Recent university graduate Simon Bracey-Lane took it even further. Originally from Wimbledon in London, he was inspired to rejoin the Labour party in September when Corbyn was elected leader. But by that point, he was already in the US on holiday. So he joined the Sanders campaign, and never left.It is, to say the least, very interesting indeed that just a year later the left wing, "Corbyn and Sanders supporting" Bracey-Lane is hosting a very right wing event, "Cold War Then and Now", for the shadowy neo-con Institute for Statecraft, at which an entirely unbalanced panel of British military, NATO and Ukrainian nationalists extolled the virtues of re-arming against Russia.
"I had two weeks left and some money left, so I thought, Fuck it, I'll make some calls for Bernie Sanders," he explains. "I just sort of knew Des Moines was the place, so I just turned up at their HQ, started making phone calls, and then became a fully fledged field organiser."
RT reports:[...]
Authorities meanwhile were continuing to search for the suspect who is on a terrorist watch list and whose home police had raided earlier in the day in a burglary probe.
The shooting took place shortly before 8 p.m. local time (2 p.m. ET) near a Christmas market in Strasbourg, France, that attracts millions of tourists every year. Strasbourg is on the German border.
The suspect fled and engaged in a firefight with police between 10 p.m. and 11 p.m. local time, Interior Minister Christophe Castaner. He said the suspect has a record in France and Germany for common crimes.
A prosecutor said earlier that officers are searching for the suspect for alleged criminal association with a terrorist group and attempted assassination.
Prior to the shooting Tuesday, police raided the suspect's home in connection to a burglary probe. The suspect wasn't there but resurfaced that night at the perimeter of the Christmas market when shots rang out, police said.
Of the 12 wounded, six have serious injuries.France's counterterrorism unit has opened an investigation into the shooting incident, a prosecutor told NBC News.© Vincent Kessler / ReutersPolice secure a street and the surrounding area after a shooting in Strasbourg, France, on Dec. 11, 2018.
Morten Løkkegaard, a Danish politician and member of the European Parliament, which has one of its three locations in Strasbourg, told Euronews that he was on lockdown inside the Parliament building.
"The whole Parliament has been locked while the police are investigating this, so I think we will spend some hours here," Løkkegaard said. "Hundreds of people are still working in the Parliament at this time of the day."
Axel Schouteten, manager of a McDonald's in Place Kieber, said he was sheltering in place inside the restaurant with approximately 80 people, including families and children.
"I was in the back of the restaurant when I heard gunshots. I think it was the sound of an automatic weapon. There was a big movement of the crowd and then a few minutes later, I closed the doors, and saw three bodies on the ground," he said, adding that he didn't know if the people he saw were dead or alive.
A U.S. State Department spokesperson said the United States condemns "in the strongest terms this horrific attack" and that "our thoughts are with the family and friends of those affected."
The State Department stands ready to provide all possible consular assistance should it become aware of any affected American citizens, the spokesperson said.
Inevitable threat? Strasbourg gunman was on terror watch list, had grenades at homeIt's a repeating scenario where the perpetrators of these attacks are well known to security services but are somehow roaming free: Manchester suicide bomber revealed to have links to Libyan jihadist group with links to UK govt
The gunman who shot multiple victims in Strasbourg had previously been convicted and was known to French intelligence as a possible 'security risk,' yet managed to slip through the cracks despite tightened security across France.
"The author of these acts, listed as a security threat, had been sought by police," the regional prefecture confirmed. Yet he has managed to escape arrest earlier in the day, before carrying out the attack near the Christmas market at around 8pm on Tuesday evening.
"There are so many people that are involved around the edges of this sort of terrorism if this is what it turns out to be, that you can't keep any sort of meaningful surveillance on them. Even just monitoring the use of communications and social media would be too much," Peter Kirkham, former London police inspector, told RT.
Aren't the security services regularly claiming to have 'foiled' terrorist networks thanks to their increased surveillance on ordinary citizens?
Despite tight security measures introduced by the French security forces across public holiday venues in the country, Christmas markets remain "attractive" soft targets. Strasbourg has since banned assemblies of people, to assist the security forces in tracking down their suspect.
Which will mean no more protests against government corruption by members of the legitimate Yellow Vest movement.
