Active Shooter In Olympia Mall In Munich

[Markus Becker]

Well done the two other Syrians! Very well done!

[rmgill]

Refinement of the above: Apparently police picked up the suspect readily gift-wrapped from two fellow Syrians.

 

It is now reported that 500 grams of TATP and an additional kilogram of precursors plus ignitors and other possible parts for pipe bombs were found in the original raided flat in Chemnitz. A 33-year-old who rented that place has been taken into remand as a possible accomplice. Another person which was in contact with the main suspect was also detained. There are allegations that main guy was discussing to attack one or both Berlin airports with the IS via internet.

That's a double victory. Some Syrians chose the other side. They need some kind of special recognition, even if it's hush hush to prevent them being targeted.

[BansheeOne]

It's a bit of a double slap in the face of the high-speed-low-drag types after letting the guy get away in the first place, too. Apparently a third Syrian walked into a police station, showed a cellphone snapshot of the suspect and said "We heard you're looking for this guy. You can come and pick him up." Bog-standard patrol cops took him into custody with no fuss before an alerted SEK team even arrived on the scene.

[Soren Ras]

Good news in several ways. More of this.

 

--

Soren

[BansheeOne]

The detailed account now states that the initial Friday night raid in Chemnitz was somewhat hot-rigged after information from domestic intelligence - which had come across the suspect via his online activities in mid-September - that he had bought hot-melt glue which was considered to be a possible final explosive ingredient. Police weren't quite sure which flat in the target building exactly he was in; rather than randomly stumbling around various possible bomb-making shops, they were setting up to apprehend him outside. However, when a person in fact showed up, it wasn't clear whether it was the suspect, and didn't stop when called upon and a warning shot was fired either. Police stated that an aimed shot was not safe to make, and they are still investigating whether the suspect was in the house at that time at all; there seems to have been more than a little confusion on the scene. Anyway, the guy got away.

 

He then searched for a sleeping space in Leipzig via an online network for Syrian refugees and got taken in by a compatriot who went out to collect him from Leipzig Central Station (other accounts state that all three of his later captors went). However by late Sunday, the same online networks carried a search warrant for the suspect which police had, somewhat belatedly, translated into English and Arabic and put up on Facebook. One of the three hosts saw this and called in his friends who subdued the guy and tied him up on the sofa with electric cord. Their initial attempt to call police failed at the language barrier; while the three were currently taking German class together, obviously they weren't quite conversational yet. Which was why one of them took that cellphone shot and went to the next station himself.

 

 

Of note is that sometime earlier he had asked them to cut his hair, obviously to change his appearance from the pictures he was wanted with; but of course they had seen him in his previous guise.

 

 

I can only imagine the smugness with which the lowly street cops collecting him greeted their SEK colleagues when the latter finally arrived, too. Naturally gossippy media sought out the captors, and one of them told broadcaster RTL and tabloid "Bild" that the guy had tried to bribe them into releasing him with a total of 1,200 Euro he had in his backpack along with a knife; but the interviews were wisely anonymous, and the trio is now being shielded from the public for their safety. Though the IS is notably silent on the matter, despite their normal tendency to claim everybody and his dog for their cause.

 

Political and media reaction is putting the trio front and center with undertones of hero celebration, and it's probably not too cynical to assume that the Syrians who caught the terrorist are being played up over the Syrian who was the terrorist IOT pre-empt the anti-refugee camp from seizing upon the latter. I think it is part of that that the threat is also being exaggerated a little in my opinion, from Interior Minister de Maizière pointing out the similarity of preparations with the Paris and Brussels attacks on down; but while a possible total of 1.5 kilogram of TATP is bad news any way you slice it, it doesn't quite compare to the extent of those examples. There are conflicting suggestions whether the suspect wanted to make pipe bombs or a suicide vest - two ignitors and metal parts like nuts were found along with the explosive and precursors - though it seems he initially wanted to attack a train, then shifted aim to a Berlin airport per domestic intelligence. He appeared before a judge yesterday, and federal prosecutors have taken over investigations as a terrorism case.

