Tag Archives: Arrest

Nigerian Businessman Connected to Boko Haram Chibok Kidnapping Arrested

Nigerian military officials have announced the arrest of a businessman who actively participated in the kidnapping of almost 300 schoolgirls by the Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram.

Military spokesman Major General Chris Olukolade said that Babuji Ya’ari was the leader of a “terrorist intelligence cell” for Boko Haram.  Olukolade had been pretending to be a member of the Youth Vigilante Group so he could provide information to the terrorists and mislead officials.

“The arrest of the businessman … has also yielded some vital information and facilitated the arrest of other members of the terrorists’ intelligence cell who are women,” Olukolade said in a statement Tuesday night.

In addition to the kidnapping, Ya’ari has been a coordinator of attacks in the city of Maiduguri and helped plan and carry out the 2014 assassination of the emir of Gwoza.

Also arrested was a woman named Hafsat Bako who managed payroll for the terrorist operatives.  The Nigerian defense ministry said she was paid about fifty American dollars for each job.

Christians In China Put Crosses Back On Churches

The atheist government of China has been removing crosses from church buildings throughout the country for the last few years.

Now, the Christians are pushing back.

A group of protestant churches are putting their crosses back on the buildings in an act of civil disobedience to the government.  Sixteen churches in the cities of Lishui and Fuyang are replacing the crosses.  In some cases, elderly church members are replacing the churches three times a day after the government comes back to take the crosses back down.

Last month, government officials said all crosses in the nation need to come down.  The move is believed to be in response to the exponential growth of the church despite the government’s efforts.

“The central goal of this campaign is to minimize Christianity and to limit its access to ordinary people,” says Bob Fu, director of ChinaAid.

“There’s an enormous struggle across China brought by the rise of worshipers that seem to really believe,” says Terence Halliday, a director of the Center for Law and Globalization in Chicago who has worked in China. “Christianity now makes up the largest single civil society grouping in China. The party sees that.”

A new survey shows that protestant Christians in the country number between 50 and 100 million with about 6 million Catholics.  The ruling party has 70 million members.

Ten Sentenced To Life In Attack On Malala Yousafzai

Ten terrorists who attempted to kill child activist Malala Yousafzai in 2012 have been sentenced to life in prison.

The men could be eligible for release in 25 years.

The men were arrested last September in a district of Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, two years after the attack on the then 15-year-old Malala.  Taliban militants had targeted the girl for her outspoken insistence that girls had a right to education.

Authorities in the case say the terrorists were taking instructions from the Pakistan Taliban’s leader Mullah Fazlullah.  The Taliban told the men that Malala was “a symbol of the infidels and obscenity” for her desire to have girls obtain education.

Officials could not say if the men sentenced today were the actual gunmen in the attack.  The Pakistani government has claimed they arrested “the entire gang” involved in the attack but have not named the actual gunmen.

Malala went on to continue her activism after recovering in England from her wounds and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014.

Saudi Arabia Arrests 93 in ISIS Crackdown

Saudi Arabian officials announced the arrests of 93 people who are connected to the Islamic terrorist group ISIS.

The Saudi Press Agency reported the arrests took place between December and April with all but five of those arrested Saudi nationals.  The group had set up training sites and planned suicide bombings.

One of the reported targets was the U.S Embassy in Riyadh.

Intelligence officials say that two Syrians and one Saudi national had planned to drive a car loaded with explosives into the embassy.  The revelation explains why the State Department mysteriously shut down Saudi embassies in mid-March citing security concerns.

The largest cell consisted of 65 Saudi nationals who plotted an attack “on residential areas, and operations to incite sectarian sedition.”  Another 15 member cell was focused on bombing security headquarters and soldiers.

Security officials said they arrested Nawaf al-Enezi for the killing of two police officers in Riyadh earlier this month.  The ISIS operative was detained after a shootout with police about 60 miles east of the capital city.

ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi stated in November that ISIS should focus efforts on attacking Saudi Arabia and the ruling Saudi family.

Italian Authorities Arrest Terrorists Who Plotted Vatican Attack

A massive anti-terrorism operation in Italy has arrested several terrorists including one cell that had plans for an attack on the Vatican.

Authorities say that some of the cell members had contact with Osama bin Laden before his 2011 death and that they had recordings of the exchanges from wiretaps.

Prosecutor Mauro Mura said that intelligence showed the group had planned attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan along with domestic attacks.  The plot against the Vatican first came up among the terrorists in 2010 discussions.

Police say some of the suspects arrested Friday had been under surveillance for a decade.

The group was also smuggling currency to other terror networks.  One of the suspects arrested today was captured on a flight from Italy to Pakistan with 55,000 euros.

Investigators say the group tried to grow by smuggling migrants into Italy.  They would attempt to recruit the migrants to be a part of the al-Qaeda network.

The raids, which police called a “first-of-its-kind operation”also took out the terrorist’s headquarters on the island of Sardinia.

