President of Poland ‘terrorist target’

Security around the presidential palace has been stepped up after a tip off that Islamic terrorists have Polish politicians on their black list - again.

Eurasian Secret Services Daily Review reports:

‘Protection Colonel Jaroslav Kanarek has told the news agency RIAN that the bodyguards of [President Lech Kaczynski] are armed now with German assault carbines G-36 and the Israeli Mini-Uzi pistols. It is said that the Polish secret services have received information from an Islamic country that that Islamic terrorists prepare for acts of terrorism against the leading Polish politicians.‘

G-36s, mini-uzis? All sounds very impressive. But Poles thinking they might be a target for al-Qaeda type nihilists is nothing new. Last December, the Center of Strategic Studies and Forecasts at the School of International Studies in Lodz, central Poland, assessed that Poland was a possible target and warned that the country had yet to produce any counter measures against such as a threat.

Two and a half years ago the UK Observer reported:

‘Islamic terror cells are spreading eastwards into Poland, Bulgaria, Romania and the Czech Republic for the first time, prompting fears of a new battleground in countries with weak authorities, powerful criminal gangs and endemic corruption in the years to come.’

The close identification with the United States is what most of these ‘experts’ think is making suicide bombers strap on their explosives and hop on a plane to Okecie airport.

Foreign Minister, Anna Fotyga, was in the US this week for talks on the American anti-ballistic missile system that seems destined for somewhere in the Tara mountains; the timeline for withdrawal of 1.500 Polish troops in Iraq; the Polish armed forces mission to an increasingly difficult situation in Afghanistan…

We have been hearing scare stories about Islamicists in Poland ever since 9/11. But staging an outrage in Warsaw would be much more difficult for these sorts of people, simply because they are so much more visible in the almost monoethnic Poland, as opposed to somewhere like London.

So is Poland a target? Who knows. But one person I think should worry is Jaroslaw Kaczynski, twin brother of President Lech. He could easily become a target by mistaken identity. I hope the Islamicists can tell the difference between the two (tip: Lech wears a wedding ring).