PROJECT DIAMOND BEGINS WHERE PINK PANTHER LEFT OFF

Europol hosts international conference on jewellery robbery and burglary.

19 January 2017

Press Release

This week Europol organised, together with Austria and Switzerland, the first international conference on jewellery robbery and burglary under a new umbrella project entitled ‘Diamond’.

Hosted at Europol’s headquarters in The Hague, the event brought together more than 70 experts from almost all EU Member States, as well as third parties from Europe, Asia, the Americas, Eurojust and private jewellery/watch companies.

‘Diamond’ was initially composed as a follow-up project to Interpol’s ‘Pink Panther’ project, which ended in 2016. The ‘Pink Panther’ project focussed only on robberies committed by perpetrators from the Western Balkans. Diamond, however, will even extend its focus, which will not only include criminal networks involved in jewellery robberies, including burglaries, from Europe but also from the Baltic Sea and Western Black Sea areas.

Europol’s Head of Serious and Organised Crime, Michael Rauschenbach, highlighted: “Criminals are becoming more inventive, as well as using technology to their advantage to carry out the most daring robberies and burglaries, as we have seen in the case of the ‘Pink Panther thieves’. Europol is committed to staying one step ahead of them by capitalising on our resources to ensure that their deeds do not go unpunished. Our success also depends on inter-agency cooperation and we are pleased that we could bring together so many experts from Europe and beyond to serve one common purpose – making Europe a safer place for the benefit of our citizens.”

Currently, the EU is facing a returning trend in jewellery robbery and burglary. Individuals from South America, in particular, have been travelling to Europe to rob jewellery stores. The new trend in this area is that criminals are becoming more violent and using heavy vehicles to drive into jewellery stores. This modus operandi is of great concern for Europol, as it could endanger the life of customers and staff members present in the stores.

Therefore, one of the objectives of the conference was to expand the existing network of experts created by the ‘Pink Panther’ Project. In addition, conference participants exchanged views on the necessary tools required to fight jewellery robbery and burglary.

Europol already holds a series of state-of-the-art information gathering and exchange tools that can be used to fight the criminal rings involved. These include:

- Secure Information Exchange Network Application (SIENA)
- Europol Platform for Experts (EPE)
- Europol Information System (EIS)
- Europol Analysis System (EAS)

To this end, Europol intends to establish an early warning system, as well as a single point of information gathering dedicated to tracking stolen watches and jewellery. In addition, Europol plans to increase the number of strategic analysis and situational reports it produces, and expects to further implement operational data systems in this particular area. Another development relates to the fact that there will be closer cooperation with the private sector to tackle this criminal activity.

Background information

The conference was attended by participants from the following EU Member States: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Non-EU countries: Albania, Colombia, former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Japan, Moldova, Norway, Serbia, Switzerland and the USA.

Project ‘Pink Panther’ was initiated by Interpol in 2007 to help law enforcement across the globe apprehend members of the Pink Panthers international network of jewellery thieves, originating from the Western Balkans. Between 1999 and 2015 the criminals are thought to have carried out approximately 380 armed robberies, valued at EUR 334 million, targeting high-end jewellery stores. The project facilitated information gathering, exchange and analysis, and founded a network of investigators, all of which proved to be crucial in identifying this highly-skilled criminal network.

ISIS leader gives ultimatum to foreign fighters in Mosul to return home or carry out suicide attacks.

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS, has put an ultimatum on foreign fighters to either return home or conduct suicide attacks against Iraqi forces in Mosul with the promise of going to heaven and being rewarded with 72 virgins, a local source in Nineveh province told Al-Sumaria News on Monday.

ISIS are known to execute fighters who try to leave the terrorist group.

It is assumed that their encouragement to return to their home countries would be to carry out attacks or start their own insurgencies.

Trump, Israel, and the American Jewish Community

Donald Trump with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Trump Tower
in New York on September 25, 2016

INSS Insight No. 890, January 19, 2017
Ari Heistein

Donald Trump’s victory, which surprised the media and pollsters alike, has created a great deal of uncertainty for both the American people and their allies in Israel. Many in Jerusalem see the Trump administration as an opportunity to restore the special relationship between Israel and the United States, its most important and irreplaceable ally. At the same time, many of their American coreligionists are worried about the negative consequences of Trump’s victory: the zeitgeist he has cultivated, threats to their safety, and the standing of minorities in the US in general, and Jews in the US in particular. If the incoming administration pursues a different strategy from the one it took on the campaign trail and chooses to bridge gaps among the American people, it could also help bridge a potentially widening gap between the American Jewish community and Israel.

