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Intelligence agencies from several countries, including CIA intermediaries, have abundantly used the services of Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca to “conceal” their activities, German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) says, citing leaked documents.

Both “secret agents and their informants have used the company’s services,” wrote the newspaper, which earlier this month published online materials based on 11.5 million documents from the Panamanian law firm. It has been called the largest leak on corruption in journalistic history.

“Agents have set up shell companies to conceal their activities,” the Munich-based newspaper reported, adding that there are CIA mediators among them.

According to SZ, Mossack Fonseca’s clients also included some of those involved in the so-called Iran-Contra affair, in which several Reagan administration officials secretly facilitated arms sales to Iran in the 1980s in order to secure the release of US hostages and fund Nicaragua’s Contra rebels.

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© RT‘Who’s funding this?’ CIA & MI5 whistleblowers question credibility of Panama Papers coverage
The Panama Papers also claim to reveal that some “former high-ranking officials of the intelligence services of Saudi Arabia, Colombia and Rwanda” are listed amongst the company’s clients. Among them was Sheikh Kamal Adham, the former Saudi intelligence chief, who according to SZ, was “one of the CIA’s key intermediaries in the 1970s” in the Middle East region.

The Panama leak claims to expose the offshore holdings of 12 current and former world leaders and provides data on the financial activities of 128 other politicians and public officials from different countries. Newspapers around the globe had plenty of world leaders to choose from, – from President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko to King Salman of Saudi Arabia and the late father of British Prime Minister David Cameron.

With high-profile figures on the menu, the majority of the international media rushed to accuse Vladimir Putin of corruption, even though neither he nor any members of his family were mentioned in the Panama Papers leak.

Last week WikiLeaks tweeted that the US government and American hedge-fund billionaire George Soros allegedly funded the Papers to attack Putin. According to the international whistleblowing organization, the US government’s funding of such an attack appeared to be a serious blow to its integrity.

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Demonstrators hold placards during a protest outside Downing Street in Whitehall, central London, Britain April 9, 2016 © Neil HallCrowds march in London to demand Cameron resignation following Panama Papers leak (IMAGES)
One former CIA officer told RT that the fact that the Western media has been unanimously using the Russian leader as the “face” of the Panama Papers leak can be explained by one simple look at the organizations behind these news outlets.

“Everyone in corporate press is controlled by corporations that profit on wars and have an interest in creating tensions – all these people in the Western press, like the Guardian, are blackening Putin [for being] a designated villain here. Curiously, his name is not in these documents,” Ray McGovern said, adding that it was “a major mistake made by the leaker” to hand the documents over to the corporate media, instead of leaking them to trusted independent journalists.

There were many raised eyebrows particularly over little mention of the exposed offshore dealings of UK Prime Minister David Cameron’s late father. Last week the British PM admitted that he benefited from shares in an offshore trust set up by his father. Cameron, who is facing outrage over revelations concerning his private finances, told ITV that he had received £300,000 (about $420,000) in inheritance from his father, who died in 2010. Yet he claimed that he didn’t know whether any of that money came from an offshore source. A massive protest gathered in front of PM David Cameron’s residence at 10 Downing Street on Sunday, calling for his resignation.

Published time: 12 Apr, 2016 13:22
© Rodrigo Arangua / AFP
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Die CIA bemühte über Mittelsmänner anscheinend die Dienste der Kanzlei Mossack Fonseca: Laut einem Bericht der “SZ” ließen Agenten in den Achtzigern Briefkastenfirmen gründen, um ihre Aktionen zu verschleiern.

US-Geheimdienstler sollen “in erheblichem Umfang” die Dienste der Kanzlei Mossack Fonseca in Panama genutzt haben. Das geht laut der “Süddeutschen Zeitung” (“SZ”) aus den Panama Papers hervor. Demnach ließen Agenten Briefkastenfirmen gründen, um ihre Aktionen zu verschleiern. Unter ihnen seien auch Mittelsmänner aus dem Umfeld des amerikanischen Auslandsgeheimdienstes CIA.

Zur Kundschaft von Mossack Fonseca gehörten demnach in den Achtzigerjahren etwa Figuren der Iran-Contra-Affäre. Dabei ging es um geheime Waffenlieferungen der CIA an Teheran. In diesem Zusammenhang wird unter anderem ein US-Geschäftsmann genannt, der Flugzeuge verlieh. Mit einer seiner Maschinen sollen laut dem Bericht in den Achtzigerjahren im Auftrag der CIA Waffen nach Teheran geliefert worden sein. Der Geschäftsmann bestreitet, von der Operation gewusst zu haben.

Auch weitere Unternehmen, die immer wieder in Verdacht geraten sind, dem US-Geheimdienst geholfen zu haben, tauchen der “SZ” zufolge in dem Material auf.

Außerdem seien unter den gegenwärtigen oder früheren Kunden hochrangige Geheimdienstverantwortliche aus mindestens drei Ländern zu finden, konkret aus Saudi-Arabien, Kolumbien und Ruanda – auch der saudische Scheich Kamal Adham, der in den Siebzigerjahren als wichtigster Ansprechpartner der CIA in der Region galt.

Ein weiterer Kunde Mossack Fonsecas ist nach Angaben der “SZ” der Isländer Loftur Johannesson. Er werde im Zusammenhang mit mindestens vier Briefkastenfirmen genannt. Der SPIEGEL bezeichnete ihn Anfang der Neunziger in einem Artikel über die “guten Kunden der CIA” als Kontaktperson des Geheimdienstes. In mehreren Büchern und Artikeln heißt es, Johannesson habe im Auftrag der CIA Waffen in Krisenregionen geliefert, unter anderem nach Afghanistan, so die “SZ”.

Johannesson habe über einen Sprecher erklären lassen, er sei Geschäftsmann im Luftfahrtgeschäft und nicht für Geheimdienste tätig. Die Kanzlei in Kanada erklärte laut dem Bericht zudem, sie überprüfe ihre Kunden gründlich. Sollte ein Mandant seine Identität oder die Herkunft seiner Gelder nicht angemessenen nachweisen, so werde sie mit ihm nicht zusammenarbeiten.

12. April 2016, 00:03 Uhr
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© SPIEGEL ONLINE 2016

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Secret agents from several countries, including intermediaries of the CIA, have used the services of Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca in order to “conceal” their activities, German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung reported Tuesday.
“Secret agents and their informants have made wide use of the company’s services,” wrote the newspaper, which obtained a massive stash of 11.5 million documents from the company that is sending shockwaves around the globe.
“Agents have opened shell companies to conceal their activities… Among them are close intermediaries of the CIA,” the newspaper reported.
China’s elite hiding billions overseas

The Munich-based newspaper said Mossack Fonseca’s clients included “several players” in the 1980s Iran-Contra scandal, which saw senior US officials facilitate secret arms sales to Iran in a bid to secure the release of American hostages and fund Nicaragua’s Contra rebels.
The Panama Papers also reveal that “current or former high-ranking officials of the secret services of at least three countries… Saudi Arabia, Colombia and Rwanda” are listed amongst the company’s clients, the Sueddeutsche said.
Hong Kong’s rich face exposure in tax-haven leak

Among them was Sheikh Kamal Adham, the former Saudi intelligence chief who died in 1999. Adham “spent the 1970s as one of the CIA’s key intermediaries” in the Middle East, the daily said.
The Sueddeutsche Zeitung received the huge stash of Mossack Fonseca documents from an anonymous source and shared them with more than 100 media groups through the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.
A week after the first revelations, the documents have shed light on how the world’s rich and powerful have used offshore companies to stash their assets, forcing Iceland’s prime minister to resign and putting pressure on a slew of other leaders around the world.

PUBLISHED : Tuesday, 12 April, 2016, 1:49pm
Agence France-Presse

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Copyright © 2016 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd.

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Panama has long been a haven for money launderers—including the CIA.

It should come as no surprise that the CIA’s finances are a secret. One of the rare glimpses into the agency’s funding came when Edward Snowden leaked a copy of the intelligence “black budget” to The Washington Post in 2013. But if history is any indication, the CIA may well have resources that don’t appear on any congressional document, highly classified or otherwise. Covert operations, by their very nature, often require access to off-the-books funding. The CIA’s first operation was paid for with funds seized from the Nazis, and in the years since, the agency has been notoriously creative about how it obtains its money.

Signal

The Panama Papers underscore how tax havens are used by covert agencies and other shadowy players to launder dirty money, a practice that has a long history in which Panama, in particular, has played a notable part.

Adnan Khashoggi would know. A “principal foreign agent” of the United States, as one Senate report referred to him, the billionaire playboy made a fortune (more than $100 million between 1970 and 1975 alone) from commissions negotiating arms deals with his native Saudi Arabia. He used these windfalls, in turn, to cultivate political clout—including, allegedly, with President Richard Nixon. In the aftermath of Watergate, when Congress began reining in the CIA, Khashoggi helped establish the supranational intelligence partnership known as the Safari Club. Soon after, he aided the CIA in circumventing another congressional impediment. With money borrowed from the Saudi and U.S. intelligence-linked Bank of Credit and Commerce International, he financed the illegal arms sales that set off the Iran-Contra scandal.

One way Khashoggi structured his shadowy holdings during his heyday was through the specialized services of Mossack Fonseca, the law firm that is in the news for having helped global luminaries like Vladimir Putin hide their money. Thanks to a recent report from the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, we now know Khashoggi to be among a number of former spies and CIA associates implicated by the 2.6 terabytes of offshore financial documents provided to the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung last summer.

That his name should appear in an international dark money scandal suggests something about the nature of tax havens that much of the media’s coverage has thus far avoided grappling with. The Panama Papers have largely been presented as an unprecedented insight into how global elites hide their fortunes from tax collectors and other regulators. But they also underscore how tax havens are used by covert agencies and other shadowy players to launder dirty money, a practice that has a long history in which Panama, in particular, has played a notable part.

The Panama Papers date back to 1977. By then, the Carter administration, worried that it could jeopardize negotiations over the Panama Canal, had already willed itself into forgetting what the U.S. government had long known about Panama’s intimate role in the burgeoning South American cocaine trade. Serious allegations against Manuel Noriega, the intelligence chief who would go on to become the country’s ruler, had been brought to the attention of the now-defunct Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs as early as 1971. But the United States’s interests in Panama were at least as strong as those of the emerging coke lords who were using Panama as a stopover for drug shipments headed north. In some cases, their interests were one and the same.

At the time, the Panama Canal Zone played host to the School of the Americas, the U.S. military training academy infamous for the remarkable array of atrocities committed by its highest-achieving graduates. Not far from the SOA facility was the classified U.S. communications network used to coordinate Operation Condor, the cross-border rendition, torture, execution, and assassination program implemented by the South American dictatorships of the era. With its abundance of U.S. surveillance hardware and constant influx of easily disguised foreigners, Panama became a sort of regional outpost for U.S. Cold War intelligence.

A proud SOA alumnus himself, Noriega was recruited by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency in 1959 and received his first check from the CIA in 1967. The military coup that broke out that year catapulted him to the top of Panama’s spy agency, a position for which the ruthless, ideologically flexible Noriega proved to be uniquely well-suited.

Noriega had a talent for the double life. He would fly to Washington to meet with CIA Director William Casey one day and to Havana to meet with Fidel Castro the next, positioning himself as a key interlocutor between the sworn enemies and playing one side off the other. He was just as comfortable railing against Yankee imperialism as he was serving up rivals and narco-associates in exchange for DEA commendations. Noriega allegedly charged $200,000 a planeload to protect the Medellin Cartel’s shipment routes. The $200,000 a year he collected from the Reagan administration must have seemed a pittance by comparison.

CIA payments to Noriega were channeled through accounts he maintained at the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, the agency’s preferred conduit for its secret dealings with Saudi and Pakistani intelligence and with the heroin-trafficking mujahedeen insurgency in Afghanistan. During the same period, Adnan Khashoggi, who was listed on a 1991 Defense Intelligence Report as having sold machine guns to the Medellin Cartel, was borrowing from the bank to finance weapons sales to Iran—the proceeds for which, like some of Noriega’s earnings, were then funneled to the Nicaraguan Contras. Subsequent federal prosecutions determined BCCI’s Panamanian branch, in particular, to be actively engaged in money laundering for the Colombian drug trade. A Senate subcommittee report called the bank a “fundamentally corrupt criminal enterprise.”

