Killing of Imam Jalal Uddin Shows How Extremism Is Morphing

September 18, 2016 Article

Convicted for the Murder of Imam Jalal Uddin

The brutal killing of Imam Jalal Uddin, a 71 year old respected Imam in Rochdale, by Mohammed Hussain Syeedy throws up an element that is part and parcel of Salafist Jihadist ideology.

Such ideology has been seen to drive the destruction of Muslim shrines in Afghanistan, Timbuktu, Egypt, Iraq and Syria. Shrines, taweez (or worn amulets with Qur’anic inscriptions used to ward off evil) and bowls in which water has been prayed upon for protection of the believer, all represent the spiritual side of Islam, mainly associated with Sufi influences and where spirituality and belief in unseen protections through Allah (God), make up the practices.

Much of this practice has sat side by side with belief in the Qur’an and the Hadith and has come from Islamic interpretations and from a desire for the practical from the spiritual. It has continued in some Muslim communities and through the work of people like the late Imam Uddin. From pirs (holy spiritual men), through to Imams, this work with people suffering mental health or emotional problems continued and with people who just wanted to feel additional spiritual protections. Many continue to visit such pirs or holy spiritual leaders today and this practice, will no doubt continue.

What Does This Murder Highlight?

Yet, this case highlights what many of us have known. That Wahabbism and Salafist ideology has been active in framing such practices as shirk, as though they are practices that are not of Islam but of the pre-Islamic era, known as the jahilliyah or the period of ‘ignorance of the divine’. A trajectory of this thought that has become part of the actions of groups like Daesh or the so-called Islamic State has meant that people who are influenced by IS propaganda will also take up such thinking. This means that practices such as taweez or the use of prayer bowls will be seen as heretical. Shrines or places where Muslims congregate to give prayers to long dead holy men, will also be seen in the eyes of those influenced by Wahabbism and Salafism, as being un-Islamic and subject to destruction.

Yet, we have also seen the systematic destruction of Islamic historical sites by the Wahabbi Saudi Government and which have been documented. This is driven by an ideology that believes that such sites may become places of worship and which therefore seeks to obliterate them and use the sites for other projects. Such is the systematic destruction of Islamic history in the hands of those driven by such ideology. Yet, globally, Muslims have not spoken out against the wholesale destruction of such sites.

This case therefore raises for us all, a red flag. The fact that intra-Muslim hatred and extremism has taken this form means that it may be an indicator of extremist rhetoric. This may not be the case in the vast and overwhelming majority of issues and cases and Salafists should not all be seen as potential extremists or terrorists. That would be disastrous and would be anti-Muslim in nature – where a whole section of Muslims are tarred with the same brush. However, where we should all be concerned is where threats and abuse are openly meted out by individuals against other Muslims suggesting that they are un-Islamic because they believe in taweez or other spiritual practices. If such threats continue and are sustained, at the very least, this should be a red flag for civil society, law enforcement and other agencies.

Imam Jalal Uddin’s death should not be in vain and if his murder can save others, then let us learn from it and not just put it down to another case involving extremism. We cannot simply brush it off like that.

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Categories: Imam Jalal Uddin, Mohammed Hussain Syeedy, News, Quran, Rochdale, Salafism, Taweez, Wahabbism

Gare de Lyon Attack Was on Cards, Say French Police

September 9, 2016 Article

French police investigate an apartment in a residential building, during a police raid in Boussy-Saint-Antoine near Paris, France, September 9, 2016. REUTERS/Christian Hartmann

Three women arrested in connection with a car loaded with gas cylinders found in a side road near Notre Dame cathedral had been planning an attack on a Paris railway station, the French interior ministry said.

“An alert has been issued to all stations but they had planned to attack the Gare de Lyon on Thursday,” a ministry official said on Friday after the arrests overnight.

The Gare de Lyon station is in the southeast of the capital, less than 3 kilometres from the cathedral which marks the centre.

