eveningstandard--2019-03-15--Christchurch shootings New Zealand in mourning as suspect due in court after 49 killed in terrorist

Christchurch shootings: New Zealand in mourning as suspect due in court after 49 killed in terrorist gun attack at mosques

A man, 28, is due to appear in court charged with murder after at least 49 people were killed in terrorist gun attack on two mosques in New Zealand.  New Zealand is in mourning following Friday's massacre, the deadliest in the country's history.  PM Jacinda Ardern told a news conference "our gun laws will change" after a gunman walked into a mosque in the city of Christchurch at the start of prayers and began firing at random.  She had earlier described the shooting as a terrorist attack and one of New Zealand's "darkest days".  The suspect has been named in media reports as Australian man Brenton Tarrant.  A gunman believed to be a white supremacist live-streamed the massacre. A man was arrested following the attack.  Two other suspects remain in custody, New Zealand Police said in an update at around 7am local time on Saturday (6pm Friday, GMT).  Authorities said at least 48 people were wounded following the attack. The identities of the dead and wounded have not been released.  Several of those killed or wounded were from the Middle East or South Asia, according to initial reports from several governments.  Police later said 42 people were being treated for injuries. Two of those were critical, including a four-year-old child.  Christchurch Mayor Lianne Dalziel said graves are being dug for the dozens of worshippers who were shot dead.  She said city officials were working closely with the community on the specific requirements of a large number of Muslim funerals.  Mosques in New Zealand have been closed as security remains tight following the incident.  The gunman left a 74-page manifesto that he posted on social media, identifying himself as a white supremacist.  He also livestreamed in graphic detail 17 minutes of his rampage at Al Noor Mosque, where, armed with at least two assault rifles and a shotgun, killing at least 41 people.  Several more people were killed in an attack on a second mosque in the city a short time later.  Police did not immediately say whether the same person was responsible for both shootings. They gave no details about those taken into custody except to say that none had been on any watch list.  In the aftermath, the country's threat level was raised from low to high, police warned Muslims against going to a mosque anywhere in New Zealand, and the national airline cancelled several flights in and out of Christchurch.  World leaders condemned the attacks and offered condolences. Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan and other Islamic leaders pointed to the bloodbath and other such attacks as evidence of rising hostility toward Muslims.  "I blame these increasing terror attacks on the current Islamophobia post-9/11 where Islam & 1.3 bn Muslims have collectively been blamed for any act of terror by a Muslim," Mr Khan tweeted.  UK Prime Minister Theresa May offered her "deepest condolences to the people of New Zealand."  The Queen said she was "deeply saddened by the appalling events in Christchurch today. Prince Philip and I send our condolences".  Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said "Londoners of all backgrounds stand together in solidarity with our friends in New Zealand".  German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she mourned "with New Zealanders for their fellow citizens who were attacked and murdered out of racist hatred while peacefully praying in their mosques".  While French President Emmanuel Macron called it an "odious attack" and said France stood "against any form of extremism".  US President Donald Trump tweeted, "We stand in solidarity with New Zealand" and pledged to give the country any assistance it needs.  In the wake of the slaughter, the prime minister said that immigrants and refugees "have chosen to make New Zealand their home, and it is their home. They are us."  She said the suspects harbour "extremist views that have absolutely no place in New Zealand."  Across the UK, there has also been several vigils held for the victims of the attack.  In Finsbury Park, north London, several people gathered "in a vigil of solidarity for the Muslim community" with signs that read: "No to Islamophobia and anti-Semitism." Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn was also in attendance.  Another London vigil was also held in Hyde Park, where many people from New Zealand reportedly attended to pay tribute.  A vigil was also held in Glasgow, as several people gathered to pay their respects.  And in Belfast, a vigil was held outside of the City Hall.  Facebook, Twitter and Google companies scrambled to take down the gunman's video, which was available on social media for hours after the horrific attack.  The second attack took place at the Linwood mosque about 5 kilometres (3 miles) away.  Mark Nichols told the New Zealand Herald that he heard about five gunshots and that a worshipper returned fire with a rifle or shotgun.  Christchurch is home to nearly 400,000 people and is sometimes called the Garden City. It has been rebuilding since an earthquake in 2011 killed 185 people and destroyed many downtown buildings.  Before Friday's attack, New Zealand's deadliest shooting in modern history took place in 1990 in the small town of Aramoana, where a gunman killed 13 people following a dispute with a neighbour.


eveningstandard--2019-03-15--New Zealand shootings Forty-nine dead in terrorist gun attack at Christchurch mosques

New Zealand shootings: Forty-nine dead in terrorist gun attack at Christchurch mosques

At least 49 people were killed in a terrorist gun attack on two mosques packed with worshippers in New Zealand.  One gunman who identified himself on social media as Australian-born Brenton Tarrant, 28, walked into a mosque in Christchurch at the start of Friday prayers and began firing at random.  In a sickening twist, he uploaded footage of the attack to Facebook with a 17-minute video showing him firing mercilessly at people trying desperately to flee. Facebook said the video had been “quickly removed”. The Evening Standard has chosen not to publish the footage.  At least 48 more people, including children, were injured and 20 were said to be critically hurt after the massacre, the deadliest in the country’s history.  New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern described it as “one of New Zealand’s darkest days”, saying: “What has happened here is an extraordinary and unprecedented act of violence.”  There was condemnation from around the world. Theresa May sent her “deepest condolences to the people of New Zealand after the horrifying terrorist attack in Christchurch”.  There was still confusion today over the number of people involved in the shootings.  Police arrested three other suspects  — two men and a woman — and defused explosive devices in what appeared to be a carefully planned racist attack.  But one of those held was said by police to be unconnected to shooting and one member of the public may have been armed and traded fire with the gunman.  One man, understood to be Tarrant, was charged with murder and was due to appear in court today.  Australia’s prime minister Scott Morrison described the suspected attacker as an “extremist Right-wing violent terrorist.”  Tarrant described himself as “regular white man from a regular family” in a rambling 74-page “manifesto” published online. He claimed to be inspired to commit the atrocity by Anders Breivik, who slaughtered 77 people in Norway in 2011.  In the video posted online, he is dressed in military-style fatigues and armed with assault rifles as he drives  to the scene, before walking into the mosque saying: “Let’s get this party started.”  Of the 49 fatalities, 41 were killed at the Masjid Al Noor Mosque and seven at the nearby suburban Linwood Avenue mosque. Three were outside the mosque itself. A 49th died in hospital.  Officers responded to reports of shots fired in central Christchurch at about 1.40pm local time (12.40am GMT), and urged people in the area to stay indoors. All schools in the city were put into lockdown as the situation unfolded.  Ramzan Ali, who attends the Masjid Al Noor mosque, told Newshub: “He just came in and was shooting. I actually didn’t see him, I was just lying down on the bench thinking, ‘If I get up I’ll get shot’.  “The blood was splashing on me and I thought, ‘Oh my God, what’s going to happen to me now?’ Fortunately I’m alive.”  He said the onslaught went on for about 20 minutes and added: “One guy was sitting there and told me [not to get up] — the next thing I know, the gunman shoots this guy ... I know that guy, and he shot him straight in the chest.”  Witness Len Peneha said he saw a man dressed in black enter the mosque and then heard dozens of shots, followed by people running from the mosque in terror. Mr Peneha said the gunman ran out of the mosque, dropped what appeared to be a semi-automatic weapon in his driveway, and fled. He said he then went into the mosque to try to help.  “I saw dead people everywhere. There were three in the hallway, at the door leading into the mosque, and people inside the mosque,” he said.  Jill Keats, 66, who was driving past the mosque, said : “I  heard what I thought were firecrackers and all of a sudden people started falling, one fell to the left of my car and one fell to the right. I stopped the car, apparently a bullet went sailing over my car.”  She and another motorist gave first aid to one of the injured as they sheltered behind a car, but another victim died on the verge. Other people grabbed the injured and ferried them to hospital in their own cars.  Ms Keats said : “I am 66, I never thought I would live to see something like this, not in New Zealand.”  A worshipper in the mosque, who is in a wheelchair, described how it was the start of prayers when the room was “calm and quiet” and suddenly the shooting started.  A video that was apparently livestreamed by the gunman on Facebook shows the attack in horrifying detail.  The gunman spends more than two minutes inside the Masjid Al Noor mosque, sometimes re-firing at people he has already cut down.  He then walks outside to the street, where he shoots at people on the pavement. Children’s screams can be heard in the distance as he returns to his car to get another rifle.  The gunman then walks back into the mosque, where there are at least two dozen people lying on the ground. After walking back outside and shooting a woman there, he gets back in his car, where the song Fire by English rock band The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown can be heard blasting from the speakers. The singer bellows “I am the god of hellfire!” and the gunman drives away. The video then cuts out.  His guns, including the semi-automatic shotgun he used, were scrawled with the names of past mass killers and cities where the shootings occurred.  The second shooting took place at the Linwood Masjid Mosque.  It later emerged a “hero” worker at the mosque tried to take down the gunman as he fired “indiscriminately” at elderly people praying near the entrance.  “At that moment there was a young guy who usually takes care at the mosque. He pounced at him and grabbed his gun,” the witness told the New Zealand Herald.  “[The gunman] threw his remaining guns and ran. The hero tried to chase … he couldn’t find the trigger.”  Mark Nichols told the Herald that he heard about five gunshots and that a worshipper returned fire with a rifle or shotgun.  Mr Nichols said he saw two injured people being carried out on stretchers past his automotive shop and that both people appeared to be alive.  One police officer was also hailed a hero after pulling one of the suspected mosque gunmen from a car during a dramatic roadside arrest.  The Bangladesh cricket team which was in Christchurch to play New Zealand on Saturday was arriving for prayers at the mosque when the shooting occurred.  The teams later announced the test would be cancelled.

