA] Marwan Barghouti is an unindicted accessory after the fact to the Sbarro murders.

Leader and parliamentarian, battler for non-violence and peace, candidate for the world's most important reward for bring peace to the world. And also a cold-blooded thug closely directing other thugs, a man happy to appear in public gripping a sub-machine gun and the man who claims credit for the blood-drenched Intifadeh years from 2000 onwards.

We don't think it's all that difficult to distinguish between Barghouti the plastic-coated fantasy and invention of parts of the media, and Barghouti the loathsome killer of innocents. In the end, it seems to come down - tragically - to whom and what you want to believe.

08-Jan-17: Pakistanis, working for Iran, plotted murders of Israelis in France, Germany

From news coverage of the suspect's earlier arrest last summer [Image Source]

A brief report put out by Kuwait's official newsagency caught our eye last week:

BERLIN (January 3, KUNA): The office of the German Prosecutor General has on Tuesday officially accused a Pakistani national of spying for Iran. Sayed Mustafa, 31 years, confessed of receiving money from an Iranian secret service for spying on the former head of German-Israeli Society Reinhold Robbe over at least one year, said a statement by the Prosecutor General's office located in Karlsruhe city. The defendant is also accused by Paris of spying on a professor of economics for the same Iranian secret service, according to the statement. The man. arrested in last July is to stand trial after his interrogation complete in mid-December [Source: Kuwait News Agency KUNA]

The fractured English aside, it sounds like more than spying is involved here, unless the Kuwaitis mean for us to believe that Iran is seeking insights into economic theory or wants to get a deeper understanding of how Germany's parliament works (Robbe has been an elected member of the Bundestag for the past 23 years). Both options are unlikely.

Now there's a different version of this murky story from an official German source:

German federal prosecutors pressed charges against a 31-year-old Pakistani student who they believe targeted Social Democratic Party (SPD) politician Reinhold Robbe on behalf of the Iranian intelligence agency, German media reported on Friday. Robbe, who served as president of the German-Israeli Society (DIG) until 2015, was being eyed as a possible assassination target, according to information reviewed by German public broadcasters NDR and WDR, as well as the daily "Süddeutsche Zeitung." According to the federal prosecutors' indictment, the suspected agent, named as Syed Mustufa H., compiled a thorough "movement profile" on Robbe and staked out the DIG offices in Berlin - signs authorities said were a clear indication of an assassination attempt.
The suspect paid particularly close attention to Robbe's public transportation travel habits and charted alternate routes that he took on the way to the DIG Berlin building. Prosecutors said the suspect's actions were part of a broader operation to identify possible targets with friendly ties to Israel in Germany, France and other European countries, the reports said. The Pakistani man is also accused of spying on a French-Israeli professor at a business school in Paris on behalf of Iranian intelligence. The suspect was previously detained by authorities in July 2016 under suspicion of espionage and was known to Germany's domestic intelligence agency (BfV). The Pakistani suspect is believed to have been spying for Iran since July 2015. The exact motive for carrying out a possible attack on Robbe is still unclear. However, security agencies speculate that the Iranian government could have been preparing a retaliatory move against people closely linked to Israel should Israel carry out airstrikes against Iranian nuclear power plants. Despite his extensive observation of Robbe, files confiscated from Syed Mustafa H. indicate that some of his methods were those of an amateur... The suspected agent officially studied engineering in Bremen and also worked at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in the northern German city, the reports said. It is the first known case of a German politician being the target of an espionage operation by the Iranian intelligence agency, the reports said. [Deutsche Welle, January 7, 2017]

We're left wondering: Does this suspected spy/assassin have a surname and is it H? (Associated Press says this is "in keeping with German privacy rules"). Is there a good reason for not publicly identifying the Iranian spy agency? Is this really just an espionage story? And can we expect the wiley - and ruthless - Iranians to intervene and extract their agent from the German authorities clutches as they recently did in Kenya? ["14-Dec-16: Kenya, one way or another, clarifies its stance in the face of Iranian terror"]

In Pakistan, the alleged agent's July 2016 arrest in Germany on charges of serving the Iranians was a real story: see "Germany arrests Pakistani man accused of spying for Iran" [Express Tribune, Pakistan, July 8, 2016]. The photo at the top of this post is from the news coverage at the time.

