Terror attack Halle Germany - 2 dead

[pieter]

NEWS/GERMANY


Fatal shooting at German synagogue

Police take one person into custody but ask locals to remain vigilant for other suspects.

2 hours ago



A shooting in the eastern German city of Halle has left at least two people dead. Another two are thought to be seriously wounded in hospital.

One person was detained by police following the attack, which German media said took place outside a synagogue during Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar.

"Our forces have detained one person," the Halle police wrote in a tweet. "We remain alert, however. We have deployed forces in and around Halle and are trying to stabilise the situation until we have all the relevant information."

Bild, a German daily, reported a gunman opened fire with an automatic weapon and lobbed a hand grenade into a nearby cemetery. Police have not yet confirmed details of the attack, but federal anti-terrorism agents are taking over the investigation, it has emerged.

The head of Halle's Jewish community, Max Privorotzki, told news magazine Der Spiegel there were 70 or 80 people inside the synagogue and security outside when the shooting occurred.

Synagogues are often protected by police in Germany, and police in two other eastern cities, Dresden and Leipzig, stepped up security at synagogues there after the shooting in Halle.

Another shooting was reported in the town of Landsberg, 15km (nine miles) away, but it has not been confirmed if the two are linked. The mayor of Landsberg said two people suspected of carrying out a deadly shooting attack in the area had hijacked a car and were on a motorway that leads to Munich.



The central train station in Halle has been closed while the area is under lockdown, rail company Deutsche Bahn said.

Eyewitness Konrad Roesler told news channel NTV he was in a Turkish restaurant about 600 metres from the synagogue when "a man wearing a helmet and military uniform" flung a hand grenade at the store.

"The grenade hit the door and exploded," he said.

"[The attacker] shot at least once in the shop, the man behind me must be dead. I hid in the toilet and locked the door."

Speaking to NTV, a police spokesman said the motive of the suspect or suspects was not clear.

"We don't have any indication about the motive of this act."

Wednesday's shootings came three months after the shocking assassination-style murder of local pro-migrant politician Walter Luebcke in the western city of Kassel, allegedly by a known neo-Nazi.

Luebcke's killing has deeply shaken Germany, raising questions about whether it has failed to take seriously a rising threat from right-wing extremists.

Investigators have been probing the extent of suspect Stephan Ernst's neo-Nazi ties and whether he had links to the far-right militant cell National Socialist Underground (NSU).

Interior Minister Horst Seehofer last month warned of the rising danger of the militant far right, calling it "as big a threat as radical Islamism".

Seehofer said that police had uncovered 1,091 weapons including firearms and explosives during probes of crimes linked to the far right last year, far more than in 2017 when 676 were found.

At the same time, Germany has also been on high alert following several attacks in recent years claimed by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant group.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES

[pieter]

German Live report

[pieter]

[pieter]

[pieter]

It is very worrisome that on Continental European ground extremist groups from the extreme right, extreme left and Islamist Jihadist Salafist side commit terror attacks against civilians, police officers and military personel. Extreme rightwing Neo-Nazi terrorism unfortunately is present in Europe in Norway, Germany (The National Socialist Underground (NSU) and the present day attack in Halle), Great Britain (Combat 18), Northern Ireland (links between Neo-Nazi circles and Ulster Loyalist Para-military terrorist groups like UVF and the UDF).



Combat 18 (C18 or 318) is a neo-Nazi terrorist organization that was founded in 1992. It originated in the United Kingdom, with ties to movements in Canada and the United States, and since its founding, it has spread to other countries such as Germany. Combat 18 members have been suspected in the deaths of numerous immigrants, non-whites, and other C18 members.



An alleged member of the German branch of Combat 18 named Stephen Ernst is the suspect in the case of the murdered local politician Walter Lübcke of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany. Since then, Federal Minister of the Interior Horst Seehofer announced his intention to ban the organisation in Germany, but as of September 2019 no legislation has been passed to that end.





Blood & Honour is a neo-Nazi music promotion network and political group founded in the United Kingdom in 1987. Founded by Ian Stuart Donaldson and Nicky Crane, it is composed of White Nationalists and has links to Combat 18. The group organizes White power concerts by Rock Against Communism (RAC) bands and distributes a magazine of the same name.

Blood & Honour took its name from the motto of the Hitler-Jugend, or HJ, Blut und Ehre, and a song of the same name by the White power band Skrewdriver. Sometimes the code 28 is used to represent Blood & Honour, derived from the second and eighth letters of the Latin alphabet, B and H. Though different national chapters of Blood & Honour use different Nationalist symbols based on their location, common symbolic traits include the usage of a modernised Blackletter script, colours of the Nazi German flag, and other Nazi symbolism, including the Totenkopf Death's Head insignia of the SS-Totenkopfverbände and concentration camp units and AWB-style triskele (AWB is the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging, the Afrikaner Resistance Movement, a South African neo-Nazi separatist political and paramilitary organisation, often described as a White Supremacist group.)


Meeting of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB) in South Africa. Blood & Honour uses the AWB symbol, the triskele.

There are official divisions in several countries. In the United States, two rival groups claim the name: Blood and Honour Council USA and Blood and Honour America Division.

Blood & Honour is banned in several countries. Germany outlawed it in 2000, Spain in 2011, and Russia in 2012. In 2019, the government of Canada placed Blood & Honor on its list of designated terrorist groups.

[pieter]

[karl]

Pieter

A very sensitive presetation I must say at a very sensitive time. For yes, over time as in past, Jewish areas such as neighbourhoods, Synagogues were the most safe areas to be around. In as much, this is a trap for incursion of such problem groups as of these various groups you have so mentioned. For as being so quite over time, so goes in the police mind set that to rotate those offices to re-assign them to other areas of need for their services.

For as above, is the trap to be sprung by such wolves in waiting as these various Neo Nazi groups and their variations of the simular mind set.

Now they {Polizei} are asking the public to do what they are not doing, and that is placing early surveillancce on such hot spots with their patrols. This is an indication of a basic problem, for civilians do not show Police presence with only their presence.

For as a cause and effect, this will surely be a fan hit with the smelly stuff.

Karl