The official also said the youngest of the three women, a 19 year-old whose father was the owner of the car and who was already suspected by police of wanting to go and fight for Islamic State in Syria, had written a letter pledging allegiance to the militant Islamist group.

The discovery on Saturday night of the Peugeot 607 laden with seven gas cylinders, six of them full, triggered a terrorism investigation and revived fears about further attacks in a country where Islamist militants have killed more than 230 people since January, 2015.

Scores of religiously radicalised people of French and other nationalities are in Syria and Iraq fighting for Islamic State. Many of those involved in recent attacks in France have either taken part in the fighting or had plans to.

France is among the countries bombing Islamic State strongholds, and the group has urged supporters to launch more attacks on French soil.

One of the women stabbed a police officer during her arrest before being shot and wounded, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said late on Thursday. Other officials said it was the teenager who attacked the officer.

TV footage showed a policeman leaving the scene of the arrests on the outskirts of Paris carrying a large knife.

Police sources said no detonator had been found in the car, though the vehicle also contained three jerry cans of diesel fuel.

When it was found in the early hours of Sunday morning the car had no registration plates and was left with its hazard lights flashing.

“These three women aged 39, 23 and 19 had been radicalised, were fanatics and were in all likelihood preparing an imminent, violent act,” Cazeneuve said in a televised statement. They bring to seven the number of people detained since Tuesday.

The arrests took place in Boussy-Saint-Antoine, some 30 km (20 miles) south-east of Paris.

The car’s owner was taken into custody earlier this week but later released. He had gone to police on Sunday to report that his daughter had disappeared with his car, officials said.

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Categories: France, Gare de Lyon, gas cylinders, Islamic State, News, Paris, terrorism

Police hold two after car with gas cylinders found in Paris

September 7, 2016 Article

Soldiers patrol in front of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France, November 16, 2015. REUTERS/Charles Platiau/File Photo

A car, whose owner is on an intelligence services watchlist of people suspected of religious radicalisation, was discovered near Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris on Saturday night with seven gas cylinders inside, police and judicial officials said on Wednesday.

The car owner was taken into custody but later released, one judicial official said. A couple, aged 34 and 29, were arrested at a motorway lay-by on Tuesday in southern France in connection with the incident and remained in custody, the official said.

The Peugeot 607, which had no registration plates, contained seven gas cylinders, one of them empty on the front passenger seat, two police officials said.

It was found with its hazard lights flashing, as if to attract attention, they said.

Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said he was waiting for a report from investigators on what the possible motives were for the incident.

There was no detonating device present in the car, found on a Seine riverside stretch called the Quai de Montebello, metres from the Notre-Dame cathedral, one of Paris’s many popular tourist attractions.

Documents with writing in Arabic were also found in the car.

More than 200 people have been killed in terror attacks over the past year-and-a-half in France.

France remains on maximum alert after calls by the Islamic State group for followers to attack the country, which is bombing the militant group’s bases in Iraq and Syria.

Florence Berthout, mayor of Paris’s Fifth Arrondissement (District), said the incident highlighted the need to beef up security and put more police on patrol in one of the world’s most visited cities.

She said the vehicle was left in a zone where parking is strictly prohibited and that it had remained there for around two hours before it came to the attention of police.

“Police and army staffing must be stepped up,” she told news TV channel BFM.

Thousands of extra police and soldiers have been deployed to patrol sensitive sites across France since 130 people were killed by Islamist gunmen and suicide bombers in multiple attacks on Paris last Nov 13.

A state of emergency declared at that time is still in place and gives police extra search and arrest powers but debate still rages over security levels, following a further attack on July 14 in which a man mowed into crowds in the city of Nice, killing 86.

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Categories: gas cylinders, Islamist, News, Paris, terrorism, vehicle

UK Islamist preacher Choudary jailed for five and a half years

September 6, 2016 Article

Anjem Choudary, Britain’s best-known Islamist preacher whose followers have been linked to numerous plots around the world, was sentenced to five years and six months in prison on Tuesday for inviting support for Islamic State, Sky News reported.