Israel's Ynet, like us, is inclined to look past the espionage claims and to view the arrest as more pertaining to a sleeper assassination squad in the service of the Iranian regime:

A 31 year old Pakistani man has been indicted for being involved in an attempt to assassinate Reinhold Robbe - a member of the socialist-democrats and former president of the body responsible for strengthening relations between Israel and Germany. [He] was recruited by Iranian intelligence services, and was tasked with following known, outspoken Israel supporters in Germany... Mustafa and other operatives were to have been given orders to assassinate these targets should Israel have struck the Iranian nuclear reactors... Mustafa was arrested in July on suspicion of spying, and has been known to German intelligence services as a suspected Iranian agent since at least 2015. [Ynet, January 8, 2017]

And an Israel-based video news network pursues a similar line:

While the motive of the possible attack remains unclear, authorities reportedly suspect that the individuals were targeted as part of a planned worldwide retaliation scheme, in case Israel carries out an airstrike against Iran's nuclear facilities. Another suspect, also a Pakistani national, was arrested in connection to the affair but was released due to insufficient evidence, as he was able to erase the hard drive of his computer prior to his arrest, possibly destroying incriminating information. He left Germany immediately after his release. German media noted that it is the first known case in which a German politician was the target of an operation by the Iranian secret service... [i24NewsTV, today]

As for Iranian motivation (and perhaps fingerprints), a reminder of a news snippet we highlighted here just last month: 

Iranian Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan, while speaking at a conference in Tehran, said that were President-Elect Trump to withdraw from the Iranian nuclear “deal” signed by the Obama administration, Iran would destroy the State of Israel... ["Iran threatens to destroy Israel - again", Washington Times, December 12, 2016]

We suspect this story has some way yet to go.

27-Jul-16: Pope "decries" what the Islamist terrorists do - disconnects it from religion

The church in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray where the priest's throat
was slit by a pair of young Islamists yesterday [Image Source]

Via Wall Street Journal today, this depressing reaffirmation of the confusion at the highest levels over terror and those doing it that keeps counter-terrorism so relatively ineffectual...

Pope Francis Says ‘World Is at War,’ Decries Terrorist Attack on French Church | As he arrives for visit to Poland, pontiff says conflicts inspired by economic, political interests | FRANCIS X. ROCCA | Updated July 27, 2016 11:22 a.m. ET | ...Pope Francis added that the current violence was over economic and political interests rather than religion. “There is war for money,” he said. “There is war for natural resources. There is war for the domination of peoples. Some might think I am speaking of religious war. No. All religions want peace; it is other people who want war.”

Decrying, compared with the alternatives, can be a good thing. But it's not a counter-terror strategy. It will do precisely zero to save lives in the face of murder-minded zealots, many of them shiftless young men freshly admitted to a mostly-unprepared Europe.

Europe is at a loss to formulate strategies for fending off the jihadists. And its security resources have for years already [link] been close to exhaustion.

Pope Francis arrives in Poland today [Image Source]

The WSJ piece refers to yesterday's Islamist terror murder of the Rev. Jacques Hamel, 85, whose throat was slashed by a couple of Islamist teens while he was celebrating Mass at a church in a small town in Normandy, Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray. One of them is a known French jihadist Adel Kermiche, who was awaiting trial on terror charges and had been fitted with an electronic tag.

The murderous attack, says the WSJ reporter

broke the pattern of Islamist terrorist strikes in Europe, which have till now been limited to secular targets. Islamic State identified the two assailants, who were killed by police, as its “soldiers.” [Wall Street Journal, today]

Limited to secular targets? How about "07-Jun-15: In France, arrests in wake of an intended Islamist terror assault on a Paris church" and what about the many Jewish targets that have been threatened and attacked and the Jews who have lost their lives in jihadist attacks inside synagogues in France? And in Turkey? In Norway? In Denmark? In the UK?

21-Jul-16: Lone wolf truck-ramming murderer transforms - yet again - into a far more lethal figure

The weapon in the Bastille Day massacre in Nice, France
[Image Source]

What we know, or were told we know, or thought or suspected we knew turns out - almost as we watch - to be very different. And what's different makes it much, much more threatening. (For background: "15-Jul-16: The terrorist vehicle-ramming murders in France: what the media see and won't see"] Above all, this was not, in any sense, an attack by a truck.

From Associated Press tonight:

The truck driver who killed 84 people on a Nice beachfront had accomplices and appears to have been plotting his attack for months, the Paris prosecutor said on Thursday. Prosecutor Francois Molins said five suspects currently in custody are facing preliminary terrorism charges for their alleged roles in helping 31-year-old Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel in the July 14 attack in the southern French city. Molins' office, which oversees terrorism investigations, opened a judicial inquiry Thursday into a battery of charges... The suspects are four men — two Franco-Tunisians, a Tunisian and an Albanian — and one woman of dual French-Albanian nationality, Molins said. The driver was a Tunisian man who had been living in Nice for several years. People close to Bouhlel said he had shown no signs of radicalization until very recently. But Molins said information from Bouhlel's phone showed searches and photos that suggested he could have been preparing an attack as far back as 2015.

