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Islamist terrorists and the Baader-Meinhof/Red Army Faction crews of European terrorists
Fredrik Norman.com ^ | 10/24/01 | Fredrik Norman

Posted on 10/24/2001 6:09:14 AM PDT by vrwc54

Almost exactly 24 years ago, in October 1977, four Palestinian terrorists hijacked a Lufthansa-operated Boeing aircraft bound from Mallorca in Spain, with 87 passengers. They didn't crash the plane into a building, but they were making preparations to blow the plane up with themselves still inside, just like what happened on September 11 this year.

During the hijacking, the captain of the plane, Jürgen Schumann, was shot dead. His lifeless body was propped in a cloakroom at the back of the 737, later to be unceremoniously tossed on the tarmac. After an erratic route, the aircraft was stormed in Somalia's capital Mogadishu by members of German elite anti-terror unit GSG 9. In the action, three hijackers were taken out, but the fourth hijacker, Souhaila Andrawes (aka. Suhaila Sayeh) somehow survived. After short imprisonment in Somalia she went underground, only to be detected here in Norway in 1994 and extradited to Germany in 1995. There, she was sentenced to 12 years of imprisonment for "murder, attempted murder, abduction in conjunction with taking hostages, and encroachment of air traffic resulting in casualties".

What's most interesting about this case is not how several prominent Norwegian leftists were persuaded by Andrawes' PR-stunts of hunger striking and her crying of well-timed, made-for-TV crocodile tears -- just like some of them seem to be more than convinced by most of the Taliban's claims today.

It's neither how many leftists in virtual concert pleaded Norwegian authorities not to extradite Andrawes to Germany for "humanitarian reasons", or how they came up with claims that the German judicial system would somehow treat her "unfairly" -- just like some of them today are demanding that an international tribunal judge Bin Laden, and not the "evil American imperialists".

What's most interesting is the connection this case revealed, between the radical left, namely revolutionary Marxist groups in Germany (most importantly "RAF", the Red Army Faction aka. the Baader-Meinhof gang) and Andrawes' Palestinian terrorist accomplices.

There can be no doubt that this connection was there. One of the leading members of RAF, Monika Haas, was even married to one of the hijackers -- and she was duly convicted of being "an accessory to hostage-taking, to kidnapping, to two counts of attempted murder and to an attack on air transport".

But there is, unfortunately, some doubt that this connection has been eradicated.

Writes the webmaster of baader-meinhof.com, a site dedicated to investigating the Red Army Faction and affiliated gangs: "I have always been troubled by the strong, significant minority of visitors to my site who think of the Baader-Meinhof era, and terrorism as 'cool'." And Petra Müller of Libertad -- a German initiative which formed in 1992 around the counter-congress at the IMF summit in Munich -- confirms that they "[have] no problems with people expressing solidarity with [Souhaila Andrawes]".

During the years of terror in West Germany (1968-1977), close to a hundred Germans became active left-wing terrorists, joining one of three terrorist groups: the Red Army Faction, Movement 2 June, and the Revolutionary Cells. Today, we're seeing thousands of youngsters joining highly violent "anti-capitalist" movements around the globe.

As we now receive reports that terror cells in Germany may have planned the September. 11 attacks, let's hope there's no direct connection this time, between the radical left and radical Islam.

The last thing this civilization needs, is its two arch-enemies cooperating.



TOPICS: Miscellaneous; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS:
I got this article from Instapundit.com:
FREDRIK NORMAN points out the underappreciated connections between Islamist terrorists and the Baader-Meinhof/Red Army Faction crews of European terrorists and their leftish sympathizers. Perhaps this explains why so much of the preparatory work for the September 11 attacks took place in Germany? It may also explain the email reports I'm getting of airport security seeming to be very interested in Northern European types, too. (This of course makes the highly optimistic assumption that airport security does things for reasons that have a clear connection to security.)

