by Christopher W. Holton
The U.S. news media has been almost completely entranced by the pontificating and posturing at the conventions of its two major political parties the past week or so. This has prevented them from covering the fact that events overseas demonstrate that the global Jihadist movement is NOT on its heels and NOT on the run. Nor is it contained.
First, on Thursday, 21 July, a British airman narrowly escaped an abduction at knifepoint outside Royal Air Force Station Marham. That particular base is home to a RAF squadron of Tornado bombers that deployed to the Middle East and conducted air strikes against the Islamic State.
The RAF airman was jogging along a road near the base when he was accosted by two men driving a vehicle along the same road. Fortunately, he was able to fight off his attackers who then fled. The attackers were described as “Asian,” which is a horribly misleading British media euphemism for Middle Eastern or Pakistani/Indian, and NOT Oriental as most people associate with the term Asian today.
The British military has been on alert for an attack against personnel inside the UK since Fusilier Lee Rigby was beheaded outside Woolwich barracks, in southeast London by two Jihadis.
There are now reports that the vehicle driven by the two attackers was observed making “dry runs” near the base before the attempted snatch operation.
Jihadi communiques have mentioned this type of attack repeatedly and the Islamic State and Al Qaeda have both issued calls for attacks on military personnel in the West and for attacks using knives and other edged weapons.
Then, on the same day, it was announced that Brazilian authorities had arrested 10 people in an apparent plot to carry out an Islamic State-inspired attack on the upcoming Olympic games in Rio de Janeiro.
The group of ten were described as a “disorganized cell” that was communicating with each other online to plan attacks. The Brazilian federal police moved in on the Jihadis when they began to make plans to purchase firearms.
While the media has sought to downplay the significance of this development, it should be pointed out that 10 “disorganized” people with firearms can create a lot of death and destruction.
The federal police are concentrating their monitoring on the infamous “tri-border” region that we have covered before. This is a nearly lawless region with a large Muslim population which has been known to be a haven for HAMAS, Hezbollah and Al Qaeda members in the past.
The lawless “Tri-Border Area” in South America
In a related development, a Brazilian Jihadist group calling itself “Ansar al-Khilafah Brazil” pledged allegiance to the Islamic State last week as well, signaling an intention to target the Olympics, which are defended by 85,000 police and military personnel.
In addition, the SITE Intelligence Group reports that Jihadists have been broadcasting advice for individual Jihadis via social media and mobile devices to carry out attacks during the Olympics, including the use of toy drones.
As if all this was not enough, the world’s attention then swung to Germany, where a series of 4 attacks has initiated that country into the group of Western nations targeted directly by individual Jihadi attacks.
The first attack came on 19 July in the form of an axe attack on train passengers, not unlike the Jihadi attack in Queens, New York in October 2014:
https://terrortrendsbulletin.com/2014/10/23/breaking-possible-jihadi-attack-in-nyc/
The attacker in Germany was a 17-year old Afghan refugee. Three people were injured in the attack and the Afghan Jihadi was shot dead by German police.
Riaz Khan Ahmadzai, who attacked passengers on a German train on 19 July
But the Jihadi violence was not over in Germany. Even before the next attack however–and we believe that this is significant–the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade issued a travel advisory for Germany, warning that the threat of terrorism in Germany “remains high and further attacks are likely.”
What did the Australians know that the rest of the world was ignoring?
Within a few hours of the Australian bulletin, the news broke that shots had been fired at a shopping center in Munich.
After much initial confusion, it was discovered that a German-Iranian had killed 9 innocent victims and wounded 16 others with a pistol.
German authorities are still trying to distance this attack from any Jihadist motive, but their efforts are almost sure to fail. Multiple witnesses claim they heard the shooter shout “Allah u Akbar” during the course of the attack. The fact that the shooter was unknown previously to German security and intelligence services and was not a member of a known terrorist group is of no comfort whatsoever in this new age of individual Jihad.
Moreover, there is some evidence to indicate that the Germans are just plain wrong about the shooter, one Ali Sonboly.
Munich Shopping Mall Shooter’s Facebook Page
Note that the image above prominently features the Turkish flag, not the Iranian flag and at least one observer makes the point that Sonboly was probably Syrian, not Iranian…
Again in Germany, yesterday, 24 July, a Syrian refugee carried out a machete attack outside a kebab restaurant in Reutlingen, Germany. Once again, German officials downplayed any possible Jihadist motive in the attack, which left a 45 year old Polish woman dead. But the fact that it occurred in the midst of a rash of similar attacks and that it involved an edged weapon, something the Islamic State has specifically recommended in communiques, is beyond merely suspicious. Reports linking the two romantically do not explain the other two individuals the Syrian wounded in the attack.
The dead victim of the machete attack in Germany on 24 July 2016
Fortunately a good samaritan driving a BMW ran over the machete wielder before he could make his escape.
Then, just hours after the machete attack, an Islamikaze bomber set off an IED outside a music festival in Ansbach, Germany, killing himself and injuring 15 others. Once again, the attacker was a 27-year old Syrian refugee. He had tried to gain access to the music festival but was refused admission. He then set off his bomb. Had he been able to get into the music festival, casualties would almost certainly have been greater.
This time the German officials could not deny the Jihadist motive. A search of the man’s living quarters and belongings uncovered a video in which he pledged allegiance to the Islamic State and the Islamic State’s media arm, Islamic State Amaq, confirmed the attack as a martyrdom operation carried out by an Islamic State soldier in response to its calls to target the Western coalition fighting against it.
Germany is still on edge and its Interior Ministry has ordered increased security for airports and train stations (but not music festivals or restaurants evidently).
If all this was not enough, the most horrific Islamic State attack of all came on the 23rd of July in Kabul, Afghanistan, where 3 Islamikaze bombers attacked a protest killing 80 and wounding 236…
We can only hope that the elected leaders here in America recognize the frenetic pace of Jihadi activity worldwide and realize their duty to make defeating Jihad the number 1 national priority.
Terror Trends Bulletin 