Paris terrorist attacks this evening 13/11/15

[Jonny]

Indeed, the passport owner died months ago, and they have found other migrants carrying the same passport with just a different photo. The person carrying it is believed to be a Belgian.

Which is as maybe, but I understand that the fingerprints match up to the entry event as well, so he had come via Syria. The first point of concern is that the migrants are let go before the prints are cross-checked, the second is that multiple uses of the same identity are not followed up either. Basically, the vetting is nowhere near tight enough.

 

[richw]

Gunfire reported in Paris suburb of Saint Denis this morning at 0330 GMT (0430 local)
Media reporting 3 suspects dead, and 3 more arrested with 3 police officers injured.

Over 100 police officers and army troops involved.

 

[Poolsharks1]

I can only see this getting worse, possibly a world war. I wish all sides could just come to some sort of agreement and live in peace

 

[Zoidberg]

Gunfire reported in Paris suburb of Saint Denis this morning at 0330 GMT (0430 local)
Media reporting 3 suspects dead, and 3 more arrested with 3 police officers injured.

Over 100 police officers and army troops involved.

An extract from the BBC website at

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-34853657

Armed police have raided a flat in the north Paris suburb of Saint Denis in an operation linked to Friday's attacks.

A woman blew herself up with a suicide belt, a prosecutor says. Some reports suggested two suspects died. Several explosions and gunfire were heard. The operation is said to be ongoing.

Five people have also been arrested.

The focus of the operation is reported to be Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the alleged mastermind of the Islamic State-claimed attacks that killed 129 people.

...

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

I can only see this getting worse, possibly a world war. I wish all sides could just come to some sort of agreement and live in peace

When one of the sides concerned is Islamic State who beliefs state that righteousness is on their side and all their enemies are Satanic entities, you will have much chance as trying to persuade the Pol Pot regime at the height of their power to make any concessions to humanity.

 

[Butts]

I think we can assume to a high degree of certainty that they're going to be citizens of EU nations and I would also place a wage on most of them (if not all) having been born in the EU just like the Charlie Hebdo attackers and just like three of the four July 7 bombers (and the fourth was born in Jamaica and had lived in the UK from age five).

So far the vast majority of perpetrators of crimes like this that have been following the creed of Islamic extremism have been home grown. They were either born here or came to live here at young age (obviously there are some exceptions to this such as one of the perpetrators of the Glasgow Airport attack in 2007 who was Indian by birth and grew up in Saudi Arabia the other was a British citizen by birth).

So the question we should be asking ourselves is how can people grow up in a first world country like France or Britain and end up deciding that they need to kill people and/or blow themselves up and how can we stop other people reaching that conclusion?

The issue, for me, with the migrants is purely volume. Can Europe cope with potentially millions of migrants arriving in a very short space of time? Can we find housing for them, school places, can the medical services cope? How will we manage to integrate people who come from a very different culture to our own? Will they have the skills to enable to find work? Failing to resolve those issues will almost certainly cause huge social strife but that won't likely happen for many years from now. Even when it does I wouldn't be surprised if, again, it is the children of those that are now arriving either who were born here or grew up here that are the ones perpetrating the crimes. Which leads me back to the earlier question. Why and what can we do to address that?

It might be easy to blame the migrants for what has happened but I can't help but feel that that would be intellectually dishonest considering what we've seen over the past ten or fifteen years.

Strange how not many migrants are clamouring to get into Russia - a European Country (at least in part) or fellow Muslim States such as Saudi Arabia or Iran

The whole problem can be traced back to the fall of Saddam - without a tyrant at the helm in Iraq the whole pack of cards collapsed. The same thing happened when Tito croaked in Yugoslavia, intercine strife and religious persecution leading to large scale genocide.