But BCCI was hardly the only Panamanian financial house awash in drug profits and covert intrigue. As a 1985 House Foreign Affairs report explained, it was hard to find a Panamanian bank that wasn’t engaged, to one degree or another, in some form of untoward activity. “With more than one hundred banks, the U.S. dollar as the national currency, and strict bank secrecy laws, Panama is an ideal haven for laundering narcotics money. Unlimited amounts of money may be brought into and out of the country with no reporting requirements, and money laundering is not a crime.” Corruption in government and the military, the committee found, was “endemic and institutionalized.”

Panama, to borrow the words of the Senate’s Iran-Contra report, had become the “hemisphere’s first ‘narco-kleptocracy,’” a major financial clearing house not just for the Colombian cartels, but for illegal groups of all stripes in the region, as well as “legitimate” businesspeople drawn to the exciting new services being offered thanks to the logistical demands and largesse of the drug trade. Americans were sinking millions into this innovative tax haven, and the surplus of available dirty currency actually insulated Panama from the debt crises that were sweeping the region at the time—converting it into a secure, relatively stable place for the Third World rich to hide their money.

“Particularly popular with Latin Americans,” writes Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld in Evil Money, “was a double-shell arrangement, in which the Bahamian cover was overlaid with Panamanian corporate shells. Panamanian lawyers were equally adept at creating fictitious companies. The money would be wired from one corporate account to another without revealing the identity of the real owner.”

Dummy companies of this sort, set up by the White House and registered in Panama, were used to float the Nicaraguan Contras. Noriega’s personal Swiss-based lawyer even helped Marine Colonel Oliver North construct a front for an airfield in Costa Rica. A veritable fleet of aircraft, including planes provided by Noriega and some paid for through a BCCI account, made the circuitous journey from secret runway to secret runway, dropping off weapons in Honduras and Costa Rica, cocaine in the southern United States, and large stacks of small-denomination bills in Panamanian bank vaults.

As we continue to dig through the many layers of corruption, lawbreaking, and bad faith that have accumulated in the intervening years, it’s important to recognize that the quintessentially private practices that now form the basis for the Panama Papers revelations emerged within a context of large-scale state criminality.

The 1989 U.S. invasion that led to Noriega’s arrest only exacerbated the underlying problems of Panamanian governance. As Jonathan Marshall, co-author of the indispensable Cocaine Politics, explained, between “economic sanctions, capital flight, war damage, and a more than a billion dollars’ worth of damage from post-conflict looting,” any new president would have faced significant challenges. It happened that the one the United States installed, Guillermo Endara, had dubious ties to a bank the DEA and FBI both suspected of money laundering. Endara’s appointees for attorney general, treasury minister, and chief Supreme Court justice had each served as director of a bank shut down for its alliance with Colombia’s Cali Cartel. By the U.S. government’s own estimation, trafficking and laundering got worse in the invasion’s aftermath, a legacy that has continued on to the present day. Facing corruption charges, the country’s most recent president has sought refuge in Miami.

After the invasion, a joke started circulating around Panama that seems fairly prescient, in light of the Panama Papers. “They took Ali Baba,” it went, “and left us with the 40 thieves.”

BY STEVEN COHEN
April 8, 2016
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Copyright 2016 © New Republic.

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THIS WEEK STARTED off big with the Panama Papers, the largest leak in history. The still-unfolding story uncovered a complex web of global tax evasion perpetuated by world leaders and their friends. Breaking the Panama Papers news required massive coordination: Over 100 journalists used a constellation of encryption tools and methods to help the whistleblower behind the leaks safely deliver 2.6 terabytes of documents.

Turkey had its own data spill this week as well, when an unnamed hacker posted the personal information of 50 million Turkish citizens extracted from poorly secured government servers. In other news, Kate Moussouris, the strategist behind the Department of Defense’s and Microsoft’s bug bounty programs, is branching out as an independent consultant. And a Maryland appeals court ruled that the Baltimore Police Department’s use of cell phone-tracking stingrays requires a warrant, setting a precedent that may inch the stingray debate closer to the Supreme Court.

On a more personal note, people looking for romance online should know they are increasingly common targets for scammers. And now that Facebook has live video, the social media giant is hoping that its users—like you—will help it police inappropriate live content, which will probably include live pornography. And while it might’ve seemed like the FBI’s public brawl with Apple over unlocking the San Bernardino iPhone had finally ended, the government jumped back in the ring by filing an appeal in a New York drug case in a second attempt to compel Apple to break the encryption on another iPhone.

And there was more: Each Saturday we round up the news stories that we didn’t break or cover in depth at WIRED, but which deserve your attention nonetheless. As always, click on the headlines to read the full story in each link posted. And stay safe out there.

The Law Firm at the Heart of the Panama Papers Had Very Lax Security
The computer systems used by Mossack Fonseca, the law firm that was revealed to be a primary conduit for world leaders and corporations seeking off-shore tax havens, are reportedly drastically unsecure. Reports surfaced midweek that its email client had not been updated for years, and that the version of Drupal behind its client portal had at least 25 vulnerabilities. While it’s still unclear who is responsible for the Panama Papers leak, security researchers say details point to a person who was working inside the company.

Judge Approves $15 Million Sony Payout in Class-Action Suit Over Hack
It’s been two and a half years since a group calling itself The Guardians of Peace hacked Sony in an epic breach, revealing the personal information of thousands of the entertainment company’s employees. In a class action lawsuit with 435,000 of its ex-employees, Sony struck a deal with the plaintiffs in what will amount to a $15 million payout, with a maximum of $10,000 awarded to each individual class action member. The hack, which the US government linked back to North Korea, didn’t just reveal employee data, but also exposed private correspondence between Sony executive staff that revealed embarrassing details about the film industry.

Voter Details of 55 Million Filipinos Revealed in Giant Hack
Weeks before the national elections in the Philippines, a hack exposed 55 million voters’ personal information. It’s being called the largest government-related data data breach in history. Reports say that The Philippines’ Commission on Elections was first compromised by Anonymous Philippines; LulzSec Pilipinas subsequently posted personal voter information just days later. Alarmingly, the data was posted in plaintext, including the passport numbers of overseas voters, along with 15.8 million fingerprints. Anonymous Philippines warned the election commission to enact stronger security over the country’s electronic vote counting system.

Signal Now Sends Encrypted Texts Between Mobile and Desktop Clients
The security community’s favorite encrypted text messaging app is now available for desktop chatting. That means that people who use Signal can now chat with other Signal users with both hands and seamlessly between mobile and desktop. Signal’s new service works like Apple’s iMessage and allows you to text friends via your computer. Like iMessage, it also offers a high level of encryption. The main difference between Apple’s iMessage and Signal, however, is that Signal works between Apple and Android devices, a huge deal for security-conscious friends who don’t all use the same products. A version of Signal for desktop was in invitation-only mode for the past few months; the crew at Open Whisper Systems released a public version on Thursday.

The CIA’s Venture Capital Firm Is Investing in a Line of Skincare Products for DNA Collection
The Central Intelligence Agency’s own venture capital firm, In-Q-TelA, is funding … a skincare startup. It’s investing in Skincential Sciences, a startup that created a patented technology to remove a thin layer of skin to help clear away blemishes. According to The Intercept, the CIA is interested in the skincare company’s method of DNA extraction, which intelligence agencies can leverage for a variety of uses, including event security and biometric identification programs. In-Q-Tel has been backing Silicon Valley startups for 17 years now, including popular videogame manufacturers and mapping software that was eventually acquired by Google.

The FBI’s Ability to Hack Into the San Bernardino Shooter’s Phone Only Works on iPhone 5
James Comey, director of the FBI, claimed this week that the agency’s ability to hack into the iPhone 5 used by the San Bernardino terrorist does not work on newer iPhone models, including the iPhone 6s and 5s. The FBI dropped its very public case against Apple two weeks ago, having obtained the ability to unlock the shooter’s phone via unnamed third party software. While the FBI contends that it can share the software with other law enforcement agencies attempting to open model 5 iPhones, evidence obtained would likely not be permissible in court.

APRIL GLASER. APRIL GLASER SECURITY DATE OF PUBLICATION: 04.09.16.

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Copyright http://www.wired.com/

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Bradley Birkenfeld is the most significant financial whistleblower of all time, so you might think he’d be cheering on the disclosures in the new Panama Papers leaks. But today, Birkenfeld is raising questions about the source of the information that is shaking political regimes around the world.

Birkenfeld, an American citizen, was a banker working at UBS in Switzerland when he approached the U.S. government with information on massive amounts of tax evasion by Americans with secret accounts in Switzerland. By the end of his whistleblowing career, Birkenfeld had served more than two years in a U.S. federal prison, been awarded $104 million by the IRS for his information and shattered the foundations of more than a century of Swiss banking secrecy.

In an exclusive interview Tuesday from Munich, Birkenfeld said he doesn’t think the source of the 11 million documents stolen from a Panamanian law firm should automatically be considered a whistleblower like himself. Instead, he said, the hacking of the Panama City-based firm, called Mossack Fonseca, could have been done by a U.S. intelligence agency.
“The CIA I’m sure is behind this, in my opinion,” Birkenfeld said.
Birkenfeld pointed to the fact that the political uproar created by the disclosures have mainly impacted countries with tense relationships with the United States. “The very fact that we see all these names surface that are the direct quote-unquote enemies of the United States, Russia, China, Pakistan, Argentina and we don’t see one U.S. name. Why is that?” Birkenfeld said. “Quite frankly, my feeling is that this is certainly an intelligence agency operation.”

A poolside view overlooking the newer side of the Panama City skyline.
Panama Papers show tax avoidance like a ‘cancer’
Asked why the U.S. would leak information that has also been damaging to U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron, a major American ally, Birkenfeld said the British leader was likely collateral damage in a larger intelligence operation.
“If you’ve got NSA and CIA spying on foreign governments they can certainly get into a law firm like this,” Birkenfeld said. “But they selectively bring the information to the public domain that doesn’t hurt the U.S. in any shape or form. That’s wrong. And there’s something seriously sinister here behind this.”

The public relations office for the CIA did not immediately return a message for comment.
Birkenfeld also said that during his time as a Swiss banker, Mossack Fonseca was known as one piece of the vast offshore maze used by bankers and lawyers to hide money from tax authorities. But he also said that the firm that is at the center of the global scandal was also seen as a relatively small player in the overall offshore tax evasion business.
‹
The sign in front of the building that houses law firm Mossack Fonseca in Panama City, Panama.
Did ‘smart’ people avoid the Panama Papers?
Bradley Birkenfeld, a former banker with UBS AG, walks outside Schuylkill Federal Correctional Institution after speaking to the media in Minersville, Pennsylvania, U.S., on Friday, Jan. 8, 2010.
Why did the US pay this former Swiss banker $104M?
›
“We knew that firm very well in Switzerland. I certainly knew of it,” Birkenfeld said.
But Mossack Fonseca was just one of a number of firms in Panama offering such services, he said. “The cost of doing business there was quite low, relatively speaking,” he said. “So what you would have is Panama operating as a conduit to the Swiss banks and the trust companies to set up these facilities for clients around the world.”

Eamon Javers CNBC.com
12 April 2016

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© 2016 CNBC LLC.

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Wenige Stunden nach den Anschlägen von Paris forderten die ersten Beamten bereits neue Überwachungsmaßnahmen. CIA-Chef Brennan gibt Whistleblower Snowden eine Mitschuld an den Taten. Dabei haben die Dienste offenbar selbst versagt.

Wenn Geheimdienste öffentlich in eigener Sache zu argumentieren versuchen, hat das immer etwas Surreales. Oft treten sie nur in Gestalt ungenannter “hochrangiger Beamter” in Erscheinung, die dem einen oder anderen Medium anonym verraten haben, was sie selbst gerade dringend brauchen – in der Regel geht es um noch mehr Befugnisse.

Geheimdienste sind die einzigen Organisationen, die öffentliche Lobbyarbeit betreiben, ohne konkrete Belege für die Richtigkeit ihrer Behauptungen liefern zu müssen. So auch diesmal.

Noch einmal zu den tragischen Fakten: In Paris haben mehrere Attentäter in der Nacht von Freitag auf Samstag 129 Menschen getötet und Hunderte weitere verletzt. Alle bislang bekannten Attentäter bis auf einen waren dem US-Geheimdienst bekannt, das berichtet zumindest ein amerikanischer Abgeordneter. Die Namen der Täter hätten auf einer amerikanischen Flugverbotsliste (no fly list) gestanden.

