Swiss secret service needs explanation: Jew hater announced crime on Instagram

Last Saturday evening, a teenager seriously injured a 50-year-old Orthodox Jew in the middle of the city of Zurich. Anis T. (name changed), a 15-year-old naturalized Swiss citizen with roots in Tunisia, stabbed his victim several times. Passersby took courageous action and prevented something worse from happening.

In a confessional video, Anis T. said that he wanted to kill as many Jews as possible. He also made death threats against Christians. The teenager, who his classmates said was a loner, had helpers – possibly abroad – and identified himself as an IS supporter.

The attack in Zurich was the third IS-inspired act of violence on Swiss soil. In 2020 there was a fatal knife attack in Morges VD and a knife attack on two women in a shop in Lugano.

How was the crime publicly announced?

On Wednesday, CH Media reported that Anis T. announced his murderous plan on Instagram last Friday – on a freely accessible account in Switzerland. Ostensibly the story is about bread. Anis T. gave another account the name bakery.

‘Baking bread’ and ‘bakery’ have long been known IS code words for terrorist attacks. It is still unclear when exactly Anis T. uploaded the confession video in good Arabic. One thing is certain: it spread quickly through Islamic channels.

Anis T. had over a thousand followers on Instagram, many of whom were IS fans, most of whom did not appear to be from Switzerland. The 15-year-old became particularly noticeable after October 7, following the Hamas massacre in Israel, on platform X (formerly Twitter) with expressions of sympathy for IS, the Tamedia newspapers reported.

Why did the Federal Intelligence Service (NDB) not stop the perpetrator in time?

Johannes Saal, sociologist of religion and political scientist at the University of Lucerne, focuses on jihadist networks. He consulted the existing Instagram and YouTube channels on which the minor praised his crime.

The young man received many reactions and hundreds of ‘likes’ from hundreds of followers with a jihadist connection. For Saal, the question arises as to why the NDB has not discovered this – especially since there are not hundreds of IS-related social media accounts in Switzerland and the NDB was given extensive powers and technical capabilities after a revision of the law.

The role of the NDB will also have to be discussed next Monday Defense Minister Viola Amherd deal with it. During question time, SVP Council Member Barbara Steinemann wants to know whether the NDB had the attacker on its radar and what it did to prevent such acts.

Steinemann will probably be fobbed off with platitudes. CH Media asked the NDB if he was looking for Anis T. A spokeswoman replied that the NDB does not comment on specific individual cases.

For this reason, it remains unclear whether Anis T Jihad monitoring of the NDB appeared and/or he was on the list of “people at risk”.

As part of jihad monitoring, the NDB observes who spreads jihadist ideas in or from Switzerland on publicly used websites. Since 2012, 779 people have visited. The NDB currently has 41 ‘people at risk’. These are people who pose an increased risk of terrorism.

Was the federal NDB asleep in Anis T.’s case?

Former intelligence chief Peter Regli cannot agree with this criticism. He points out that the NDB has long warned that the greatest danger comes from jihadist-motivated individual perpetrators who commit violence using simple methods. “It is also very difficult for foreign intelligence services to discover the lone wolf with the long knife,” says Regli.

He points out that there are multitudes of people with IS sympathies on the internet and social media platforms. Even with the help of algorithms, it is impossible to capture every potential attack given this enormous amount of data. “The most useful thing is international cooperation,” says Regli.

This is already happening. In the fight against terrorism or violent extremism, the NDB has already benefited from the results of partner services in several cases, says an NDB spokeswoman. The partner services depend on so-called virtual agents. They use secret identities to penetrate deep into social networks and chats.

The NDB also wants to expand its online prevention activities with virtual agents. A corresponding project is underway to reduce dependence on foreign countries. He does not reveal how far progress has been made and how many personnel the NDB is deploying for this purpose. In the case of Anis T., the NDB would not have needed an cover identity anyway. He may observe public and generally accessible places, including Instagram.

Parliament’s audit delegation (GPdel) will also discuss the Zurich attack at one of its next meetings. The GPdel wants to know from the NDB leadership, among other things, whether there are holes in the defense system and how these can be closed, says GPdel chairman and national councilor Stefan Müller-Altermatt (middle/SO).

The NDB has repeatedly made negative headlines recently. During a restructuring, dissatisfaction grows and there are many departures. The ‘NZZ am Sonntag’ reported on an internal document in which NDB boss Christian Dussey said about the results of an employee survey: “The results worry me.” The GPdel will also examine these problems in more detail.