Choudary had been convicted previously by a jury at London’s Old Bailey court of using online lectures and messages to encourage support for the banned group which controls large areas of Syria and Iraq.

Notorious in Britain where the tabloids denounce him as a hate preacher, he is also well-known abroad, making regular TV appearances in the wake of attacks by Islamist militants to blame Western foreign policy for targeting Muslims.

Prosecutors said that in postings on social media, Choudary had pledged allegiance to the “caliphate” declared by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and said Muslims had a duty to obey or provide support to him.

Choudary had denied the terrorism charges and claimed the case was politically motivated. He was found guilty after trial in July.

The former head of the now banned organization al-Muhajiroun, Choudary became infamous for praising the men responsible for the 9/11 attacks on the United States and saying he wanted to convert Buckingham Palace into a mosque.

Despite his often controversial comments and refusal to condemn attacks by Islamists such as the 2005 bombings on the London transport system, Choudary has always denied any involvement in militant activity and had never been previously charged with any terrorism offence.

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Categories: Al-Muhajiroun, Anjem Choudary, Daesh, News, Old Bailey, Sentencing

Islamic State leader in charge of foreign attacks killed in Syria

August 30, 2016 Article

IS spokesman and head of external operations Abu Muhammad al-Adnani is pictured in this undated handout photo, courtesy the U.S. Department of State. The United States carried out an air strike in Syria's town of al-Bab targeting a senior Islamic State official, a U.S. defense official told Reuters on August 30, 2016. U.S. Department of State/REUTERS

The Islamic State group announced on Tuesday that one of its longest-serving and most prominent leaders, Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, was killed in Syria, depriving the organization of the man in charge of directing attacks overseas.

A U.S. defence official told Reuters the United States carried out an air strike in the Syrian town of al-Bab against a senior Islamic State member. The official declined to disclose the target and said the operation was still being reviewed.

A senior Syrian rebel official had said earlier that Adnani was most probably killed in al-Bab in Aleppo province.

Adnani had been one of the last living senior members, along with self-appointed caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, that founded the group and stunned the Middle East by seizing huge tracts of Iraq and Syria in 2014.

As Islamic State’s spokesman, Adnani was its most visible member. As head of external operations, he was in charge of attacks overseas, including Europe, that have become an increasingly important tactic for the group as its core Iraqi and Syrian territory has been eroded by military losses.

Advances by Iraq’s army and allied militia towards Islamic State’s most important possession of Mosul have put the group under new pressure at a moment when a U.S.-backed coalition has cut its Syrian holdings off from the Turkish border.

Those military setbacks have been accompanied by air strikes that have killed several of the group’s leaders, undermining its organisational ability and dampening its morale.

A U.S. counter-terrorism official who monitors Islamic State said that Adnani’s death will hurt the militants “in the area that increasingly concerns us as the group loses more and more of its caliphate and its financial base … and turns to mounting and inspiring more attacks in Europe, Southeast Asia and elsewhere”.

Under Adnani’s auspices, Islamic State has launched large-scale attacks, bombings and shootings, on civilians in several countries outside its core area, including France, Belgium and Turkey.

The official said Adnani’s role as propaganda chief and director of external operations have become “indistinguishable” because the group uses its online messages to recruit fighters and provide instruction and inspiration for attacks.

Islamic State’s Amaq News Agency reported that Adnani was killed “while surveying the operations to repel the military campaigns against Aleppo.” Islamic State holds territory in the province of Aleppo, but not in the city where rebels are fighting Syrian government forces.

Amaq did not say how Adnani, born Taha Subhi Falaha in Syria’s Idlib Province in 1977, was killed. Islamic State published a eulogy dated Aug. 29 but gave no further details.

INROADS INTO ISLAMIC STATE

Recent advances by the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, an alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias, and by Syrian rebels backed by Turkey, have made inroads into Islamic State holdings in Aleppo province, cutting them off from the Turkish border and supply lines along it.

Iraqi army advances against the jihadist group mean that Baghdad is on track to retake Mosul from it by the end of this year, the head of the U.S. military’s Central Command General Joseph Votel said earlier on Tuesday.