Justin davenport, Roger Maynard in Sydney


eveningstandard--2019-03-16--New Zealand mosque attacks Boy three among the 49 killed in terror attack as list of names grows

New Zealand mosque attacks: Boy, three, among the 49 killed in terror attack as list of names grows

A three-year-old boy who attended a mosque with his father and older brother is among those killed in a terror attack in New Zealand.  Toddler Mucad Ibrahim was at the mosque with his brother Abdi Ibrahim and father when the shooting started and has not been seen since.  It is believed he died in the attack along with 48 other people.  It also emerged today that a two-year-old boy and girl, four, are among those who were seriously injured in the attacks at mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand.  The girl is critically ill in a hospital in Auckland and the baby boy is in stable condition at Christchurch hospital, along with another of the youngest victims, a boy aged 13.  Names of other victims were beginning to emerge today.  Husne Ara Parvin, 42, was shot when she tried to save her wheelchair-bound husband Farid Uddin, according to a relative.  A doctor, Amjad Hamid, has not been seen since the attack and is presumed dead, according to the New Zealand Herald.  Haji Daoud Nabi - who ran a local Afghan Association - was shot dead, his sons Omar and Yama said.  Omar Nabi told NBC News that his father threw himself in front of another worshipper during the attack.  Sayyad Milne, 14, is understood to have died. He was at the mosque with his mother. His father said: " "I haven't heard officially yet that he's actually passed but I know he has because he was seen. I remember him as my baby who I nearly lost when he was born.  "I know where he is. I know he's at peace."  Naeem Rashid died reportedly trying to tackle the gunman. He was badly injured and died later in hospital. His teenage son Talha was also killed.  Syrian refugee Khaled Mustafa and his 14-year-old son Hamza died. The family had moved to New Zealand in 2018.  Hamza had initially been reported missing, but was confirmed dead on Saturday night UK time.  His younger brother, aged 13, was recovering in hospital after a six-hour operation on his wounds, the New Zealand Herald reported.  Hussain al-Umari, 35, has not been seen or heard from since the attack.  Many of those killed or wounded were from the Middle East or South Asia, according to initial reports from several governments.  At least 49 people were killed as they gathered for weekly prayers in Christchurch. Another 48 people suffered gunshot wounds in the attacks.  Bangladesh's honorary consul in Auckland, Shafiqur Rahman Bhuiyan, said that "so far" three Bangladeshis were among those killed and four or five others were wounded, including two left in a critical condition.  "One leg of an injured needed to be amputated while another suffered bullet injuries in his chest," Mr Rahman Bhuiyan said. He declined to identify the dead or wounded.  Two Jordanians were among those killed, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried by the state-run Petra news service.  Foreign Ministry spokesman Sufian Qudah had earlier said that a Jordanian man was killed and eight others were wounded.  Christchurch Hospital chief Greg Robertson said on Saturday that seven of the 48 gunshot victims admitted after the shootings had been discharged.  Mr Robertson said a four-year-old girl who had been transferred to an Auckland hospital was in critical condition and 11 patients who remained in Christchurch were also critically wounded.  "We have had patients with injuries to most parts of the body that range from relatively superficial soft tissue injuries to more complex injuries involving the chest, the abdomen, the pelvis, the long bones and the head," he said.  Many patients will require multiple operations to deal with their complex series of injuries, he added.  He said a two-year-old boy was in stable condition, as was a 13-year-old boy.  Mohammed Elyan, a Jordanian in his 60s who co-founded one of the mosques in 1993, was among those wounded, as was his son, Atta, who is in his 30s, according to Muath Elyan, Mohammed's brother, who said he spoke to Mohammed's wife after the shooting.  He said his brother helped establish the mosque a year after arriving in New Zealand, where he teaches engineering at a university and runs a consultancy. He said his brother last visited Jordan two years ago.  "He used to tell us life was good in New Zealand and its people are good and welcoming. He enjoyed freedom there and never complained about anything," he added. "I'm sure this bloody crime doesn't represent the New Zealanders."  Pakistan's Foreign Ministry said four Pakistanis were wounded, and Ministry spokesman Mohammad Faisal tweeted that five other Pakistani citizens were missing after Friday's attacks.  One of those is Syed Jahandad Ali, 34, who was confirmed missing by the Pakistan Association of New Zealand (PANZ).  Malaysia said two of its citizens were hospitalised, and the Saudi Embassy in Wellington said two Saudis were wounded.  India's high commissioner to New Zealand, Sanjiv Kohli, tweeted on Saturday that nine Indians were missing and called the attack a "huge crime against humanity". Indian officials have not said whether the nine were believed to be living in Christchurch.  Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said at least three Turkish citizens were wounded in the attacks in New Zealand and that he had spoken to one of them.  Afghanistan's ambassador to Australia and New Zealand said two Afghans were missing and a third person of Afghan origin was treated and released from the hospital.  Two Indonesians, a father and son, were also among those shot and wounded, Foreign Ministry spokesman Arrmanatha Nasir said.  Mr Nasir said the father was being treated at an intensive care unit and his son was in another ward at the same hospital. He declined to identify them.


eveningstandard--2019-03-17--Stabbing in Stanwell Surrey being treated as terrorist incident aposinspired by far-rightapos

Stabbing in Stanwell, Surrey, being treated as terrorist incident 'inspired by far-right'

Police are treating the stabbing of a man in Surrey as a terrorist incident "inspired by the far-right".  A 19-year-old was knifed in a Tesco car park in Stanwell on Saturday night. He survived the attack.  A 50-year-old man was arrested near the scene on suspicion of attempted murder and racially aggravated public order. He remained in custody on Sunday evening.  And Neil Basu, the Met's head of Counter Terrorism Policing, said on Sunday: “Whilst this investigation is still in its infancy, it has hallmarks of a terror event, inspired by the far-right, and therefore it has been declared a terrorism incident."  The victim remained in hospital on Sunday, though his injuries - the nature of which are unknown - are not life-threatening.  Just before 10.30pm on Saturday, Surrey Police was called to Viola Avenue in Stanwell - a village near Heathrow Airport - over reports of a man acting aggressively and shouting racist comments while carrying a baseball bat and a knife. Several vehicles were also damaged.  A further call was received by the force at 10.30pm reporting a man had been stabbed. It is believed the suspect is the same man who was reported as acting aggressively.  Officers, including armed officers, located the suspect after a search and arrested him. Meanwhile, police said the victim had to go to a nearby McDonald's to seek help after the attack.  Mr Basu said declaring the incident as terror-related allows police to "use all of the specialist capabilities available to establish the full circumstances of this attack".  He added: "The investigation is being led by an investigation team based in the Counter Terrorism Policing South East region, who are working closely with our colleagues in Surrey Police in order to build a better picture of what has occurred.  “Police are committed to tackling all forms of toxic extremist ideology, which has the potential to threaten public safety and security.  "Local officers will be out and about providing reassurance and protective security advice to communities, places of worship and businesses."  Prime Minister Theresa May later said in a tweet: "My thanks to the emergency services for their handling of the terrorist incident in Stanwell. My thoughts are with the injured man, and his family and friends. Vile, hateful far-right extremism has no place in our society."  Several police cars were parked outside a terraced house in Viola Avenue on Sunday evening.  Police officers searching the property were seen leaving with a bag of evidence, while a car was also removed.  Neighbours gathered nearby, while other people could be seen peering out their windows at the scene below.  Abhishek Agrawal, 40, and his wife Tanu, 36, who run catering company Indian Homemade in Viola Avenue, said they were shocked and scared by news of the attack.  Mr Agrawal said: "Last night I saw a helicopter so we knew something was happening. We could hear it flying above the area for a long time.  "We have lived here for nearly a decade and have never heard of anything like this happening.  "It's very scary to hear this has happened, I work in central London and often come back late on the last bus."  Mrs Agrawal said: "It's very scary and sad. It's a very quiet area. We have never heard of anything like this."  Det Supt Karen Mizzi, from Surrey Police, said: "This is a shocking and worrying incident and we are working to support our colleagues at Counter Terrorism Police South East with their enquiries and will continue to liaise with the local community.  “I want to reassure residents that we are doing all we can to ensure a thorough investigation takes place and we are supporting those affected by last night’s events.  “Patrols will be stepped up across Stanwell in order to provide assurances to those in the area specifically around mosques and increasing engagement with communities of all faiths, giving advice on how people and places can protect themselves."  She added: “We stand together with all communities in Surrey and we will take action against any criminal behaviour which seeks to undermine society, especially where crimes are motivated by hate.  "There can never be any excuse for this type of incident in any shape or form and this criminality will not be tolerated."


eveningstandard--2019-03-18--Londoners be allies to your neighbours at risk of terror

