It’s Terrorism Stupid

"If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." — John 8:31-32

Two people were killed and two were injured, at least one critically, in the shooting attack on U.S. military personnel at 3:20 p.m. local time March 3 at Germany’s Frankfurt International Airport (an airport I have passed through more times than I can count). According to the AP, an armed attacker boarded a U.S. military bus idling in front of Terminal 2 and began shooting. The two killed were a U.S. soldier and the driver of the bus, whose nationality is unclear. The perpetrator is alleged to be from Kosovo, of Albanian ethnicity and 21 years old, according to German media sources. According to news reports, the U.S. forces involved in the attack were on their way to Afghanistan.

Fox News and AP reports: “A gunman shot at U.S. Air Force personnel on a bus outside Frankfurt airport Wednesday, killing two airmen and wounding two others before being taken into custody, authorities said.

Kosovo's interior minister told The Associated Press that German police have identified the shooter as a man from Kosovo.

The attack came as the bus sat outside Terminal 2 at the airport, according to Frankfurt police spokesman Manfred Fuellhardt. The bus driver and a passenger were killed, and one person suffered serious wounds and another light injuries, he said.

A source tells Fox News that the shooter yelled "Allah Akbar" when opening fire on the U.S. military personnel. He then dropped his gun at the scene, ran into the terminal and was subdued.

U.S. Air Force Europe spokeswoman Maj. Beverly Mock said all four victims were airmen. They were all based at the Lakenheath military base in Britain.

A military official in Europe says the airmen were going to be deployed to either Iraq or Afghanistan.

President Obama said he was "saddened and outraged" by the shooting.

The president says the U.S. will spare no effort in finding out how the "outrageous" act took place and will ensure the perpetrators are brought to justice. He called it a tragedy.

In Berlin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said her sympathies were with the victims and their families, and pledged that Germany would do everything in its power to investigate the crime.

"It is a terrible event," she said.”

How dare our President call this a tragedy? A tragedy is when an airplane crashes, a flood or someone contracting cancer. When a Muslim boards a bus loaded with U.S. soldiers, yells "Allah Akbar" and opens file that’s not a tragedy — this is jihadist terrorism. Our President just cannot issue those words when it comes to Muslims, but he can when it comes to Arizona. Where in the devil has he been these past few days? With Libya going up in flames and a terrorist attack on troops under his command he remains strangely silent. I guess he is too busy shooting hoops, listening to Motown concerts at the White House or meddling in the business of Wisconsin. He acted the same after Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan killed 13 and wounded 29 in his terrorist attack at Fort Hood and all the time while shooting yelling "Allah Akbar!"

There have been plots against U.S. military targets in Germany in recent years. The attack fits in the category of “armed jihadist assault” similar to what American-born Yemeni cleric Anwar al-Awlaki called for in mid-2010 in jihadist Internet chat rooms. Al-Awlaki had been tied to U.S. Maj. Nidal Hasan, who was charged with the November 2009 Fort Hood shooting.

The attack in Frankfurt appears to have been a soft-target attack. Soft targets are vulnerable to attack due to the absence of adequate security or standoff distance. Areas at airports outside the security check-in points are such targets. STRATFOR has for some time predicted that militants would seek out such targets, especially considering their fixation on airplanes. The recent bombing at Domodedovo International Airport in Moscow, for example, targeted the international arrivals area where families, friends and drivers awaited travelers emerging from the terminal. Such areas are difficult to secure because doing so would require essentially cordoning off the entire airport as was done immediately after 9/11.

The uncle of the alleged attacker claims his nephew was a devote Muslim. If reports of the attacker’s ethnicity are true, this would not be the first time ethnic Albanians have joined international jihad. A number of Albanian individuals were part of the Fort Dix plot in the United States in 2007. U.S. authorities broke up a militant cell in North Carolina that involved an individual of ethnic Albanian origin. In 2009, a U.S. citizen of Albanian descent from Brooklyn, New York, tried to go to Pakistan for militant training. Albanian militants fighting in the Kosovo Liberation Army, however, largely eschewed militant Islam during their fight against Serbia in the late 1990s and in fact allied with NATO against the regime of then-Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic. Recent jihadist plots, however, indicate that the diaspora in the West has had a considerable number of cases of radicalization. [Source; STRATFOR Global Intelligence]

What baffles me is how can a private pay for use, global intelligence agency have more accurate and timely information than our government? Or is it just a case where our President and State Department is just loath to use the term “terrorist” where Muslims are involved. Our Department of Homeland Security can label returning veterans and anti-abortionists as potential terrorist, but Muslims yelling "Allah Akbar” while they pull the trigger or detonate the bomb draw a pass. Even in the case of the Times Square Bomber Mayor Bloomberg was quick to point a finger at a domestic terrorist like a Timothy McVeigh or a Tea Party member. Within hours he was proven wrong and stupid. Is this just political correctness or does it border on treason?

Terrorists