Among senior Islamic State officials to have been killed in air strikes this year are both Abu Ali al-Anbari, Baghdadi’s formal deputy, and the group’s “minister of war”, Abu Omar al-Shishani. Adnani had joined the group under its founder Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

There are conflicting reports as to where and how he died.

A senior Syrian rebel official said Adnani was most probably killed in the Islamic State-held city of al-Bab in an air strike. Citing unconfirmed reports, he said Adnani was in the Aleppo region to raise morale as the group comes under mounting pressure.

Hisham al-Hashimi, a security analyst who advises the Iraqi government on Islamic State, said Adnani was injured in a coalition strike on Aug. 17 near al-Rai, north of Aleppo, where Islamic State is fighting Turkish and U.S.-backed Syrian rebels.

Hashimi said he died from his wounds on Monday.

Islamic State’s territory around Aleppo is of particular significance to the group because it is also the location of Dabiq, where an Islamic prophecy holds the last battle between Muslims and infidels will rage, heralding the end of time.

FACE OF GROUP

Iraq said in January that Adnani had been wounded in an air strike in the western province of Anbar and then moved to the northern city of Mosul, Islamic State’s capital in Iraq.

Adnani is a Syrian from Binish in Idlib, southwest of Aleppo, who pledged allegiance to Islamic State’s predecessor al Qaeda more than a decade ago and was once imprisoned by U.S. forces in Iraq, according to the Brookings Institution.

He was from a well-to-do background but left Syria to travel to Iraq in order to fight the U.S. forces there after its 2003 invasion, and only returned to his homeland after the start of its own civil war in 2011, a person who knew his family said.

He has been the chief propagandist for the ultra-hardline jihadist group since he declared in a June 2014 statement that it was establishing a modern-day caliphate spanning swaths of territory it had seized in Iraq and neighbouring Syria.

Adnani has often been the face of the Sunni militant group, such as when he issued a message in May urging attacks on the United States and Europe during the holy month of Ramadan.

The United States designated him a “global terrorist” this year and says he was one of the first foreign fighters to oppose U.S.-led coalition forces in Iraq since 2003 before becoming spokesman of the militant group.

There is a $5 million reward on his head under the U.S. “Rewards for Justice” programme.

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Categories: Abu Muhammad Al-Adnani, Adnani, Idlib, Islamic State, killed, News, Taha Subhi Falaha

Australia unveils “how-to” guide to fight militant propaganda

August 29, 2016 Article

The Sydney Opera House is reflected in a harbourside hotel window in The Rocks district of Sydney, May 7, 2014. REUTERS/Jason Reed/File Photo

Australia on Tuesday released what the government says is the world’s first ever how-to-guide for combating radical Islamist propaganda in Southeast Asia, which it hopes will help disrupt local recruitment efforts by groups such as Islamic State.

Australia, a staunch U.S. ally, has been on heightened alert for attacks by home-grown Islamist radicals since 2014 and authorities say they have thwarted a number of plots.

The 43-page document, entitled “Undermining Violent Extremist Narratives in South East Asia”, will be accessible online and aims to provide tools to disrupt the winding path to radicalisation, said Justice Minister Michael Keenan.

“The process of radicalisation to violence is an incredibly complex issue. Terrorist propaganda affects each individual’s state of mind, their thoughts and emotions differently. There is no single pathway to radicalisation,” Keenan told a conference in Canberra, according to an advanced copy of his remarks shared with Reuters.

“This compendium provides practical guidance and insight for governments, policy makers and civil society organisations in Australia and Southeast Asia to support their development of effective counter-narratives that undercut the appeal of terrorist propaganda.”

The document does not make for light reading. It contains tips for a successful strategy such as “protect the messenger” and “consider how military and counter-terrorism actions impact the strategic counter-narrative”.

It also offers case studies and examples, such as the Burqa Avenger cartoon in Pakistan, in which a teenage Muslim heroine battles extremist villains with books, analysing their success in countering narratives put forward by increasingly media-savvy militant groups.