When you've got a large area of public space it is almost impossible to keep it totally free of weapons, especially if it is a temporary event.The Strasbourg attack comes amid a major security presence across France, which has been gripped by the Yellow Vest protests over the past weeks. The sheer volume of work handled by the security services during the holiday season could have allowed the shooter to slip through the security cracks, Philip Ingram, a former senior military intelligence officer, told RT.If we're going to protect the freedoms that we enjoy as part of society there's almost an inevitability of a level of terrorism that is going to come in there."The security forces have to be right 100 percent of the time and, remember, in France at the moment they are distracted with the Yellow Vest protests that are going on," Ingram said.
So, it's not the fault of the security services that the attacker 'slipped through', it's the fault of the Yellow Vests??
"There has been a lot of unrest in France over the last few weeks, so it would be early to call it a terrorist incident," Ingram noted, as the French counter-terrorism prosecutor has opened an investigation into the incident.
The attack left two people dead and and at least a dozen wounded. The suspect, swiftly identified on surveillance and video recordings, was known for his criminal activities. Authorities believe their target is listed on the 'Fiche S' list of potential security threats, was born in February 1989 in Strasbourg and may have been radicalized only recently. He was to be arrested Tuesday morning in a homicide-robbery case, yet when the investigators arrived at his home, he was not there. Grenades were found during the search, according to French media.
"If this person was recognized by the French secret service as a threat, he should have been put in jail right away," Denis Franceskin, a representative of the French National Rally political party in the US, told RT. "This guy was totally free to go anywhere. And this is a big problem. We have thousands of people that are under the S-file in France and our government is doing nothing."
"Certainly, there was a relationship to what the authorities were doing and the fact that he was on a list...and him going out and doing this," defense analyst Ivan Eland told RT. "They thought he was involved in some sort of robbery last summer and they had raided his house when he wasn't there, and therefore this could have triggered him to do this."
'Total mobilization': Strasbourg bans public demos amid massive manhunt for Christmas market gunman 565UPDATE 12/12/2018 :[...]© Reuters / Pool / Etienne LaurentFrench President Emmanuel Macron holds an emergency crisis meeting
The city of Strasbourg was subject to a "reinforced grid," French Interior Minister Christophe Castaner said on Tuesday night, hours after the attack on the market left two people dead and 14 others injured. "We are currently in a reinforced vigipirate stance," he said, noting that demonstrations are now banned in the city to allow a "total" police mobilization to ensure public safety.
Announcing that protests and public demonstrations have been temporarily banned in the city, the minister explained this would allow the police to "totally mobilize" to ensure public safety.
"All assemblies, either stationary or as a march (cortege), are banned until the order is rescinded. Anyone in breach of the order will be subject to the penalties provided-for by law," Strasbourg authorities said in the official notice of the protest assembly ban, issued immediately after Castaner's statement.
Additional resources are being deployed to Strasbourg to help local units engage in a search for the suspect. More than 350 policemen and gendarmes were hunting down the attacker on Tuesday night. They were supported by helicopters and members of the RAID, the BRI and Opération Sentinelle forces, the minister said.
[...]
The government raised France's national security alert threat (Vigipirate) to "emergency attack" level. As an additional security measure boost, Paris plans to allocate extra resources to reinforce border control and ensure extra protection at Christmas markets across France.
Tuesday's shooting comes at a time when French security forces are overstretched in dealing with the anti-government demonstrations that have gripped the country for weeks. Paris deployed some 90,000 police officers across the country last weekend to deal with the Yellow Vests rallies and, with authorities focused on containing violence at the weekly rallies, extremists like the Strasbourg shooter might try to exploit security holes, some security experts pointed out.
[...]
There's no evidence the shooter exploited any 'security holes', as noted above, the market already had high security in place and it was being patrolled by armed offices.
Two police officials have identified the suspected Strasbourg gunman as 29-year-old Cherif Chekatt.UPDATE 12/12/18:
One police source said Chekatt's criminal record mentions 25 judicial cases, including several serious cases of robbery.
The official said his apartment was searched by police on Tuesday morning - hours before the shooting - in an investigation for attempted murder. He was not at home at the time.
The two officials spoke anonymously because they were not allowed to speak publicly on an ongoing investigation.
The suspect was still on the run on Wednesday after he fired gunshots near the famous Christmas market of Strasbourg, killing three and wounding at least 13.