Auch den französischen Behörden waren mehrere der Täter und der mutmaßliche Kopf hinter der Terrorserie bekannt. Mehrere von ihnen waren augenscheinlich nach Syrien gereist und von dort offenbar unbemerkt nach Europa zurückgekehrt. Die Täter stammten aus Frankreich und Belgien. Auch der mutmaßliche Drahtzieher der Morde kam aus Belgien, auch er war den dortigen Sicherheitsbehörden bekannt, reiste nach Syrien, trat dort als Protagonist grauenhafter Propagandavideos in Erscheinung und reiste irgendwann unbemerkt nach Europa zurück.

Telefongespräche abgehört, Handy problemlos ausgewertet

Auf die Spur der Terrorverdächtigen, gegen die die französische Polizei am Mittwoch im Pariser Vorort Saint-Denis vorging, kamen die Ermittler dem französischen Oberstaatsanwalt zufolge durch die Auswertungen überwachter Telefongespräche.

In Paris ist offenbar außerdem ein Handy gefunden worden, das die Attentäter am vergangenen Freitag benutzt haben. Französischen Medien zufolge wurde es nahe dem Musikklub Bataclan in einem Mülleimer entdeckt. Auf dem Smartphone sollen sich den Berichten zufolge ein Plan von den Räumen des Bataclan und eine SMS mit den Worten “Wir sind los, wir fangen an” befunden haben. Es hat der französischen Polizei offenbar keine Probleme bereitet, das Handy auszuwerten.

Den Geheimdiensten in Frankreich, Belgien und den USA lagen offenbar zahlreiche Informationen zu den Mördern von Paris vor. Trotzdem konnten die Männer sich unbemerkt bewegen, bewaffnen und organisieren. In Frankreich gibt es bereits seit Jahren eine sehr umfassende Vorratsdatenspeicherung. Sogar Passwörter etwa zu E-Mail-Konten müssen die Anbieter dort 12 Monate lang speichern, Verbindungsdaten sowieso. Außerdem gilt dort seit dem Sommer ein neues Überwachungsgesetz, das die Befugnisse der Geheimdienste noch einmal deutlich ausgeweitet hat.

“Ohne dafür Beweise vorzulegen”

Der Chef des US-Geheimdienstes CIA behauptet nun – ohne dafür einen einzigen Beleg vorweisen zu können: Wenn Edward Snowden den globalen Spähapparat der NSA und ihrer Verbündeten nicht offengelegt hätte, wären die Anschläge von Paris womöglich verhindert worden.

Die “New York Times” veröffentlichte am Sonntag einen Artikel (hier archiviert), in dem unter anderem ungenannte “europäische Beamte” mit der Behauptung zitiert wurden, die Angreifer hätten verschlüsselt kommuniziert. Die “NYT” entfernte den Artikel jedoch wenige Stunden später und ersetzte ihn durch eine Version, in der nur die Rede davon ist, dass “europäische Beamte sagten, dass sie glauben, dass die Angreifer von Paris irgendeine Form verschlüsselter Kommunikation benutzt hätten, ohne dafür Beweise vorzulegen”.

In Deutschland forderte der stellvertretende Vorsitzende der Gewerkschaft der Polizei (GdP), Jörg Radek, schon Stunden nach den Anschlägen von Paris: Um Attentate wie diese zu verhindern, müsse die “unsinnige Debatte über den sogenannten Überwachungsstaat” jetzt vermieden und stattdessen das “eng gefasste Gesetz zur Vorratsdatenspeicherung überdacht” werden. Sein Kollege Arnold Plickert, GdP-Vorsitzender für Nordrhein-Westfalen, stimmte ihm zu und sprach sich für eine Speicherfrist von mindestens einem Jahr aus.

In den USA war vor den Anschlägen von Paris gerade eine Debatte über das Thema Verschlüsselung mit einer Niederlage für die Geheimdienste und das FBI zu Ende gegangen: Die Behörden dort fordern schon seit Längerem, dass es keine Verschlüsselungstechnik geben dürfe, die ihnen verschlossen bleibt, die großen Tech-Konzerne und Bürgerrechtler stellen sich dem entgegen.

“Das könnte sich im Fall eines Terroranschlags ändern”

Die Regierung Obama entschied letztlich, wirksame Verschlüsselung nicht zu verbieten. Schon im August zitierte die “Washington Post” aus einem Schreiben des Anwalts Robert Litt, der für das Büro des US-Geheimdienstdirektors arbeitet. Litt erklärte darin gegenüber Kollegen, dass das “legislative Umfeld” für Anti-Verschlüsselungs-Gesetzgebung derzeit zwar “sehr feindselig” sei, dass sich das aber “im Fall eines Terroranschlags oder eines Verbrechens ändern könnte, wenn dabei nachgewiesen werden kann, dass starke Verschlüsselung die Strafverfolger behindert hat”.

Brennan und seine ungenannten Kollegen nutzen also nun wie von Litt vorgeschlagen die Anschläge von Paris, um ihre Vorstellungen von einer Welt ohne wirksame Verschlüsselung erneut in Szene zu setzen – ohne jedoch Belege dafür vorlegen zu können, dass die Anschläge von Paris mit noch besseren Überwachungsmöglichkeiten womöglich hätten verhindert werden können. Und deutsche Polizisten fordern eine Maßnahme, die in Frankreich seit Jahren umgesetzt ist, die Anschläge aber augenscheinlich nicht verhindern konnte.

Über ihre eigenen offenkundigen Versäumnisse dagegen ist von den Sicherheitsbehörden dies- und jenseits des Atlantiks erwartungsgemäß nichts zu hören.

Unklar bleibt, wie es sein kann, dass bereits als Terrorverdächtige bekannte Männer unbemerkt nach Syrien und zurück reisen konnten. Unklar bleibt, warum man offenbar die Telefone von vermutlich in die Tat verwickelten Personen abhören, die Taten aber dennoch nicht voraussehen konnte. Unklar bleibt, warum der schon 2002 verabschiedete Rahmenbeschluss des Europäischen Rates, in dem eine enge Abstimmung der nationalen Behörden bei der Terrorbekämpfung vereinbart wurde, augenscheinlich nicht befriedigend umgesetzt wurde. Sonst hätten sich französische und belgische Behörden wohl effektiver über die Täter ausgetauscht, die in ihren jeweiligen Ländern lebten.

Lieber “den Verdächtigen” überwachen

Einmal mehr zeigt sich stattdessen: Die Massenüberwachung, die sich, angeführt von der NSA, bei den Diensten als Standardparadigma durchgesetzt hat, läuft augenscheinlich ins Leere. Obwohl sie bereits Informationen über die Täter hatten – wie übrigens auch im Fall der Attentate auf “Charlie Hebdo” im Januar – gelang es den Behörden nicht, sie gezielt so zu überwachen, dass man ihre Taten hätte verhindern können.

Den Standort des Handys eines Verdächtigen zu verfolgen beispielsweise wäre sogar ohne Vorratsdatenspeicherung problemlos möglich. Der nun als Terrorhelfer gescholtene Edward Snowden selbst wirbt übrigens immer wieder für “traditionelle, effektive Überwachung” im Kampf gegen den Terrorismus. Das bedeute, keine Bevölkerung, keine Technik, keinen Dienst zu überwachen, sondern den Verdächtigen.

19. November 2015, 09:59 Uhr
Von Christian Stöcker

Find this story at 19 November 2015

© SPIEGEL ONLINE 2015

Van nieuwsblog.burojansen.nl

WHENEVER A TERRORIST ATTACK OCCURS, it never takes long for politicians to begin calling for more surveillance powers. The horrendous attacks in Paris last week, which left more than 120 people dead, are no exception to this rule. In recent days, officials in the United Kingdom and the United States have been among those arguing that more surveillance of Internet communications is necessary to prevent further atrocities.

The case for expanded surveillance of communications, however, is complicated by an analysis of recent terrorist attacks. The Intercept has reviewed 10 high-profile jihadi attacks carried out in Western countries between 2013 and 2015 (see below), and in each case some or all of the perpetrators were already known to the authorities before they executed their plot. In other words, most of the terrorists involved were not ghost operatives who sprang from nowhere to commit their crimes; they were already viewed as a potential threat, yet were not subjected to sufficient scrutiny by authorities under existing counterterrorism powers. Some of those involved in last week’s Paris massacre, for instance, were already known to authorities; at least three of the men appear to have been flagged at different times as having been radicalized, but warning signs were ignored.

In the aftermath of a terrorist atrocity, government officials often seem to talk about surveillance as if it were some sort of panacea, a silver bullet. But what they always fail to explain is how, even with mass surveillance systems already in place in countries like France, the United States, and the United Kingdom, attacks still happen. In reality, it is only possible to watch some of the people some of the time, not all of the people all of the time. Even if you had every single person in the world under constant electronic surveillance, you would still need a human being to analyze the data and assess any threats in a timely fashion. And human resources are limited and fallible.

There is no doubt that we live in a dangerous world and that intelligence agencies and the police have a difficult job to do, particularly in the current geopolitical environment. They know about hundreds or thousands of individuals who sympathize with terrorist groups, any one of whom may be plotting an attack, yet they do not appear to have the means to monitor each of these people closely over sustained periods of time. If any lesson can be learned from studying the perpetrators of recent attacks, it is that there needs to be a greater investment in conducting targeted surveillance of known terror suspects and a move away from the constant knee-jerk expansion of dragnet surveillance, which has simply not proven itself to be effective, regardless of the debate about whether it is legal or ethical in the first place.

map-3 Map of 10 recent attacks carried out in Western countries by Islamic extremists. freevectormaps.com
1. Paris attacks: November 13, 2015

Victims: 129 dead. 400+ wounded.
Named suspected perpetrators: Ismaël Omar Mostefaï (29; French), Samy Amimour (28; French), Ibrahim Abdeslam (31; French), Bilal Hadfi (20; French), Abdelhamid Abaaoud (27; Belgian), Salah Abdeslam (26; French).
Weapons: Assault rifles, hand grenades, suicide vests.

Known to authorities? At least three of the men involved in planning and carrying out the French attacks were known to European authorities and at least four were listed in a U.S. terrorism watchlist database. Ismaël Omar Mostefaï, who helped carry out the massacre at the Bataclan concert venue, had been flagged as a radicalization risk in 2010. French police reportedly ignored two warnings about Mostefaï before he carried out the attacks. Some of his friends claimed to have tried to alert French police about his radical views, but said they were told the authorities could do nothing. Samy Amimour, another of the men involved in the Bataclan massacre, had been previously charged with terrorist offenses “after an abortive attempt to travel to Yemen,” according to Paris prosecutors.

The alleged ringleader of the attacks, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, was also well-known to European police. In 2013, he booked a flight from Cologne to Turkey, which was flagged to German authorities because he was reportedly on an EU watchlist. But he was not detained and was able to board the flight. From Turkey, Abaaoud entered Syria, where he joined ISIS. Abaaoud later returned to Europe and was named as a wanted extremist in January following a gun battle in Belgium. In February, he featured prominently in ISIS propaganda magazine Dabiq boasting about how he had been able to evade police detection in Europe.

Others involved in the Paris attacks are also likely to have been on the radar of police and intelligence agencies due to their travels to Syria. Bilal Hadfi, for instance, was living in Belgium after having returned from Syria, where he is believed to have fought with Islamic State militants. Hadfi apparently attended the Instituut Anneessens-Funck college in Brussels; his former history professor recalled that, following the Charlie Hebdo massacre in January 2015, Hadfi defended the attacks. The professor reported him to management due to concerns about his radical views, but management “decided not to intervene, to avoid stigmatizing the young student.” In June, Hadfi reportedly posted on his Facebook page encouraging terrorist attacks: “Those dogs are attacking our civilians everywhere. Strike them in their community of pigs so they can’t feel safe again in their own dreams.” The family of Ibrahim Abdeslam, who detonated a suicide vest inside a cafe during the attacks, said he too had spent “a long time” in Syria before returning to Europe.

Rescue workers gather at victims in the 10th district of Paris, Friday, Nov. 13, 2015. Several dozen people were killed in a series of unprecedented attacks around Paris on Friday, French President Francois Hollande said, announcing that he was closing the country’s borders and declaring a state of emergency. (AP Photo/Jacques Brinon) Rescue workers gather to treat victims in Paris’ 10th arrondissement, Friday, Nov. 13, 2015. Photo: Jacques Brinon/AP
2. Thalys train attack, France: August 21, 2015

Victims: No deaths. Two wounded.
Alleged perpetrator: Ayoub El Khazzani (26; Moroccan).
Weapons: Pistol, assault rifle, box cutter, bottle of petrol.

