Terrorist Attack Foiled as Israel Prepares for Independence Day Celebrations

Congratulations on surviving 70 years with being surrounded by and frequently attacked by antisemitic hoards of terrorists. God is surely with you!

By Ed Adamczyk

Israel's Ministry of Defense released photos of a truck detained at the Israel-West Bank border.

They said it contained explosives meant to mar Israel's 70th anniversary celebrations.

Photo courtesy Israeli Ministry of Defense

UPI -- A large-scale terrorist attack was averted after an explosives-laden truck was detained at a West Bank checkpoint, Israel's defense ministry said Wednesday.

The truck was stopped at the Reihan checkpoint between Israel and the West Bank. Inspectors found a "powerful explosive device" in the roof amid the cargo of goods destined for settlers along the border. The Palestinian driver was detained for questioning, the Ministry of Defense said in a Facebook post.

The explosive device was meant to mar celebrations of Israel's 70th anniversary, which start Wednesday evening, Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman said, without specifying a location or time for a potential detonation.

Much of the West Bank has been closed due to the Independence Day celebrations.

Erez Sidon, Defense Ministry border crossings chief, said that inspectors "acted exactly as we expect them to, from the identification of the suspicious truck to the identification of the attempted smuggling."

Earlier Wednesday, a Palestinian man was arrested at the Qalandiya checkpoint, north of Jerusalem, after police found him carrying a knife. Officials said he admitted that he had planned to carry out a stabbing attack, the Times of Israel reported.

Reihan checkpoint, West Bank

Majority of Paris & Brussels Terrorists Infiltrated EU Posing as Refugees – Hungarian Intelligence

People mourn outside "Le Petit Cambodge" and "Le Carillon" restaurants a week after a series of deadly attacks in the French capital, in Paris, France, November 20, 2015. © Benoit Tessier / Reuters

The majority of Islamic State militants directly involved in carrying out the Paris and Brussels terrorist attacks used the Balkan route to enter Europe under the guise of being refugees, the Hungarian intelligence chief stated.

Analysis of phone call intercepts established that seven of the nine attackers involved in the November Paris onslaught, which killed 130 and injured 368 people, entered the EU through Hungary last year, the Hungarian Counter Terrorism Center (TEK) chief, General Zsolt Bodnar, revealed. The seven were allegedly part of a larger 14-member terrorist cell that used Hungary as the springboard for their bloody actions in Europe.

Hungarian intelligence established that one of the Brussels and Paris attacks’ masterminds, Salah Abdeslam, made four trips to Hungary in August and October 2015 where he arranged for at least nine terrorists linked to the Paris and Brussels bombings to enter Europe. The men were involved in a number of attacks in Europe last year.

The nine smuggled were named as Bilal Hadfi, Chakib Akrouh, Mohamed Belkaid, Najim Laachraoui, Sami Amimour, Omar Mostefai, Mohamed Aggad, Mohammad Almahmoud and Ahmad Almohammad.

Besides the Paris attack, some members of the group were also involved in coordinated bombings in Brussels in March that killed 32 people. Bodnar revealed that Ayoub el-Khazzani, who opened fire with an assault rifle on an Amsterdam-Paris train last August, also passed through Hungary posing as a Syrian refugee.

The scheme used by terrorists centered around Abdelhamid Abaaoud, one of the terrorists killed in the Paris shootout. He had organized for a man known as Bilal C. to trial the migrant route from Syria’s Raqqa to Europe via the Balkans in July 2016.

This July, German police detained the 20-year-old Algerian known as Bilal C. From June until August 2015, he is thought to have traveled from Syria through Turkey, Greece, Serbia, Hungary and Austria where, before eventually entering Germany, he informed Abaaoud about the lack of security at the borders and the “safety” of the smuggling route.

During the crossings, which usually involved two or three men, the terrorists used fake Syrian passports to hide among refugees, intelligence chief revealed.

The militants were “well-trained” in covert communications and covered their tracks by regularly deleting social media accounts and constantly changing sim cards they used to communicate with terrorists in Raqqa, Syria. By using fake identities and hiding among refugees, Islamic State operatives were able to circumvent the EU’s terrorist databases, Bodnar claimed.

Concerns about terrorists entering Europe among the wave of migrants have long been on the rise, with even top EU officials such as German Chancellor Angela Merkel admitting that “some” militants could have slipped through. Despite officials’ regular warnings against whipping up anti-refugee sentiment, nearly 60 percent of Europeans believe the threat of terrorism increases as more migrants arrive in their countries, a recent PEW survey found.

So, while Hungary comes under dreadful criticism for closing it's borders, if it hadn't, there would likely be many, many more terrorists sleeping in France, Belgium and Germany tonight.