About 100 people have left Australia for Syria to fight alongside organisations such as Islamic State, Australia’s Immigration Minister said this year.

Canberra has been increasingly focused in recent years on preventing the spread of militant Islamism to its neighbours in Southeast Asia, which have large Muslim populations and, it is feared, could link up with its own home-grown militants.

Earlier this year, Australian police arrested five men suspected of planning to sail a small boat from the far north to Indonesia and the Philippines en route to joining Islamic State in Syria.

The men were detained after towing the seven-meter boat almost 3,000 km (1,865 miles) from Melbourne to Cairns in Queensland state.

There have been several “lone wolf” assaults in Australia, including a 2014 cafe siege in Sydney that left two hostages and the gunman dead. Also in 2014, police shot dead a Melbourne teenager after he stabbed two counter-terrorism officers.

In 2015, a 15-year-old boy fired on an accountant at a police headquarters in a Sydney suburb and was killed in a gunfight with police.

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Categories: Australia, guide, Islamic State, Islamist, News, radicalisation, South Asia

Relative of Charlie Hebdo attacker investigated for Islamist ties

August 27, 2016 Article

Gunmen gesture as they return to their car after the attack outside the offices of French satirical weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo (seen at rear) in this still image taken from amateur video shot in Paris January 7, 2015. REUTERS/Reuters TV

A relative of one of the militants who attacked French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris in January 2015 has been put under formal investigation for Islamist ties and remanded in custody, a judicial source said on Saturday.

The source said Mourad Hamyd was suspected of trying to travel to Syria to join Islamic State.

Hamyd, who is French and a brother-in-law of assailant Cherif Kouachi, was detained in Bulgaria last month after a Paris court issued a European arrest warrant against him.

Hamyd was questioned by French police following the Charlie Hebdo attacks in which Cherif Kouachi and his brother Said shot dead 12 people before being killed by police, but was cleared of any involvement.

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Categories: Attack, Cartoons, Charlie Hedo, Cherif Kouachi, Islamist, Mourad Hamyd, News, Paris, terrorism

Anjem Choudhary Hated the Very Essence of Democracy – That is Why He Attacked Councillors

August 26, 2016 Article

Islamic preacher Anjem Choudary addresses members of the media during a protest supporting the Shari'ah Law, in north London October 31, 2009. REUTERS/Tal Cohen/Files

The Director of Faith Matters, Fiyaz Mughal, writes about the intimidation and inflammatory nature of the actions of Anjem Choudhary and his young coterie of followers, in targeting elected councillors.

Anjem Choudhary has finally been brought to justice. One of the most infamous Islamist faces on TV screens across the globe, this Pied Piper of hatred was found to be instrumental in garnering support for Daesh or Islamic State and in pledging allegiance to it in 2014.

Yet, Anjem was a regular at major Islamic events and in places like Newham, Tower Hamlets and Haringey to name a few London boroughs. He was not allowed into venues and stood outside surrounded by young boys and men who clearly looked up to him and his tactic was to berate and blame and his targets were not only the US, or UK foreign policy, on many occasions they were Muslim elected councillors.

Choudhary knew that by confronting elected members who happened to be Muslim, he could grandstand in front of his young supporters and question the democratic structures of our country.

I was one of the elected members in 2009 who whilst doing my Sunday shopping, ended up with about 20 young people around me hurling obscenities and terms such as ‘kafir’ at me for representing local residents in the Noel Park ward in the London Borough of Haringey. It seems that the exercising of my democratic right meant that Choudhary and his supporters thought that I had ‘sold out’ and that I was no longer a Muslim. Such was the toxic mix of poison he pumped into the minds of young men.

Over the years, Choudhary had made it a point to visit the London Borough of Haringey and would stand outside local stores in the middle of the High Street. He would make inflammatory comments and speeches and would the justify why democracy, the rule of law and human rights were of no value and meaning to him. All the while as he did this, he would urge his young coterie of followers to ensure that Muslims did not vote since it was not allowed in Islam.