Known to authorities? Khazzani was reportedly known to European authorities for his Islamic radicalism. While living in Spain, he had come to security agencies’ attention after he was observed defending jihadis and attending a radical mosque in Algeciras, Spain.

French police stand guard along the platform next to a Thalys train of French national railway operator SNCF at the main train station in Arras, northern France, on August 22, 2015, the day after an armed gunman on the train was overpowered by passengers. The gunman opened fire on the train travelling from Amsterdam to Paris, injuring two people before being tackled by several passengers including off-duty American servicemen. AFP PHOTO PHILIPPE HUGUEN (Photo credit should read PHILIPPE HUGUEN/AFP/Getty Images) French police stand guard on the platform next to a Thalys train at the station in Arras, northern France, on Aug. 22, 2015, the day after an armed gunman was overpowered by passengers. Photo: Philippe Huguen/AFP/Getty Images
3. Curtis Culwell Center attack, Garland, Texas: May 3, 2015

Victims: One wounded.
Perpetrators: Elton Simpson (30; American) and Nadir Soofi (34; Pakistani-American).
Weapons: Assault rifles, handguns.

Known to authorities? Elton Simpson had reportedly been placed on the U.S. no-fly list and had been convicted of a terror-related offense in 2011 after being caught discussing traveling to Somalia to engage in violent jihad. Soofi, on the other hand, was reportedly “relatively unknown to federal investigators,” though he lived with Simpson. A third man, Abdul Malik Abdul Kareem, was allegedly responsible for supplying the guns and ammunition used in the attack. Kareem was investigated in 2012 after he was suspected of developing a plot to attack a Super Bowl game in Arizona with explosives.

GARLAND, TX – MAY 4: A member of the FBI Evidence Response Team investigates the crime scene outside of the Curtis Culwell Center after a shooting occurred the day before, on May 04, 2015 in Garland, Texas. During the “Muhammad Art Exhibit and Cartoon Contest,” on May 03, Elton Simpson of Phoenix, Arizonia and Nadir Soofi opened fire, wounding a security guard. Police officers shot and killed Simpson at the scene. The provocative cartoon event was billed by organizers as a free speech event while critics deemed it to be anti-Islamic. (Photo by Ben Torres/Getty Images) An FBI evidence response team member investigates the crime scene after a shooting outside of the Curtis Culwell Center in Garland, Texas, May 4, 2015 . Photo: Ben Torres/Getty Images
4. Shootings in Copenhagen, Denmark: February 14-15, 2015

Victims: Two dead. Five wounded.
Perpetrator: Omar Abdel Hamid El-Hussein (22; Danish-Jordanian-Palestinian).
Weapons: Assault rifle, pistols.

Known to authorities? Hussein was reportedly well-known to Danish security agencies. Prior to the Copenhagen shootings, he had been imprisoned for stabbing a teenager in the leg on a train. While he was in jail, prison officials filed a concern report to the Danish intelligence agency PET, warning that his behavior had changed and that he had become extremely religious. Two weeks after he was released from jail he went on the shooting rampage that left three dead and five wounded in different parts of Copenhagen. Shortly before the attacks, Hussein had apparently sworn allegiance to ISIS in a post on his Facebook page.

In this image made from TV The lifeless body of a shooting suspect lays on the pavement as Danish police forensic officers examine the scene after Danish police shot and killed the man early Sunday suspected of carrying out shooting attacks at a free speech event and then at a Copenhagen synagogue, in Copenhagen Sunday, Feb. 15, 2015. The suspect is not yet identified by police. A man opened fire Saturday killing a Danish documentary filmmaker and a member of the Scandinavian country’s Jewish community and wounding five police officers in the attacks. (AP Photo / TV2 Norway) NORWAY OUT – DENMARK OUT – TV OUT The body of a shooting suspect lies on the pavement as Danish forensic police officers examine the scene, Feb. 15, 2015, Copenhagen Denmark.Photo: TV2 Norway/AP
5. Shootings in Paris (Charlie Hebdo and Jewish supermarket): January 7-9, 2015

Victims: 17 dead. 20 wounded.
Perpetrators: Chérif Kouachi (32; French), Saïd Kouachi (34; French), Amedy Coulibaly (32; French).
Weapons: Assault rifles, submachine guns, grenade launcher, pistols, shotgun.

Known to authorities? Chérif Kouachi was well-known to French security agencies as an Islamic extremist. In 2005 he was detained trying to board a plane for Syria and in 2008 he was jailed for three years for his role in sending militants to Iraq. Both Chérif and his brother Saïd were alleged to have been involved in a 2010 plot to free from prison Smaïn Ait Ali Belkacem, the French-Algerian extremist responsible for the 1995 Paris metro station bombing. The brothers were never prosecuted over the prison-break plot due to a lack of evidence. In 2011, Saïd traveled to Yemen and allegedly trained with al Qaeda. The U.S. reportedly provided France with intelligence in 2011 showing the brothers received terrorist training in Yemen and French authorities monitored them until the spring of 2014. Amedy Coulibaly was also well-known to the authorities. In 2013 he was sentenced to five years in prison for providing ammunition as part of the 2010 prison-break plot that the Kouachi brothers were also suspected of involvement in. However, Coulibaly reportedly only spent about three months in jail and was released in March 2014.

paris-attack-charlie-hebdo Screen grab of the attack on Charlie Hebdo magazine, Paris, France, Jan. 7, 2015.Photo: Youtube
6. Cafe seige, Sydney, Australia: December 15-16, 2014

Victims: Two dead. Four wounded.
Perpetrator: Man Haron Monis (50; Iranian-Australian).
Weapon: Shotgun.

Known to authorities? Two months prior to taking 17 people hostage in a Sydney cafe, Monis wrote a letter to Australia’s attorney general seeking advice about the legality of communicating with ISIS. He was “well-known” to federal and state police, as well as the Australian Security Intelligence Organization, and had sent “hate letters” to families of Australian soldiers killed in overseas conflicts. Before carrying out his attacks, Monis apparently pledged allegiance on his website to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. This was reported to Australian authorities, who reviewed Monis’ website and social media posts but (erroneously) concluded he was unlikely to carry out an act of violence.

FILE – In this Dec. 15, 2014 file photo, a hostage runs to an armed tactical response police officers for safety after she escaped from a cafe under siege at Martin Place in the central business district of Sydney, Australia. The man who took 18 people hostage at a Sydney cafe last year was educated and erratic, secretive about his own life and public about his many grievances, and a self-obsessed fabulist who grew increasingly defiant as he edged closer to launching his deadly attack, lawyers told an inquest Monday, May 25, 2015. (AP Photo/Rob Griffith, File) A hostage runs toward tactical response police officers after escaping from a cafe under siege in the central business district of Sydney, Australia, Dec. 15, 2014.Photo: Bob Griffith/AP
7. Canada attacks (Quebec car ramming and parliament shooting): October 20 and 22, 2014

Victims: Two dead. Four injured.
Perpetrators: Michael Zehaf-Bibeau (32; Canadian-Libyan) and Martin Couture-Rouleau (25; Canadian).
Weapons: Rifle, car.

Known to authorities? Couture-Rouleau was known to Canadian authorities prior to an attack in which he rammed two Canadian soldiers, killing one and injuring another. He had reportedly been “considered some kind of threat by the Canadian government” and had posted a variety of pro-jihadi materials on his Facebook page. Police had been monitoring him over concerns that he had become radicalized and his passport had been seized to prevent him from traveling abroad to join militants. Zehaf-Bibeau, who shot dead a soldier at a war memorial near the Canadian parliament, was a habitual offender who had a criminal record for a number of offenses, including robbery and drug possession. Zehaf-Bibeau was reportedly “on the radar” of federal authorities in Canada and his email address had been previously found on the computer hard drive of someone charged with a “terrorist-related offense.”

Image #: 32693473 OTTAWA, CANADA – OCTOBER 22: Police, bystanders and soldiers aid a fallen soldier at the War Memorial as police respond to an apparent terrorist attack on October 22, 2014 in Ottawa, Canada. A GUNMAN is believed to have shot a soldier as he was standing guard at the National War Memorial in Ottawa, Canada, this morning (Wednesday, October 22). It is believed police then chased the man into the main parliament building at Parliament Hill, where more shots were fired. Police are hunting the streets and buildings for further suspects and have asked the public to stay away from the area. There is also a report of shootings at the Rideau Centre mall in downtown, a short distance from the War Memorial. The wounded soldier was taken into an ambulance and treated by medical personnel and is condition is unclear. The incident comes after Canada raised its terror threat level from low to medium after a Muslim convert deliberately ran over two soldiers, killing one of them. Wayne Cuddington/Barcroft Media /Landov Police, bystanders and soldiers aid a fallen soldier at the National War Memorial in Ottawa, Canada, the site of an apparent terrorist attack, Oct. 22, 2014.Photo: Cuddington/Barcroft Media /Landov
8. Jewish Museum killings in Brussels: May 24, 2014

Victims: Four dead.
Perpetrator: Mehdi Nemmouche (29; French)
Weapons: Automatic rifle, handgun.

Known to authorities? Nemmouche had been incarcerated on five occasions in France for various crimes, including armed robbery. In 2013 he had traveled to Syria. When he returned to Europe he was reportedly placed under surveillance by French counterterrorism police, who suspected he had joined with Islamic extremist fighters while in Syria.

A forensic expert enters the site of a shooting, at the Jewish museum in Brussels, Saturday, May 24, 2014. Three people were killed and one seriously injured in a spree of gunfire at the Jewish Museum in Brussels on Saturday, officials said. The attack, which came on the eve of national and European Parliament elections, led officials to raise anti-terror measures.(AP Photo/Yves Logghe) A forensic expert enters the Jewish Museum in Brussels, May 24, 2014. Photo: Yves Logghe/AP
9. Beheading in Woolwich, London: May 22, 2013

Victims: One dead.
Perpetrators: Michael Adebolajo (28; British-Nigerian) and Michael Adebowale (22; British-Nigerian).
Weapons: Cleaver, knives, pistol.

Known to authorities? Both attackers were known to British authorities and were suspected of having been radicalized prior to their murder of soldier Lee Rigby in Woolwich, London. According to a U.K. parliamentary report published following the attack, Adebolajo was investigated under five separate police and security service operations. He was believed to have links to several extremist networks and was suspected of having tried to travel overseas to join a terrorist organization. Adebowale was investigated by British spies after he was identified as having viewed extremist material online. London counterterrorism police also received an uncorroborated tip that Adebowale was affiliated with al Qaeda. Investigators reviewed Adebowale’s cellphone records and apparently did not find anything of interest. But they did not check his landline call records, which if they had would have revealed that he had been in contact with an individual in Yemen linked to al Qaeda. Covert surveillance of both Adebolajo and Adebowale had ceased prior to their attack in London in May 2013, though Adebowale was still the subject of a terrorism-related investigation at the time.

Image #: 22463877 epa03712953 A British police officer carries a knife in an evidence bag close to the scene where a soldier was murdered in John Wilson Street, Woolwich, south-east London, Britain, 23 May 2013. Two attackers with kitchen knives killed a British soldier on a street 22 May in south-east London afternoon in a case that police were treating as a suspected terrorist attack. Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe said officers from the counterterrorist unit were leading the investigation into the ‘shocking and horrific’ slaying in Woolwich with two people arrested. British Prime Minister David Cameron, who was in Paris for a meeting with French President Francois Hollande, cut short the visit to return to London later 22 May. He called the incident ‘shocking’ and ordered a crisis meeting to coordinate British government response. British Home Secretary Theresa May led a meeting of the government’s emergency response committee, with another meeting planned for 23 May. EPA/FACUNDO ARRIZABALAGA /LANDOV A British police officer carries an evidence bag containing a knife near the scene where a soldier was murdered in Woolwich, Britain, May 23, 2013. Photo: Facundo Arrizabalaga/EPA /Landov
10. Boston Marathon bombing: April 15, 2013

Victims: Five dead. 260+ wounded.
Perpetrators: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (19; Kyrgyzstani-American) and Tamerlan Tsarnaev (26; Kyrgyzstani-American).
Weapons: Pressure-cooker bombs, semi-automatic pistol, improvised explosive devices.

