On Difficulties Of Preventative Law Enforcement Against Terrorism

Posted: 11/1/2015

Trigger

Recently read Doch kein Anschlag auf Radrennen geplant? Ende April wurde ein mutmaßliches Islamisten-Ehepaar in Oberursel festgenommen, weil es einen Anschlag geplant haben soll. Jetzt ist gegen den Mann Anklage erhoben worden - um das Radrennen rund um Frankfurt am 1. Mai ging es offenbar aber nicht. This article describes a German police investigation into the planned bomb attack earlier this year (Spring 2015) of an allegedly islamist couple that lived near Frankfurt at Main River in Germany.

The news article’s headline already expresses how difficult the investigation were by suggesting that the even target of the planned bomb attack was not established.

On The Difficulties

1. Authorities in Germany had unspecified intelligence about the planned bomb attack and based on this information a major, popular bike race was cancelled on a short-notice
2. The suspect were a 35 years old German man, who immigrated from Turkey, and his wife (34 years old)
3. The investigations against his wife were stopped after about two months into it and she was released for lack of evidence
4. The suspect male was previously known for some time as belonging to an islamist-radical organization, but the suspect was deemed harmless by police until the couple purchased the hydrogen peroxide
5. The couple purchased 3 liters of hydrogen peroxide from a Home Depot like store, but a staff of that store became suspicious and reported this sale to authorities
6. In the apartment of the couple, law enforcement found a prepared simple nails and bearing balls bomb that had a detonator attached to it. Other bomb making chemicals were found and a stash of 24,000 Euros. In addition, various parts of weapons were found in the apartment, but not assembled or operable weapon
7. However, some of the chemicals were dual use chemicals
8. The couple claimed they purchased the hydrogen peroxide to fight mold in their apartment. The wife alleged she had no knowledge of dangerous chemicals stored in the cellar belonging to the apartment (frequently e.g. German rental apartments come with a cellar storage room/area in the basement of the house)
9. The prosecutor failed to contradict these assertions by the couple and had to release the wife
10. Law enforcement specialists thought the bomb found in the apartment was of inferior quality or even defective. The specialists were unable to determine when the bomb was made
11. A witness for the husband suspect came forward to claim he and the suspect had build such bombs in years past to pry open cigarette vending machines to steal money

Questions & Comments

1. From a suspicious mind vantage point, this couple acted extremely clever and was presumably well trained to avoid successful prosecution. This case would be a far different from previous suicide bombers attacking or other islamist attacks on European cities
2. It is surprising that the prosecutor failed to make a case against the wife, but the article is not detailed enough nor do we know all the circumstances leading up to the prosecutor's decision
3. Did the authorities overreact to cancel the bike race? It seems so, unless e.g. there was intelligence that perhaps a second terrorist team was targeting this event
4. Did the police make the mistake to intervene too early instead of first surveilling the suspect couple? It seems so!
5. We will probably never find out what this couple really was up to!