1 posted on 10/24/2001 6:09:14 AM PDT by vrwc54
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To: vrwc54
As we now receive reports that terror cells in Germany may have planned the September 11 attacks, let's hope there's no direct connection this time, between the radical left and radical Islam.
Might as well take care of them all while we're at it. This looks like a long struggle.
2 posted on 10/24/2001 6:22:23 AM PDT by Gordian Blade
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To: vrwc54
Claire Sterling redoux.
3 posted on 10/24/2001 6:24:49 AM PDT by dts32041
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To: dts32041
Claire Sterling ...haven't seen her name in a long time.
4 posted on 10/24/2001 6:26:38 AM PDT by vrwc54
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To: vrwc54
Thank you for focusing on this important, yet underreported, aspect of the crisis.

There are links not only between Islamist radicals and the RAF (Rote Armee Faktion) but between Islamists and the IRA (one of the suspects in the PanAm Flight 103 bombing was "dating" an Irish lass he'd met while the IRA was training in Libya).

There are also links between the IRA and the Basque separatist terrorists ETA as well as the BR (Italian Brigadi Rossi [Red Brigades]). The BR had links, of course, with their fellow Communists the RAF.

Additionally, Carlos the Jackal had ties with the Maoist SL (Sendero Luminoso [Shining Path]) terrorists in Peru (who also numbered anti-American traitor Lori Berenson among their members). Carlos had links with SL, the PLO, the BR and other movements.

A former member of the BR who is currently serving a life sentence in an Italian prison, is a college professor named Antonio Negri.

Negri had connections with America's new left terrorist organizations like the Weather Underground, the FALN and the Black Panthers. He has written an anti-globalist book called "Empire" - basically a formless neoCommunist diatribe against Western civilization. It was cowritten in English with a Harvard professor named Michael Hardt and is published, not by an underground press, but by Harvard University. It is the ideological bible of the scummy American and Eurotrash leftists responsible for the Seattle and Genoa riots. It is highly praised by Edward Said, the proterrorist, Arab racist academic at Columbia.

The PLO, Hamas, Hezbollah, Jamaat-il-Islam, Gamaa-al-Islamiya, Al-Qaeda, IRA, PIRA, RIRA, BR, RAF, SL, FALN, EZLN, ETA, WU, BP and PR share resources and intelligence. They should all be eliminated, root and branch.

5 posted on 10/24/2001 6:34:34 AM PDT by wideawake
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To: wideawake
Good post...I hope there are more articles like Normand's who BTW is a 19 year old Norwegian student.
6 posted on 10/24/2001 6:43:35 AM PDT by vrwc54
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To: vrwc54
Ain't it a shame, she was pointing out these terror cross connections years ago.

However it appears the PTB (powers that be), never took her very seriously.

I lost my annotated copy of the terror network many years ago.

Just proves once again the more things change the more they stay the same.

7 posted on 10/24/2001 7:08:59 AM PDT by dts32041
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To: vrwc54
Will you look at that ... http://www.baader-meinhof.com/timeline/1976.html

After staying away from the courtroom by choice for a month, Meinhof attends the trial with Andreas Baader, Ensslin, and Jan-Carl Raspe. She leaves after 15 minutes, never to appear in court again. After she leaves, Baader-Meinhof lawyers attempt to have the court compel several witnesses: Richard Nixon, Willy Brandt, Helmut Schmidt, Georg Kiesinger, Walter Scheel, and others.

The lawyers' plan is to prove that the United States' involvement in Southeast Asia was a violation of international law, and therefore the American targets of the Baader-Meinhof Gang could be considered legitimate targets.

The presiding judges reject the applications.

Isn't that the same Bin Laden is saying over Israel, but our judges and leadership let him get away with it by telling us to abandon Israel.

Make no mistake, Bin Laden is using Marxist rhetoric and sociological psychology to hide his actual intents of destroying the US behind pretexts, much like the Baader-meinhof did. Shame on those who buy the rhetoric of Bin Laden and his attacks on the US.

8 posted on 10/26/2001 8:47:27 AM PDT by lavaroise
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To: lavaroise
Want to read about the connections? Then read this article posted by magician.
9 posted on 10/26/2001 9:01:28 AM PDT by vrwc54
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