Austrian Authorities Arrest 2 With Suspected Ties to Paris Attacks

Revelation 6:3-4 NCV When the Lamb opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, "Come!" Then another horse came out, a red one. Its rider was given power to take away peace (prosperity, rest) from the earth and to make people kill each other (butcher, slaughter, to maim violently, in streets), and he was given a big sword (assassins sword, terrorist, loud, mighty, sore afraid).

Two people believed to be connected to last month’s terrorist attacks in Paris were arrested over the weekend at a refugee encampment in Austria, according to multiple media published reports.

A spokesperson for prosecutors in Salzburg, the city where the arrests occurred, told Reuters that the men arrived from the Middle East and were arrested “in accommodation for refugees on suspicion of belonging to a terrorist organization.” The spokesperson told the news agency that “evidence suggesting a connection with the Paris attacks is being verified,” but did not elaborate.

The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the Nov. 13 Paris terrorist attacks, in which gunmen and suicide bombers killed 130 people at various venues throughout the city.

Local newspaper Salzburger Nachrichten, citing security sources, reported the two men entered Austria using fake passports and allegedly had contact with the Paris attackers while in Austria. The pair was found “based on information of a foreign intelligence service,” the paper reported.

It’s been widely reported that one of the Paris attackers had a fake Syrian passport, and there are concerns that he posed as a refugee to enter France before ultimately carrying out the attacks.

FBI Director James Comey has told U.S. lawmakers that the intelligence community is worried that the Islamic State has the ability to forge passports. Last week, ABC News cited a Homeland Security report that indicated the Islamic State could have accessed a passport printing machine and boxes of blank passports after it captured a Syrian city that housed a passport office in 2014.

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