Known to authorities? Dzhokhar’s older brother, Tamerlan, who orchestrated the attacks, was placed on two different U.S. government watchlists in late 2011. Russian security agency FSB tipped off the FBI and CIA in 2011 that Tamerlan “was a follower of radical Islam,” and he and his family were subsequently interviewed by American agents, according to the Associated Press. The CIA reportedly “cleared [Tamerlan] of any ties to violent extremism” two years before he and his younger brother carried out the bombing of the marathon.

Image #: 21996457 Runners continue to run towards the finish line of the Boston Marathon as an explosion erupts near the finish line of the race in this photo exclusively licensed to Reuters by photographer Dan Lampariello after he took the photo in Boston, Massachusetts, April 15, 2013. Two simultaneous explosions ripped through the crowd at the finish line of the Boston Marathon on Monday, killing at least two people and injuring dozens on a day when tens of thousands of people pack the streets to watch the world famous race. REUTERS EXCLUSIVE REUTERS/Dan Lampariello (UNITED STATES – Tags: CRIME LAW SPORT ATHLETICS TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY ) MANDATORY CREDIT: REUTERS /STRINGER /LANDOV Boston Marathon participants run toward the finish line as an explosion erupts at the race, Boston, Mass., April 15, 2013. Photo: Dan Lampariello/Reuters /Landov

Ryan Gallagher
Nov. 18 2015, 7:03 p.m.

Find this story at 18 November 2015

Copyright https://theintercept.com/

Van nieuwsblog.burojansen.nl

Authorities knew of at least three of the Paris attackers but did not act – and ignored a warning about a potential attack

Do the arithmetic and it is hard not to feel sympathy for the French intelligence agencies. Every day they face a dilemma created by the gap between available staff and the huge number of suspects.

French intelligence and police have only an estimated 500-600 staff whose task is to physically follow people. But the agencies have about 11,000 people on their books classified as potential threats to national security.

To mount an operation to monitor one person 24-hours-a-day requires about 30 to 40 people. So they have to make hard choices about which people to prioritise.

They often get it right, foiling many plots. But when they get it wrong, as they have twice this year, first in the Charlie Hebdo attack and in last Friday’s massacre, they have come under huge pressure.

French MPs vote to extend state of emergency after Paris attacks
Read more
There will inevitably be an inquiry into the failings. But the French government has already proposed new legislation introducing tougher security measures.

Senior members of the US intelligence community, still smarting from the loss of the bulk data collection of phone records in the Freedom Act this summer, are taking advantage of events in Paris to renew arguments over surveillance.

In New York on Wednesday, the director of the FBI, James Comey, complained that too much of the internet had gone dark. Intelligence and law enforcement agencies both needed faster and better access to communications data, he said.

The stripped down argument is that if you have access to everything, it is easier to keep everyone secure. When there are attacks such as those in Paris, the agencies say they quickly need to search back through data to see who suspects had been talking to, helping to identify the networks and prevent potential other attacks.

French intelligence under scrutiny in wake of Paris attacks
Read more
The problem with this, as with almost every terrorist incident since 9/11, is that the French intelligence agencies already knew at least three of the attackers.

Abelhamid Abaaoud was known as an accomplice of two jihadis killed in Belgium in January. The police had a file on Omar Ismaïl Mostefai even before he travelled to Syria in 2013, while Sami Amimour had been detained in 2012 on suspected terrorist links.

In other words, the failure of the French intelligence agencies is not that they did not have enough data – but that they did not act on what they had.

The three could have been the subject of traditional targeted surveillance. While physical surveillance is difficult in terms of staffing, keeping tabs on their communications is less labour-intensive.

Tracking such suspects does not require the collection of the communications data – phone records, emails, Facebook postings, chat lines – of every French citizen, only the suspects.

One of the key arguments put forward by Comey and earlier in the week by the director of the CIA, John Brennan, is that terrorists have become better at covert communications. But the discarded mobile phone that led police to the St-Denis hideout contained unencrypted text.

CIA chief criticises recent surveillance rollbacks in wake of Paris attacks
Read more
One of the biggest failings was not the French intelligence agencies’ lack of sufficient surveillance powers but the long-running lack of cooperation between European intelligence agencies – and reluctance to share information – due to fears about leaks. When they do cooperate, the process is slow – even over things as simple as translation.

The Iraq government sent warnings to French intelligence about a potential attack that were ignored. Such warnings are regularly received by the agencies struggling to work out which ones reflect a genuine threat.

A more serious omission is the French failure to respond to the Turkish government when it flagged up concern about Mostefai. Added to that is the lack of cooperation between France and Belgium, where some of the attackers were based.

Such failures are where the French and US intelligence agencies should be looking, rather than exploiting the tragedy to make the case for bulk data surveillance.

Ewen MacAskill Defence and intelligence correspondent
Thursday 19 November 2015 18.51 GMT Last modified on Friday 20 November 2015 01.05 GMT

Find this story at 19 November 2015

© 2015 Guardian News and Media Limited

Van nieuwsblog.burojansen.nl

In January, Turkish authorities detained one of the suicide bombers at Turkey’s border and deported him to Belgium. Brahim Abdeslam, Turkish authorities told Belgian police at the time, had been “radicalized” and was suspected of wanting to join Islamic State in Syria, a Turkish security source told Reuters.

Yet during questioning in Belgium, Abdeslam denied any involvement with militants and was set free. So was his brother Salah – a decision that Belgian authorities say was based on scant evidence that either man had terrorist intentions.

On Nov. 13, Abdeslam blew himself up at Le Comptoir Voltaire bar in Paris, killing himself and wounding one other. Salah is also a suspect in the attacks, claimed by the Islamic State, and is now on the run.

In France, an “S” (State Security) file for people suspected of being a threat to national security had been issued on Ismail Omar Mostefai, who would detonate his explosive vest inside Paris’ Bataclan concert hall. Mostefai, a Frenchman of Algerian descent, was placed on the list in 2010, French police sources say.

Turkish police also considered him a terror suspect with links to Islamic State. Ankara wrote to Paris about him in December 2014 and in June this year, a senior Turkish government official said. The warning went unheeded. Paris answered last week, after the attacks.

A fourth attacker missed at least four weekly check-ins with French police in 2013, before authorities issued an arrest warrant for him. By that time he had left the country.

On any one of these occasions, police, intelligence and security services had an opportunity to detain at least some of the men who launched the attacks.

That they did not, helps explain how a group of Islamist militants was able to organize even as they moved freely among countries within the open borders of Europe’s passport-free Schengen area and beyond.

Taken one by one, each misstep has its own explanation, security services say. They attribute the lapses in communication, inability to keep track of suspected militants and failure to act on intelligence, to a lack of resources in some countries and a surge in the number of would-be jihadis.

But a close examination by Reuters of a series of missed red flags and miscommunications culminating in France’s biggest atrocity since World War Two puts on stark display the mounting difficulties faced by anti-terrorism units across Europe and their future ability to keep the continent safe.

“We’re in a situation where the services are overrun. They expect something to happen, but don’t know where,” said Nathalie Goulet, who heads up the French Senate’s investigation committee into jihadi networks.

Many point to Belgium as a weak link in European security.

“They simply don’t have the same means as Britain’s MI5 or the DGSI (French intelligence agency),” said Louis Caprioli, a former head of the DST, France’s former anti-terrorism unit.

Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel defended his country’s security services and praised them for doing “a difficult and tough job.” French President Francois Hollande also praised his country’s security services, who hunted down and shot dead the man they identified as the ringleader, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, five days after the attacks.

Europol, the European Union’s police agency, says it has been feeding information to the Belgian and French authorities but acknowledges that some member states are better at sharing information than others.

FOCUS ON FIGHTERS RETURNING FROM SYRIA

The focus of investigators over the past few years has been men and women who have grown up in Europe, have European passports and who travel to Syria to train and fight.

As the number of those fighters has increased, authorities have struggled to keep up. The French Interior Ministry estimated about 500 French nationals had traveled to Syria and almost 300 had returned. French authorities reckon up to 1,400 people need 24-hour surveillance. Yet France has only about the same number of officers to carry out the task, a tenth of those needed.

Some 350 people from Belgium have gone to Syria to fight – the highest per capita number in Europe. A Belgian government source said Belgium has a list of 400 people who are in Syria, have returned or are believed to be about to go there. There are another 400-500 people who authorities believe have radicalized. The number of people in the Belgian security services carrying out surveillance is believed to be considerably fewer than this.

The numbers partially explain why many of the attackers in Paris were well-known faces still at large.

The attacks killed 130 people at various locations, including the Bataclan concert hall where 89 concert-goers were gunned down or blown up. Others were killed outside the Stade de France sports stadium and in bars and restaurants around central Paris.

Seven assailants died during the attacks. Abaaoud was killed in a police raid north of Paris on Wednesday along with one other suicide attacker and a woman believed to be his cousin.

Dozens of people have also been detained, some with weapons and explosives, in raids since then.

Abaaoud himself had been well-known to authorities for several years. After a raid in January in the Belgian town of Verviers, police suspected the 28-year-old of plotting to kidnap a police officer and kill him.

In February, Abaaoud said in an interview with an Islamic State magazine that he had returned to Syria after the raid in Verviers. By this time, he knew he was being sought.

If it is true that he returned to Syria from Verviers, Abaaoud made his way back into Europe at some point after January. French authorities did not know this until they were tipped off by Morocco after the attacks.

“If Abaaoud was able to go from Syria to Europe, that means there are failings in the entire European system,” French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said.

WARNINGS

Mostefai, the Bataclan suicide bomber, also traveled back and forth. Although he had eight convictions as a petty criminal, he had never been in prison, a place French authorities can watch for signs of radicalization.

Police say they suspected him of being in Syria between late 2013 and early 2014, before returning to France unnoticed.

In December of last year, Turkey contacted France about Mostefai. They raised an alarm again in June 2015 by letter.

There was no response from French authorities, according to a senior Turkish government official and a security source.

“It seemed there was a connection between this person and Daesh (Islamic State) and we reported it,” the Turkish security source said. “We followed all international procedures. But they (the French) didn’t display the same level of sensitivity.”

French officials declined to comment on this, but say that coordination with Turkey over potential French jihadis has improved markedly in the past year.

Determining how dangerous a person is, and whether they might carry out an attack, is a key challenge for security services, experts say.

“The other difficulty is that if you have nothing concrete for several years, you can’t keep either a sophisticated technical alert system or human resources on a person who makes himself forgotten for three or four years,” said Arnaud Danjean, a former intelligence officer and now a member of the European Parliament.

Bilal Hadfi, who blew himself up outside the Stade de France, was another of the suicide attackers under surveillance.

After visiting Syria in February, the 20-year-old French national, who was living in Belgium, returned to Europe by an unknown route and evaded police even though the Belgian Justice Ministry said microphones had been placed at the house where he was thought to be staying.

Then there’s the case of Sami Amimour. French authorities had launched an official investigation into Amimour’s possible terrorism-related activity in October 2012. Prosecutors suspected him of planning to join militants in Yemen.

Amimour was a bus driver who had been radicalized in a mosque near his hometown of Drancy, north of Paris. Because of the investigation, police had ordered Amimour to check in with them every week. As reported by Reuters on Nov 20, he missed four weekly checks in 2013. But it was only after nearly a month that the authorities put out an international arrest warrant.

By then Amimour was already in Syria. His tracks were picked up a year later, in December 2014, when his father gave an interview to French daily Le Monde describing how he had traveled to Syria but failed to convince his son to return.

THE MEN FROM THE BAR

Police are still looking for Salah Abdeslam, who is known to have survived the attacks.

Until six weeks before the attacks, Salah and his brother Brahim – one of the suicide bombers – were running a bar called Les Beguines on a quiet street in Molenbeek, a low-rent area of Brussels which has been linked with several attacks.

After the attacks, Salah Abdeslam went to ground. Authorities say he was stopped on his way back to Belgium after the Paris attacks, but police waved him on. It is not clear what role he played on the night of the attacks and why he managed to survive.

Two men who were arrested later, Mohamed Amri, 27, and 21-year-old Hamza Attou, said they brought Abdeslam back to Brussels after receiving a call from him saying his car had broken down. Police checks meant they were pulled over three times, including a last check around 9 a.m. near Cambrai just short of the Belgian border.

Missteps did not just happen in France and Belgium.

The Syrian passport found near one of the suicide bombers at the Stade de France had been used by a man registering himself as a refugee on the Greek island of Leros on Oct. 3. That man traveled through Macedonia and claimed asylum in Serbia, counter-intelligence and security sources said.