Londoners: be allies to your neighbours at risk of terror

It was yet another senseless, horrific terrorist attack on a community who had simply come together in peaceful worship. In New Zealand’s most devastating mass shootings, 50 people died at two mosques in Christchurch and many others were seriously injured.  Just like the butchering of innocent worshippers at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, and the attack on the Muslim Welfare House in Finsbury Park, these were innocent men, women and children mown down for simply being who they are. We have seen outpourings of comfort and love around the world. In London people attended vigils or visited their local mosques.  Today, in a welcome show of solidarity, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Chief Rabbi were joining the Mayor of London at a multi-faith remembrance and prayer event for the victims at a London mosque, bringing together young people from all backgrounds.  These messages of support, comfort and love are powerful but they are not enough. We need, as Londoners, to be doing more to build stronger, safer, more inclusive communities where intolerance and hatred have less space and opportunity to fester. Religious hate crime has rocketed 40 per cent in a year in England and Wales, as the number of offences hits a record high. Home Office statistics showed over half of religiously motivated attacks in 2017/18 were directed at Muslims, with Jewish people the next most commonly targeted.  We know too that there is still intolerance towards women, black and ethnic minority people, LGBT+ people, the disabled, and even, shockingly, those who are simply older. As members of the Mayor’s new Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Advisory Group, and as Jew and Muslim in particular, we are urging every Londoner to consider how better to bridge divides. Everyone can play their part. We must all be architects of peace, compassion and understanding; in our homes, work and communities.  Faith-based groups have been fostering community cohesion and championing diversity and mutual respect for some time. Research from Mitzvah Day (a day of Jewish-led, inclusive social action) shows 74 per cent of people felt they were able to meet others they might not normally have met. Similarly, 64 per cent of young people who attended the Naz Legacy Foundation Iftars went on to bring others to interfaith events. Other activities include the Big Iftar, Visit My Mosque and Sadaqah Day. Organisations such as Faiths Forum for London, Nisa-Nashim and others are all working to bring people together.  Now is the time to explore how you can be an ally, how you can show those who are concerned for their safety that they are not alone. Standing up when someone is being verbally abused rather than studiously looking at our phones is one way. Visiting a faith institution and learning more about each other is another. There is no simple solution, but by working together, by building mutual trust, we can demonstrate terror will never divide us and unity and hope will always prevail over fear and hatred.


eveningstandard--2019-03-19--We must deny terrorists the media stardom they so crave

The decision of the New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to never utter the name of the Christchurch terrorist is both a moral choice and a practical way of making future attacks less likely. The media need to learn from her example.  In the two-and-a-half years since my wife Jo died, I have never uttered the name of the person who killed her. My children have never heard it and it doesn’t appear in the book that I wrote about Jo. He has been forgotten by our family and by the vast majority of the public. And that’s how it should be. Because as a bereaved family you want the focus to be on your loved one; the joy they brought to your life and the lives of others. You want their story to be heard.  But it’s much more important than that. One of the reasons that many terrorists attack is to gain notoriety. That’s because while extreme ideology is an important part of what drives terror, personal motivations are at least as great. Terrorists are often people seeking recognition, affirmation and meaning in their empty lives. That’s why they wear cameras. It’s why they write manifestos. It’s why they film videos of themselves.  All of that makes sense from their perspective but what doesn’t make sense is our media playing into their hands; promoting their videos, hosting their manifestos, telling us their life story again and again.  I’m not suggesting that the media shouldn’t say who carried out the attack — of course they should. But there’s a difference between reporting the facts and obsessively promoting the name, image and agenda of the perpetrator.  This morning’s Today programme coverage of the story was a masterclass in how to get it wrong. Every time the newsreader announced that Ardern would no longer mention the name of the killer, they handily added what it was.  Numerous studies of mass shootings in the US have shown that along with notoriety, high-profile media coverage of a killer makes so-called “contagion effects” more likely. In other words, it leads to copycat attacks.  Some media organisations are starting to change the way they report. Anderson Cooper, the leading CNN anchor, refuses to name those responsible for attacks after the first mention. The news organisation AP aims to restrict mentions in cases where attacks were conducted for publicity. Le Monde has stopped publishing the names and photographs of terrorists. After the coverage of last week’s attack, some introspection from our own media would be welcome.  Of course it’s not just about what media organisations do. Survivors Against Terror, a network of 300 UK survivors of terror attacks, has recommended that we can all play a role in this. We can deny terrorists the notoriety they crave. Forget their names, don’t repost their images and keep the focus where it belongs — on the victims and survivors.  Brendan Cox is a co-founder of Survivors Against Terror


eveningstandard--2019-04-20--Lyra McKee death New breed of terrorist emerging in Northern Ireland police say after journalist k

Lyra McKee death: New breed of terrorist emerging in Northern Ireland, police say after journalist killing

The detective leading the hunt for journalist Lyra McKee’s killers has said a new breed of terrorist is emerging through the ranks in Northern Ireland.  Police have arrested two teenagers who they suspect are members of the dissident republican New IRA and were involved in shooting dead the promising young journalist in Londonderry.  Police Service of Northern Ireland detective superintendent Jason Murphy said terrorists were lurking in the shadows.  "What we are seeing is a new breed of terrorist coming through the ranks and that for me is a very worrying situation."  He said there had been a sea change in community attitudes and that was demonstrated in the revulsion expressed by many at Thursday evening's killing.  A gunman aiming to kill police shot Ms McKee in the head after he fired indiscriminately during disturbances in the Creggan estate.  DS Murphy was giving an update on the case to reporters on Saturday afternoon.  The arrested men, aged 18 and 19, were detained under anti-terrorism legislation and have been taken to a police station in Belfast for questioning.  An outpouring of tributes to the journalist was led by her partner, Sara Canning, who said Ms McKee's "amazing potential was snuffed out by this single barbaric act".  Detectives hunting the gunman have released footage of the shooting in the hope the community can help trace her killers.  The published author, from Belfast, was shot in the head by suspects who police believe were dissident republicans linked to the New IRA, as they clashed with police on the Creggan estate in Londonderry.  Mobile phone footage released by police on Friday appears to show the masked shooter fire a handgun towards police and onlookers including Ms McKee.  The published author's partner Ms Canning said it was a senseless murder.  "Our hopes and dreams and all of her amazing potential was snuffed out by this single barbaric act," she said.  Ms Canning said it has left so many friends without their confidante.  "Victims and LGBTQI community are left without a tireless advocate and activist and it has left me without the love of my life, the woman I was planning to grow old with," she added.  "This cannot stand, Lyra's death must not be in vain because her life was a shining light in everyone else's life and her legacy will live on and the life that she has left behind."  In CCTV footage also released by Police Service Northern Ireland, Ms McKee can be seen standing with a crowd of people beside a police vehicle moments before she was shot. She raised her mobile phone into the air, apparently to take a photo of the confrontations.  A third clip shows the masked shooter head-on as he steps from behind a wall then points a handgun towards police and bystanders.  Detectives released the footage, which also appears to show an accomplice picking up something from the ground where the gunman was stood, to encourage anyone with information to make contact.  Police have blamed the anti-peace process New IRA for the killing after handgun shots aimed at their officers were fired indiscriminately in the Creggan estate.  Detectives believe the violence was orchestrated in response to an earlier search by officers aimed at averting imminent trouble associated with this week's anniversary of the Easter Rising.  They said more than one person was involved in the murder.  They have already received a large number of calls and information from the public and have a special portal where video and pictures can be uploaded.  Prime Minister Theresa May said the killing was "shocking and senseless".  The New IRA is an amalgam of a series of armed groups opposed to the peace process.  It claimed responsibility for a number of parcel bombs sent to London and Glasgow recently.  The threat posed to police in Northern Ireland is high.  It is understood Ms McKee had recently moved to Londonderry to live with "love of her life" Sara.  She was an editor for California-based news site Mediagazer, a trade publication covering the media industry.  In 2016, Forbes Magazine named her one of their 30 under 30 in media.  She had been working on a new book which had been due to be published in 2020.  Michelle Stanistreet, National Union of Journalists (NUJ) general secretary, said Ms McKee was one of the most promising journalists in Northern Ireland.  She said: "A young, vibrant life has been destroyed in a senseless act of violence.  "A bright light has been quenched and that plunges all of us into darkness."  Causes close to her heart included helping homeless people, preventing suicide and supporting LGBT rights in the most restrictive regime in the UK.  Catholic priest Father Joseph Gormley comforted Ms McKee's family in hospital and accused the killers of forcing their viewpoint on others using the barrel of a gun.  He asked: "Have you no sense of humanity or dignity about yourself?"  Deputy chief constable Stephen Martin criticised those behind earlier violent scenes during which more than 50 petrol bombs were thrown and two cars burned in the Creggan.  "Regretfully, people such as I described earlier who are completely out of step, goaded and orchestrated young people to engage in disorder," he said.  "The police didn't react to that disorder. We didn't respond with any use of force, we absorbed it.  "We were there to do search activity. We did not want in any way to make the situation worse."  He defended the decision to launch an operation earlier on Thursday aimed at thwarting dissident plans for "imminent" violence.  In the past, trouble has coincided with dissident republican commemoration of the battle for Irish independence every Easter.  Anti-peace process sentiment in Northern Ireland's second city has been demonstrated in recent attempts to bomb the courthouse and the calling off of a community youth event after police were invited.  Mr Martin condemned those whose sole purpose in life was to try to attack his officers and destroy the peace.  "Today is Good Friday and it's a cruel twist in our history that 21 years ago the majority of people in Northern Ireland signed up to the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement yet here we are today mourning the loss of a talented young woman, a young journalist who was also a daughter, a sister and a partner.  Assistant chief constable Mark Hamilton said it was a calculated and callous act to bring a firearm into a residential area.  "Bullets stop somewhere, and on this occasion they stopped fatally."  A vigil was held in the Creggan in Ms McKee's memory, organised by local residents who said they felt sad and angry.


eveningstandard--2019-04-20--Lyra McKee death Two men aged 18 and 19 arrested under Terrorism Act in connection with murder of j

Lyra McKee death: Two men aged 18 and 19 arrested under Terrorism Act in connection with murder of journalist