Almost no aspect of what was suggested about the attacker in the hours and first days after the incredibly lethal assault by truck-ramming has remained in its original shape. This will not prevent the very same thing from happening next time there is a terrorist attack in which, as far as the naked eye can see, is done by an individual. He or she will be a lone wolf for media and government policy purposes until the facts make that theory impossible to sustain.

We, the civilized side, are not winning this ongoing war yet.

15-Jul-16: The terrorist vehicle-ramming murders in France: what the media see and won't see

The BBC news home page this morning: Death by attack truck

In the wake of a vicious mass-killing perpetrated by a person (or persons) who drove a large truck at high speed in zig-zag fashion through a huge crowd for about two kilometers, France's president, François Hollande, said in a televised speech last night what only the most obtuse of observers can have failed to comprehend: that all of France is living under the threat of Islamic terrorism:

“After Paris in January 2015 and then St. Denis in November last year, and now Nice, in its turn, is touched, it is all of France that is under the threat of Islamist terrorists,” Hollande said in a pre-dawn broadcast Friday which the Elysee, the presidential palace, posted on social media. He referred to deadly mass attacks in January on a satirical weekly and a kosher supermarket in Paris and in November on a concert hall in Paris, carried out by terrorists affiliated with Islamist terrorist groups.
A truck barreled into a crowd Thursday night during celebrations marking Bastille Day, the French independence day, killing 77 people. Reports said there might have been more than one attacker, and that the truck’s cab was filled with guns, explosives and grenades, according to local authorities.
The driver, who fired a gun into the crowd, was killed by return fire. An identity card in the truck cab bore name of a French Tunisian.
There was no claim of responsibility and security authorities were not yet describing the attack as terrorist, but Hollande made clear he believed that it was.
“The attack’s terrorist character cannot be denied,” he said. [JTA, July 14, 2016]

Though he made plain what we meant, Hollande's words have been distorted, ignored or turned on their heads in certain parts of the news media. Overall, as of Friday morning, there's a conspicuous avoidance of drawing the kinds of stark conclusions that the French leader has:

• "Nice attack: 80 dead as truck ploughs into crowd, France says" [Melbourne Age, where they know about the Hollande speech that we mentioned above but boil down his blunt words to this absurd and cowardly circumlocution: "Mr Hollande said the truck attack was of a "terrorist character" and extended the national state of emergency by three months."]
• "TRUCK ATTACK ON FRENCH CROWD; SCORES DIE" in the print edition; then "Scores Reported Dead in Nice, France, as Truck Plows Into Bastille Day Crowd" online [both in the New York Times]
• "THE WORST MOMENT IN NICE'S HISTORY: AT LEAST 80 DEAD AFTER TRUCK PLOUGHS INTO CROWD CELEBRATING BASTILLE DAY", [The Journal, Irish Republic, where they cannot even bring themselves to see this as an attack, let alone terror]
• "At least 80 dead in Nice truck attack" [Front page of BBC website at this hour - see screenshot above]
• "Screams, flying debris as truck ploughs into Nice crowd" [Agence France-Presse]
• "Many dead as lorry hits crowd in Nice" [BBC some hours ago]
• Euronews now: "Bastille Day attack: 84 deaths now confirmed after terrorist drove truck through crowds in southern French city of Nice" versus the same Euronews story at 7:00 this morning: "Up to '60 dead' after truck ploughs into crowds in Nice"
• At Reuters, the editors are still sitting on the fence: "Truck 'terrorist' kills 80 in attack on Nice Bastille Day crowd". But with or without quote marks, the word "terrorist" is at least in their headline. We can be thankful they are not calling it an instance of "violent extremism".
• Thankfully, there's the Wall Street Journal: "Deadly Truck Attack in Nice Tests a Terror-Scarred France"

The terror weapon [Image Source]

But in certain parts of the Arab world, there's neither avoidance nor doubt:

