VZCZCXRO2398
RR RUEHAG RUEHAST RUEHDA RUEHDF RUEHFL RUEHIK RUEHKW RUEHLA RUEHLN
RUEHLZ RUEHNP RUEHPOD RUEHROV RUEHSK RUEHSR RUEHVK RUEHYG
DE RUEHVI #1875/01 3571338
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 221338Z DEC 08
FM AMEMBASSY VIENNA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 1745
INFO RUEILB/NCTC WASHINGTON DC
RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 VIENNA 001875 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR S/CT (SHORE) AND NCTC 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PTER ASEC KCRM KHLS EFIN KHLS KPAO AU
SUBJECT: AUSTRIA: 2008 COUNTRY REPORTS ON TERRORISM 
 
REF:  STATE 120019 
 
¶1. Per reftel, Post is submitting the 2008 Country Report on 
Terrorism for Austria.  Embassy POC for this report is Political 
Unit Chief Phil Kaplan, office phone: 43-1-31339-2114; email: 
kaplanpw@state.gov. 
 
General Assessment 
------------------ 
 
¶2. According to Austria's Bureau for the Protection of the 
Constitution and Counterterrorism (BVT), there are some radical 
elements among second- and third-generation Muslim immigrants and 
among converts to Islam in the country. 
 
¶3. An Austrian court in 2008 convicted a young Muslim couple for 
terrorist threats conveyed through the internet in late 2007. 
Sympathizers of jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan were believed to 
have been behind arson attacks against the Turkish consulate in 
Salzburg and Turkish associations in Vienna and Graz in October 
¶2008.  In a separate incident the same month, Kurdish demonstrators 
unsuccessfully tried to force their way onto the UN premises in 
Vienna.  A wanted PKK activist and Ocalan confidante, Ayfer Kaya, 
transited Austria in March 2008 and was subsequently arrested in 
Bavaria. 
 
¶4. In November 2008, an Austrian couple kidnapped in February 2008 
in Tunisia by a group calling itself "Al-Qa'ida in Islamic Maghreb" 
was released in Mali.  The Austrian government denied rumors that it 
had paid ransom to the kidnappers. 
 
¶5. Austria closely follows EU policies to fight terrorist financing. 
 The GOA actively participates in the EU Clearinghouse mechanism, 
which designates terrorist financiers under UNSCR 1373.  During 
2008, Austria fulfilled its obligations to freeze assets, pursuant 
to UNSC resolutions and EU Clearinghouse designations, but did not 
initiate any freezing actions independently.  To implement the EU's 
Third Money Laundering Directive, Parliament in December 2007 
approved amendments to the Stock Exchange Act, the Securities 
Supervision Act, the Insurance Act, the Business Code, and Austrian 
laws governing lawyers and notaries; in the first half of 2008 it 
also made amendments to the Gambling Act and the law governing 
accounting professionals.  These introduced stricter regulations 
regarding customer identification procedures, including requiring 
customer identification for all transactions of more than 15,000 
euros for customers without a permanent business relationship, as 
well as examining businesses suspected of money laundering, 
terrorist financing, and non-face-to-face transactions.  The 
Business Code amendment requires all traders to establish the 
identity of customers for cash transactions of 15,000 euros or 
more. 
 
¶6. In November 2008, the Vienna public prosecutor suspended 
criminal investigations against representatives of the Palestinian 
Association in Austria, an organization on OFAC's SDN (Specially 
Designated Nationals) list.  The prosecutor stated that he was 
unable to establish proof of terrorism financing or membership in a 
terrorist organization. In August 2008, a Vienna court ruled that 
the GOA should unfreeze about USD 8 million from a bank account 
belonging to the Abu Nidal terrorist group.  The court determined 
there was insufficient evidence that the money was connected to 
terrorism or would be used to support terrorism.  The ruling is 
under appeal. 
 
Terrorist Groups 
---------------- 
 
¶7. The BVT singles out a handful of suspected extremist mosques in 
Vienna for monitoring.  It continued to monitor the Egyptian Islamic 
Jihad movement, certain radicalized converts to Islam, and suspected 
Afghan extremists entering Austria as asylum seekers. 
 
¶8. According to the BVT, there are a few immigrant Muslims who 
sympathize with groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood (Al-Ikhwan al 
Muslimin), the Al-Gama'a al-islamiya, and the Global Revolution 
group (Hizb ut-tahrir al-islamiyya).  Media sites monitored by the 
BVT include the Global Islamic Media Front (GIMF) and the as-Sahab 
Foundation for Islamic Media Publications.  Of the 130,000 Turks in 
Austria, some 4,000 are believed to be sympathizers of the PKK. 
Some Turks in Austria support Turkish jihadist Metin Kaplan.  There 
are also some sympathizers of the Iranian People's Modjahedin 
(Modjahedin-e-Khalq).  Among Palestinians in Austria, there are 
supporters of Hamas, as well as of the Salafiyya Jihadiyya. 
 
Foreign Government Cooperation 
------------------------------ 
 
¶9. Austria continued its participation in the Salzburg Forum, a 
regular meeting of interior ministers from Austria, the Czech 
Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, Italy, Romania and Bulgaria. 
 
VIENNA 00001875  002 OF 002 
 
 
Stuart Baker, Assistant Secretary for Policy at the U.S. Department 
of Homeland Security, participated in a Salzburg Forum meeting in 
Vienna in July 2008 and discussed visa policies with Austria and 
other participating nations. 
 
¶10. The GOA in 2008 worked to implement the Pruem Treaty.  Austria 
was one of the first EU countries to grant access to its police 
database to the six other EU countries that are party to the Treaty. 
 The Treaty, which involves the exchange of DNA, fingerprint, and 
vehicle data, is designed in part to identify terrorism suspects. 
 
¶11. Austria lags behind other EU members in implementing a 2007 EU 
directive obliging member states to store data from telephone 
conversations.  The EU sees such storage policies (as of March 2009, 
storage of email and internet information will also be mandatory 
under this directive) as a tool in the fight against terrorism. 
According to a poll, 78 percent of Austrians reject the idea that 
data collection and public surveillance technology helps protect 
citizens from acts of terrorism.  The European Commission in 2008 
twice warned the GOA that if it failed to implement the data storage 
directive the Commission would take the issue to the European Court 
of Justice. 
 
¶12. (U) The GOA in 2008 convened a number of international 
conferences under its Dialogue Between Cultures and Religions 
program.  Government and religious leaders from around the world 
attended the conferences in Vienna.  In December 2008, an 
international group of women activists founded Sisters Against 
Violent Extremism (SAVE), an anti-terrorism organization 
headquartered in Vienna that seeks to develop a network of women who 
have been victims of terrorism. 
 
GIRARD-DICARLO