Choudhary would rail against these very concepts that make up our society and he would say that only God’s law mattered to him, thereby rendering any legitimate debate invalid and useless with someone who was simply an agitator. Yet, in 2009, as I came out with my shopping, Choudhary made a beeline for me accusing me of apostasy by ‘joining the British system.’ What he meant was that I had exercised my right to play a part in British political life, even though by 2009, I had already served for over 5 years as a councillor in Oxford and the London Borough of Haringey.

What followed was abuse, aggressive threats against me and about 20 young Asian Muslim males suggesting that the fire of hell was somewhere where Muslim councillors belonged within. It seemed that Choudhary knew who I was and being a Liberal Democrat Councillor at the time, he quoted some of the positions that I had held within the national party structure.

Watching this from a side line were a handful of police officers who thought that the whole scenario would just wash over. Little did they realise that Choudhary was going to go on to become one of the most charismatic of radicalisers that this country had seen, yet that was the problem. In 2009, he was seen by many, as simply a joke and a clown and not a threat.

The Beating Up of a Shia Man in the Heart of the West End – Sectarianism at the Heart of Choudhary

My next encounter with Choudhary came in July 2013 as I sat in Edgware Road in the West End one afternoon. Choudhary, it seems, had visited the Egyptian Embassy and had demonstrated outside it and decided to visit Edgware Road simply to agitate on the back of the Sunni and Shia splits that were engulfing Syria after the Arab Spring. Choudhary knew that the Syrian civil war posed an opportunity for him to recruit more impressionable young Sunni Muslim males here in the UK.

With loudspeaker in hand, Choudhary shouted anti-Assad and anti-Shia rhetoric as the young men around him became more and more agitated on the middle of Edgware Road. All the while I watched as his followers kept repeating the anti-Shia slogans. Sadly, within a few minutes of having turned my head away, a young man had been brutally assaulted on the basis that Choudhary’s followers thought that he was Shia. It seems that at the heart of Choudhary’s ideology, was a voracious hatred of Shia and other sects within Islam.

In fact, it turned out that there were 2 men who had been assaulted and one was Sunni and the other Shia. They had been walking down Edgware Road and had been identified as Shias by one of Choudhary’s group. The assault on the Shia male led to 10 separate injuries on his head, face and body and when I met up with him a few days later through the intervention of the Al Khoie Centre in Brent, it turned out that the man was married to a Sunni woman. This though, was of no consequence to Choudhary or the young men who followed him and who listened and hung on his every word. For even when the assault was taking place in the heart of the West End, Choudhary was to be found in the melee, having wound up his followers, yet with his hands not directly involved in criminality. This was precisely how he operated.

Both of these incidents showed me one thing. That Choudhary was the puppeteer and the man who wound up impressionable young men and then released them onto an unsuspecting public in the UK and the Middle East. This went on for many years and with impunity as police forces admitted that he had broken no laws. Sadly, though, this conviction came too late for many young men who were brainwashed by Choudhary. Many lie in unmarked graves in the Middle East, whilst others languish in our jails. However, the real losers in all of these, have been the families of those who were murdered by the young men that the Pied Piper of Hate had groomed and released like javelins onto the world. That is the true legacy of Anjem Choudhary.

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Categories: Anjem Choudhary, Anti-Shia, councillors, Daesh, Islamic State, Muslim councillors, Opinions

France deploys reserve force, ramps anti-terror drills in new school year

August 24, 2016 Article

French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve (L) and Education Minister Najat Vallaud-Belkacem attend a news conference to announce security plans for schools, in Paris, France, August 24, 2016. REUTERS/Pascal Rossignol

France will deploy about 3,000 reserve troops, train school authorities and ramp up school anti-terror drills in case of attacks, its education and security ministers announced on Wednesday, a week before the start of a new academic year.

The French government has heightened security across the country following a series on Islamist militant attacks since January last year that has left people on the edge, with schools a feared target.

About 12 million students are expected to head back to school across France from on Sept. 1.