...[A]s in the hours immediately after the Paris, Brussels and Orlando attacks, there was a now familiar celebration on channels run by groups that support the Islamic State, as well as on at least one channel affiliated with the group, also known as ISIS and ISIL. They cheered the carnage. On a channel created Thursday, called the United Cyber Caliphate, run by a group that has previously tried to carry out cyberattacks in the Islamic State’s name, a message included a single word — France — followed by a smiley face. The channel of an Islamic State member, Aswarti Media, which has repeatedly been shut down and claims 1,987 members, was posting the phrase “Allahu akbar.” Yet another suspected pro-ISIS channel showed an image of the Eiffel Tower going up in flames. [New York Times, July 15, 2016]

In the UK, the Telegraph via its live-blogging, shares some of what ordinary people, particularly in France, already seem to know [all direct quotes from Telegraph]:

• The truck driver who rammed his vehicle into a massive crowd in Nice fired a pistol several times before being shot dead by police, a local official said Friday. 
• The truck driver was said to have shouted 'Allahu Akbar' — God is greatest — before being shot dead by police.
• [H]e drove a heavy truck at high speed into a crowd watching Bastille Day fireworks in the French Riviera city of Nice late on Thursday. The driver was shot dead after barrelling the truck two kilometres (1.3 miles) through the festive crowd on the palm-lined Promenade des Anglais, sending hundreds fleeing in terror and leaving the area strewn with bodies.
• Authorities said they found identity papers belonging to a 31-year-old French-Tunisian citizen in the truck, as well as "guns" and "larger weapons".
• The truck driver was known to French police for common law crimes such as theft and violence, according to police sources, but not to the intelligence services.
• ...French President Francois Hollande has vowed to strengthen his country's role in the fight against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria after a deadly attack on Nice, which has not been claimed by any group. "Nothing will make us yield in our will to fight terrorism. We will further strengthen our actions in Iraq and in Syria. We will continue striking those who attack us on our own soil," he said, in reference to the Islamic State group.

Some observations from the Wall Street Journal:

The carnage in Nice marks the latest in a string of attacks against France over the last 18 months, traumatizing the country just as the government was preparing to relax its antiterror posture. If confirmed as a terror attack, it would represent a breakdown of the vast security dragnet France erected after the November’s Islamic State-sponsored assault that left 130 dead in Paris. It would also point to the country’s vulnerability in the face of extremist groups such as Islamic State, which has called for sympathizers to strike soft targets such as Thursday’s Bastille Day fireworks display celebrating the French Revolution.

Not only France's vulnerability, but that of every other city and country in the world. This is a war, and it will be won only after that's comprehended.

And this:

The French public and the government had just started to breathe easier eight months after the November attacks. The country had been on high alert as it hosted the European soccer championship, which ended this month without incident. “In the life of a nation there are tests—and we have been tested in the last year, and doubtless will be again. But in the life of a nation there are also moments of exhalation and collective joy,” Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said earlier this week. “The Euro (tournament) was one of those special moments.” [Wall Street Journal]

The practitioners of terror are not acting on spur-of-the-moment impulses but see this as a process with a long path ahead and a distant horizon. Each killing, every outrage and massacre, represents for them a marker towards the victory they so clearly seek. The name we chose for this blog embodies the view we take of the period in which every country on earth now finds itself.

Here in Israel, terror by vehicle ramming is only too familiar to ordinary citizens and to the security forces. Click here for some of the dozens of vehicle ramming terror attacks we have reported in the past ten months.

The president of the Palestinian Authority, who we can be confident will be urged by his advisers to quickly denounce the carnage in France, has explicitly and repeatedly praised the vehicle-ramming attackers when the victims have been Jews and Israelis. We can be quite sure Mahmoud Abbas will refrain from calling the Nice terrorist "a martyr who quenched the land" with his "pure soul". But that's exactly what he did from Ramallah just four months ago. Does anyone think this is going to be mentioned in the mainstream media?

As of now, the French death toll has passed 80, and at least 100 others are injured. We will be updating this post during the day.

23-Mar-16: The morning after Brussels: Reflecting on the responses

When terrorism upends the lives of ordinary people, exacting a price that often ends up being paid over and again for years, its victims sometimes look around to see who, if anyone, understands what they have just been required to start enduring.

People who understand the insult, the pain, the grief, the loss, the sense of outrage and violation. And who understand the measures that victims expect their leaders to take so that something is learned from the awfulness. And so that the likelihood of it happening again, no matter to whom, will be reduced.

That understanding is not always easy to find.

In its place, as some victims of terror including many Israelis (we among them) have learned over the years, come advice and lectures from people who are often, themselves, unaffected in a personal sense by terrorist attacks. That advice, from the perspective of those who have been and often are its target, has frequently taken forms we find surprising, insensitive, unwise and occasionally outrageous.