Perhaps North Korea could take a few

 

[Johnuk123]

Strange how not many migrants are clamouring to get into Russia - a European Country (at least in part) or fellow Muslim States such as Saudi Arabia or Iran

The whole problem can be traced back to the fall of Saddam - without a tyrant at the helm in Iraq the whole pack of cards collapsed. The same thing happened when Tito croaked in Yugoslavia, intercine strife and religious persecution leading to large scale genocide.

Perhaps North Korea could take a few

The Syrian civil war is nothing to do with west and that is what's causing a lot of the current problems.

 

[DarloRich]

The Syrian civil war is nothing to do with west and that is what's causing a lot of the current problems.

I am not sure that is quite correct!

 

[Johnuk123]

I can only see this getting worse, possibly a world war. I wish all sides could just come to some sort of agreement and live in peace

Don't we all.
ISIS are desperate to split the world into two camps.They believe that if they turn the rest of the world against muslims then those muslims will turn to them like they did in Iraq.

Everybody on Facebook who writes hate messages about them is doing the job for them, this is what they want they want the world to turn against them which then encourages more and more muslims to join them.

They are currently being really pushed back in the M.E and will probably eventually be crushed in that area but when they've gone another similar group will just take their place.

The Islamic dream of a global Caliphate is not going away.

 

[DarloRich]

Don't we all.
ISIS are desperate to split the world into two camps.They believe that if they turn the rest of the world against muslims then those muslims will turn to them like they did in Iraq.

Everybody on Facebook who writes hate messages about them is doing the job for them, this is what they want they want the world to turn against them which then encourages more and more muslims to join them.

They are currently being really pushed back in the M.E and will probably eventually be crushed in that area but when they've gone another similar group will just take their place.

The Islamic dream of a global Caliphate is not going away.

I agree - especially the bold part. Although i am sure they only want people who subscribe to their twisted view of Islam.

 

[Johnuk123]

I am not sure that is quite correct!

The Syrian civil war is acknowledged to have started in 2011 with the arrest of a few youths who painted anti-Assad slogans on a wall.
Govt. troops opened fire which encouraged more people to join in and eventually the protests went nationwide with armed groups forming all over the country and it turned into a fully fledged civil war.
It then morphed into the majority Sunni going against the minority Shia sect which is what Assad belongs to.
Other countries then started to get interested and ISIS and others took an interest and the rest is history.
Russia and Iran have helped Assad and will continue to do so but the start of it all was very small scale.

Iraq can be blamed on the west but Syria cannot.

 

[DarloRich]

The Syrian civil war is acknowledged to have started in 2011 with the arrest of a few youths who painted anti-Assad slogans on a wall.
Govt. troops opened fire which encouraged more people to join in and eventually the protests went nationwide with armed groups forming all over the country and it turned into a fully fledged civil war.
It then morphed into the majority Sunni going against the minority Shia sect which is what Assad belongs to.
Other countries then started to get interested and ISIS and others took an interest and the rest is history.
Russia and Iran have helped Assad and will continue to do so but the start of it all was very small scale.

Iraq can be blamed on the west but Syria cannot.

But if ISIS can be blamed on our involvement in Iraq then their involvement ( perhaps even existence and certainly strength) in Syria, Libya and Iraq must stem from that intervention. Whilst the civil war may not be directly our fault we in the west have a responsibility for the escalation and subsequent direction of and spill over from that conflict.

We even backed the people fighting against Assad until we realised they were worse lunatics than him!

 

[Tetchytyke]

They are currently being really pushed back in the M.E and will probably eventually be crushed in that area but when they've gone another similar group will just take their place.

Agree, and it will probably be the same people reappearing in a new organisation. ISIS' leadership are from Al Qaeda and the Ba'ath Party, both of which were supposedly eradicated in the second Iraq War. And when ISIS are removed from power they'll just reappear again in a new organisation which will do the same things in the same way.

You'll only get rid of them when you turn off the money, most of which comes from the Wahhabis in Saudi Arabia, just as it did for al Qaeda. That'll involve standing up to Saudi Arabia, and I can't see a Western government having the balls to do that.

