IDF thwarted attempted Islamic State bombing of Airline

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In August, two men were arrested plotting to blow up an Etihad Airways flight out of Sydney; Israel's Military Intelligence says it's the reason why.

From The Times Of Israel, by JUDAH ARI GROSS, 21-2- 2018

https://tinyurl.com/y7j6wm3u (full article and VIDEO)

The Israeli army on Wednesday revealed that the Military Intelligence Unit 8200 foiled an Islamic State attempt to bomb a flight from Australia last August.

“The unit provided exclusive intelligence that led to the prevention of an air attack by the Islamic State in 2017 in Australia,” a senior IDF officer said.

“The foiling of the attack saved dozens of innocent lives and proved Unit 8200’s position as a major player in the intelligence fight against the Islamic State,” the officer said, on condition of anonymity.

Wednesday’s revelation was an unusual move for the Israeli army, which generally keeps mum on the operations of the secretive Unit 8200, which is similar to the American National Security Agency, collecting information from electronic communication, also referred to as signals intelligence.

Soldiers from the 8200 Unit in training (photo credit: Moshe Shai/Flash90)

Later in the day Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thanked the unit for foiling the attack.

“Thank you to the Israeli intelligence services. We revealed today that the security agencies prevented the shooting down of an Australian airliner. This is just one of the dozens of terrorist attacks that we have stopped around the world. [The intelligence services] deserve all the support we can give, not only for protecting the citizens of Israel, but for protecting people all over the world,” he said in a speech to American Jewish leaders.

Indeed, this prowess in intelligence gathering and counter-terrorism is a central selling point for Israel in its efforts to create and maintain relationships with foreign countries.

The foiled attack

In August, Australian security forces arrested two men suspected of trying to place an improvised explosive device on an Etihad Airways flight out of Sydney in a plot directed by Islamic State.

One of the men, a 49-year-old from Sydney, brought the device to Sydney airport on July 15 in a piece of luggage that he had asked his brother to take with him on the flight — without telling the brother that the bag contained explosives, Australian Federal Police Deputy Commissioner Michael Phelan said at the time. But the bag never got past the check-in counter. Instead, Phelan said, the 49-year-old man left the airport with the bag, and his brother continued onto the flight without it.

“This is one of the most sophisticated plots that has ever been attempted on Australian soil,” Phelan told reporters at the time. “If it hadn’t been for the great work of our intelligence agencies and law enforcement over a very quick period of time, then we could well have a catastrophic event in this country.”

People crowd a terminal at Sydney’s domestic airport as passengers are subjected to increased security, in Sydney, Australia, Monday, July 31, 2017 (Dean Lewins/AAP Image via AP)

The components of the device they planned to use, including what Phelan described as a “military-grade explosive,” were sent by a senior Islamic State member to the men in Sydney via air cargo from Turkey. An Islamic State commander then instructed the two men how to assemble the device, which police later recovered, Phelan said.

According to Australian authorities, when that attack failed, the suspects then planned to release highly toxic hydrogen sulfide gas in order to poison people. But they were arrested before their plot could advance significantly.

No specific targets had been chosen for the planned hydrogen sulfide attack, though an Islamic State member overseas had given the men suggestions about where such devices could be placed, such as crowded areas or on public transportation, Phelan said.

Police had no idea either of the plans were in the works until they received the tip from Israel on July 26. They arrested the men on July 29.

The big Unit 8200

On Wednesday, the IDF also revealed it thwarted a recent Iranian cyber attack against Israeli public and private systems, though it did not provide additional details on what was targeted and when.

“This foiling was possible thanks to the close tracking of the Iranian network’s activities,” the officer said.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a lunch meeting at the 54th Munich Security Conference on February 16, 2018. (AFP Photo/ DPA/Sven Hoppe)

The intelligence unit also credited itself with helping reduce the number of terror attacks in the West Bank by so-called lone wolves — people who act independently, without direction from a terrorist group — through special algorithms that identify potential assailants.

“We work closely with all the divisions and regional commands. The unit’s products are critically and operationally relevant, directly assisting the activities of forces in the field,” the officer said.

Unit 8200 is one of the largest units in the IDF.

According to the prime minister, the unit is the “second largest” national security agency in the world, after only that of the United States.

“The United States is 42 times larger than the State of Israel. Its NSA is not 42 times the size of Israel’s NSA, it’s not even 10 times the size,” Netanyahu boasted to business leaders in Munich on Friday.

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A CHALLENGE TO ED MILLIBAND

WOULD YOU PROTECT GREAT BRITAIN AGAINST TERRORISM?

By Alan Dershowitz 2.11.2014

http://tinyurl.com/qy7nf99

Dershowitz challenges Ed Milliband to criticize Great British troops for “the killing of innocent... civilians” in their wars against terrorists.