To equip ourselves with some additional resilience for when the need next arises as it surely will, we have this morning culled a selection of expressions of understanding published in the wake of the savagery that took dozens of lives in Belgium yesterday.

In the selected quotes below, all published in the past 24 hours, much of the sentiment is understandably and thankfully humanitarian and emotional. They include words of encouragement and of outrage; determination and sympathy. (How much of it is genuine and sincere? Since these are politicians, that's not a fair or relevant question to ask.)

As people who have gotten to know terrorism from the victims' standpoint, who are we to deny its value? People reaching out to people, empathizing, sharing what we have in common, understanding, is not only one of the most effective things to do if we want to benefit the other. It's often the only thing that can be done.

Have a look down the list and please ask yourself, as we have today, whether, in each case, you could imagine a similar sentiment being expressed - but with Israel in place of Belgium.

• Washington stands with Belgium in the face of the "outrageous" attacks - Barack Obama, US President  [AFP]
• The Brussels attacks were "yet another reminder that the world must unite. We must be together, regardless of nationality or race or faith, in fighting against the scourge of terrorism."  - Barack Obama, US President  [US News]
• The attacks "have once again shown terrorism's global face." Turkey's prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu [Associated Press]
• Those responsible for the "despicable" bombings should face justice - UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon [AFP]
• "His Majesty King Abdullah II condemns the terrorist attacks in Brussels" - Abdullah II, king of Jordan [Twitter]
• "This is a day of tragedy, a black day... [following the] deadliest attacks we have ever seen in Belgium" which were "blind, violent and cowardly... People were just going to work, to school and they have been cut down by the most extreme barbarity." The response? "We will continue to protect liberty, our way of life." - Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel [AFP]
• "Painful day for Brussels and all Europe. In Jordan with FM @NasserJudeh working together on counterterrorism #united" - Federica Mogherini, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, tweeting from Amman where our daughter's convicted murderer lives freely, unfettered by any counter-terror measures of which we are aware and in flagrant disregard of basic notions of justice [Twitter]. Ms Mogherini broke down in tears [link] at the end of her press conference with the Jordanian foreign minister yesterday. A photograph from some years ago [link] captures her standing Yasser Arafat, suggesting she knows more about terror than most European politicians. 
• "Terrorism knows no borders and is a plague to all of us... Correct education is the right answer to ignorance and extremism." Egypt's leading religious figure, Grand Mufti Shawki Ibrahim Abdel-Karim Allam [Associated Press]
• The terrorist attacks were "cowardly and odious" and Belgium would "respond together with firmness, calmness and dignity" - Philippe, king of the Belgians [ABC]
• The Eiffel Tower will be lit up in the colors of the Belgian flag - Anne Hidalgo, mayor of Paris [Twitter]
• "Terrorists struck Brussels but it was Europe that was targeted - and all the world that is concerned." - French president Francois Hollande [Associated Press]
• "What is necessary now is that we show our collective strength and uphold the values of freedom and solidarity." - Dutch King Willem-Alexander [Associated Press]
• We will fight terrorism "with all necessary means" after this "attack on our open democratic society." - The 28 EU leaders in a rare joint statement [AFP]
• The terrorist threat facing countries across Europe is "very real... We will never left these terrorists win." - David Cameron, prime minister of the UK [AFP]
• "I am shocked and concerned by the events in Brussels. We will do everything we can to help." - David Cameron, prime minister of the UK [Twitter]
• "All solidarity now with EU, Belgium... Terrorists will never win: Our European values much stronger than hate, violence, terror!" - German Chancellor Angela Merkel via her chief of staff Peter Altmeier [Twitter]
• "I think we’ve got to recognize that the threat posed by the modern incarnation of terrorism is one that we have to be vigilant against. I know that Americans have every reason to be frightened by what they see." - Hillary Clinton, US Democratic Party presidential contender [Time]
• "Do you all remember how beautiful and safe a place Brussels was... Not anymore, it is from a different world! U.S. must be vigilant and smart!" - Donald Trump [Twitter]
• The Brussels attacks are "just the latest in a string of coordinated attacks by radical Islamic terrorists perpetrated by those who are waging war against all who do not accept their extreme strain of Islam... Radical Islam is at war with us." Ted Cruz, US Republican Party presidential contender [Time Magazine]
• The Brussels attacks are "another cowardly attempt to terrorize innocent civilians... [and] a brutal reminder that the international community must come together to destroy ISIS." - Bernie Sanders, US Democratic Party presidential contender [Twitter]
• The blasts in Brussels are "a barbaric crime [that] confirms once again that terrorism knows no borders and threatens the peoples all over the world" - Russian President Vladimir Putin [US News]
• "All Australians condemn these cowardly terrorist attacks in Brussels. And the Belgian people have our thoughts, our prayers and our resolute solidarity in this battle against terrorism. They are utterly cowardly attacks, attacking innocent people, but we need to be constantly vigilant, vigilance is the key." - Malcolm Turnbull, prime minister of Australia [The Guardian]
• The beloved Belgian cartoon character Tintin is depicted in tears [AFP]