The French prosecutor has confirmed that fingerprints taken on arrival in Greece showed that man traveled with a second man, who also blew himself up near the Stade de France.

The pair may have reached Paris relatively easily because, at the height of the migration crisis in Europe this year, asylum seekers were rushed across some national borders without checks.

It is unclear whether the passport issued under the name of Ahmad al-Mohammad, a 25-year-old from the Syrian city of Idlib, was genuine or was stolen from a refugee. Whatever the truth, it has helped fuel right-wing criticism in Europe of the number of migrants allowed in this year.

By the time the two men were making their way up through the Balkans to western Europe, France had received more evidence an attack was imminent.

French former anti-terrorism judge Marc Trevidic says a French Islamist he questioned on his return from Syria in August said Islamic State had asked him to carry out an attack on a concert venue.

“The guy admitted that he was asked to hit a rock concert. We didn’t know if it would be Bataclan or another, he didn’t know the exact location that would be designated. But yes, that’s what they asked him to do,” Trevidic told Reuters.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari has also said that his country’s intelligence services shared information indicating that France, as well as the United States and Iran, was being targeted for attack. He has not given details.

Germany’s top prosecutor is also investigating allegations that an Algerian man detained at a refugee center in the western town of Arnsberg told Syrian refugees an attack was imminent in the French capital.

Europe is scrambling to respond to the attacks.

France declared a nationwide state of emergency which will now last three months. Police now have the power to conduct searches without obtaining judicial warrants and can hold anyone suspected of posing a threat to security under house arrest for 12 hours a day. Internet sites deemed to incite or advocate “acts of terrorism” can be blocked and public demonstrations banned.

Belgium has also announced a security crackdown, saying it will spend an extra 400 million euros ($430 million) on security and take measures such as stopping the sale of mobile phone cards to anonymous buyers. Police will be allowed to conduct night searches of homes and it is now easier to ban, convict or expel hate preachers.

Whether such measures will be enough is uncertain. Brussels is on high alert this weekend because of what authorities there called the “serious and imminent” threat of attack. In a video last week, Islamic State warned it would strike again.

“When a large operation is prepared, they are told to keep a low profile in the months before. As‎ they are no longer on police radars, it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack,” said Roland Jacquard, president of the Paris-based International Terrorism Observatory.

(Robert-Jan Bartunek reported from Brussels and Orhan Coskun reported from Turkey; additional reporting by Nick Tattersall in Turkey, Alastair Macdonald in Brussels, Silvia Aloisi in Athens; writing by Timothy Heritage; editing by Alessandra Galloni, Simon Robinson, Janet McBride)

World | Sun Nov 22, 2015 5:37am EST Related: WORLD, FRANCE
PARIS | BY JOHN IRISH, ROBERT-JAN BARTUNEK AND ORHAN COSKUN

Find this story at 22 November 2015

Copyright http://www.reuters.com/

Van nieuwsblog.burojansen.nl

Paris (AFP) – Comme après chaque attentat islamiste réussi, le massacre du 13 novembre va relancer la polémique sur “la faille” dans les systèmes antiterroristes français et européens. Et cette fois, comme les précédentes, il semble que les dysfonctionnements se soient accumulés.

En l’état actuel de l’enquête, le plus grave semble être le cas de Samy Amimour: ce Français de 28 ans, soupçonné de vouloir partir pour le Yémen, est mis en examen en octobre 2012 pour “association de malfaiteurs terroristes”, placé sous contrôle judiciaire. Ce qui ne l’empêche pas de rejoindre, un an plus tard, la “terre de jihad” syrienne.

Cela provoque l’émission d’un mandat d’arrêt international. Malgré cela, il parvient à rentrer en France incognito pour participer, vendredi soir à Paris, au pire attentat jamais commis en France.

“On a un souci de contrôle aux frontières Schengen, et un gros”, assure à l’AFP Alain Chouet, ancien chef du service de renseignement de sécurité à la DGSE. “Son arrivée aurait dû provoquer la levée d’un drapeau rouge. Mais ces gars maîtrisent bien les techniques d’entrée et de sortie de Schengen, pour l’avoir beaucoup pratiqué”.

“S’il a pris soin de ne pas rentrer par une frontière française, personne ne l’a vu. S’il rentre par la Belgique, par exemple par un vol low-cost à Charleroi… Allez-y à Charleroi, vous verrez les contrôles”, ajoute-t-il.

Autre problème, un autre tireur du Bataclan, Omar Ismaïl Mostefaï, avait d’une part attiré dès 2010 l’attention des services français, qui avaient émis à son encontre une fiche S (“sûreté de l’État”), et d’autre part avait été, selon Ankara, signalé deux fois à Paris pour son appartenance à la mouvance jihadiste.

La police turque “a informé la police française en décembre 2014 et janvier 2015” à son propos (il était entré sur le territoire turc en 2013, pour ensuite certainement rallier la Syrie), et “nous n’avons jamais eu de retour de la France”, a affirmé lundi à l’AFP un responsable turc.

Par ailleurs d’autres membres du commando, installés en Belgique, étaient connus de la police belge. “Vous comprendrez bien que si les Belges ne nous préviennent pas, ici on ne peut rien faire”, confiait lundi à l’AFP une source policière.

– ‘Ça m’empêche de dormir’ –

Ces faisceaux d’indices, ces signalements, ce mandat d’arrêt international auraient dû constituer les points d’un schéma qui, en les reliant, auraient pû conduire les enquêteurs, en France ou en Belgique, à passer à l’action contre cette cellule avant qu’elle n’ensanglante Paris.

“Il y a trois hypothèses”, explique à l’AFP un ancien spécialiste du contre-terrorisme à la DGSE, sous couvert d’anonymat. “Soit personne n’a rien vu, et c’est un gros souci; soit on a vu des trucs et on ne les a pas compris, ce qui est aussi un problème; soit on a vu des trucs et malgré tout l’équipe a pu passer à l’action.”

“On a peut-être raté la phase de préparation terminale, celle où les types disparaissent dans la nature. Dans les trois cas, c’est très embêtant. Ça veut dire qu’on a soit un problème de renseignement, soit d’analyse du renseignement soit de chaîne de commandement dans les services. C’est accru par le fait que ça se passe en partie en Belgique”, ajoute-t-il.

“Pour le renseignement anti-jihadiste, la Belgique est sous bouclier français. Et il faut bien le dire, alors qu’ils ont la plus grosse proportion de départs en Syrie des pays occidentaux, les Belges ne sont pas au niveau (…). Dans cette équipe beaucoup de mecs sont connus à Bruxelles, quelqu’un s’est manifestement planté.”

Submergés par le nombre de jihadistes rentrant de Syrie et d’Irak, auxquels ils doivent ajouter les anciens des filières afghanes ou irakiennes, qui parfois reprennent du service, les services spécialisés sont contraints d’établir des listes de noms, par ordre décroissant de dangerosité présumée.

“Ça m’empêche de dormir la nuit”, confiait récemment un des responsables de l’antiterrorisme en France. “Avoir les bons noms à la bonne place. Nous sommes très loin d’une science exacte.”

“Par définition s’il y a eu un attentat, c’est qu’il y a eu un problème, conclut Alain Chouet. “Mais bon, on ne reproche pas les feux de forêts aux pompiers… Si vous mettez un pompier tous les cinq mètres dans les forêts de France, vous n’aurez plus de feux de forêts…”

Publié le 16-11-2015 à 20h05
Mis à jour à 21h36

Find this story at 16 November 2015

© Le Nouvel Observateur

Van nieuwsblog.burojansen.nl

French officials received multiple warnings about Paris attacker Omar Ismail Mostefai before Friday’s terror attack but Turkey didn’t get a response from French authorities until after the attack, a Turkish official said on Monday.

“On Oct. 10, 2014, Turkey received an information request regarding four terror suspects from the French authorities,” a Turkish official told the New York Times. “During the official investigation, the Turkish authorities identified a fifth individual, Omar Ismail Mostefai, and notified their French counterparts twice—in December 2014 and June 2015.”

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Mashable also quoted a senior Turkish official as saying that Mostefai, the first gunman identified in the attack, was known to security officials and that France never followed up on shared information until after the attack took place.

“This is not a time to play the blame game, but we are compelled to share the information to shed light on Omar Ismail Mostefai’s travel history,” the senior official told Mashable. “The case of Omar Ismail Mostefai clearly establishes that intelligence sharing and effective communication are crucial to counter-terrorism efforts. The Turkish government expects closer cooperation from its allies in the future.”

The Associated Press reported a more general warning had been given to coalition countries by senior Iraqi intelligence officials the day before the attack. The warnings were vague, though four Iraqi intelligence officials told the AP that they warned France specifically of an attack and two said they warned France beforehand about details French authorities hadn’t yet made public, including that the planning for the attack occurred in ISIS’s de facto capital of Raqqa, Syria. The officials also said a sleeper cell in France helped the attackers execute the plan after they arrived and the operation included 24 people—19 attackers and five working on planning and logistics.

The AP also reported that a senior French security official responded to the claims by the Iraqi officials by saying French intelligence receives such warnings “all the time” and “every day.”

Belgian’s Justice Minister Koen Geens also reportedly told CNN’s Ivan Watson that authorities knew some of the Paris attackers were foreign fighters in Syria but were unaware they had returned.

“Belgium has a foreign fighters problem,” Geens said.

Writing in Slate on Monday, Brian Michael Jenkins explained why even advanced knowledge about suspected ISIS sympathizers and fighters might not be enough to prevent such attacks:

[O]ne should not underestimate the difficulties of intelligence collection in Europe today. France’s intelligence services are being overwhelmed by the many individuals who have gone to join jihadi fronts in Syria (some of whom have returned), those suspected of preparing to go, and still others suspected of being involved in plotting or supporting terrorist plots. The total number easily runs into the thousands. Keeping every one of them under close surveillance is not possible. Choices have to be made. Some plots will be thwarted. Others will inevitably evade detection.

By Jeremy Stahl
NOV. 16 2015 12:14 PM

Find this story at 16 November 2015

© 2015 The Slate Group LLC

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PARIS — The gunfire had still not subsided, and those who could were running for their lives. But one man was crossing Paris to get close to the scenes of death.

Just after 10 p.m. on Nov. 13, the man, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, parked his rented getaway car in the eastern suburb of Montreuil, leaving behind the Kalashnikov he is believed to have used to shoot diners in central Paris a half-hour before. Apparently unconcerned as security cameras recorded his movements, he boarded the No. 9 subway line and returned to the part of the city that was still under siege. Before the night was over, investigators say, he had walked past the shattered cafes and bloodied concert hall that had been among his targets.

After a year of plotting terror in Europe but only producing four fizzled attempts, Mr. Abaaoud made sure this time was different. This time, he was on the scene, not directing from afar. This time, he monitored his team of assassins — old friends and new zealots — and surveyed the suffering. This time, investigators say, he had prepared for a second wave of assaults days later, and planned to die himself as a suicide bomber in the heart of the Paris region’s business district.

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How the Organizer of the Paris Attacks Slipped Through Authorities’ Hands
Abdelhamid Abaaoud, who organized the Nov. 13 terrorist attacks in Paris, crisscrossed Europe and the Middle East, even though he was on a Belgian watch list.

OPEN GRAPHIC
A foot soldier turned lieutenant in the Islamic State’s hierarchy, Mr. Abaaoud, a 28-year-old Belgian, had been under increasing pressure to deliver something big, Western intelligence officials say. “All these operations in 2015 had been failures, embarrassing failures,” said Louis Caprioli, a former deputy head of France’s domestic counterterrorism unit. “He needed to make sure this operation succeeds.”

Two weeks after the attacks, as France buries its dead and a lengthening list of Mr. Abaaoud’s suspected confederates are rounded up, more evidence has emerged about how the group of at least nine militants pulled off the assaults, and the intelligence and security lapses that allowed them to do so.

There had been repeated hints of their intentions and efforts to hone their skills, according to dozens of interviews, court documents and government disclosures. Despite growing alarm in French counterterrorism circles about the threat they posed, the overburdened security apparatus proved ill equipped against an enemy practicing what one official calls “dartboard terrorism,” hurling multiple lethal darts at a distant target until one hits the mark.

In January, the police raided a safehouse in the Belgian town of Verviers, thwarting a plot that proved to be a chilling precursor to the synchronized murder that played out across the French capital 10 months later. The raid uncovered an arsenal that included the ingredients to make the same volatile explosives used in Paris, according to an American intelligence document.

