Brazilian Authorities Arrest 10 in Planned Rio Olympics Attack

Brazilian Federal Police have arrested 10 men plotting terror attacks for the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. According to Brazilian Minister of Justice Alexandre de Moraes the suspects were coordinating a terror plot via communications apps WhatsApp and Telegram. At least some of the members apparently pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, as many jihadists including the Nice, Orlando, and Wurzburg assailants have done during or before committing their respective attacks.

According to Uruguayan newspaper El Pais, Brazilian police surveilled the suspects since April, finding that they were part of a jihadist ring calling itself Ansar al Sharia, (literally, Defenders of Sharia). Authorities also found that the suspects attempted to purchase an AK-47 rifle from an internet site in Paraguay in order to carry out attacks at the Rio Games next month. Operation Hashtag, as the police investigation was called, enlisted 130 federal police officers from the states of Amazonas, Ceará, Paraíba, Goiás, Minas Gerais, Río de Janeiro, Sao Paulo y Rio Grande do Sul.

Justice Minister Moraes added that the Defenders of Sharia were only loosely organized, with their communications suggesting they were in the earliest stages of their plan, including preparing to purchase firearms and conduct training. Brazilian authorities believe that a more organized terror cell, would already have training and contacts with which to acquire weapons.

The foiled plot is only the latest of many since the Islamic State began to promote independent attacks by its followers around the world. Major sporting competitions have often been the focus of these attacks, seeing as they draw large crowds and send a strong message to the world. Jihadists plotted numerous attacks on the European soccer championships last month, with authorities having discovered and stopped 15 attacks.

In addition to inspired attackers, terror cells, such as the one found in Brazil, pose a significant threat. While these groups are not always in communication with members of the Islamic State, they see it as their duty to wage jihad against the western world and organize themselves accordingly. Terror cells have been responsible for numerous IS-inspired attacks such as the Brussels Bombings in March of this year.

Given their small scale, terror cells pose a challenge to investigators; while officials  are sometimes able to find these networks by monitoring the movements and associations of people who publically claim to support jihad, it is quite easy for many of these networks to slip below authorities’ radars. Independent jihadis and IS-inspired attackers are even more difficult to locate seeing as they often times show no outward signs of radicalization, and have been instructed to do so in Islamic State publications. The arrests in Rio highlight the importance of following and surveilling suspected terrorists, even loosely organized ones like the one in Brazil; as previous attacks have shown, just one person with malicious intentions has the ability to inflict grave damage.