We continue to scan the online news media for quotable calls by political leaders for Belgium and the EU to exercise compromise, act with reasonableness and restraint, to avoid vengeance, to find a peaceful path, to keep right away from carrying out extrajudicial executions, not to take steps that could further destabilize the situation, to be proportionate in defending themselves from the jihadists.

We plan to let readers know the moment we find them. And yes, we would appreciate your help [send to thisongoingwar at gmail dot com].

22-Mar-16: Belgium's focus on Europe-based jihad just rose several notches

Candles and flowers are laid in tribute to the victims - outside the
Brussels stock exchange today [Image Source]

Just four days after Friday's arrest of an Islamist terrorist, Saleh Abdeslam, in Brussels, the city has found itself in the midst of serious drama... just as the Belgian government says (but only now admits) it expected.

Two massive explosions - one at the main international airport of Brussels at Zaventem a couple of minutes before 8:00 am, and a third in the Maelbeek subway station in the heart of the city a minute or two after 9:00 am -completely paralyzed the Belgian capital today.

At the time we are writing this, the updated count of losses [quoting "Explosions at Brussels Airport and Subway Kill 34", New York Times, today] is that 34 people are killed - 14 at the airport and 20 in the subway station. Many more are injured in the two attacks: more than 90 at the airport and more than 100 in the subway. Reports speak of children, of amputated limbs, of severe burns, and of the likelihood that the numbers will grow.

In the several hours that have passed since the first reports, the local authorities have gathered enough information to confidently define these as terror attacks. Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel, whom we mentioned here just a few days ago ["19-Mar-16: An arrest in Belgium sharpens the focus on Europe-based jihad"] spoke earnestly into national television cameras today, calling the attacks “blind, violent and cowardly.”

The impact on Belgium is wide and ongoing.

• From various reports, we see that Brussels' public transport system is shut down and the entire city is in a kind of lock-down state with residents being told to “stay where you are”, evidently via a government-authorized Twitter message. 
• Eurostar canceled all trains between Brussels and London. Thalys high-speed trains linking dozens of cities in Belgium, France, Germany and the Netherlands were suspended [NY Times]
• Deputy Prime Minister Alexander De Croo has said Belgians should avoid making calls so that the city’s mobile network would not be as saturated as they evidently are, and to communicate via online messages instead. 
• Belgium's federal prosecutor, Frédéric Van Leeuw, says border controls have been strengthened and extra police officers had been mobilized. 
• Belgium’s official terror threat status was raised from three to four - the highest possible value. 
• Telegraph UK reports that the Belgian foreign minister Didier Reynders expressed a concern that additional parties responsible for the killings today are still at large. 

There are, predictably, ripple effects that have not yet run their course.

• All flights into and out of the airport were cancelled right after the attack. An El Al flight from Tel Aviv to Brussels was diverted to another airport in mid-flight. 
• Staff at Belgium's nuclear power stations have been asked to leave the sites "for their own safety" [Telegraph UK today]. It appears, according to the same source, that several people "were recently caught using a hidden camera to monitor movements at the home of a leading Belgium nuclear research executive. The development suggested that terrorists were preparing to kidnap him in order to gain access to nuclear materials or to get into a power plant." There's another concern: "The explosion of a radioactive so-called dirty bomb is one of the chief fears of the security services and was thought to be a little outlandish until the discovery in Belgium."
• President Barack Obama said this afternoon: "We can and we will defeat those who threaten the safety and security of people all around the world." His Secretary of State, John Kerry, has told Belgium via his spokesperson on Twitter: "We are ready to support the investigation as appropriate." And "The United States stands with the people of Belgium." Donald Trump has said today that France and Belgium and other parts of Europe are "literally disintegrating". He predicts "many more" attacks. "In my opinion this is just the beginning, it's going to get worse and worse," he told Fox News. He reiterated his pledge to shut down America's border to Muslims "until we figure out what is going on... There's something going on. They're not assimilating into society, and there's something different," he said. "It's not our fault, it's their fault," he added, referring to Muslims." [Telegraph UK, today]
• Mr Trump placed some of the blame for the attacks on "no-go zones" in France and Belgium where, he said, police are afraid to enter
• France's president Francois Hollande said the Brussels savagery struck at "the whole of Europe" [AFP, today]. In a NY Times report, he says "Through the Brussels attacks, it is the whole of Europe that is hit". France ordered 1,600 additional police officers to patrol its borders, train stations, airports and ports. The Eiffel Tower will be lit with the colors of Belgium’s flag tonight.
• Pope Francis expressed his condolences [AFP]. The attacks, he said, are "blind violence, which causes so much suffering".