The militants have become “more professional,” learning from their mistakes, said one intelligence official. Earlier this year, a plotter linked to Mr. Abaaoud planned to mow down the congregation at a French church but instead shot himself in the leg. But the gunmen in Paris — a majority of them battle-hardened in Syria — were well trained. After phone taps uncovered the Verviers plan, Mr. Abaaoud began using encryption technology and may have concealed his communications in that way with his Paris team, intelligence officials said.

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State of Terror
Articles in this series examine the rise of the Islamic State and life inside the territory it has conquered.

Exploiting Europe’s passport-free zone and patchy intelligence sharing, Mr. Abaaoud and his team moved not just across the Continent, but also to Syria and back. They did so despite being questioned at airports, flagged by security services or pulled over during routine traffic stops.

“Abaaoud was in the database of every single European country, but he returned to Europe like he was going on a vacation to Club Med,” said the mother of an 18-year-old Belgian jihadist who died earlier this year after joining the same Islamic State brigade to which several of the Paris plotters belonged.

The attack in Paris was the deadliest terrorist assault on the Continent in a decade, killing 130 people. It reverberated across the region, forcing Brussels to lock down for four days, spurring Germany to cancel a soccer match and prompting Britain to increase its military budget after years of cutbacks.

Trying to reassure a grieving nation, President François Hollande of France has pledged to defeat the Islamic State’s “cult of death.” Yet intelligence officials warned of the West’s vulnerabilities. Paris, they fear, heralds a new era of terror, one that could play out on the streets of European capitals for years to come.

“They try, they fail, they learn, they try again,” said one French official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “They have patience and they have an army of willing martyrs that feed on an ideology that is immune to bullets.”

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The Expanding Web of Connections Among the Paris Attackers
Warning Signs

Earlier this year, an official at Europol, the Continent’s law enforcement agency, paid an urgent visit to Athens to ask for help tracking down a Belgian named Abdelhamid Abaaoud, according to news media reports.

For months, investigators had been intercepting suspicious calls originating near Pangrati, a neighborhood of Athens, said a retired European official who was briefed on the details.

Mr. Abaaoud, then 27, appeared to be planning an attack in his native land — a possibility considered improbable at first. He seemed like other young Europeans who had joined the Islamic State: a fanatic who made grandiose threats online, but did not have the know-how or the network to pull off mass murder on European soil.

But after the calls were tracked to Verviers, a SWAT team raided a residence there on Jan. 15, turning up evidence of surprising sophistication. The police found automatic weapons, a large quantity of cash, a body camera, multiple cellphones, hand-held radios and fraudulent identification documents, according to a United States Department of Homeland Security intelligence assessment.

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Paris Victims, Remembered
They also found the precursor chemicals for the explosive triacetone triperoxide, or TATP, according to the document, which was the same chemical compound used in the suicide belts in Paris. The compound is highly volatile, according to Claude Moniquet, who spent two decades at the French spy agency D.G.S.E. “If you don’t get it just right, you’ll either blow off your hand, or it won’t go off at all,” Mr. Moniquet said. “It suggests the presence of a bombmaker.”

The discovery set off a manhunt in Greece, but Mr. Abaaoud’s SIM card stopped transmitting immediately after the raid. The police found his DNA in an Athens apartment, according to news media reports. But officials lost his trail.

A few weeks later, Mr. Abaaoud resurfaced in the Islamic State’s online magazine, bragging about having plotted terrorism under the noses of the European authorities. “My name and picture were all over the news yet I was able to stay in their homeland, plan operations against them, and leave safely,” he said.

Until then, said David Thomson, the author of a book on French jihadists, Mr. Abaaoud had been seen inside the Islamic State as nothing special. “They spoke of him as they would of anyone else — and not as an important guy,” Mr. Thomson said.

If anything, he was known mostly for his appearance in a grotesque Islamic State video, whooping and laughing while dragging corpses behind a 4-by-4 truck.

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How ISIS Expanded Its Threat
Yet Europe’s most notorious jihadist was once a hapless delinquent.

In 2010, he planned to break into a garage in the Belgian countryside with a childhood friend. But he slipped off the roof, and the pair were later found soaking wet and nearing hypothermia on a river edge, recalled his former lawyer, Alexandre Château.

The bungled burglary was unremarkable, but the partnership was not: His accomplice was one of two brothers who would later be at Mr. Abaaoud’s side during the Paris attacks.

Mr. Abaaoud’s father said his son began showing signs of extremism after a stint in prison.

On March 23, 2013, the authorities intercepted a call Mr. Abaaoud made on a Turkish cellphone to a friend in Belgium. He said he was leaving for “The Camp,” according to court records. His brother told Belgian security officials that Mr. Abaaoud had said he was going to Syria “to do jihad,” according to a court transcript.

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Sébastien rescued a woman hanging from the window of the Bataclan concert hall in Paris. Then he survived a two-hour hostage standoff. By DEBORAH ACOSTA on Publish Date November 18, 2015. Photo by Daniel Psenny/Le Monde. Watch in Times Video »
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When the police went to search his home in the Molenbeek district of Brussels months later, the items found inside his abandoned residence included pepper spray, gloves and two crowbars, along with the keys to a stolen Audi and three license plates.

Inscriptions praising the Islamic State, also known as ISIS and ISIL, were on his door. On the wall, the court filing noted, was “a crude drawing of the ISIS flag, drawn with a marker.”

Sometime between late 2013 and early 2014, he joined a brigade called the Mujahedeen Shura Council based in Aleppo, Syria, which would soon pledge allegiance to the Islamic State.

One of his first jobs was searching the bodies of freshly killed troops. “He was in charge of emptying the pockets of cadavers after battle,” Mr. Thomson said.

Even when Mr. Abaaoud — by then called Abou Omar — joined the Katibat al-Battar, or Battar Brigade, an elite squad made up of French-speaking fighters that rose to prominence in 2014 within the Islamic State, his name surfaced only in passing, said Mr. Thomson, who spent months exchanging private messages with the French members of the unit as research for his book.

Photo

In January, the police raided a terrorist safe house in Verviers, Belgium, and uncovered an arsenal of weapons. Credit Olivier Hoslet/European Pressphoto Agency
That changed abruptly after the Verviers plot. Though the operation had failed, Mr. Abaaoud’s ability to travel in and out of Europe impressed his fellow fighters in Syria, turning him from an ordinary soldier into an inspiration. “They would say, ‘Look at Abou Omar,’ ” Mr. Thomson recalled. “By which they meant: ‘If Abou Omar succeeded, then anyone can.’ ”

Battlefield Bonds

Investigators say they believe that it was in Syria that Mr. Abaaoud and most of the Paris attackers found one other.

As early as 2013, a well-established pipeline was funneling young men from Belgium to the Islamic State. Some took out loans with few questions asked from institutions like ING Belgium, where one future jihadist received 15,000 euros, or about $15,800, according to a recent court filing. Others bought cheap “burner” phones that are often discarded in an effort to avoid detection. One man stole flashlights and GoPro cameras, a favored tool for recording atrocities, according to court documents.

They knew to leave via trains or buses to other European countries before boarding flights to Turkey, evading relatively greater scrutiny at airports in their home countries.

Photo

A photograph of Abdelhamid Abaaoud that was published in the Islamic State’s online magazine Dabiq. Credit via Associated Pres
Mr. Abaaoud, for example, accompanied his 13-year-old brother, Younes, to Syria, apparently by first making their way by land to Germany.

On Jan. 20, 2014, they checked in for a flight to Istanbul from Cologne. At passport control, an alert flashed: Mr. Abaaoud was on a Belgian watch list. When he claimed to be visiting family in Turkey, he was allowed to proceed.

Even when suspects are properly classified, they can fall through the cracks because of the lack of a centralized European database. There are currently 1,595 jihadists in the Europol terror database, said Jean-Charles Brisard, who has testified as an expert witness in terrorism trials. The actual number, if European countries shared their information more efficiently, should be well over 6,000, he said.

Many of the future Paris attackers ended up in the Battar brigade in Syria. Only Mr. Abaaoud and the two brothers from Molenbeek, Salah and Ibrahim Abdeslam, appear to have known one other before they were radicalized.

Several came from intact, middle-class families, including Mr. Abaaoud, a shop owner’s son who had been sent to an exclusive Catholic school. Second- and third-generation immigrants of Moroccan and Algerian descent, the attackers included a bus driver, a bar owner and a mechanic for the Brussels Métro. The oldest was 29, the youngest just 20 — he wept, his mother recalls, the day he left for Syria.

Photo

The plotters Clockwise from top left; Samy Amimour, one of the suicide bombers who attacked the Bataclan concert hall; an unidentified man, one of the suicide bombers at the Stade de France stadium; Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the suspected architect of the Paris attacks; Ibrahim Abdeslam, a Bataclan attacker; Ismaël Omar Mostefaï, a Bataclan attacker; an unidentified man suspected of being involved in the attacks; Bilal Hadfi, one of the suicide bombers at the stadium; and Salah Abdeslam, who remains at large. Credit Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Some had criminal records, and their families were reassured at first when they began to show signs of piety.

Mohammed Abdeslam said he had believed his two brothers were cleaning up their act. “When your brother tells you that he will stop drinking, it’s not radicalization,” he told a Belgian broadcaster.

Bilal Hadfi, the youngest of the group, had been smoking and doing drugs until one month before his departure to Syria in January, his mother told the Belgian news media, and started fasting on Mondays and Thursdays.

“He was by no means the cliché you’d expect,” recalled one of his mentors at the Instituut Anneessens-Funck in Brussels, where Mr. Hadfi, 20, was studying to become an electrician. “He didn’t have a beard.” He had “excellent grades” and was “extremely intelligent,” said the professor, who asked to remain anonymous in talking about a student. Then Mr. Hadfi stopped coming to class.

Mr. Hadfi is believed to have arrived in Syria last, on Jan. 15, eventually joining a team that included two hardened French jihadists: Ismaël Omar Mostefaï, a 29-year-old from the Courcouronnes suburb of Paris, and Samy Amimour, a 28-year-old bus driver from Drancy, northeast of the French capital.

Photo

A mosque outside Chartres, France, that was attended by Ismaël Omar Mostefaï, whose contact with hard-line Islamists prompted officials to a database of those considered a potential security risk. Credit Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York Times
Mr. Mostefaï was arrested eight times for petty crimes, and in 2010 his contact with hard-line Islamists at the local mosque prompted officials to add his name to the “S list,” a French database of those considered a potential security risk.

Mr. Amimour’s route to jihad began with an aborted trip to Yemen in 2012. After he stopped reporting to the police station in September 2013 as required, it took a month for an arrest warrant to be issued. By then, he had crossed into Syria — the same day as Mr. Mostefaï, officials say they believe.

As Frenchmen, the two would most likely have come across an older French jihadist who had already made a name for himself in the Islamic State: Fabien Clain, who had been to prison for recruiting fighters from France and Belgium to Iraq a decade ago. Mr. Clain, investigators said, was the speaker in an Islamic State audio recording claiming responsibility for the Paris massacre.

Intelligence officials call him a “bridge” between the French and Belgian jihadists who may have facilitated links between Mr. Abaaoud and his fellow plotters. Described as one of the most senior operatives in the Islamic State hierarchy, he works under Abu Mohammed al-Adnani, the group’s chief of external operations. Mr. Abaaoud was lowlier, “a platoon leader, not the head of the armed forces,” said François Heisbourg, a former defense official and counterterrorism expert.

By August, Mr. Abaaoud’s blueprint and team for attacking Europe may have been nearly ready.

Photo

Marc Trévidic, who served as France’s chief antiterrorism judge until three months ago, said he had heard Mr. Abaaoud’s name numerous times over the past year. Credit Remy De La Mauviniere/Associated Press
That month, Montasser AlDe’emeh, the author of two books on jihad and a former neighbor of Mr. Abaaoud’s in Molenbeek, heard his phone vibrate with a WhatsApp message. It was an audio recording from a Belgian jihadist in the same unit as Mr. Abaaoud.

“This is a message for the Belgian government from the mujahedeen of ISIS,” the audio begins. “It’s not a threat or a stupid thing, or just talk. This is a declaration of war. We have the plans.”

Raising the Alarm

The man who served as France’s chief antiterrorism judge until three months ago had heard Mr. Abaaoud’s name numerous times over the past year. Dozens of young French Muslims returning from Syria were brought to his office for questioning.