“The threat is high, it is real,” Education Minister Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, said during a joint news conference in Paris with security minister Bernard Cazeneuve.

“This is not about ceding to panic or paranoia,” she added.

The ministers said most security measures put in place after the Nov. 13 attack in Paris such as carrying out anti-terror drills in schools will be ramped up to three from two during the school year.

Around 500 school administrators will be trained every year at the national gendarme training centre to manage crisis centres and act as liaisons with security officials, while some 1.2 million students in the fourth year of secondary school are expected to be trained in first aid.

Cazeneuve said security forces will be focussing on school surroundings and that 3,000 gendarme reservists will be deployed to reinforce other forces including the police.

“Throughout the year, particular attention will be put around schools. Active surveillance around schools, high-schools and universities will be reinforced by roving patrols,” Cazeneuve said.

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Categories: Cazeneuve, counter-terror measures, France, News, Security threat, State of Emergency, Universities

Europeans turn to weapons in growing numbers after attacks

August 23, 2016 Article

Air guns are seen in a showcase of a gunsmith's shop in Berlin, Germany, January 8, 2016. REUTERS/Hannibal Hanschke/File Photo

Europeans in a number of countries are seeking to arm themselves with guns and self-defence devices in growing numbers following a series of attacks by militants and the mentally ill.

Some weapons sellers also link their increased business to the arrival of huge numbers of migrants in Europe, although a German police report stated that the vast majority do not commit crimes of any kind in the country.

The picture is patchy, with no up-to-date data available at a European level, leaving national and regional authorities to release statistics that are far from comprehensive and not always comparable. Reasons also vary for civilians to own guns legally, including hunting and sport as well as self-protection.

Nevertheless, applications for gun permits are climbing in Switzerland, Austria and the Czech Republic. Their larger neighbour Germany has not followed the trend in lethal firearms, but permits for carrying devices designed to scare off assailants, such as blank guns and those that fire pepper spray, have risen almost 50 percent.

FACTBOX on trends in weapons permits:

Little research into the reasons for the recent apparent trend has yet been published, but the assumption is that attacks in the past year including in Paris, Brussels, Nice and Munich have stirred fear among some citizens.

“There’s no official explanation for the rise, but in general we see a connection to Europe’s terrorist attacks,” said Hanspeter Kruesi, a police spokesman in the Swiss canton of St. Gallen.

Kruesi advised against buying weapons, saying they did little to improve citizens’ security while presenting problems over safe storage and raising legal questions over their proper use in a conflict. “People could actually make themselves criminally liable,” he said.

After he spoke to Reuters, the canton was the scene of an attack aboard a train this month. The suspect and a woman victim died later, although police said his motive was unclear.

One Swiss resident who has just bought his first ever weapons – a pistol and a pump-action shotgun – pinned his decision on a feeling of insecurity created by the attacks combined with criminality that he blamed on north Africans, as well as concern over recent break-ins in his neighbourhood.

“Buying weapons for self-defence won’t protect you from terrorist attacks,” said the 55-year-old who lives in a town near the capital, Bern.

“Nevertheless these attacks are contributing to a subjective sense of threat, as is the rising pressure from migration and the high crime rate among migrants from the Maghreb,” he said, requesting anonymity due to concerns about his safety.

Figures are hard to come by on whether the rate of crime, serious or petty, is higher among migrants than the general population in Europe.

The report from the BKA federal police in Germany – where more than a million people fleeing violence and poverty arrived last year – said migrants committed or tried to commit about 69,000 crimes in the first quarter of 2016. However, it did not say how this compared with the overall number of crimes.

‘THE SUM OF THESE EVENTS’

Like Kruesi, authorities in Europe – where levels of gun ownership are comparatively low and controls are often tight – have avoided encouraging their citizens to buy weapons.

But Czech President Milos Zeman broke ranks after an 18-year-old with a history of mental illness killed nine people in Munich in July. “Citizens should be able to arm themselves … in order to be able to act against these terrorists,” he told TV Nova.

