RUTHFULLY YOURS

Despite the mounting human toll, most of the crimes are still being downplayed by German authorities and the media, apparently to avoid fueling anti-immigration sentiments.

“The police are not interested in stigmatizing but rather in educating the public. The impression that we are engaging in censorship is devastating to the public’s confidence in the police. Sharing information about suspects is also important for developing prevention strategies. We must be allowed to talk openly about the problems of this country.” — Arnold Plickert, director of the GdP Police Union in North Rhine-Westphalia.

“The Press Council believes that editorial offices in Germany should ultimately treat their readers like children by depriving them of relevant information. We think this is wrong because when people realize that something is being concealed from them, they react with mistrust. And this mistrust is a hazard.” — Tanit Koch, editor-in-chief of Bild, the most-read newspaper in Germany.

On October 24, a YouGov poll found that 68% of Germans believe that security in the country has deteriorated over the past two or three years. Also, 68% of respondents said they fear for their lives and property in German train stations and subways, while 63% feel unsafe at large public events.

A group of Serbian teenagers in the northern German city of Hamburg were handed suspended sentences for gang-raping a 14-year-old girl and leaving her for dead in sub-zero temperatures.

The judge said that although “the penalties may seem mild to the public,” the teens had all made confessions, appeared remorseful and longer posed a danger to society.

The October 24 ruling, which effectively allowed the rapists to walk free, provoked a rare moment of public outrage over the problem of migrant sex crimes in Germany. An online petition calling for the teens to see time in prison has garnered more than 80,000 signatures, and prosecutors are appealing the verdict.

Thousands of women and children have been raped or sexually assaulted in Germany since Chancellor Angela Merkel welcomed into the country more than one million mostly male migrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

Erdogan fights anyone and anything outside the sphere of his understanding of Sunni Islamism. His arguments typically reflect an Islamist’s angry inner thoughts, feelings of “defeat against the non-Muslim West” and a “powerful urge to reverse the world order in favor of political Islam.”

Erdogan is not honest even when he insists on a Muslim contingent in the UN Security Council. He would be angry if the UN, as he passionately suggests, agreed on a Muslim seat and gave it to Shiite Iran. No, he wants a Sunni seat.

That is at the core of Erdogan’s not-so-silent (and never-ending) war with the West: (Sunni) Muslim nations should be deciding on matters shaping world politics, not others.

Erdogan’s Turkey is a solitary nation. It does not belong to Europe, hence its failure to join the EU. Theoretically it is a NATO ally and a “strategic partner” of the US. In reality, it is hostile to Western civilization and the US is only a tactical partner — as long as it helps Islamists advance their political ambitions, not a partner with shared democratic values.

It is true that the worst enemy of Turkey’s Islamist President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is another Islamist who was Erdogan’s best political ally for several years. It is also true that Erdogan, publicly or privately, feels hostility against a number of Muslim communities in the Middle East, including secular and Alevi Muslims in Turkey, the Nusairi (Alawites) in Syria and the Shiite in Iran, Lebanon and Bahrain.

It is not a secret, either, that Erdogan does not admire Jews, to put it mildly. But essentially, his strict adherence to political Islam often reveals his war of domination with non-Muslim Western civilization in a broader context. Erdogan fights anyone and anything outside the sphere of his understanding of Sunni Islamism.

Tunisia has arrested two American brothers on charges that they were planning a terror attack while in the Mediterranean country.

According to TunisiaLive, the unnamed brothers are from Michigan, are 32 and 33 years old and were renting a house in Jendouba, a city on the northwest side of the country near the Algerian border. Local residents became suspicious of the pair and contacted authorities, the news site said.

A spokesman for Tunisia’s Ministry of Interior said the brothers told police they were studying computer science at the University of Jendouba, but that was doubted as they “were heavily bearded, unwashed and living in poor conditions.”

One is said to have entered into an urfi, or Islamic union not registered with the state, with a Tunisian girl, who was arrested in Tunis today. A security official told Reuters that she had traveled to Syria.

MosaiqueFM reported that the brothers were recent converts to Islam and admitted to investigators that they wanted to “apply the Sharia.” Jihadist materials and plans were reportedly discovered when cops raided their home. Nessma TV reported that those plans outlined intentions to “blow up a number of institutions.” An official told Reuters that the jihadist materials included videos and photos praising ISIS.

Tube workers in London found a bomb on an underground train Thursday, prompting the government to raise the threat level in the city to “severe.” The device didn’t detonate and no one was injured, but the incident is a reminder that Britain’s vulnerability to terrorism is increasing even as—or because—Islamic State now finds itself on the defensive in Iraq and Syria.

Police the next day detained a 19-year-old man on suspicion of plotting terrorism, although he hasn’t been charged. A search of a house in Devon in connection with the case turned up a second improvised explosive device on Saturday. Police later determined it would have been a dud, which is hardly cause for reassurance.

The heightened threat climate prompted International Development Minister Rory Stewart to warn on Sunday that Britain could face fresh attacks from Islamic State if the group tries to take revenge in Europe for its setbacks in Mosul and elsewhere. Islamic State has encouraged such retaliatory attacks in the past, targeting France in particular over its participation in air strikes. The U.K. is among the Western nations backing the Iraqi effort to liberate Mosul.

Britain has been fortunate to avoid a mass-casualty attack since the 7/7 bombings of 2005, but Theresa May can’t afford complacency.

The Prime Minister developed a good track record on antiterror policing and surveillance as David Cameron’s Home Secretary. She could enhance that record by insisting that immigrants assimilate British values, and by further enhancing the surveillance capabilities of the police and domestic intelligence service. More defense spending will also be necessary to revive the U.K.’s atrophied expeditionary capabilities for counterinsurgency and counterterror missions. CONTINUE AT SITE