“Abaaoud came up all the time,” the judge, Marc Trévidic, recalled in an interview last week. “Especially after the January raids in Verviers.”

Photo

Fans left the Stade de France after the soccer game between France and Germany amid confusion caused by the attacks in the area. Credit Christophe Ena/Associated Press
It was always the same story: Mr. Abaaoud had told his young disciples to “do whatever they can” to inflict death and damage at home. They described him as obsessed. “He was mentioned as someone who wanted, at all cost, to recruit volunteers to carry out attacks in Belgium and France,” said Mr. Trévidic, now vice president of the high court in Lille, northern France.

But there was never a specific target, nor a date for an attack. The mission was always vague.

That changed on Aug. 15. In one of the last interviews the judge conducted, he found himself opposite a young Frenchman who had been handed money, encryption software and the most concrete target to date: “a rock concert hall” in Paris.

The young man, Reda Hame, had been arrested coming back from Syria, accompanied by a Muslim from Belgium. His companion had told the police that Mr. Hame was planning an attack in France.

Mr. Abaaoud had asked Mr. Hame to hit a soft target where he could achieve “maximum casualties.” He had given Mr. Hame an email address to reach him on and a USB stick with an encryption key he was to download on his computer. Mr. Abaaoud had promised further instructions by email on where to obtain weapons for the attack and which specific concert hall to strike.

Photo

Emergency workers removed the bodies of victims at a cafe in Paris. Credit Philippe Wojazer/Reuters
It was two weeks before Paris’s annual Rock en Seine musical festival. Was the target one of dozens of concerts playing over the three-day event in a Paris suburb? Was it one of the city’s many other music venues, like the Bataclan, which had been mentioned as a possible target at least twice before?

Mr. Trévidic placed an urgent call with the domestic intelligence services, the D.G.S.I., and asked them to trace Mr. Abaaoud’s email address.

“From late summer we knew something big was being planned,” said one French intelligence official. “We knew Abaaoud was involved in it but we didn’t know what, or where, or when. Everyone was on high alert.”

The sense of alarm only spread when, six days after Mr. Hame’s interview, a 26-year-old Moroccan, Ayoub El Khazzani, also linked to Mr. Abaaoud, stepped out of the bathroom of a high-speed train barreling toward Paris with a Kalashnikov before being subdued by three Americans.

With hindsight, some suggest the lone-wolf style attacks — single gunmen sent on missions to kill — that were thwarted in recent months were never the main focus. Whatever his intention, Mr. Trévidic said, Mr. Abaaoud “kept security services busy and distracted with these mini-plots while preparing the real attack.”

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Three Hours of Terror in Paris, Moment by Moment
Many of the attacks were just minutes apart.

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The United States had also picked up intelligence in recent months that showed the Islamic State was plotting an attack in France, senior American officials said. But they had nothing specific about targets or timing.

By late September, Mr. Hollande’s government launched airstrikes on Islamic State targets in Syria.

On Oct. 8 and 9, French fighter jets targeted training camps near Raqqa, the stronghold of the self-proclaimed caliphate in Syria. Mr. Hollande has publicly denied that the strikes were targeting an individual. But according to two Western intelligence officials, the hope was also to take out operatives including Mr. Abaaoud.

“When you don’t know where to hit the enemy here, you have to try to hit him over there,” Bernard Squarcini, the former head of France’s domestic intelligence agency, said in an interview.

A Calculated Attack

While the security services had their eyes on Syria, most if not all of Mr. Abaaoud’s team was already back in Europe, quietly putting in place the modern logistics of mass murder.

At least two are believed to have entered through the refugee flow on the Greek island of Leros, where the authorities fingerprinted them in October.

In the period leading up to the attack, the support network expanded — though just how far is not yet clear — to include radicalized family members and loyal friends, landlords and online arms dealers. Mr. Abaaoud’s cousin helped hide him after the attacks before dying alongside him in a police raid. Five friends of Salah Abdeslam, who dumped his suicide vest in a trash can and remains at large as the only surviving member of the attackers, have been arrested in Belgium for allegedly helping him escape. In Germany, one man who may have sold the group assault rifles over the Internet was placed in custody last week.

The plan involved three teams, whose members set off in at least three rental cars from Belgium and booked rooms in at least two locations in and around Paris, including two hotel rooms in the suburb of Alfortville and a house with bunk beds in Bobigny. Like tourists, they used online services including Booking.com and Homelidays.com, with the Abdeslam brothers handling the logistics.

In September, Salah Abdeslam made a foray to the edges of Paris to buy half a dozen electronic components used to make fireworks explode. He spent 390 euros in Les Magiciens du Feu, or “Fire Magicians” shop, said the shop’s in-house lawyer, Frédéric Zajac. “Unlike other clients, he did not ask any questions about how it all worked,” he said.

Mr. Abaaoud had learned from past mistakes: Unlike the plot in January, when his accomplices were still searching for an ice machine to store the TATP explosive, he made sure they had refrigerators. At the Appart’City hotel where four of the attackers stayed, rooms come with a kitchenette.

And rather than sending a single gunman or picking a single target, Mr. Abaaoud sent teams to a variety of locations — hedging the risk of failure and forcing the police to spread themselves thin. “They found out that if you use this ‘swarm theory’ you will exhaust the resources of law enforcement,” explained Ron Sandee, the former chief Al Qaeda analyst for Dutch military intelligence.

The roster for each team suggests more forethought: The two jihadists with more than four years of battlefield experience in Syria between them, Mr. Amimour and Mr. Mostefaï, were assigned the most important target, the Bataclan, with a third, still-unidentified man. Witnesses say they saw the Bataclan gunmen flanking each other, with one fighter reloading his magazine while another kept firing.

By contrast, the attackers at the Stade de France, the national soccer stadium, included the youngest and least experienced jihadist — the 20-year-old Mr. Hadfi. He was dropped off strapped with an explosive belt that needed only detonating. (Neither of the other two suicide bombers at the stadium has been identified.) “They said to themselves, ‘The kids will get as far as they can,’ ” and after that only need to “hit a button,” said Mr. Moniquet, a veteran of France’s intelligence agency who now directs the European Strategic Intelligence and Security Center.

Mr. Abaaoud himself was believed to have gone to a busy stretch of restaurants on the Rue de Charonne, equipped with the Kalashnikov that was later recovered bearing his DNA. Phone records released by the French prosecutor indicate that he left the house at Bobigny in a rented Seat car at 8:38 p.m. accompanied by another still-unidentified attacker and Ibrahim Abdeslam, his accomplice in the bungled garage theft five years ago.

It remains unclear if Mr. Abaaoud joined his troops to fire on the bars and cafes, though it seems likely: Witnesses saw gunmen leaning out of the black Seat rental car, and in front of each shattered establishment, investigators recovered “hundreds” of 7.62-millimeter cartridges, according to the French prosecutor.

Between 8:40 p.m. and 9:21 p.m. the phone “most probably” used by Mr. Abaaoud was in “sustained contact” with the one used by Mr. Hadfi, according to the Paris prosecutor. That was when Mr. Hadfi tried to enter the soccer stadium near Gate D, only to be turned away.

Moments later, at 9:20, he detonated the explosive.

The last attempted call between the two phones came a minute later — the platoon leader checking up on the recruit.

Correction: December 3, 2015
Because of a transcription error, an article on Tuesday about the intelligence and security lapses that allowed the Paris attackers to practice their assault misstated the size of the cartridges recovered by investigators in front of the bars and cafes targeted. They are 7.62 millimeters, not 0.762.

Reporting was contributed by Nabih Bulos, Aurelien Breeden and Lilia Blaise from Paris; Eric Schmitt from Washington; Kimiko de Freytas-Tamura and Andrew Higgins from Brussels; and Alison Smale from Berlin.

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A version of this article appears in print on December 1, 2015, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: A Plot Honed by Trial and Error . Order Reprints| Today’s Paper|Subscribe

By RUKMINI CALLIMACHI, KATRIN BENNHOLD and LAURE FOURQUETNOV. 30, 2015 122
Find this story at 30 November 2015

© 2015 The New York Times Company

Van nieuwsblog.burojansen.nl

Greek police tried to capture the suspected ringleader of the Paris terror attacks, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, in January but the operation failed.
A Belgian anti-terrorism source told the BBC the Athens operation planned to target Abaaoud before anti-terror raids in Belgium, but that did not happen.
Abaaoud had been directing the Belgian cell by phone from Athens.
Abaaoud died in a battle with French police five days after the 13 November Paris attacks that killed 130 people.
The Greek operation was supposed to have taken place before the one carried out by security forces in Verviers, eastern Belgium, on 15 January. That raid saw an exchange of fire that left two suspected jihadists dead.

DNA samples

Greek authorities were on Abaaoud’s trail, believing him to be running the Belgian cell by mobile phone from Athens.
Anti-terror sources told the BBC that a senior Belgian police officer was in Athens co-ordinating the hunt for Abaaoud with his Greek counterparts before the raid on the Verviers cell.
It remains unclear why or how Abaaoud slipped through the Greek net. There may have been an attempt to track him down to a city centre square by tracing the signal of his mobile phone. But that did not work.
The Greek authorities are not confirming any details – all that is known is that he got away.
Greek police only carried out raids in Athens two days after Verviers, on 17 January.
Earlier that day Belgian media had reported that authorities there were seeking Abaaoud, a Brussels resident of Moroccan origin, who was believed to be in hiding in Greece.
Police in Verviers. 15 Jan 2015Image copyrightEPA
Image caption
The Verviers raid left two suspected jihadists dead
Greek police raided two flats in Athens.
One Algerian man was eventually extradited to Belgium but Abaaoud was not to be found.
It is now known that traces of DNA recovered in both flats match samples recovered from Abaaoud’s body in Paris.
A neighbour at one of the flats, Vasilis Katsanos, said he had seen Abdelhamid Abaaoud in the street outside on at least two occasions.
Abdelhamid Abaaoud had been implicated in four out of six foiled attacks since this spring in France and sentenced to 20 years in prison in absentia, French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve has said.
Abaaoud is not the only link between Greece and the Paris attacks.
Salah Abdeslam – who is still on the run – travelled to Greece by ferry from Italy on 1 August, leaving three days later.
And two of the suicide bombers who attacked the Stade de France crossed by boat from Turkey to the island of Leros in October, posing as refugees.
Much of the detail that has emerged in Athens raises questions about how to create a better exchange of information and closer cooperation between anti-terrorism authorities in different European countries.
But the link with Abaaoud is also a what-might-have-been.
If he had been captured in Athens in January, the attacks in Paris might never have taken place.

By Chris Morris
BBC News, Athens
8 December 2015

Find this story at 8 December 2015

© 2015 BBC

Van nieuwsblog.burojansen.nl

The head of a Serbian arms factory Milojko Brzakovic speaks during an interview with The Associated Press, in Belgrade, Serbia, Thursday, Dec. 10, 2015. Brzakovic of the Zastava arms factory told the Associated Press Thursday that the M92 semi-automatic pistol was traced after its serial number matched the one delivered to an American arms dealer in May 2013.

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — In a Dec. 10 story, The Associated Press incorrectly reported that a gun exported by a Serbian manufacturer to a Florida-based company was involved in the Nov. 13 Paris attacks. In fact, the gun in question was not involved in the attacks and has been in Mexican government custody since March of this year, according to U.S. authorities.

The AP report was based on information from the Serbian gun manufacturer Zastava, which cited to AP an advisory from the Serbian Interior Ministry. The advisory quoted Interpol authorities as saying a gun manufactured by Zastava with a particular serial number was used in Paris. The AP story should have made clear that the connection between a Zastava gun with that serial number and the Paris attacks was based only on this advisory.

Zastava said it exported a gun with that serial number to Delray Beach, Florida-based Century Arms in 2013. According to the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the gun was received by Century and eventually sent to a federal firearms licensee in the United States and purchased by an individual in February 2014. In March of this year it was recovered at a crime scene in Mexico and is still in the custody of Mexican officials, ATF said.

Serbian authorities declined to provide any additional details this week on the advisory cited by Zastava or what it was based on. Interpol said it could not provide additional material because it only acts as a clearinghouse for information among police agencies. Interpol said it would defer to the information from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives on the case.

By JOVANA GEC and DUSAN STOJANOVIC
Dec. 18, 2015 2:15 PM EST

find this story at 18 December 2015

© 2015 Associated Press