A handful of observations now about the way parts of the media are dealing with the harsh realities:

• Over at the BBC where using the word "terror" in news reports of jihadist barbarism of the sort that plagues our lives here is strictly controlled and mostly avoided [see "7-Aug-13: Political prisoners, political media"], it appears to have been a tumultuous day. Their lead story this morning appeared around 9:00 am London time under the heading "Brussels Zaventem airport and metro explosions 'kill at least 13'" [archived here], and had no mention of the word "terror". We and others noticed and criticized via Twitter which normally has little effect. Today however, some two hours later and with no fanfare or explanation, the same article (with the same URL) was given a new headline: "Brussels explosions: Many dead in airport and metro terror attacks" [archived here]. Fittingly, it calls the attacks terror - as it should.
• And confronted with the hideous horror of the pitiless bombings of ordinary people traveling places, a reporter ("mostly", he says) for The Times of London and The Economist tweets: "One of the ugliest rituals after any attack in Europe is the chorus of "we told you so!" from the Israeli right." That struck us as repugnant. We tweeted back: "That's the most serious fallout? For us, slavish avoidance of word "terror" in some news channels is both uglier and harmful". It fell on deaf ears, of course.
• And from the New York Times today, this cause-and-effect sound-bite:
  Few countries have been more vulnerable [in the wake of the huge influx of "undocumented migrants" as the New York Times delicately calls them] than Belgium. It has an especially high proportion of citizens who have traveled to Iraq, insular Muslim communities that have helped shield jihadists, and security services that have had persistent problems conducting effective counter-terrorism operations... 

A difficult day, and not yet ended.

UPDATE Tuesday March 22, 2016 at 7:30 pm: The Islamic State has claimed the Brussels attacks. The New York Times reports that:

The Islamic State-affiliated news agency has issued a bulletin claiming responsibility for the deadly attacks Tuesday in Brussels. The claim was disseminated on the group’s official channel on Telegram, a social media platform, and picked up by other official ISIS channels on Telegram and on Twitter. “Islamic State fighters carried out a series of bombings with explosive belts and devices on Tuesday, targeting an airport and a central metro station in the center of the Belgian capital Brussels, a country participating in the coalition against the Islamic State,” the statement says. “Islamic State fighters opened fire inside the Zaventem airport, before several of them detonated their explosive belts, as a martyrdom bomber detonated his explosive belt in the Maalbeek metro station.”

19-Mar-16: An arrest in Belgium sharpens the focus on Europe-based jihad

Police raid in the Molenbeek section of Brussels, Belgium [Image Source]

Salah Abdeslam, the fugitive believed to be the only terrorist to survive after the savage Friday 13th Paris attacks last November, was captured by Belgian police on Friday.

They were tipped-off by a pizzeria owner whose suspicions were raised by an unusually large order: a "lucky break", a Politico analysis called it.

Three members of a family hiding him, named at this stage only as Abid A, Sihane A and Djemila M, have also been detained [The Independent, UK, today].

Abdeslam, it's thought, fled Paris immediately after the coordinated massacres ["14-Nov-15: The Friday 13th terror assault on Paris"] that took the lives of 130 people at the Stade de France, numerous cafés and restaurants and the Bataclan theatre in central Paris. More than 400 others were injured. He got back to Brussels, and successfully eluded a wide and urgent police search over the following months. In parts of the media, he came to be called "the most wanted man in Europe".

Today he was formally charged with "participation in terrorist murder". His lawyer says [The Guardian] he is "collaborating" with Belgian investigators and will fight extradition to France.

Abdeslam is 26, and described as a Belgian-born, French citizen of Moroccan ancestry. Associated Press calls him "a childhood friend of the suspected ringleader of the attacks... " Elsewhere, it is noted that a brother of Abdeslam's, Ibrahim, was one of the human bomb attackers at the Stade de France, and died there.