While Israel’s right wing politicians were busy celebrating Donald Trump’s electoral victory, much of the American Jewish community expressed profound concern. Over the course of his campaign, Trump said a great deal that appealed to Israel’s right: he threatened to sink an Iranian gunboat, emphasized the need to take a tough stance against radical Islamic terror, and declared that West Bank settlements were not an obstacle to peace. At the same time, the rebellion he led against political correctness fostered an environment condoning xenophobia and hate speech; Trump himself made anti-immigrant statements and chose not to condemn such sentiments and expressions among his supporters. Should the Trump administration fail to condemn hate speech and incitement, in particular rhetoric that is anti-Semitic in nature, while at the same time fulfilling its promise to strengthen ties with Israel, it will likely become a point of contention in the relationship between the American Jewish community and Israel.

Concerns of American Jews about the rise in xenophobia and hate speech that accompanied Trump’s meteoric rise in politics proved justified. On the eve of the elections, the Trump campaign released an election advertisement that presented three powerful Jewish people and used typical anti-Semitic tropes like “global special interests” and “those who control the levers of power” to describe them, prompting the Washington Post headline “Anti-Semitism is No Longer the Undertone of the Trump’s Campaign. It’s the Melody.” Shortly after declaring victory, President Trump appointed his campaign’s CEO and former editor of Breitbart News Steve Bannon as his future administration’s chief strategist. Breitbart is infamous for running articles that reject political correctness, including articles that referred to conservative commentator Bill Kristol as a “renegade Jew,” and Bannon’s ex-wife testified that he made anti-Semitic comments in his personal life as well. Although it is unknown whether Trump and his chief strategist personally espouse anti-Semitic beliefs, it is notable that neither has condemned anti-Semitic sentiments with anything approaching the ferocity with which they attacked Trump antagonists.

Some have tried to allay the American Jewish community’s concerns by pointing to the Trump campaign’s pro-Israel statements. Indeed, Trump’s advisors on Israel, David Friedman and Jason Greenblatt, did not miss an opportunity to demonstrate that the views of the Republican candidate were in-line with those of the government of Israel. A week before the elections, Friedman and Greenblatt released a statement declaring that, if elected, Trump would move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, take action to contain Iran, and defend Israel’s standing in the international arena against BDS and delegitimization efforts. However, support for Israel does not relieve Trump of the need to decry hate speech against all Americans, including Jews. This imperative is particularly urgent, as the Anti-Defamation League 2016 report shows a clear positive correlation between the Trump campaign’s failure to renounce anti-Semitism among his supporters and an increase in online harassment of Jewish Americans.

The Jewish communities in Israel and the US, which constitute about 80 percent of the world’s Jewish population, are already tested by their divisions over religion and politics. The policies of Israel’s Orthodox state rabbinate to attack non-Orthodox institutions and reject their legitimacy regarding personal status laws (conversion, marriage, divorce, etc.) as well as worship at the Western Wall have been the cause of much frustration among the ideologically diverse American Jewish community (only about 10 percent identify as Orthodox, and about half identify as Conservative or Reform, which are not recognized by the Rabbinate of Israel as legitimate institutions for determined issues of personal status).

There are also significant gaps between the US and Israeli Jewish communities in attitudes relating to politics. While according to a 2013 PEW survey 49 percent of US Jews describe themselves as liberal, only 8 percent of Israelis identify similarly, according to a poll conducted in 2016. These differences became more pronounced in the Obama years, given the tensions between Obama, who won the vast majority of the American Jewish vote, and Prime Minister Netanyahu in the context of dramatic changes in the region. These developments included the collapse of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process led by Secretary of State John Kerry, as well as the nuclear deal between Iran and the P5+1. The majority of Jews in America and Israel find themselves on opposite sides regarding those issues.

The different environments of the respective communities undoubtedly play a major role in shaping the fundamentally different religious and political values that they hold. In the US, Jews are a small minority among a large Christian majority, and therefore it is not surprising that a large percentage espouse liberal values such as protecting the rights of minorities and political correctness. In contrast, Jews in Israel constitute the vast majority and their religious identity is a source of shared identity rather than a factor that causes them to feel any difference or alienation. In addition, security concerns and the strong influence of the military in society have often cast typical liberal values aside. The growing hate speech and incitement towards foreigners and minorities evident after Trump's victory may well distance the US Jewish community from the incoming administration, at the same time that the incoming President's pro-Israel positions could lead to closer ties between Jerusalem and Washington. These different attitudes toward the Trump presidency, within the context of preexisting tensions, could easily deepen the divide between American Jewry and Israel.