Czechs may already be doing so. Gun permit holders grew by almost 6,000 to close to 300,000 in the first five months of 2016 after several years of declines.

In Switzerland, the land of the legendary crossbow marksman William Tell, a rising trend emerged last year. Of the country’s 26 cantons, the 12 that responded to a Reuters inquiry all reported higher 2015 applications for permits entitling people to buy guns. Interim 2016 figures show a further rise.

While those from people with serious criminal convictions or suffering from mental illness are rejected, most are granted.

“Nobody says directly: I’m buying a gun because of the attacks in Nice or Munich,” said Daniel Wyss, president of the Swiss weapons dealers’ association who runs his own gun shop. “But the sum of these events has fostered a general feeling of vulnerability.”

Switzerland’s defence relies heavily on tens of thousands of citizen soldiers who store their automatic rifles at home, but almost no civilians have the right to carry loaded guns in public.

Some people want this changed. Jean-Luc Addor, a parliamentarian and member of the Swiss gun lobby, aims to introduce legislation in September to ease the restrictions.

Addor contends that more armed civilians mean safer streets. “The state is not equipped to guarantee public safety,” he said. “Sometimes citizens – not every citizen, but those who have appropriate training – should be given means to protect themselves and their families.”

AN EROSION OF TRUST?

Suggestions that governments might be falling short in their duties have also surfaced in Germany.

Ingo Meinhard, head of the German association of gunsmiths and specialist gun dealers, said demand for blank guns and pepper spray jumped after sexual assaults on women at New Year in the city of Cologne. These were blamed largely on migrants.

Meinhard said demand subsequently fell off but rose again after three fatal attacks in July, including by an Islamic State sympathiser who detonated a bomb near a German music festival. “We’re now noticing high demand in urban areas,” he added.

Police drew heavy criticism for failing to prevent the Cologne incidents, since which an Iraqi and an Algerian have been convicted of sexual assault.

German permits for firearms possession have fallen marginally in the past year, while those for scare devices jumped 49 percent in the year to June to 402,301.

No permit is required for pepper spray aerosols marketed as a protection against animals such as aggressive dogs, though officials say anyone who uses them on humans could get into trouble with the law.

Dagmar Ellerbock, a history professor at Technische Universitaet Dresden, said the New Year incidents may have prompted Germans to question the authorities’ competence.

“This trend towards self-defence could be a reason to worry if it signals an erosion of trust, that citizens who experienced the assaults in Cologne no longer feel safe or protected by the state,” she said.

Gun sellers said weapons interest grew in Austria after large numbers of migrants arrived in the country at the northern end of the now closed ‘Balkan Route’. “Fear is very much a driving force,” said Robert Siegert, a gun maker and the weapons trade spokesman at the Austrian Chamber of Commerce “That’s what we keep hearing from salespeople in shops.”

AMERICAN MINDSET

Gun ownership remains low in Europe. According to the Geneva-based group Small Arms Survey, the United States easily surpasses the continent in per capita terms.

There are over 100 guns per 100 U.S. residents, more than twice the figure for Switzerland and three times that for Austria, Germany and France.

France requires background checks for those seeking a weapon for the two purposes it considers legitimate: hunting or joining a shooting club. This scrutiny can take more than a year.

Consequently, it is unlikely that legal French gun ownership has changed much since 2015, said Thierry Coste, secretary general of the Comité Guillaume Tell (William Tell) lobby group.

“Gun ownership is extremely regulated, getting there is like an obstacle course,” he said. “We don’t have the same mindset as Americans.”

Gun control laws in Britain, which has also experienced a number of Islamist militant attacks in recent years, have been strict since a school massacre in 1996. Licensed firearms numbers in England and Wales have remained relatively stable in the past year.

Even in the self-defence business, some doubt the benefits of a personal arsenal. Marco Schnyder, who runs a training centre in Zurich, said knowing how to restrain an assailant was better.

“I have people in my shooting classes who want to protect their families or themselves,” he said. “They would be better served getting a watchdog or an alarm system. I tell them that, too.”

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