 

Even media like "Spiegel Online" are acknowledging that the issue of terrorists coming in with the refugee stream, or refugees radicalizing here, is real, which speaks for the evolution of the debate. In this case the suspect arrived on 18. February 2015, was registered in Munich the next day, and transfered to Chemnitz yet another day later, where he applied for asylum; this was at a time Syrians only needed a written application. Since 10 March he was living in Eilenburg, North Saxony County. His application was granted on 9 June. He is alleged to have moved back to Chemnitz sometime in the last few weeks after 18 months, and found quarters with the 33-year-old who rented the place used as a bomb shop. The latter was arrested at Chemnitz Central Station on Saturday already; he was registered as a refugee in North Rhine Westphalia on 25 November last year, applied for asylum in Bad Berleburg, NRW on 25 December, which was granted on 5 March this year. From 29 March he was living in Viersen, NRW before moving to Chemnitz on 12 June.

 

I suspect that if there is an actual operative to be found, it will turn out to be this older guy, with the younger recruited locally. The CSU has raised new demands that all arriving refugees should be checked against available intelligence, which is of course a good idea, but not a catch-all; not to mention that the vast majority of 500 Islamists considered a possible threat by German authorities have lived here way before last year, were born here or are even German converts who didn't need any IS operatives to come in for radicalization.

[Ivanhoe]

Germany should be relieved that the guy only had TATP and not a bunch of Samsung Galaxy Note 7s.

[BansheeOne]

I suspect that if there is an actual operative to be found, it will turn out to be this older guy, with the younger recruited locally.

 

Except it seems that the main suspect himself spent as much as ten months in Turkey recently and returned with a large amount of dollar bills in late August according to a fellow Syrian at his official residence in Eilenburg who reported him to authorities as suspicious; his cellphone has also been tracked to Turkey in that timeframe. It's currently not clear whether that report triggered the interest of domestic intelligence; mention has also been made of a pointer from allied agencies, which wouldn't be a first. Apparently the suspect also tried to return to his official residence after the Chemnitz raid, but the locks had been changed at that point.

[WRW]

Any indication of where in Turkey.

[Mike Steele]

 

Refinement of the above: Apparently police picked up the suspect readily gift-wrapped from two fellow Syrians.

 

It is now reported that 500 grams of TATP and an additional kilogram of precursors plus ignitors and other possible parts for pipe bombs were found in the original raided flat in Chemnitz. A 33-year-old who rented that place has been taken into remand as a possible accomplice. Another person which was in contact with the main suspect was also detained. There are allegations that main guy was discussing to attack one or both Berlin airports with the IS via internet.

That's a double victory. Some Syrians chose the other side. They need some kind of special recognition, even if it's hush hush to prevent them being targeted.

 

Ever consider that he is a sacrifice to cover something bigger?

[rmgill]

Could be. But that suggest a deeper level than what we've seen. Not to discount entirely, but don't go looking for Zebras when you hear hoof beats.

[DB]

the suspect was apparently found dead in his cell on Wednesday night.

 

How does someone on 24/7 suicide watch manage to kill himself anyway?

[CT96]

The same way the child molester tripped down the jailhouse stairs 17 times.

[BansheeOne]

Well, that's the icing on the utter cockup Saxony state authorities have made of the affair literally from start to finish. Reportedly his cell was checked at intervalls of less than an hour, which was obviously not enough; his attorney stated that he had previously broken a lamp and tampered with an electric socket in there, but he was assured his client was under constant surveillance. Maybe they should have left that to some fellow Syrians, too.

 

I'm usually not one for the folkloristic calls for high-level heads to roll, but there should, and probably will, as this comes on top of the rather unfortunate image the state delivered of the recent national holiday celebrations in Dresden, from the bombings of a mosque and the official reception site to PEGIDA protestors heckling guests walking to the latter from just a few meters away. Now criticism of the latter is mostly politically-motivated by folks who wouldn't complain of an "abuse of free speech" if it had been left-wingers (which were also active that day), and in an embarrassing incident where a senior police officer wished protestors a "successful day" after helpfully reading out the rules to them via a police megaphone since the organizers' own sound system had broken down, the guy was from out of state in support of local forces, namely Lower Saxony; but I would also add left-wing violence being let run rampant in Leipzig for some time now. Something is rotten in the Free State of Saxony.