Furthermore, surveys indicate that the younger generation in the United States, Jews and non-Jews alike, supports Israel less than its predecessors did. According to a recent report by Philip Gordon and Robert Blackwill, "Younger Americans—those born after 1980—are markedly less supportive of Israel than previous generations." This diminished sympathy is likely the result of numerous factors that will deepen over time, including growing historical distance from the Holocaust and Israel's transformation from a "David" into a "(regional) Goliath." The opinions of young Jewish Americans (18-29) are not detached from overall trends in the US, evident in the fact that they are more than twice as likely than the preceding generation (30-49) to state the US is "too supportive" of Israel, at 25 percent and 12 percent, respectively.

Donald Trump’s victory, which surprised the media and pollsters alike, has created a great deal of uncertainty for both the American people and their allies in Israel. Many in Jerusalem see the Trump administration as an opportunity to restore the special relationship between Israel and the United States, its most important and irreplaceable ally. At the same time, many of their American coreligionists are worried about the negative consequences of Trump’s victory: the zeitgeist he has cultivated, threats to their safety, and the standing of minorities in the US in general, and Jews in the US in particular. If the incoming administration pursues a different strategy from the one it took on the campaign trail and chooses to bridge gaps among the American people, it could also help bridge a potentially widening gap between the American Jewish community and Israel.

Waffen für Dschihadisten

Schritte durch eine befreite Stadt:
Bewohner des Viertels Al-Kallasseh in Ostaleppo am 30. Dezember
Foto: EPA/STR/dpa-Bildfunk

Syrien: Nach der Befreiung der Stadt Aleppo wurde dort tonnenweise Kriegsgerät aus den USA und anderen Ländern sichergestellt.

Bei einem Treffen mit einer gemeinsamen Delegation von Abgeordneten des EU-Parlaments und des russischen Parlaments (Duma) am 29. Dezember in Damaskus, hat der syrische Präsident Baschar Al-Assad bekräftigt, dass europäische Länder Syrien erst dann helfen könnten, wenn sie aufhörten, die terroristischen Gruppen in Syrien zu unterstützen. Assad forderte die Aufhebung der EU-Wirtschaftssanktionen gegen sein Land. Europa müsse erkennen, dass eine Lösung nur von den Syrern selber herbeigeführt werden könne.

Ein interner UN-Bericht vom Mai 2016 über die Auswirkungen von EU- und US-Sanktionen auf die humanitäre Hilfe in Syrien, den die Internetplattform The Intercept am 28. September veröffentlicht hatte, kommt zu dem Ergebnis, dass die Strafmaßnahmen wesentlich zum Niedergang des syrischen Gesundheitswesens beigetragen haben.

Der ehemalige britische Botschafter in Syrien Peter Ford sagte in einem Interview mit dem britischen Sender BBC Radio 4 am 23. Dezember, Großbritannien habe in Syrien »von Anfang an alles falsch gemacht«. Die Strategie, keine eigenen Truppen zu entsenden und statt dessen Rebellengruppen zu unterstützen, sei »zum Scheitern verurteilt« gewesen. »Wir haben die Lage verschlimmert«, so Ford. »Für jeden, der nicht mit Wunschdenken vergiftet war«, sei dies »vorhersehbar gewesen«. Großbritannien hatte wie Frankreich, Deutschland und die USA seit dem Frühsommer 2011 die diplomatischen Beziehungen mit der syrischen Regierung zunächst unterbrochen und dann ganz eingestellt. »Sie sagten uns, der Sturz von Assad stehe unmittelbar bevor, sie sagten uns, er werde bis Weihnachten weg sein«, erinnert sich Peter Ford an die damaligen Erklärungen des britischen Außenministeriums. (kl)

Es ist still geworden um Aleppo. Deutsche Medien und die Bundesregierung schweigen dazu, wie es nach der Evakuierung von rund 35.000 Menschen im Osten der Stadt kurz vor Weihnachten weitergegangen ist.

Noch vor knapp zwei Wochen warfen die UN-Botschafter Großbritanniens, Frankreichs und der USA Russland, Syrien und dem Iran vor, bei der Einnahme der östlichen Stadtviertel »Massaker« zu verüben und »Hinrichtungen« vorzunehmen. Aleppo sei das »Synonym für die Hölle« geworden, so der scheidende UN-Generalsekretär Ban Ki Moon. Und die US-Botschafterin Samantha Power verglich das Geschehen in Ostaleppo mit »Halabja, Ruanda, Srebrenica«. Es müsse eine UN-Mission geben, die den Menschen helfen und sie evakuieren könne. Zu dem Zeitpunkt flohen Menschen aus Ostaleppo bereits zu Tausenden in den von der Regierung kontrollierten Westen der Stadt.