Two men have been arrested under the Terrorism Act in connection with the murder of journalist Lyra McKee.  Ms McKee, 29, was hit by a bullet and killed during rioting in the Creggan area of Londonderry on Thursday.  The men, aged 18 and 19, were detained under anti-terrorism legislation and have been taken to a police station in Belfast for questioning, the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) said.  An outpouring of tributes to the 29-year-old was led by her partner, Sara Canning, who said Ms McKee's "amazing potential was snuffed out by this single barbaric act".  Detectives hunting the gunman have released footage of the shooting in the hope the community can help trace her killers.  The published author, from Belfast, was shot in the head by suspects who police believe were dissident republicans linked to the New IRA, as they clashed with police on the Creggan estate in Londonderry.  Mobile phone footage released by police on Friday appears to show the masked shooter fire a handgun towards police and onlookers including Ms McKee.  The published author's partner Ms Canning said it was a senseless murder.  "Our hopes and dreams and all of her amazing potential was snuffed out by this single barbaric act," she said.  Ms Canning said it has left so many friends without their confidante.  "Victims and LGBTQI community are left without a tireless advocate and activist and it has left me without the love of my life, the woman I was planning to grow old with," she added.  "This cannot stand, Lyra's death must not be in vain because her life was a shining light in everyone else's life and her legacy will live on and the life that she has left behind."  In CCTV footage also released by Police Service Northern Ireland, Ms McKee can be seen standing with a crowd of people beside a police vehicle moments before she was shot. She raised her mobile phone into the air, apparently to take a photo of the confrontations.  A third clip shows the masked shooter head-on as he steps from behind a wall then points a handgun towards police and bystanders.  Detectives released the footage, which also appears to show an accomplice picking up something from the ground where the gunman was stood, to encourage anyone with information to make contact.  Police have blamed the anti-peace process New IRA for the killing after handgun shots aimed at their officers were fired indiscriminately in the Creggan estate.  Detectives believe the violence was orchestrated in response to an earlier search by officers aimed at averting imminent trouble associated with this week's anniversary of the Easter Rising.  They said more than one person was involved in the murder.  They have already received a large number of calls and information from the public and have a special portal where video and pictures can be uploaded.  Prime Minister Theresa May said the killing was "shocking and senseless".  The New IRA is an amalgam of a series of armed groups opposed to the peace process.  It claimed responsibility for a number of parcel bombs sent to London and Glasgow recently.  The threat posed to police in Northern Ireland is high.  It is understood Ms McKee had recently moved to Londonderry to live with "love of her life" Sara.  She was an editor for California-based news site Mediagazer, a trade publication covering the media industry.  In 2016, Forbes Magazine named her one of their 30 under 30 in media.  She had been working on a new book which had been due to be published in 2020.  Michelle Stanistreet, National Union of Journalists (NUJ) general secretary, said Ms McKee was one of the most promising journalists in Northern Ireland.  She said: "A young, vibrant life has been destroyed in a senseless act of violence.  "A bright light has been quenched and that plunges all of us into darkness."  Causes close to her heart included helping homeless people, preventing suicide and supporting LGBT rights in the most restrictive regime in the UK.  Catholic priest Father Joseph Gormley comforted Ms McKee's family in hospital and accused the killers of forcing their viewpoint on others using the barrel of a gun.  He asked: "Have you no sense of humanity or dignity about yourself?"  Deputy chief constable Stephen Martin criticised those behind earlier violent scenes during which more than 50 petrol bombs were thrown and two cars burned in the Creggan.  "Regretfully, people such as I described earlier who are completely out of step, goaded and orchestrated young people to engage in disorder," he said.  "The police didn't react to that disorder. We didn't respond with any use of force, we absorbed it.  "We were there to do search activity. We did not want in any way to make the situation worse."  He defended the decision to launch an operation earlier on Thursday aimed at thwarting dissident plans for "imminent" violence.  In the past, trouble has coincided with dissident republican commemoration of the battle for Irish independence every Easter.  Anti-peace process sentiment in Northern Ireland's second city has been demonstrated in recent attempts to bomb the courthouse and the calling off of a community youth event after police were invited.  Mr Martin condemned those whose sole purpose in life was to try to attack his officers and destroy the peace.  "Today is Good Friday and it's a cruel twist in our history that 21 years ago the majority of people in Northern Ireland signed up to the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement yet here we are today mourning the loss of a talented young woman, a young journalist who was also a daughter, a sister and a partner.  Assistant chief constable Mark Hamilton said it was a calculated and callous act to bring a firearm into a residential area.  "Bullets stop somewhere, and on this occasion they stopped fatally."  A vigil was held in the Creggan in Ms McKee's memory, organised by local residents who said they felt sad and angry.


eveningstandard--2019-04-22--Sri Lanka attack victims Retired British firefighter and wife killed in Sri Lanka terror attack

Sri Lanka attack victims: Retired British firefighter and wife killed in Sri Lanka terror attack

A heroic firefighter and his wife are have been named among the eight Britons killed in a terror attack in Sri Lanka.  Retired Billy Harrop, from Manchester, had been celebrated for his heroism during the Manchester IRA bombing attack, and had been holidaying with his wife, Sally, before a series of bomb attacks hit.  The couple both died on Easter Sunday following the blasts.  The 56-year-old former borough commander for Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service has been described as a “real character”, as tributes pour in.  He had been officially commended for his heroism during the IRA bombings in 1996.  News of the couple's death has been hailed as "devastating" by a friend.  Assistant County Fire Officer Dave Keelan, of Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service, paid tribute to his former colleague.  He said: "This is devastating news and the thoughts of Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service are with Bill and Sally's families.  "Bill served here for 30 years, retiring at the end of 2012. He was a much a loved and respected colleague and friend. He will be greatly missed."  Mr Harrop was also travelling with his son, Gavin, who survived the blasts in Sri Lanka. It is thought he and his family recently emmigrated to Australia and was in Sri Lanka for a holiday.  Kev Brown, former Fire Brigades Union secretary, told the newspaper: "Billy was a former pupil of Sale Grammar School, was well known in the brigade, and was a real character.  "He led the Philips Park team in response to the IRA bomb in Manchester 1996 and received a commendation for his actions in the incident."  At least 290 people were killed in the explosions and more than 500 were wounded. Of those, at least eight Brits are believed to have been killed.  A British mother and her two young children were earlier named as some of the victims.  Anita Nicholson, son Alex, 14, and daughter Annabel, 11, were having breakfast at the Shangri-La hotel in Colombo when one of the seven suicide bombers struck.  Mrs Nicholson's husband Ben confirmed they had been killed in a statement on Monday afternoon.  He said: "Anita was a wonderful, perfect wife and a brilliant, loving and inspirational mother to our two wonderful children.  "Alex and Annabel were the most amazing, intelligent, talented and thoughtful children and Anita and I were immensely proud of them both and looking forward to seeing them develop into adulthood.  "They shared with their mother the priceless ability to light up any room they entered and bring joy to the lives of all they came into contact with."  Local media reported Mr Nicholson desperately searching for his family after the blast.  He thanked Sri Lankan medics, the British High Commission and holiday company Adhvan Tours for helping him over the past 36 hours.  He said all three would have died instantly with no pain.  The family had been visiting Sri Lanka for a holiday from their home in Singapore. Mrs Nicholson worked for mining and metals company Anglo American, while Mr Nicholson is a partner with law firm Kennedys.  No group has claimed the attacks, but Sri Lankan officials have named little-known Islamic extremist organisation National Thowfeek Jamaath.  The seven suicide bombers were all Sri Lankan citizens but the group is believed to have links with foreign terrorist networks.


eveningstandard--2019-05-21--New Zealand mosque attack Brenton Tarrant charged with terrorism offence

New Zealand mosque attack: Brenton Tarrant charged with terrorism offence

New Zealand police have filed a terrorism charge against the man accused of killing 51 people at two Christchurch mosques.  Police said they have charged 28-year-old Australian Brenton Tarrant with engaging in a terrorist act after the March 15 shootings.  The charge comes with a maximum penalty of life imprisonment and will be a test case for New Zealand's terrorism laws, which came on to the books in 2002.  Police said that they also charged Tarrant with an additional count of murder, bringing the total number of charges against him to 92 – 51 charges of murder, 40 of attempted murder and one of terrorism.  Police informed victims' families and survivors of the new charges at a meeting with police at a meeting on Tuesday attended by more than 200 people.  It comes after a Turkish man who was wounded in the attack died earlier this month in Christchurch Hospital.  "The charge will allege a terrorist act was carried out in Christchurch on 15 March 2019 and follows consultation between Police, Crown Law and the Christchurch Crown Solicitors Office," New Zealand police said in a statement.  Tarrant was arrested on March 15 after the mass shootings at two mosques which left 51 people dead and dozens injured. He was initially charged with one count of murder.  The suspected white supremacist is accused of storming in during Friday prayers with a number of high-powered weapons, and live-streaming the attack online.  New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said he had been in possession of a "category A" gun licence, obtained in 2017, which allowed him to legally obtain the weapons in December 2017.  He was not on any watchlists prior to the shootings – the single-worst terrorist attack carried out by an Australian.  Tarrant is being held at a maximum security prison in Auckland and has appeared at the Christchurch High Court via video link.  The 28-year-old did not apply for bail or for the suppression of his name at a court appearance in March 16. He was also seen to have made a hand gesture linked to white supremacy as he entered the room, shackled and dressed in white prison clothes.  At a subsequent court hearing on April 5, high court judge Justice Cameron Mander ordered a mental health assessment to determine Tarrant's fitness to enter a plea and stand trial.  Judge Mander said nothing should be read into his order, as it was a normal step in such a case.  Tarrant previously said he wanted to represent himself, and was not required to enter a plea.  He is due back in court in June.