 

Any indication of where in Turkey.

 

Family reported he had sauntered over to Idlib on the Syrian side, so probably via the Iskenderun area. Neighbors in Germany also stated he had changed from his previous non-religious demeanor when he returned.

Edited October 13, 2016 by BansheeOne

[Markus Becker]

The dead perp said the other three Syrians were his accomplices. Sound like BS. If they had been, his dead body would have been found on the street.

[sunday]

The dead perp said the other three Syrians were his accomplices. Sound like BS. If they had been, his dead body would have been found on the street.

 

Could have been a case similar to "Operation North Pole": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Englandspiel

[BansheeOne]

Well, my personal conspiracy theory would be that he was an illegal mole or agent provocateur in terrorist circles for one German agency who needed to be silenced after being apprehended by another. I could also quip that terrorists have exhibited an alarming tendency to turn up dead in German prisons ever since 1977. But knowing the utterly boring modus operandi of German authorities, obviously I subscribe to the old adage of never attributing to malice what can be explained by incompetence.

 

Saxony State Minister of Justice just said the guy was not considered suicidal, initially checked upon every 15, then 30 minutes from last evening. He was promptly found dead at 1945 hours yesterday by a trainee making an extra round after the regular 1930 check. Apparently hung himself with his shirt.

 

The other guy who was arrested over having rented the place in Chemnitz has been put under continuous surveillance.

Edited October 13, 2016 by BansheeOne

[BansheeOne]

This is the second shooting involving one of these guys this year.

 

Germany police shooting: Four officers injured during raid on far-right 'Reichsbürger' in Georgensgmünd

Officer in critical condition as search uncovers 30 weapons at house in Bavaria

Lizzie Dearden 2 hours ago

 

A police officer is fighting for his life in Germany after being shot by a right-wing extremist during a weapons raid.

The officer was one of four injured in a gun battle with a suspect named as Wolfgang P at a house in Georgensgmünd on Wednesday morning.

Officials said police were executing a warrant to confiscate firearms after the 49-year-old refused mandatory inspections by local authorities.

A team of specialist officers launched the operation at 6am local time (5am BST) and were immediately met by gunfire.

Johann Rast, the chief of Central Franconia Police, told a press conference police found the suspect in a bedroom.

“He was hiding behind the door and shot through the closed door,” he said. “It is not yet clear how many shots were fired.”

Three hit an officer who remains in a critical condition, striking his helmet, elbow and edge of his protective vest. Another officer was shot in the arm, while two others were injured by flying glass.

Wolfgang P is believed to have been alerted to the police’s approach by blue lights and sirens, having a gun and bulletproof vest next to his bed.

The suspect was injured and taken into custody, with an arsenal of 30 weapons seized in subsequent searches of his home.

Officials said he calls himself a “Reichsbürger”, part of a far-right movement that claims the current German state is illegitimate and is alleged to have neo-Nazi links.

[...]

Reichsbürgers adhere to their own self-declared government, known as the KRR, which issue their own version of official documents such as driving licences, while followers frequently spurn federal taxes or fines.

They are mainly known for aggravating German authorities by pursuing obscure legal claims rather than violence, but a member was wounded during a gun battle as he was evicted from his home in August.

Wolfgang P, who is unemployed and previously operated a martial arts school, had reportedly written “scurrilous letters” on the movement after joining in the summer. He remains in police custody.

A recent report by Berlin's state intelligence service describes the Reichsbürgers as “an extremely diverse range of small groups and individuals who believe in an ideological mixture of conspiracy theories, anti-Semitic and anti-democratic views, and who have been behaving increasingly aggressively for some time".

[...]

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/germany-police-shooting-four-officers-injured-raid-far-right-reichsbuerger-georgensgmuend-bavaria-a7368946.html

 

Of course they don't just adhere to one self-declared government, but there are several competing ones. Not paying fees and taxes is probably the main incentive for most, though many are are the recalcritant type who forever quarrel with authorities and about anybody else in their lives.

[Markus Becker]

He is dead. Unlucky hit, large caliber gun or crap body armor. With the German police the latter is not unlikely.