His apprehension

could give security and intelligence agencies an opportunity to interrogate Mr. Abdeslam about his ties to the Islamic State and how the attacks were planned and carried out, at a time when officials are saying that the Paris plot might have been larger and more elaborate than first thought. He was arrested three days after the police found his fingerprints in an apartment in another Brussels neighborhood. The authorities gave few details about how they had tracked him down, but the Belgian prosecutor’s office said it had also arrested three members of a family on charges of sheltering him... ["Arrested in Belgium, Suspect in Paris Attacks Plans to Fight Extradition", New York Times, March 19, 2016]

[Image Source: Bloomberg]

His arrest also gives hope to the victims of the Paris atrocities that a process focused on justice may happen. See this response from a French association of terror victims: "Communiqué du MPCT: Un espoir de justice pour les victimes du 13 novembre" (in French). The role of justice in the lives of terror victims is far too often an afterthought.

Molenbeek, the largely Muslim Brussels neighborhood mentioned in that report, and infamous for its crime and unemployment, is regarded (says AFP) as a "European hotbed of Islamist extremism" that "has long been a breeding ground for radicalism". In the week after the November massacres, Aljazeera, in an article headlined "A message from Molenbeek: 'We are not terrorists'", quoted Charles Michel, Belgium's prime minister, saying Molenbeek "was involved in almost every terrorist attack of recent years", and reporting that Jan Jambon, the Belgian interior minister, had pledged to "clean it up". In The Guardian, they called it "the Brussels borough becoming known as Europe's jihadi central".

A long and serious profile in The Atlantic during that same week described how

tiny Belgium has taken on an oversized role in the European theater of jihad. The country has provided a steady flow of fighters to ISIS in the Middle East... Belgium has just 11 million people, and Pew estimated that about 6 percent of the population was Muslim as of 2010. But Belgian and French nationals make up around a quarter of the Europeans who went to fight in Iraq in the mid-2000s... The central figure in Belgian militant Islamism is Fouad Belkacem, a 33-year-old preacher and founder of the group Sharia4Belgium. He was born in Belgium to Moroccan parents, and is a disciple of the British radical Islamist Anjem Choudary... Experts also say it is comparatively easy to acquire illegal guns in Belgium, making it an attractive base for operations... In particular, Belgian jihadism is concentrated in Molenbeek. It’s a neighborhood of nearly 100,000 people in Brussels, northwest of the city center, which has had a large Muslim population for many years. There are 22 known mosques in the district. Molenbeek shares some characteristics with the banlieues in French—densely populated, large immigrant populations, very high unemployment, complaints of inadequate government services, isolation from the central city and corridors of power... Interior Minister Jan Jambon added: “We don’t have control of the situation in Molenbeek at present.” ["What’s the Matter With Belgium?", November 17, 2016]

Unsurprisingly, the BBC report on the arrest manages, in its customary manner, to not mention the word "terror" once. (The suspect, it says, is wanted in connection with the "Paris attacks".) It quotes the French president Francois Hollande, speaking at a joint press conference with Belgium's prime minister Charles Michel saying he expected Abdeslam

to be extradited to France "as rapidly as possible" [and that] Abdeslam's arrest was an "important moment" but added that it was not the "final conclusion". "We must catch all those who allowed, organised or facilitated these attacks and we realise that they are a lot more numerous than we thought earlier and had identified," he said. [BBC, today]

Abdeslam is taken into custody [Image Source]

Who were those others and what might they have in common? Other sources, but strikingly not the BBC, offer answers. In fact, Hollande spoke of

"confirmed ties between the Paris attackers and Daesh [ISIS] and stressed that the current threat level is very high." [Sputnik, today]

In Molenbeek, meanwhile. there are reports today of ongoing tensions triggered by the arrests and the police activity:

Not only was access disrupted for locals but many are angry about the neighbourhood being labelled a breeding ground for Islamist violence. “They are tarring everyone with the same brush and forgetting that the Moroccan community, that has been here for 40-50 years, works really hard,” said Yacine, a young man from just outside Molenbeek. “To say that it is a jihadist hot-spot here, no! Look for them somewhere else!” [Euronews, today]

Plenty of photos and video clips of what the Express UK calls rocks and "missiles" being hurled at police.

And this from the Wall Street Journal:

Young Muslim men living in the district since the Paris attacks have expressed concern they may have trouble finding jobs because they fear potential employers could discriminate against them based on their Arabic names and because they are registered as living in Molenbeek... ["Brussels Neighborhood of Molenbeek Returns to the Spotlight", WSJ, today"]

 We fear they are right, but also that they are somewhat missing the point.