...
The suspected Strasbourg gunman was convicted of robbery in Germany in 2016 and sentenced to two years and three months in prison for breaking into a dental practice and a pharmacy.
The verdict from a district court in Singen, obtained by The Associated Press, says he was also sentenced to prison in France in 2008 and in Basel, Switzerland in 2013 for various robberies. News agency dpa reported that he was deported to France in 2017.
According to the verdict, the suspected attacker grew up with six siblings in Strasbourg, worked for local authorities after leaving school and had been unemployed since 2011. He said he had been traveling a lot and had already spent four years in prison. The German robberies took place in Mainz, near Frankfurt, in 2012 and in Engen, near the Swiss border, in 2016.
Isn't it odd that right after Macron gives some crumbs to the Yellow Vest's demands, a "terrorist attack" happens; in the home of the European Parliament, no less. Never waste a perfect opportunity to remind the people 'why they need us' (and centering the attack in the home of the EU Parliament should be a good signal to the rest of the EU who are thinking about joining the protests, for good measure).
"I don't understand how anybody could imagine this... We should call it for what it is - such ideas are obviously coming from conspiracy theorists," he told the media. "According to tweets and other remarks, such conspiracy theories flourish among the ranks of the 'Yellow Vests'. And this is yet another proof. Saying such things is, frankly speaking, disgraceful."Remy Heitz, the Paris prosecutor, told a press conference on Wednesday: "Considering the target, his way of operating, his profile and the testimonies of those who heard him yell 'Allahu Akbar', the anti-terrorist police have been called into action," Heitz explained.
DAAMACHE cedricSee also:
Thank you not to distort my testimony, nice journalist in the blue cap and the iphone.
I had a black coat with an orange hood, and you interviewed me at the exit of the checkout Republic.
So, to help set the record straight, it's never the blues (police) who told us to take refuge in bars.
The police never took care of the people, we just ran to the first shooter's fire, which was not far from the place you mentioned, to take refuge in Kleber, and there the second began shooting around Grande Rue.
Yes, I told you about automatic gunfire, but it was the Licorne force's responses,[_Opération Licorne - Wikipedia] and seriously I wonder how someone injured by Famas was able to get to Neudorf, where I live, and can access it.
In any case a pity to report false information to reassure about the support of the police, because there was zero support
Permalien
Answer
Published on 11/12/2018 at 23h41
Pierre France
Pierre answers to DAAMACHE cédric
Member of the editorial staff
Sir, we've never spoken before. This is another Cedric in the article (and probably another journalist since I was on the Halles side).
Permalien
Answer
Published on 12/12/2018 at 00:03
daamache cedric answers Pierre
Send me a picture of you to be sure;) The coincidence is very disturbing;)
No hate or whatever, just be right in what you report.
The cops did not take care of people ...
I answer because I'm sure it's me being in shock, when a reporter approached me at checkout.
Once again, funny coincidence, because my name is Cedric.
I love rue89 (website), so I allow myself to correct (you), and I told you there were two shooters ...
So understand, it's still disturbing.
Comment: More from RT's ongoing coverage of the protests: About a dozen RT reporters have been injured by the police in Paris since the protests began: RT France reporter shot in the face during police crackdown on Yellow Vest protesters in Paris
While the protests in France seem to have scaled down this week, presumably in response to the (not so) coincidental attack in Strasbourg, there are no signs that they will be coming to a close anytime soon. The meager last-minute concessions offered by Macron drew scorn from the French and, meanwhile, similar movements appear to be spreading throughout Europe, and in some countries even further afield:
- 'Gilets Jaunes' movement spreading: Pro-Brexit protesters block London bridges, bring traffic to standstill
- 'Time to learn from the French!' 10 arrested after Yellow Vest protests spread to Israel
- Egyptian government prohibits yellow vest sales amid fears of French style uprising
- The rebellion spreads: Yellow Vests plan protests across The Netherlands
- Social Contagion: 'Yellow Vest' protests spread among citizens fed up with corruption
- Will Macron's Yellow Vest Implosion Spread to Other EU Countries?
- What do the protesters in France want? Check out the 'official' Yellow Vest manifesto
Also check out SOTT radio's: NewsReal: Révolution Jaune? France Revolts Against Macron