eveningstandard--2019-11-01--Terrorist propaganda must be banned after the London Bridge outrage, says coroner

A new law banning terrorist propaganda should be considered by the Government in the wake of the London Bridge terrorist attack, a coroner said today.  The ringleader of the June 2017 atrocity, Khuram Butt, had accessed a vast amount of extremist material prior to the attack, including Islamic State videos and martyrdom clips.  This was known to security services in 2016 when it emerged in a fraud investigation, but Butt did not face prosecution.  Coroner Mark Lucraft QC refused to criticise the investigation into Butt, calling it “generally thorough and rigorous”, but urged the Home Secretary to consider a new law banning material which “glorifies or encourages terrorism”.  In his report released today he added: “It may be impossible to take action even when the material is of the most offensive and shocking character. The evidence at the inquests indicates to me that the lack of such an offence may sometimes prevent counter terrorism police taking disruptive action which could be valuable in their work of combatting terrorism.”  Butt, 27, along with Rachid Redouane, 30, and Youssef Zaghba, 22, drove a rented van across London Bridge on the evening of June 3, 2017, aiming to hit as many pedestrians as possible, before marauding on foot through Borough Market stabbing people at random.  Eight people were killed and 48 wounded before police shot the three attackers dead.  The coroner oversaw a six-week inquest into the deaths of the victims, and today said the security services should review their methods of tracking terror suspects, as well as recommending “battlefield” medical training for London’s police officers.  He also called for a new automatic system for cross-checking vehicle rentals with suspected extremists, and action to protect vulnerable targets across the capital including bridges.  Butt had been identified as a “subject of interest” prior to the 2017 atrocity, but the investigation on him was twice suspended as officers were reassigned to higher-priority leads.  Mr Lucraft said the security service and counter terror officers have to judge each case individually, but he urged consideration of “scaling back” probes rather than suspending them entirely.  He also recommended better communication between police and spies in terror probes, and said it was “cause for some concern” that two tip-offs on Butt, one anonymous and one from his brother in law, had not been properly communicated between the agencies.  In the 46-page report, Mr Lucraft said police had often been the first to reach victims of the rather than paramedics, and said Scotland Yard and City of London Police should give officers enhanced medical training equivalent to that received by soldiers in war, “battlefield medicine.”  City of London Police told the inquest it has already given first aid training to officers above national standards, as well as providing emergency dressing packs at train stations and trauma kits to businesses, while the Met said its firearms officers already have specialist medical training.  The coroner said it remains a “cause for concern” that vehicles could be used in future terror attacks, and said it is “troubling” that London Bridge did not quality as a “priority crowded place” with specialist protection.  He urged a national review of the criteria for identifying sites “attractive and vulnerable to terrorists.” He also urged emergency services to consider how areas were designated “hot zones” during a terror attack, which had the effect of barring paramedics from entering to treat victims.  He added that his recommendations were not criticism of police and paramedics who had “worked bravely and tirelessly” to treat victims and save lives.  The inquest on the victims — Xavier Thomas, 45, Chrissy Archibald, 30, Sara Zelenak, 21, James McMullan, 32, Kirsty Boden, 28, Alexandre Pigeard, 26, Sebastien Belanger, 36, and Ignacio Echeverria, 39 — ruled they were unlawfully killed.


foreignpolicy--2019-04-21--Whats Behind the Terrorist Attacks in Sri Lanka

What’s Behind the Terrorist Attacks in Sri Lanka?  More than 300 people have been killed in simultaneous explosions at churches and hotels in Sri Lanka that also injured some 500 victims. The coordinated attacks took place on Sunday morning.  According to media reports, there were eight blasts in all, including at churches in Negombo and Kochchikade in the country’s west, and Batticaloa in the east. Three luxury hotels in the capital Colombo were also targeted.  Sri Lanka’s government says the attacks were carried out by National Thowheeth Jamaath, a little-known radical Islamist group. Colombo has declared an indefinite national curfew and blocked social media networks such as Facebook and WhatsApp in order to prevent the spread of rumors that might spark intercommunal violence, as happened in March 2018 when Buddhist mobs attacked Muslim mosques, businesses, and homes.  Forty suspects have been detained in connection with the bombings. On Tuesday, the Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attacks but authorities have not confirmed the group’s involvement.  Sri Lanka has more than 22 million inhabitants. Of these, about three-fourths are ethnic Sinhalese, most of whom are Buddhist. About a sixth of Sri Lankans identify as Tamil—either of Sri Lankan or Indian descent—and are mostly Hindu. About 10 percent of the population is Muslim, and 7 percent Christian—a group that includes both Tamil and Sinhalese.  Given that three of the blasts occurred at churches, timed for Easter services, at least part of the attack was aimed at the country’s more than 1.5 million Christians. The almost simultaneous blasts left no time to warn other churchgoers.  Reuters cites the National Christian Evangelical Alliance of Sri Lanka, which represents more than 200 churches and Christian organizations, as having recorded 86 incidents of discrimination, threats, and violence against Christians last year.  The other main targets seem to be people who would frequent Colombo’s hotels—usually a mix of tourists, business people, and wealthy locals. At least 30 of the dead are believed to be foreigners.  The ability to launch several attacks all at once suggests a degree of sophistication, planning, funding, and reach. While authorities are still piecing together what happened, the blasts bear at least some resemblance to the November 2008 attacks in Mumbai, which simultaneously targeted two luxury hotels, a busy railway terminal, and a Jewish outreach center. According to Indian intelligence, the Mumbai attacks were designed not only to cause the highest possible number of casualties but also to target groups—such as Western tourists—that would lead to the greatest amount of international media coverage. One of the 2008 attackers was apprehended, and the others were successfully identified, leading authorities in India to declare the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group responsible. But there are several differences with Sunday’s attacks in Sri Lanka, not least the fact that they were spread out across the country instead of concentrated in a single city, and that unlike in Mumbai, no hostages were taken.  On April 11, a top Sri Lankan police official reportedly issued an advisory warning of potential suicide attacks on churches. (This letter has not been independently verified by Foreign Policy.) In that advisory, Deputy Inspector General Priyalal Dassanayake wrote that the radical Islamist group called National Thowheeth Jamaath was planning nationwide attacks.  On Monday, Sri Lankan Health Minister Rajitha Senaratne addressed a press conference and pointed to outside help: “There was an international network without which these attacks could not have succeeded.”  Speaking to reporters on Sunday, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe acknowledged that some information about a planned attack had been circulating. “We must also look into why adequate precautions were not taken,” he said.  Wickremesinghe’s comments could be interpreted as a criticism of President Maithripala Sirisena, the commander of the country’s security forces.  Sri Lanka’s politics have been in turmoil recently.  Sirisena became president in 2015 after he won a surprise victory over the strongman Mahinda Rajapaksa, who had controlled the country’s politics for more than a decade. Sirisena appointed his ally Wickremesinghe as prime minister, and the two set out to reform the country’s economy and seek accountability for atrocities committed during the country’s civil war.  But Sirisena and Wickremesinghe fell out in 2018, leading the former to suspend Parliament and appoint his onetime rival Rajapaksa as the new prime minister. Weeks later, under pressure from the country’s Supreme Court, Sirisena reinstated Wickremesinghe as prime minister. Relations between the two have not recovered, with observers expecting Sirisena to seek a fresh mandate at the polls.  Meanwhile, Sri Lanka’s economy has grown at a tepid 4 percent, the currency has weakened, and Colombo has struggled to repay loans from donors such as the International Monetary Fund. In one case, Sri Lanka lost a major port—as well as 15,000 acres of land—to China after it could not repay funds it had borrowed for infrastructure projects.  While it’s unclear if the country’s history played a role in Sunday’s attacks, Sri Lankans have experienced decades of sectarian violence.  In 1948, Sri Lanka, then known as Ceylon, won independence from British rule. The country’s Sinhalese majority, countering what they saw as colonial favoritism toward Tamils, disenfranchised Indian Tamil migrants, leading to the group’s neglect.  That led to the formation of an armed insurgent group known as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in 1976. The group initially campaigned for a Tamil homeland in the country’s northeast. But the movement turned violent, with the LTTE attacking police and army forces as it sought greater national prominence. The Tigers became known for their suicide bombings, which they were among the first militants to pioneer, and deployment of child soldiers. In 1997, the U.S. State Department officially designated the LTTE a terrorist group.  For years, Sri Lanka’s army—mostly Sinhalese and Buddhist—carried out campaigns to root out the insurgents from their hideouts in the country’s northeast. The war finally ended in 2009 after the army killed LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran. But watchdog groups say both the LTTE and the army were guilty of war crimes and rights abuses. According to the United Nations, about 40,000 civilians were killed in the final stages of the civil war.  Tourism dropped sharply during the war years, hitting a low point after a tsunami devastated Sri Lanka in 2004. There were only 500,000 visitors in 2009; the industry has since recovered to attract 2 million visitors last year.  Even so, the tensions of Sri Lanka’s bloody history have lingered. The final, intense period of the civil war left hundreds of thousands of Tamils displaced, thousands of whom are still missing. Communal tensions reignited last year: In the central district of Kandy, Buddhist Sinhalese mobs attacked mosques and Muslim establishments. In response, Colombo imposed a nationwide state of emergency.  In 2016, Sri Lankan authorities reported that 32 Sri Lankans had joined the Islamic State, but the terrorist group is not known to have a presence in the country.  This story has been updated to reflect recent developments.


