October 20, 2016--Meanwhile, In Leipzig . . .

Before and during this year's political campaigns, every time as in San Bernardino there was a massacre carried out by Islamists, we heard in a mainly bipartisan way, that in order to thwart these tragedies in advance, relatives and friends of the terrorists need to step forward and alert officials to the potential threats.

Candidates have been saying--

"Didn't their parents know they were making bombs in the garage?"

"Didn't anyone see early evidence that their son/brother/husband/friend was becoming radicalized?"

In the case of the recent New York/New Jersey bomber his father did alert the FBI but the agency dropped the ball and thus failed to follow up effectively. But at least there was the warning from the father.

Then there is another kind of example from Leipzig, Germany.

From the New York Times last week--

The German police arrested a Syrian man [Jaber al-Bakr] early Monday who was suspected of plotting a bombing, bringing an end to a weekend manhunt that renewed fears about a threat posed by extremists among the nearly one million refugees and migrants who arrived in Germany last year.

Fine. But here's the backstory of how the police found the suspect--

The head of the state police in Saxony said that Jaber al-Bakr had been arrested in Leipzig in the apartment of other Syrians who had recognized the man from photographs circulated by the authorities over the weekend.

Now, here's my favorite part--

The Syrians tied up the suspect and took a photograph of him with a cellphone, which one of them took to a nearby police station before urging officers to come and arrest him immediately.

The police indeed did so.

Case closed.

Jaber al-Bakr