Ed Milliband, who is the leader of Great Britain’s Labor Party, wants to become prime minister following the next general election. But recent statements he has made about Israel’s incursion into Gaza raise serious questions about his capacity to govern, and especially about his ability and willingness to protect the citizens of Great Britain against the threats posed by Islamic State (IS) and other Islamic terrorist groups.

Milliband strongly criticized British Prime Minister David Cameron, arguing that he was “wrong not to have opposed Israel’s incursion into Gaza.”

It’s not clear whether this ill-advised statement was merely a political cheap shot or whether it reflects Milliband’s actual views regarding a nation’s need to defend its citizens against terrorism.

Recall that Israel’s “incursion” into Gaza occurred only after Hamas had sent death squads into Israeli territory using its network of close to 40 sophisticated tunnels illegally dug under the Gaza-Israeli border.

According to Israeli intelligence sources, Israel concluded that unless it shut down these tunnels of death Hamas was planning to send hundreds of terrorists into Israel to kill and kidnap civilians and soldiers.

I was in one of those tunnels just before Israel’s incursion into Gaza. A Beduin tracker who worked for the Israel Defense Forces discovered an air hole which led Israeli soldiers to finding the hidden exit to the tunnel, which was in close proximity to an Israeli kindergarten attended by over 50 children.

The purpose of this tunnel was to kill and/or kidnap as many of these children as possible.

As soon as I entered the sophisticated tunnel, with railroad tracks, communications equipment and places to store explosives, it became clear to me that Israel would have to send troops into Gaza to find the entrances to such tunnels and destroy them.

Israel knew where some of the entrances were because its satellites could track the removal of large amounts of dirt. But even Israel’s most sophisticated devices could not track the direction of the tunnels or their numerous secret exit points.

Some of the tunnels had several entrance and exit points – offshoots of the main underground shaft between Gaza and Israel. These tunnels could not be destroyed from the air. Nor could their exit points be found. The only two options were allowing them to continue to exist, thus endangering thousands of Israelis; or ordering an incursion into Gaza, designed to locate and destroy the tunnels from their entrance points.

Israel did not send troops into Gaza in order to stop the thousands of rockets Hamas was firing at its cities, towns and airport. It relied instead on its Iron Dome, which was only 85 percent effective, on its network of shelters located in and around every populated area, and its GPS-guided missile attacks against the rocket launchers. It was the discovery of so large a network of tunnels and the reality that Israel had no technology comparable to Iron Dome to prevent them from being used against its citizens that led Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu finally to order the ground incursion.

My challenge to Ed Milliband: What would you have done if you were the prime minister of a country that faced comparable threats? It is easy to criticize the British prime minister for not having opposed Israel’s incursion into Gaza but, as The New York Times reported (10/23/14), Milliband “did not outline an alternative security response.”

Now he must. Would he have waited for dozens of death squads with hundreds of terrorists to enter Israel and wreak havoc on cities, towns and kibbutzim near the Gaza border? Would he have tried to attack the tunnel entrances from the air, despite the fact that many of them were located in mosques, schools, hospitals, private homes and densely populated civilian areas? The question British voters should ask is: What would prime minister Ed Milliband have done? What would he do if Britain were faced with comparable threats? His country, unlike tiny Israel, is an island separated from its traditional enemies by bodies of water. But one can imagine Scottish independent radicals digging tunnels into northeastern England. Or Irish radicals firing rockets into English cities on the West Coast? As opposition leader would Milliband criticize the current prime minister for trying to stop these attacks against British civilians? As prime minister would he do nothing and simply call for a cease-fire and the resumption of talks, as he did with regard to the Israeli-Hamas conflict?

Milliband also rebuked Cameron for his “silence on the killing of innocent Palestinian civilians caused by Israel’s military action.” But Milliband himself has remained silent on Hamas’ deliberate use of human shields that has been the main cause for why Palestinian civilians were killed. As British military expert Richard Kemp said, “No army in the world acts with as much discretion and great care as the IDF in order to minimize damage. The US and the UK are careful, but not as much as Israel.”

Kemp then provided specific ratios: “Israel’s ratio of military casualties in Operation Protective Edge was only one-fourth of the average in warfare around the world. During the operation, there was approximately one civilian casualty for every terrorist killed by the IDF, whereas the average in the world is four civilians for every combatant, and that, when taking into consideration Hamas’s use of human shields, this shows how careful the IDF is.”

I challenge Ed Milliband to criticize Great British troops for “the killing of innocent... civilians” in their wars against terrorists.

I await answers from the man who would be Great Britain’s next prime minister – answers that assure British voters that he is neither a hypocrite nor a leader unwilling to do what has to be done to protect his countrymen from terrorism.