foreignpolicy--2019-07-02--Germany Has a Neo-Nazi Terror Epidemic

Germany Has a Neo-Nazi Terror Epidemic

When the German politician Walter Lübcke was found shot in the head outside of his home near Kassel on June 2, commentators were quick to assert that a right-wing extremist was the most likely culprit. Even the police seemed half-hearted in their calls for restraint in judging the motive of the crime, and the brief suspicion that the culprit had been someone close to the victim was quickly laid to rest. The unanimity of the official response, in one sense, was admirably forthright. But it was also its own national admission of negligence.  Lübcke, a member of the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party, served as Kassel district president from 2009 until his death and had long been a figure of regional importance. Tributes from local papers emphasize that he was widely liked and had good relationships with his constituents. In 2015, however, he became a favorite target of right-wingers throughout Germany when, in the midst of the refugee crisis, he told an assembly gathered in the West German city of Lohfelden about the planned construction of a refugee camp, and he brushed away dissent by saying that Germany is a country based on Christian values, including charity, and “anyone who doesn’t share these values, anyone who doesn’t agree, is welcome to leave the country at any time. Every German has that freedom.”  Lübcke received more than 350 emails immediately following the event, including numerous death threats. He was placed under police protection, but right-wing extremists ensured that outrage about Lübcke’s statement remained fresh. A few days after the event, the German Turkish author Akif Pirincci, speaking at a far-right rally, said that Lübcke had only suggested that ethnic Germans leave the country because the concentration camps had long been closed, implying that Lübcke’s preferred solution would have been the mass execution of his political opponents. Pirincci’s speech ensured Lübcke’s infamy in far-right circles. Erika Steinbach, a politician formerly with the right wing of the CDU, shared the video of Lübcke’s statement at the assembly to her 120,000 followers on social media three times, most recently in February of this year, while right-wing websites such as PI-News ran pieces about Lübcke on a regular basis.  So it surprised no one when news broke that Stephan Ernst, the suspect in Lübcke’s murder, had a history of racist violence and ties to far-right groups. The killing has provoked widespread condemnations of the ascendancy of right-wing terrorism in Germany; even traditionally conservative leaders such as Minister of the Interior Horst Seehofer are now saying that they need to play catch-up in the fight against the far-right and have promised to devote increased resources to policing right-wing terrorists. But critics say that the German state has a long history of ignoring reactionary terrorism.  Tanjev Schultz, a professor of journalism at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz and the author of a prizewinning book about right-wing terrorism in Germany, says that in Germany’s public imagination terrorism tends to be associated with the left. Memories of the Red Army Faction and the series of political assassinations it undertook are still in the foreground of many Germans’ minds. Meanwhile, neofascistic terrorist attacks like the bombing of a Munich beer garden in 1980 have been largely forgotten.  This blindness to right-wing terrorism is one of the reasons, Schultz told me, that it took authorities so long to recognize that the 10 murders carried out by the National Socialist Underground (NSU) beginning in 2000 were the work of a terrorist organization. Indeed, as Jacob Kushner has documented in Foreign Policy, authorities largely tried to restrict the investigation into the group’s three core members, Uwe Mundlos, Uwe Böhnhardt, and Beate Zschäpe, despite the fact that there was strong evidence that they had substantial support from other right-wing extremists, as well as some indication that some of that support may have come from within the government.  Seehofer’s promise to devote increased resources to combating right-wing terrorism has thus encountered widespread skepticism that the commitment will be upheld. That impression has been reinforced by separate investigations that have recently revealed right-wing networks within German police forces: In December 2018, an investigation into Frankfurt’s police force revealed a group chat that regularly employed Nazi iconography. On June 26, police searched the apartment of a member of the group chat, who has been accused of sending racist faxes to one of the lawyers who represented a victim of the NSU—one of them threatened to butcher the lawyer’s young daughter. They were signed “NSU 2.0.”  Then, on June 28, news broke that an organization called Nordkreuz had used police records to compile a “death list” of almost 25,000 liberal and left-leaning politicians—it had also stockpiled weapons, body bags, and quicklime. Hope that federal authorities would intervene where local authorities had failed to act are also dim given that the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Germany’s answer to the NSA, has often been accused of complicity in right-wing activity. This is seen most drastically, as Kushner documents in his Foreign Policy story, in the office’s failure to make proper use of informants during the investigation in the NSU. More recently, the former head of the organization, Hans-Georg Maaßen, drew criticism for his baseless claims that videos of right-wing violence during an August 2018 riot in Chemnitz were doctored.  Though Lübcke’s death is a milestone, similar attacks have proliferated in recent years. In 2015 and 2017, respectively, the mayor of Cologne, Henriette Reker, and Andreas Hollstein, the mayor of the West German town of Altena, suffered politically oriented knife attacks. Reker was severely wounded, as were several of her companions. Hollstein escaped with minor injuries after employees of the Turkish restaurant where he was eating disarmed the perpetrator. Leipzig Mayor Burkhard Jung recently the DPA press agency that there were about three politically motivated crimes against politicians in Germany on a daily basis, with local politicians being especially vulnerable.  It’s hard to escape the conclusion that the German state has long had difficulties preventing right-wing violence and apprehending its perpetrators because there’s substantial sympathy for neofascistic causes within the German government. But the situation is also more complicated—the diffuse structures of right-wing organizations make it legitimately difficult to differentiate between lone wolves and members of criminal conspiracies, and the ubiquity of online expression of rage makes it hard to differentiate serious threats from idle fantasies. Though some activists are calling for a widespread crackdown on all forms of right-wing activity, others fear that broad approaches could serve to further radicalize right-wingers. When we spoke, Schultz, the journalism professor, suggested that a series of reeducation programs might be a positive step but feared that they would end up reaching the wrong people.  Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government will have to do something more radical than a simple increase in police resources if it wishes to effectively combat the rise of the far-right—not least because the issue threatens to tear her political party, the CDU, apart. The right wing of the CDU had already been frustrated by its leader’s tolerant stance during the refugee crisis, and now more liberal members of the party are busy accusing their more conservative counterparts of complicity in Lübcke’s death. Germany’s other major centrist party, the Social Democratic Party, has already been decimated by increasing frustration with its willingness to concede to the demands of the CDU within Germany’s governing coalition. If the CDU wishes to escape its fate, it will have to do more than simply root out extremist networks—it will need to find a way of redirecting the forces of right-wing anger.


foreignpolicy--2019-09-28--What Terror Experts Can Learn From Public Health Experts