And yes, anti-Islamic hatred is only going to make things worse. Make people feel excluded and you're just pushing them into the arms of the terrorist brainwashers, who target the excluded and the vulnerable because they're easy to mould into someone prepared to blow themselves up.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

But if ISIS can be blamed on our involvement in Iraq then their involvement in Syria, Libya and Iraq must stem form that intervention.

To an extent, yes. ISIS had the strength to get involved because of what happened in Iraq. Bear in mind that the borders in that part of the world were drawn up by colonialists with a ruler after WWI, and so political power doesn't always follow the borders of countries.

We even backed the people fighting against Assad until we realised they were worse lunatics than him!

I bet David Cameron is glad he lost the vote to fight alongside ISIS the rebels.

The main issue is that we're not prepared to stand up to people we consider our allies. ISIS' money comes from Saudi Arabia, just as Al Qaeda's did, but we do nothing to stop it. The Kurds are the people suffering the most from the civil war in Syria- both ISIS and Assad hate them- but Turkey consider the PKK to be terrorists, so we're basically leaving them to their fate.

 

[Johnuk123]

But if ISIS can be blamed on our involvement in Iraq then their involvement ( perhaps even existence and certainly strength) in Syria, Libya and Iraq must stem from that intervention. Whilst the civil war may not be directly our fault we in the west have a responsibility for the escalation and subsequent direction of and spill over from that conflict.

We even backed the people fighting against Assad until we realised they were worse lunatics than him!

I wouldn't argue with that at all.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

You'll only get rid of them when you turn off the money, most of which comes from the Wahhabis in Saudi Arabia, just as it did for al Qaeda. That'll involve standing up to Saudi Arabia, and I can't see a Western government having the balls to do that.

I think the only way that will happen is if the US do it first which is more likely now they don't depend on the oil so much.It will take a change of president though because the present one won't do anything he's just winding down.
Certainly Saudi Arabia is the problem.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

I bet David Cameron is glad he lost the vote to fight alongside ISIS the rebels.

I am waiting for "kind Uncle Jeremy" to come out and say that his recent comments were deliberately understood by the right-wingers and he will let the RAF and the SAS have as many snowballs to hurl at ISIL as they need...

 

[DynamicSpirit]

There have been many reports about ISIS desperately trying to buy nuclear material with the vast amount of cash they have, I wonder how many countries will think now is a good time to get rid of nuclear weapons.

If that's true, then it's a significant concern, and gives us another reason to prioritize defeating ISIS.

But as far as I can see that has very little relevance to whether we should have nuclear weapons. The only way ISIS are going to be defeated is with troops on the ground taking back the territory that ISIS currently control. There's no practical way to use nuclear weapons against ISIS for the obvious reasons that (a) almost all the casualties from using nuclear weapons would be those unfortunate innocent civilians who happen to live in the area, and (b) using them would make the West so unpopular that it would become much easier for new terrorist groups to get support - which (c) is almost exactly what ISIS would probably want anyway. The conclusion is obvious: Even against a group like ISIS, our nuclear weapons are basically useless, and the money spent on them is therefore largely wasted. Far better to spend that money on conventional forces - such as stopping all the cuts in the army - where that money would be useful.

 

[Hornet]

Certainly Saudi Arabia is the problem.

No, they cannot be the problem. They are defenders of Human Rights. They chair the UN Human Rights Council, and the UK supported it.

"Britain conducted secret vote-trading deals with Saudi Arabia to ensure both states were elected to the UN human rights council (UNHRC), according to leaked diplomatic cables.

The elevation of the Saudi kingdom to one of the UN’s most influential bodies in 2013 prompted fresh international criticism of its human rights record.

This week, a new diplomatic row has erupted over a Shia activist, Ali Mohammed al-Nimr, who faces death by crucifixion after being convicted at the age of 17 of joining an anti-government demonstration.