[BansheeOne]

Good old Renate Künast of the Greens whose main concern after the Würzburg train axing spree was why police couldn't just render the perpetrator incapacitated rather than killing him reliably took to Twitter again after the Reichsbürger shootout, suggesting that there was a lack of media outrage compared to what would have been if the killer had been an Islamist. Apart from again not expending a thought on the victim, she seems to read different media than I, because reaction has been at least as forceful, with people across the political board warning that the threat of the Reichsbürger movement has been underestimated, calling for surveillance by domestic intelligence on the national level and revoking gun licenses of sympathizers (which, as the incident shows, is being done anyway).

 

Most surprising to me, it turns out the movement has a low, but existent number of adherents among police officers; Bavaria is investigating four alone, of which two have been suspended from duty. Some other states and Federal Police also reported single-digit numbers. That's gotta be some tortured personal logic, serving a state you don't believe even exists but think is a front for an allied occupation regime, a private corporation, etc.

 

Meanwhile the al-Bakr case was the subject of parliamentary deliberation both in Saxony and the Bundestag this week. The Saxony state government has been widely criticized for not only messing up detention of the suspect from start to finish, but not taking responsibility for its failings either, since neither the interior nor justice minister have resigned (mostly from the left, to which conservatives have pointed out that the North Rhine-Westphalia state government was neither accused of the same systemic failure nor took similar consequences over the New Years' Eve events in Cologne). The state has installed an independent panel of four to look into what went wrong.

 

By what has come out at this point, first warnings about al-Bakr's plans again came from foreign intelligence services; a recent report was that he already blew up the kitchen of a hotel apartment by accident while experimenting with explosives some time ago and buggered off, but local police only investigated over property damage. A problem throughout was that he wasn't living at his registered residence in Eilenburg, though domestic intelligence eventually tracked him to the Chemnitz address through his communications. There seems to have been no undue delay in intelligence notifying Saxony police, and the decision to arrest was triggered by the aforementioned purchase of hot-melt glue. More logically than what was initially reported, this was not an explosive ingredient but seems commonly used by terrorists to glue suicide vests together.

 

The problem remained that it was unclear at which flat exactly he lived in the building, despite police being apparently rather conspicious in staking out the house. Which was why they set up for an outside snatch, but when he in fact encountered two officers, they couldn't agree whether he was their man and eventually let him go. He was called upon by others and a warning shot fired, but an aimed shot was apparently not safe to make due to the residential background. So he hid behind a car and then legged it, with the raiding party impeded by their heavy body armor and an outer perimeter apparently not being established due to the haste of the action. Police warned neighbors at his registered address in Eilenburg not to open their doors if he showed up, but seems not to have been there when he actually did.

 

After his eventual arrest, the investigating judge suggested that he might be suicidal (which is kinda logical for a suspected would-be suicide bomber), but a psychologist at the prison came to a different conclusion. While he pulled out the lamp and put some wet toilet paper into the electrical socket in his cell, this was treated as vandalism, and he was not transfered to a special safe cell; nor was he put together with other prisoners because he was judged a possible danger to them. Prison staff seems to have been stuck up in regulations. Saxony law doesn't provide for video surveillance of prisoners unlike some other states', and it's somewhat funny that they get harangued for their failings by people who otherwise are always up in arms about the prying eyes of CCTV.

 

Anyway, he managed to hang himself with his t-shirt on the bars inside the cell door even though a trainee made an additional check on him after 15 minutes when frequency had been reduced to 30. There has been no shortage of Good Suggestions to improve things, from enlarging GSG 9 so they are always available to take over raids on suspected terrorists to special prisons with the necessary expertise to handle Islamist terror suspects, though that immediately gets you into a federal-vs.-state-responsibilities debate. More internet surveillance might be an actual answer, and a long-cooking reform to give the BND clearer rights under more control following the NSA affair was incidentally agreed by the Bundestag just yesterday - again to complaints about intrusive intelligence by the usual suspects, of course.

 

Al-Bakr had also tried to implicate his Syrian captors as accomplices before offing himself, but nothing has been heard of them after some initial initerviews with prying media, and they are supposed to be in the care of authorities away from the public eye. Media also turned up a brother of al-Bakr who naturally stated that the latter had always been a good boy, never an Islamist, and was brainwashed in Germany, possibly by some Berlin imam, but wouldn't ever actually harmed someone; also if he found the damn Syrians who mistreated his bro, he was going to kill them.