What Terror Experts Can Learn From Public Health Experts  In the early 2000s, two events sowed fear in the United States and around the world: the 9/11 attacks in 2001 and the SARS outbreak of 2002 and 2003. In the years that followed, the professional communities responsible for responding to these threats, and informing the public about them, have followed two very different paths.  In the fight against deadly diseases, public health experts have sought to balance the need for preparedness with their duty to avoid hyperbole, which can lead to panic. National security experts should adopt this same ethos.  SARS started in China and spread around the world, leaving hundreds of people dead. The global public health community mobilized immediately to contain the epidemic—and to manage perceptions of it. “SARS is a serious problem that needs to be dealt with seriously. Yet our actions must be based on facts and experience, not on fears,” Richard Schabas, the chief of staff at York Central Hospital in Richmond Hill, Canada, wrote in an article for the Canadian Medical Association Journal in 2003. “The response should not be worse than the disease.”  “We will continue to see new SARS cases, usually at relatively low levels but with occasional flare-ups,” he continued. “In other words, we should plan on getting used to living with SARS.”  As infections spread, polls showed that SARS was a top fear among Americans, surpassing even terrorism in apparent level of concern. In 2003, the director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) gave regular press briefings aimed to communicate a “common sense and prudent recommendations from a public health perspective without causing unnecessary fear and panic or overreaction in the public.” Public health specialists debated how “to reconcile the tension between the public’s health and individual rights to privacy, liberty, and freedom of movement.”  During the Ebola outbreak in 2014, this pattern repeated: The director of the CDC reassured Americans the virus was “not going to be a huge risk in the U.S.” Public health experts debated [ how “to ensure that sound science drives public health decisions and that civil liberties and individual privacy are not eroded.” At moments like these, public health professionals are responsible for addressing low-odds, high-impact threats to public safety—just the sorts of threats that terrorism experts face. But public health experts at the highest levels of the profession have long tried to balance preparedness and panic and routinely reflect on whether that balance has been achieved.  Terrorism experts, by contrast, have not by and large adhered to similar approach. In the wake of 9/11, many national security professionals issued assessments claiming that the world had entered a new era of repeated mass casualty attacks. Fears of such attacks—especially those carried out by Islamist revolutionaries—rose dramatically. Many of those fears were not borne out, and the expert community made comparatively little effort to mitigate public anxiety and took little professional responsibility for examining the failures of their predictions.  In 2003, at the same time as the SARS crisis, then-FBI Director Robert Mueller told Congress that the bureau strongly suspected the presence in the United States of several hundred extremists linked to al Qaeda. As it turned out, by the Justice Department’s own accounts, fewer than a dozen people in the United States were convicted in subsequent years for links with al Qaeda (though such links may not have been made public in an unknown number of additional cases). Terrorism makes up a very small portion of the violence in the United States: approximately one-tenth of 1 percent of the country’s 280,000 murders since 2001. Every incident of terrorism is a tragedy. It is fortunate that such tragedies have been relatively rare. Terrorist attacks by their very nature leave deeper scars on society than other forms of violence. But that doesn’t make them likelier. The U.S. government has not revealed any conspiracies on the scale of the 9/11 plot, despite assigning thousands of officials to counterterrorism investigations.  Yet Mueller never withdrew his threat assessment. In 2006, he turned to the idea of an evolving terrorist threat driven by “smaller, more loosely-defined individuals and cells” that “may prove to be as dangerous as groups like al Qaeda, if not more so.” He repeated this formulation many times through the end of his tenure at the FBI, and the doctrine of evolving threats was taken up through the national security profession, along with the implication that current threats were just as dire as that of 9/11.  In 2011, after years without significant terrorist plots in the United States, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano warned: “The terrorist threat to the homeland is, in many ways, at its most heightened state since 9/11.” Jeh Johnson, her successor, testified in 2016 that the Islamic State’s online recruitment constituted “a new phase in the global terrorist threat, requiring a whole new type of response.” In 2017, after the Islamic State had lost most of its territory and the pace of terrorism had slowed, Elaine Duke, the acting secretary of homeland security, testified: “Today, the magnitude of the threat we face from terrorism is equal to, and in many ways exceeds, the 9/11 period.”  These officials viewed preparedness as their primary mission. But this sole focus missed other priorities that are standard in the field of public health, including a commitment to empirical evidence—responses to a threat must be proportional to the evidence of the threat, rather than fear and speculation, and these responses must constantly be reviewed and recalibrated as new evidence emerges.  In recent years, the number of terrorism plots and attacks—especially those carried out by Islamist radicals—has declined dramatically, both in the United States and globally, according to the Global Terrorism Database at the University of Maryland’s National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism. The U.S. State Department has also reduced its estimate of the size of foreign terrorist organizations. Yet terrorism professionals have not updated their policy recommendations. Instead, the notion of evolving threats has continued to justify the expansion of counterterrorism policies and security agencies, regardless of the actual scale of terrorism. The Department of Homeland Security budget, excluding disaster relief, doubled between fiscal year 2006 and fiscal year 2018. Exaggerated fear of terrorism has played a role in bigotry toward Muslims.  Americans’ fear of terrorism has increased in recent years, even as the trauma of 9/11 receded and the odds of victimization declined to miniscule levels. In 2017, 42 percent of Gallup survey respondents said they were worried that someone in their family would become a victim of terrorism. Preparedness has begun to look like panic.  Exaggerated fear of terrorism has played a role in bigotry toward Muslims, despite repeated statements by the George W. Bush and Obama administrations differentiating between Muslim extremists and Muslim communities at large. Over the past decade, Americans’ attitudes toward Muslims have become considerably more negative, according to surveys asking versions of the question, “Is your overall opinion of Muslims favorable or unfavorable?” Suspicion that Muslim Americans pose a threat to the Constitution ceased to be a fringe position in U.S. politics, growing to the point that 26 percent of respondents in one survey said Islam should be illegal in the United States. Another 21 percent said they were not sure.  During the 2016 presidential race, Donald Trump stoked these fears, falsely claiming that there were thousands of shooters like Omar Mateen, the 2016 Orlando nightclub shooter, at large in the United States. There have been no Muslim mass shooters in the subsequent three years, while several far-right extremists have carried out shootings in 2019 alone—most recently at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, where an anti-immigrant extremist shot 46 shoppers, killing 22. On the campaign trail, Trump’s major policy speech on terrorism included the false claim that the Obama administration was ignoring “support networks for radical Islam in this country.” The Trump administration has not identified any such support networks. The suspension of visas to citizens from several Muslim-majority countries was premised on the false suggestion that visitors from these countries posed a significant threat to the United States. Extremists from “visa ban” countries accounted for zero fatalities in the preceding two decades. A wall along the U.S.-Mexico border was proposed on the false grounds that terrorists, in Trump’s words, “are pouring into our country.” There have been no terrorist attacks by migrants who crossed the border illegally. Trump falsely claimed that a member of Congress, Rep. Ilhan Omar, supports terrorism. She doesn’t.  The political success of these falsehoods among segments of the American population in part reflects distorted public understandings of terrorism and the threat it poses, which national security experts have not done enough to counteract. A handful of scholars, such as the political scientist John Mueller at Ohio State University, have warned for years that national security fears are overblown. But few prominent experts have publicly examined their own role, however unintended, in preparing the ground for fear, bigotry, and hyperbole.  A rare retrospective by two former counterterrorism officials, Andrew Liepman and Philip Mudd, marveled at how wrong their past threat assessments had been: “No one in the dizzying days after 9/11 would have believed that annual terrorism-related casualties [in the United States] leading into 2017 would number only in the dozens; experts might have predicted hundreds, even thousands.” Liepman and Mudd worried that “the United States is obsessed with terrorism, to an unhealthy and illogical degree,” but did not address the ways in which their own threat assessments may have contributed to this obsession.  Dan Coats, Trump’s former director of national intelligence, this year sought to put terrorist threats in perspective, releasing an assessment arguing that “the frequency of attacks most likely will be very low compared to most other forms of criminal violence in the US.” He added a caveat: That would only remain the case “as long as [counterterrorism] and law enforcement efforts remain constant.” Still, it was encouraging to hear a national security official acknowledge that terrorism pales in comparison to other threats to public safety. Coats has since been removed from office, but his statement offers a model for national security professionals. Like the leadership of the CDC during the SARS and Ebola crises, responsible officials need to weigh the risks posed by inattention against the risks posed by overattention.  An evenhanded approach to national security, drawing professional and ethical lessons from the field of public health, would include conferences and research exploring why terrorism never lived up to the threat assessments issued after 9/11 and how to avoid overreactions in the future. It would ensure that national security publications, testimony, and public statements avoid hyperbole and correct the public record when policymakers exaggerate. It would propose policies and resource allocations that are calibrated to the scale of the threat, rising when threats rise and shrinking when threats shrink, even if that means cutting the budgets of the experts’ own organizations.  There will be more terrorist attacks. Terrorism cannot be eradicated completely, just as other forms of violence cannot be eradicated completely. After each tragedy, national security experts have a duty to use their television interviews, social media accounts, and op-eds—whatever influence they may have—to help rebuild the public resilience that has been damaged by the doctrine of evolving threats.


fortruss--2019-03-15--New Zealand Tragedy Terrorism has No Religion

New Zealand Tragedy: Terrorism has No Religion

From what little we know about the perpetrators of what’s surely NZ’s worst terrorist attack … the main figure appears to be an Australian who arrived here “recently”.  We often hear certain sorts of people going on about the “threat” from “Muslim migration” or whatever other demographic they can scaremonger about. And yet, quite directly – quite simply – what we have seen here is the opposite. Shootings at multiple sites, would-be bombings, and other such things, with a stated intent to show “nowhere in the world is safe” … as carried out by English-speaking white chaps.  Now I am *not* attempting to say that having white Anglosphere migrants turn up at your door is an intrinsic security risk.  But once again: this incident shows quite plainly that “the script” which many subconsciously run on … of “terror incident” means one group [an Eastern religion] being the perpetrator , and another group they’re more closely related to being the victims … is worse than useless. It’s an outright *obscuration* of fact.  What has happened here is quite simple.  At least one foreigner – and in all probability, also some Kiwis (although the IDs of several arrested have not yet been released to confirm this) – have come here, to kill New Zealanders, and our guests here in this country (potentially including the Bangladeshi cricket team).  They have done so, in order to further, to perpetuate, to *perpetrate*, an ideological agenda that has no place here in New Zealand.  Yet because the identified perpetrators are white, they will have been able to walk down the street, operate in our communities with *far less* suspicion or sideways-looks upon them, than an ordinary and morally blameless person who might look like they’re of a particular swathe of religious minorities here in NZ.  For a third time: I am NOT seeking to suggest that there’s some innate connection between being a white man , and carrying out some sort of brain-dead act of brutality.  What I *am* saying, is that – as applies the New Zealand experience today, especially – “terrorism has no [intrinsic] religion”.  It is “political” violence, sought to be amplified through media, to push whatever abys(m)al agenda could not be attained through reasoned discourse.  If you’re from any of the various tendencies out there which have previously sought to suggest that it’s “only” a “Muslim issue” [which flies flat in the face of the fact that, for a start, the previous incident of international terrorism which took place here in NZ was, in point of fact, *French* government authored] you should probably Adjust your Perceptions, accordingly.


freebeacon--2019-11-26--U.S. Citizen Killed in Terror Attack in Afghanistan

The State Department said on Tuesday that a U.S. citizen was killed this week in a terror attack in Afghanistan on a United Nations convoy.  California resident Anil Raj, a U.S. citizen, was killed in the attack. Five other civilians were injured in the strike, including U.N. staff.  "We extend our condolences to the family and friends of the victim following this tragic incident and send our best wishes for a speedy recovery for those who were injured," Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in remarks confirming Raj's death.  "Attacks targeting U.N. personnel working to help the Afghan people are unconscionable, and we condemn this act in the strongest possible terms," Pompeo said.


frontpagemagazine--2019-02-26--New York Magazine Publishes Anti-Semitic Rant in Support of Anti-Semitic Terror Group