France Arrests Islamic Terror Suspect After He Shoots Himself In Leg

An Islamic terrorist who had been planning to carry out attacks on French churches has been arrested after he accidentally shot himself in the leg.

The 24-year-old terrorist, whose name is being withheld by authorities, was found with guns, bulletproof vests and notes about intended targets after he called an ambulance for his self-inflicted wound.

French police say the man is a computer science student who had been under observation as a security risk since last year.

AFP news agency reported the suspect was wounded in the leg after a dispute.

In addition to the weapons, police found in the suspect’s car blue lights and orange police armbands that led investigators to believe the terrorist would pose as a police officer to gain entry to churches for attacks.

Police also said that a woman found murdered Sunday morning in what they thought was a random attack was killed by the terrorist suspect in what could have been a practice run.

Attacks on churches would be new for France as previous attacks took place on synagogues.

Six Arrested In Plot To Join ISIS

Six men have been arrested in connection with a plot to travel to Syria to become members of the terrorist group ISIS.

While all six men are residents of Minnesota, two were arrested in San Diego.  The other four were arrested in Minneapolis.  The men are Somalis in their late teens or early 20s.

Federal officials identified the six men as Zacharia Abdurahman, 19, Adnan Farah, 19, Hanad Musse, 19, Guled Omar, 20, Abdirahman Daud, 21, and Mohamed Abdihamid Farah, 21.

“These were not confused young men,”Minnesota U.S. Attorney Andrew Luger stated during a press conference on Monday. “These are focused young men who were intent on joining a terrorist organization by any means possible.”

The men had connections to another Minnesota man who was indicted in February on terror charges after he tried to head to Syria.

“This is a very serious issue,”Somali activist Omar Jamal told the International Business Times. “We as a community are concerned about losing our kids to ISIS.”

FBI director James Comey said that every state has people like the ones arrested in Minnesota.

“Those people exist in every state,”he outlined. “I have homegrown violent extremist investigations in every single state. Until a few weeks ago there was 49 states. Alaska had none, which I couldn’t quite figure out. But Alaska has now joined the group, so we have investigations of people in various stages of radicalizing in all 50 states.”

Five Australian Teens Arrested For ISIS Style Plot

Australian officials say that five teenagers were arrested Saturday accused of plotting a terrorist attack on a Veterans’ Day ceremony.

The aim of the attack was police officers.

Australian Federal Police Acting Deputy Commissioner Neil Gaughan told reporters that two of the 18 year olds were plotting an attack on the ANZAC Day ceremony in Melbourne.  Two other 18 year olds and a 19 year old were arrested.  All of the arrests took place in Melbourne.

“At this stage, we have no information that it was a planned beheading. But there was reference to an attack on police,” Gaughan said. “Some evidence that we have collected at a couple of the scenes, and some other information we have, leads us to believe that this particular matter was ISIS-inspired.”

ANZAC Day is April 25th, the anniversary of the first major military action by Australian and New Zealand Army Corps during World War I.

Two of the teens had connections to Numan Haider, an 18 year old who stabbed two police officers before being shot and killed in September.

Federal Police Deputy Commissioner Michael Phelan told reporters the teens had been “on the radar” for months.

“This is a new paradigm for police,” Phelan said. “These types of attacks that are planned are very rudimentary and simple. … All you need these days is a knife, a flag and a camera and one can commit a terrorist act.”

ISIS Trafficker Charged With Forcing Girls Into Prostitution

A man engaged in human trafficking for ISIS forcing Syrian refugee children into prostitution has been arrested by Turkish authorities.

Ahmet Yumusak, 29, was captured by Turkish authorities who were investigating an attack on a soldier and police officer that took place last year.  During the investigation, they had Yumusak approach them to discuss paying for sex with underage Syrian refugee girls that were under control of ISIS.

After this arrest, authorities discovered he was sending young girls into Syria to be abused and married off to ISIS terrorists.

Authorities say they are unable to determine the total number of young girls that were forced into ISIS control by Yumusak but the number is well into the hundreds.

Police say that Yumusak also worked as a conduit for western girls and women that wanted to join the terrorist group.

India Detains Man For “Spreading Christianity”

A Christian man has been jailed in India because of “reasons of public order” despite the fact he has committed no crime.

Police arrested Arvind D’Souza on January 2nd after a group of radical Hindus in Uttar Pradesh began to riot, claiming that D’Souza had been “spreading Christianity.”

The group also said that D’Souza was committing the “forced conversion of women and children through the gift of Bibles.”

Superintendent of Police Amethi Hira Lal told Asia News that he had “found no evidence that D’Souza used force in converting anyone.  However, since the fact could undermine public order, they took him into custody in accordance with Article 151 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and placed him under preventive detention for 14 days.”

The president of the Global Council of Indian Christians called the action a serious violation of human rights.

“This is a trend that is spreading more and more in India,” Sajan George said.