 

The first part is actually not unlikely, as al-Bakr seems to have come to Germany with high hopes of going to university etc., but couldn't get a grip on the language and grew frustrated; as stated earlier, neighbors mentioned he had changed from his original non-religious demeanor after returning from his lengthy absence, and he was found to have travelled to Berlin. Though that may have been more for staking out his possible target, as he was recorded by surveillance cameras running around Tegel Airport. It has been suggested he wanted to act in the week after the failed Chemnitz raid, which makes the haste of action understandable, but doesn't change the subsequent string of cockups.

[Panzermann]

Good old Renate Künast of the Greens whose main concern after the Würzburg train axing spree was why police couldn't just render the perpetrator incapacitated rather than killing him reliably took to Twitter again after the Reichsbürger shootout, suggesting that there was a lack of media outrage compared to what would have been if the killer had been an Islamist. Apart from again not expending a thought on the victim, she seems to read different media than I, because reaction has been at least as forceful, with people across the political board warning that the threat of the Reichsbürger movement has been underestimated, calling for surveillance by domestic intelligence on the national level and revoking gun licenses of sympathizers (which, as the incident shows, is being done anyway).

 

Künast never was the smartest tree hugger. I expected her to say something like this. Again.

 

Most surprising to me, it turns out the movement has a low, but existent number of adherents among police officers; Bavaria is investigating four alone, of which two have been suspended from duty. Some other states and Federal Police also reported single-digit numbers. That's gotta be some tortured personal logic, serving a state you don't believe even exists but think is a front for an allied occupation regime, a private corporation, etc.

 

 

 

They are serving the german people and their country. They oppose the current german state the federal republic, not the country and its people. Quite the contrary. And with single digit numbers per each police force it is very marginal.

 

I bet there are a higher number leaning towards nationalsocialism in the police.

[Markus Becker]

Renate is right in one regard, the meia did treat this different from an Islamic terrorist attack. Nobody reminded the public that gun violence has nothing to do with the Reichsbürger ideology or that we can't judge all Reichsbürger for the actions of one individual.

[BansheeOne]

Which is the exact opposite of what she said though.

 

They are serving the german people and their country. They oppose the current german state the federal republic, not the country and its people.

 

Yeah, but the Reichsbürger core tenet (as far as they can agree on anything at all) is that the FRG straight does not exist legally, and its representatives like police officers therefore have no authority at all. So their mode of professional conduct should be "Greetings, citizen. I'm a fake government official. Don't listen to anything I tell you to do."

 

I was surprised to hear that several courts have ruled the German Reich to exist in the guise of the FRG today though, which is something different from being its legal successor as I always understood.

 

[Markus Becker]

I know but the opportunity for an anti green comment was too good. And not enough (!) outrage? Where? In the National Zeitung?

Edited October 23, 2016 by Markus Becker

[Markus Becker]

The thing the Reichsbürger overlook is where their "government's" legitimacy is based on? When did they hold a national election for the last time as required by the Weimar constitution?

[Panzermann]

Which is the exact opposite of what she said though.

 

 

They are serving the german people and their country. They oppose the current german state the federal republic, not the country and its people.

Yeah, but the Reichsbürger core tenet (as far as they can agree on anything at all) is that the FRG straight does not exist legally, and its representatives like police officers therefore have no authority at all. So their mode of professional conduct should be "Greetings, citizen. I'm a fake government official. Don't listen to anything I tell you to do."

Bills to pay, state provided good health care for the whole family, safe job... Delusions of being a fifth column.

 

I was surprised to hear that several courts have ruled the German Reich to exist in the guise of the FRG today though, which is something different from being its legal successor as I always understood.

 

To make a clear cut there is the provision for the german people to write and accept a new constitution to.supersede the current in the last article of the basic law to avoid this grey zone of the Weimarer Reichsverfassung not having ceased to be in force in a clear formal way. When all the kings and the Emperor left their thrones it was clear that this empire had ended.