The media has been saturated with Qatari/Iranian propaganda in support of Iran's Houthi terrorists in Yemen.  The motto of the Houthi Jihadists is, "Death to America, Death to Israel,  A Curse the Jews, Victory to Islam".  The Houthis really don't want lefty apologists to misunderstand their hatred for Jews as being, in the apologist parlance, mere anti-Zionism. They're anti- Semitic and they want us to know it.  Despite that (or perhaps because of it), the media has embraced the Houthis (while often refusing to provide any details about them). The Washington Post, D.C.'s Jihadist social justice tabloid, gave a Houthi leader space to spread his propaganda.  And the media has popularized the lie that Saudi air strikes have been responsible for the famine in Yemen, when it was the Houthis.  The AP was the lone holdout in breaking the media's embargo of Iranian propaganda [and published the facts](https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/272418 /ap-investigation-shows-its-iranian-terrorists-not-daniel-greenfield).  > The Houthis, a Zaidi-Shiite religious movement turned rebel militia, control an expanse of northern and western Yemen that is home to more than 70 percent of the country’s population. In these areas, officials and relief workers say, Houthi rebels have moved aggressively to control the flow of food aid, putting pressure on international relief workers with threats of arrest or exile and setting up checkpoints that demand payments of “customs taxes” as trucks carrying aid try to move across rebel territory.  >  > “Since the Houthis came to power, looting has been on a large scale,” said Abdullah al-Hamidi, who served as acting education minister in the Houthi-run government in the north before defecting to the coalition side earlier this year. “This is why the poor get nothing. What really arrives to people is very little.”  >  > Each month in Sanaa, he said, at least 15,000 food baskets that the education ministry was supposed to provide to hungry families were instead diverted to the black market or used to feed Houthi militiamen serving on the front lines.  >  > Half of the food baskets that the U.N. food program provides to Houthi- controlled areas are stored and distributed by the ministry, which is chaired by the brother of the rebels’ top leader..  But the media has chosen to ignore the facts, and instead kept on printing the same Orwellian propaganda about how there would be plenty of food in Yemen if the Saudis stopped bombing the Houthis.  Plenty of Senate Republicans, who seem to get their foreign news from the Washington Post, climbed on board.  Then procedural problems arose, in part of because of Rep. Omar's anti-Semitic outbursts, leading to this deranged screed by Eric Levitz in New York Magazine.  > "The GOP Just Used Crocodile Tears About Anti-Semitism to Abet Mass Murder in Yemen - New York Magazine"  At no point in time does Eric Levitz mention that he is defending an anti- Semitic terrorist group. The only time he mentions the Houthis is when he's dismissing the significance of the Holocaust.  >  For all the Holocaust’s idiosyncratic features, on the individual level, it was experienced as mass murder; and mass murder is not an exceptional feature of human history. You don’t need to be a Polish Jew in the 1930s to see your family slaughtered because one powerful group wants your kind dead, while the others have no particular interest in keeping them alive. You could just as well be a Lakota “Indian” in late 19th-century South Dakota, or a Palestinian refugee at Sabra in 1982, or a malnourished mother in Houthi-controlled Yemen today. If I refuse to define my grandmother by her ethnicity and religion (as those who orphaned her did) — if I insist on remembering her primarily as a human being rather than as a Jew — then Republicans have no interest in respecting the historical traumas  Levitz equates the Houthis, who call for the murder of Jews, with the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, while dismissing the relevance of anti-Semitism. And it comes complete with the traditional lefty minstrel show of, "I'm a human being, not a Jew."  That turns into, "The Jews are the Real Nazis".  > In fact, as McConnell has just demonstrated, Republicans (and some Democrats) don’t just refuse to acknowledge any moral tension between intoning “never again,” and facilitating atrocities in Yemen (or obfuscating the president’s hate speech against Native Americans, Muslims, and immigrants, or Israel’s crimes against the Palestinians)  While Levitz yowls about the Muslim majority in Yemen, there was indeed a Jewish minority in Yemen that was ethnically cleansed. Eric Levitz and New York Magazine predictably don't care about them. They're Jews. And they support the anti-Semitic Jihadist killers of Jews.  There is a simple lesson here  The Left is an inherently anti-Semitic movement. It is an anti-Semitic movement because of its ideology, but also because it harbors a sizable component of persons of Jewish ethnic origin who violently hate the Jewish people.  Any movement filled with people like Eric Levitz will become anti-Semitic.  This form of bigotry is not entirely unique to Jews. Most oppressed minority groups have outbursts of group self-hatred (this is distinct from individual self-hatred, a common mistake when referring to 'self-hating Jews'. But the situation among Jews is far worse for cultural reasons that are largely present among secular Ashkenazi Jews due to their post-Enlightenment history.  The Holocaust has not made this group less anti-Semitic, only more so. And so they will, like Levitz, cheer actual modern day Nazis while dismissing the Holocaust and anti-Semitism. And then put on their cheap facade of moral outrage on behalf of the anti-Semites.


frontpagemagazine--2019-04-22--Islamic Terror Sister Group in Easter Bombings Claimed No Muslim Could Be Associated wTerrorism

Islamic Terror Sister Group in Easter Bombings Claimed No Muslim Could Be Associated w/Terrorism

Islamist political groups, like the Muslim Brotherhood, always claim that Muslims can never be associated with terrorism, even as Islamist military groups, including their own arms, engage in it.  National Thowheeth Jama'ath, a Sri Lankan Islamist group, has been accused of being behind the Easter Sunday bombings. A number of those arrested have links to NTJ.  While ISIS claimed credit for it, the Islamic terror group abroad operates mostly through affiliates and allies. A number of Sri Lankan Muslims had gone to fight with ISIS. But it seems unlikely that a massive terror operation like this could have been anything but a partnership between ISIS and local Islamists, with ISIS providing the vision and local Islamists actually implementing it.  That brings us back to National Thowheeth Jama'ath, which, until recently, had operated on the Muslim Brotherhood model, [pushing Islamic law,](http://www.newindianexpress.com/world/2019/apr/22/sri-lanka-blasts-why- is-national-thowheed-jamath-under-the-scanner-1967615.html) while condemning bias against Muslims and claiming that it was fighting for Muslim civil rights.  > The NTJ or the National Thowheed Jamath is a right-wing Islamic extremist outfit with a presence mainly in the eastern province of Sri Lanka. The group is also infamous for preaching ‘Wahabi’ Islamic teachings to its followers. Besides this, it aggressively promotes Sharia law, building of mosques, and instructs Muslim women to observe ‘purdah’.  >  > There’s very little information available about this controversial outfit, but it is said to have originated in a Muslim-dominated eastern town of Sri Lanka – Kattankudy.  >  > The NTJ is believed to be a splinter group of the Sri Lanka Thowheed Jamaat (STLJ), another Islamist group based in the country.  >  > Abdul Razik, NTJ’s secretary, has been accused of giving inflammatory speeches during his sermons. Back in 2014, Razik also spewed venom against Buddhism.  >  > The NTJ was also linked with the vandalism of Buddhist statues in Sri Lanka last year, resulting in rising communal tensions between Buddhists and Muslims. Razik was arrested in 2016 on the charges of disrupting peace.  At this point, things become somewhat confusing, because of the ambigious relationship between the [various Thowheed Jaamats](https://www.rediff.com/news/report/we-have-nothing-to-do-with-the- blasts-in-lanka/20190422.htm).  > The Tamil Nadu Tauheed Jamaat has a three floor building in the heart of old Chennai, on Armenian street, not far from the Madras high court. It runs two mosques in Chennai and has other offices for social work.  >  > The reception at the TNTJ head office has a display of various books on Islam. We are told the TNTJ employs writers to produce these books which the Jamaat then publishes. It also publishes two magazines in Tamil.  >  > "We have been doing social work for 30 years and no journalist thought about writing about us and today so many of you have come here," chides TNTJ General Secretary E Mohammad.  >  > Though he speaks about 30 years of service, the organisation was only registered 15 years ago, in 2004.  >  > Wikipedia says the organisation was founded by P Jainulabdeen, but Mohammad says the founder was removed by the TNTJ governing body as his activities violated its principles.  Specifically, he was apparently accused of sexual misconduct.  > "The blasts in Lanka are against our ideology. They say Islamists have done it. They are naming the National Tauheed Jamaat. We don't know who they are. We have nothing to do with them," says Mohammad.  >  > "We have a sister organisation in Lanka called the Sri Lanka Tauheed Jamaat," he adds. "It has worked with the government there. After the blasts, they collected over 100 bottles of blood for the victims."  That would appear to be the TNJ being linked to the bombing.  Meanwhile its "sister organization" has gone around [condemning terrorism](https://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-tamilnadu /human-chain-against-terrorism/article6606310.ece).  > Scores of cadres belonging to the Tamil Nadu Tawheed Jamaath (TNTJ) participated in the human chain formed here to make aloud the Muslim voice against terrorism and terrorist activities.  >  > The TNTJ was spearheading a concerted bid to make known to the world in general and India in particular that no Muslim could ever be associated with terrorist activities, said the Thanjavur North district president of the TNTJ Swamimalai Jaffar speaking at a human chain programme held near the Diamond Theatre on Thanjavur Road. Speakers at the meet stressed that it was the TNTJs effort to paint the correct picture of the peaceful community as a whole.  >  > Participants held aloft placards and hoardings denouncing terrorism and stressing that terrorism has no role in a true Islamic society.  Because by then the terrorists will be in charge. It's a clever dodge.  There had already [been signs ](https://indianexpress.com/article/india/india- news-india/man-records-statement-against-son-accused-of-is-links/)that NTJ was, like all Islamist groups, a Jihadist gateway.  > In what could be a first for a terror probe in the country, the father of a youth arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) for alleged links to the Islamic State (IS) has given a statement before a magistrate corroborating how his son was drawn to jihadist ideology. The statement under Section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) will be used as evidence against the son...  >  > Hailing from Thanjavur, Naseer did computer engineering at MNM Engineering College in Chennai between 2010 and 2014. It was during this period that Naseer and a couple of his friends started visiting a mosque in Chennai run by the Tamil Nadu Thowheed Jamath, a non-political Islamic organisation that preaches a puritanical version of Islam. It was founded by P Jainul Abdeen in 2004, when he broke away from the Tamil Nadu Muslim Munnetra Kazhagam.  >  > Naseer attended around 30 to 40 lectures on religious discourse by Jainul Abdeen. He also began to pore over the website onlinepj.com dealing with Islamic discourse, he has allegedly told interrogators.  It's the same old story.