Camolin, according to a 2004 report in the German magazine
Der Spiegel, is a secret
counter-terrorism
Counterterrorism (also spelled counter-terrorism), also known as anti-terrorism, incorporates the practices, military tactics, techniques, and strategies that Government, governments, law enforcement, business, and Intelligence agency, intellig ...
unit based in
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. ...
,
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan ar ...
. The article states that the US, UK, Australia, Germany, and France - amongst others - created this unit after the
11 September 2001 attacks
The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercia ...
on the US. Started as
Alliance Base Alliance Base was the cover name for a secret Western Counterterrorist Intelligence Center (CTIC) that existed between 2002 and 2009 in Paris. The existence of CTICs were first revealed by Dana Priest in a November 17, 2005 article in ''The Washi ...
in 2002, the unit is now codenamed Camolin.
Their greatest success to date seems to have been the arrest in France on 3 June 2003, of the German
Muslim convert
Christian Ganczarski
Christian Ganczarski (born 1966, in Gliwice, Poland) is a German citizen of Polish ancestry who converted to a radical Islamic group.
Nicolas Sarkozy, then French Interior Minister, alleged Ganczarski was a top Al-Qaeda leader who had been in ...
who was considered at the time to be the head of
Al Qaeda
Al-Qaeda (; , ) is an Islamic extremist organization composed of Salafist jihadists. Its members are mostly composed of Arabs, but also include other peoples. Al-Qaeda has mounted attacks on civilian and military targets in various countr ...
in Europe.
Sources
Summary of Der Spiegel article from Statewatch News Online
Counterterrorism
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