Ganz still wurden die westlichen UN-Botschafter aber, als der syrische Geschäftsmann und Parlamentsabgeordnete, Faris Shehabi, auf seiner Facebook-Seite die Namen von 14 ausländischen Militär- und Geheimdienstoffizieren nannte, die in Ostaleppo ausfindig gemacht und festgenommen worden seien. Die Männer seien aus der Türkei, USA, Israel, Marokko, Jordanien, Katar und Saudi-Arabien, so Shehabi. Unmittelbar danach einigte man sich im UN-Sicherheitsrat fast stillschweigend auf eine UN-Mission, die die Evakuierung derjenigen kontrollieren sollte, die nach Idlib oder in die Türkei gebracht werden wollten.

Das Internationale Komitee vom Roten Kreuz (IKRK) und der Syrische Arabische Rote Halbmond (SARC) waren zu diesem Zeitpunkt schon seit Tagen an der Seite der Menschen in Ostaleppo gewesen. Nach Idlib und in die Türkei wurden schließlich 35.000 Menschen evakuiert. Darunter waren 4.000 Kämpfer, deren Angehörige, Verletzte und Unterstützer. Mit den letzten Bussen hätten ausländische Geheimdienstoffiziere und Militärs den Osten von Aleppo verlassen, berichtete der libanesische Sender Al-Mayadeen. Westliche Medien schwiegen ebenso wie die syrische Regierung und deren Verbündete.

Im US-Internetportal Veterans Today (»Veteranen heute«), das nach eigenen Angaben »die Position von Mitgliedern der militärischen Gemeinde und von Veteranen aus dem Bereich der nationalen Sicherheit, geopolitischen Stabilität und Innenpolitik vertritt«, war am 17. Dezember zu lesen, dass die genannten 14 Namen vermutlich falsche Identitäten gewesen seien. Veterans Today bezieht sich dabei auf einen Artikel des Internetportals Southfront. Es sei »gängige Praxis, falsche Identitäten zu benutzen, wenn man in einer geheimen Operation diene«, heißt es dort im Beitrag eines Autors namens »Gordon«. Auch Southfront steht vermutlich Geheimdienstkreisen nah und bietet nach eigenen Angaben »mit einem Expertenteam aus allen vier Ecken der Erde (….) Analyse und Aufklärung über militärische Operationen und die militärische Position der wichtigsten Weltmächte« an.

Von »eigenen syrischen Quellen« habe Southfront erfahren, dass 128 ausländische Offiziere mit den Kämpfern, Angehörigen und Verletzten aus Ostaleppo evakuiert worden seien. Es habe »eine Vereinbarung zwischen allen beteiligten Parteien« darüber gegeben. Demnach hätten Offiziere aus den USA (22), Großbritannien (16), Frankreich (21), Israel (7) und der Türkei (62) Ostaleppo verlassen. Westliche Medien berichteten darüber nicht, und auch Syrien schwieg.

Was die abziehenden Kämpfer und ausländischen Offiziere zurückließen, wird nun von russischen und syrischen Spezialkräften dokumentiert. Mehr als 14.000 Minen und Sprengfallen wurden entschärft, Tausende selbstgebaute Bomben zusammengetragen. Fundorte waren demnach unter anderem vier Schulen, ein Kindergarten und neun Moscheen. Pioniere der russischen und syrischen Armee fanden Waffenlager, die »randvoll« mit großkalibriger Munition für schwere Waffen – Gewehre, Raketen, Artillerie – gewesen seien. Als Herkunftsländer des Kriegsgeräts nannte der russische Major Iwan Gromow unter anderen die USA, Deutschland und Bulgarien. Außerdem habe man nagelneue 122-mm-Mörsergranaten, Handgranaten und Granatwerfer sowie Raketen für Mehrfachraketenwerfer und Granaten für Haubitzen gefunden, sagte Gromow am 28. Dezember dem Sender Rossija 24. Bilder und Filmaufnahmen wurden verbreitet. Die Herkunft von vielen der Waffen in Originalkisten sei durch Aufkleber erkennbar gewesen, auf denen »Aus den USA für die gegenseitige Verteidigung« gestanden habe.

Auch Massengräber mit Dutzende Leichnamen seien gefunden worden, teilte das russische Verteidigungsministerium am 26. Dezember mit. Die Toten hätten Schusswunden am Kopf, Verstümmlungen und deutliche Spuren von Folter aufgewiesen. Eine Sprecherin der UN-Kommission für Menschenrechte in Genf erklärte, die Kommission prüfe die Angaben.