Riyadh has sanctioned more than a hundred beheadings so far this year – more, it is claimed, than Islamic State.

The Saudi foreign ministry files, passed to Wikileaks in June, refer to talks with British diplomats ahead of the November 2013 vote in New York. The documents have now been been translated by the organisation UN Watch – a Geneva-based non-governmental human rights organisation that scrutinises the world body – and newspaper the Australian.

The classified exchanges, the paper said, suggest that the UK initiated the secret negotiations by asking Saudi Arabia for its support. Both countries were eventually elected to the UNHRC, which has 47 member states."

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...n-secret-deal-over-human-rights-council-place

http://blog.unwatch.org/index.php/2...d-to-behead-of-un-human-rights-council-panel/

Honestly, you could not make this up!:roll:

 

[ainsworth74]

If that's true, then it's a significant concern, and gives us another reason to prioritize defeating ISIS.

I've been of the opinion for a while now that it is only a matter of time before an Islamic Extremist group get their hands on either a weapon or at least nuclear material suffient to make a dirty bomb. The collapse of the Soviet Union was very dangerous in that regard and I believe there are some weapons that are still unaccounted for (most likely just in a bunker somewhere because trying to keep track of nearly 50,000 weapons at the same time as your nation collaspes is quite hard but of course maybe they're not in a bunker in darkest Sibera).

But as far as I can see that has very little relevance to whether we should have nuclear weapons.

Indeed as ISIS and other terrorist organisations (such as the IRA who were not deterred by Polaris or our other nuclear weapons which we had back then) are not the intended target of the nuclear deterrent.

 

[DarloRich]

Indeed as ISIS and other terrorist organisations (such as the IRA who were not deterred by Polaris or our other nuclear weapons which we had back then) are not the intended target of the nuclear deterrent.

Although if they become a "state" they would be!

 

[Tetchytyke]

I've been of the opinion for a while now that it is only a matter of time before an Islamic Extremist group get their hands on either a weapon or at least nuclear material suffient to make a dirty bomb

That would require a level of funding, knowledge and technology that is beyond anything we've seen any other terrorist organisation have before. I think it's clear that ISIS have the money but I'm not convinced they'd be able to get their hands on the knowledge or, more importantly, the technology required. It's a bit more complicated that strapping some uranium into a box of Semtex. The only Islamic country that would be anywhere near the technological advancement required would be Iran, and they're clearly on the side of Assad.

I know some believe that the Japanese doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo (the ones who released Sarin into the Tokyo Metro) detonated a nuclear device in Australia in 1997, and they had ex-KGB scientists in their fold, so it's perfectly possible. I just don't think that it's the biggest fear we should have from any terrorist organisation. Conventional weapons are messy enough.

I'd be more worried about an attack on a nuclear power plant with conventional weapons, to be completely honest. I'm not always entirely comfortable living in the blast zones from Sellafield, Torness and Hartlepool...

 

[Aldaniti]

If anyone can accurately predict the geopolitical state of the world for the next 25 years (both state, organisational and individual), and that it would not require the use of our nuclear forces as a deterrent, I will happily conceded that we do not need them.

Until then.....

 

[WelshBluebird]

Regarding Triedent, my opinion is simply that I cannot see any situation at all where we would actually use our nuclear weapons, and every other state, organisation and individual knows that and so I don't see how it actually acts as a deterrent either.

If anyone can accurately predict the geopolitical state of the world for the next 25 years (both state, organisational and individual), and that it would not require the use of our nuclear forces as a deterrent, I will happily conceded that we do not need them.

Until then.....

 

[Antman]

Now been confirmed an "ambulance" full of explosives was found by police near to the Hannover stadium this evening.

Confirmed by whom? There are conflicting reports about this

 

[Bletchleyite]

Confirmed by whom? There are conflicting reports about this

BBC and CNN say nothing was found, just a "credible threat".

 

[ainsworth74]

That would require a level of funding, knowledge and technology that is beyond anything we've seen any other terrorist organisation have before. I think it's clear that ISIS have the money but I'm not convinced they'd be able to get their hands on the knowledge or, more importantly, the technology required. It's a bit more complicated that strapping some uranium into a box of Semtex. The only Islamic country that would be anywhere near the technological advancement required would be Iran, and they're clearly on the side of Assad.

That would be true if I was meaning making a nuclear weapon and I agree I don't think Daesh are running or likely to run their own Manhattan Project any time soon (though if they managed to secure some weapons grade Uranium making a gun-type fission weapon wouldn't be too hard).

I was talking about the risk of them getting hold of a functional weapon (how secure are Pakistan's nuclear weapons for example) or creating a dirty bomb which basically is taking nuclear material and strapping to an explosive. It doesn't create a nuclear yield but will spread radioactivity and with that fear and panic (they aren't actually that deadly in terms of their radioactivity) as well as necessitating an expensive and possibly complex clean up operation.

I just don't think that it's the biggest fear we should have from any terrorist organisation.

Didn't suggest it should be but I remained convinced it's only a matter of time.

Conventional weapons are messy enough.

Very true.

I'd be more worried about an attack on a nuclear power plant with conventional weapons, to be completely honest. I'm not always entirely comfortable living in the blast zones from Sellafield, Torness and Hartlepool...

They're pretty tough plus you'd struggle to make one of them detonate with a nuclear yield (AGR type reactors such as Hartlepool don't use Plutonium or weapons grade Uranium). Also I'd imagine people who are paid to think about things like this will have spent at least a little bit of time working out how to respond, rapidly, to such a threat.

I wouldn't be losing sleep over it just yet

Regarding Triedent, my opinion is simply that I cannot see any situation at all where we would actually use our nuclear weapons, and every other state, organisation and individual knows that and so I don't see how it actually acts as a deterrent either.

Are you willing to bet your life and the lives of potentially millions of your own citizens and your countries continued existence on that? The reality is we might never use it even if we were attacked but no one can truly be sure.

 

[Tetchytyke]

If anyone can accurately predict the geopolitical state of the world for the next 25 years (both state, organisational and individual), and that it would not require the use of our nuclear forces as a deterrent, I will happily conceded that we do not need them.

The thing with a nuclear deterrent is that it really isn't much of a deterrent, once you apply the smallest amount of logic to it.

The people who would be scared of retribution wouldn't nuke us just because we don't have nuclear bombs, and equally the people who wouldn't be scared of retribution wouldn't not nuke us just because we do have nuclear bombs. Having a nuclear capability is nothing more than military willy-waving.

The people who'd be put off by nukes will be put off by our conventional weaponry, and the people who wouldn't be put off by our conventional weaponry won't be put off by nukes either.

As it stands, only a psychopath would pre-emptively nuke another country, which means that if we're in the situation of firing our nukes either we have a psychopath running the military, in which case we'll probably get nuked in retribution, or someone else has already nuked us. Either way, I'd say we'd have lost.

 

[Johnuk123]

Donald Trump has said he'll have a plan to defeat ISIS within 100 days of being elected and will definitely use nuclear weapons on ISIS areas.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Donald Trump has said he'll have a plan to defeat ISIS within 100 days of being elected and will definitely use nuclear weapons on ISIS areas.

As I was saying, only a psychopath would pre-emptively nuke someone...

 

[ExRes]

If Trump becomes US President then I just hope Captain Scarlet and Thunderbirds come to our rescue as soon as possible

 

[Bletchleyite]

Donald Trump has said he'll have a plan to defeat ISIS within 100 days of being elected and will definitely use nuclear weapons on ISIS areas.

What a total nutter. Unfortunately, the US electorate has a bad habit of voting for nutters.