Tag Archives: Attacks

Spain arrests two accused of connections to Islamist militants

Spanish civil guards

MADRID (Reuters) – Spanish police have arrested two people in Spain’s North African enclave of Ceuta accused of connections with Islamist militants, the Interior Ministry said on Friday.

The two detained had been through a long radicalization process and formed part of a group which was thought to be at an advanced stage of preparation for potential attacks, it said.

Police, searching six locations in relation to the arrests, found one gun and three non-firing weapons, the ministry said, though it did not elaborate.

Police had unearthed at least one automatic weapon wrapped in a plastic sheet on wasteland near the locations being investigated, a Reuters witness said.

Spanish police have arrested 180 people accused of connections to Islamist militant groups since raising the country-wide security alert to one below the highest level in 2015.

(Reporting by Paul Day; Editing by Toby Chopra and Hugh Lawson)

Islamic State supporters call for more holiday attacks in Europe

FILE PHOTO: An Islamic State flag is seen in this picture

CAIRO (Reuters) – A pro-Islamic State group on Wednesday urged supporters of the jihadists to carry out attacks on targets such as markets and hospitals in Europe over the Christmas holiday period and urged Muslims to stay away from Christian celebrations.

The threat came as European authorities have stepped up security following an attack claimed by Islamic State in which a truck ploughed into crowds in a Berlin Christmas market and killed 12 people this month.

The Nashir Media Foundation, which backs Islamic State, posted its message online, accompanied by images of fighters with guns and knives, Santa Claus, reindeer and a Christmas tree, according to the according to the U.S.-based SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors militant groups online.

“Their celebrations, gatherings, clubs, markets, theatres, cinemas, malls and even their hospitals are all perfect targets for you,” the online message to Islamist “lone wolves” in Europe said.

It said Islamic State would “replace their fireworks with explosive belts and devices, and turn their singing and clapping into weeping and wailing”.

The message reminded Islamic State supporters of a call earlier this month by the group’s new spokesman, Abu al-Hassan al-Muhajer, who said they should also attack Turkish consulates and embassies.

Turkey may have been chosen as a target because it has backed rebels in Syria against Islamic State.

(Reporting by Ali Abdelaty; Writing by Giles Elgood)

Islamic State urges supporters to stage new wave of attacks

Islamic State flag

CAIRO (Reuters) – A newly identified spokesman for Islamic State urged sympathizers around the world to carry out a fresh wave of attacks, singling out Turkish diplomatic, military and financial interests as the Islamists’ preferred targets.

Abi al-Hassan al-Muhajer, whose role as the group’s mouthpiece was disclosed for the first time on Monday, also told Islamic State fighters to stand their ground in the town of Tal Afar, where they are threatened by Iraqi forces bearing down on the city of Mosul, the group’s last major Iraqi stronghold.

In a defiant online message, Muhajer described Islamic State’s military losses this year as setbacks and said an array of forces in Iraq and Syria had failed to defeat the jihadists.

He said Islamic State supporters would target “the secular, apostate Turkish government in every security, military, economic and media establishment, including every embassy and consulate, that represents it in all countries of the world.”

“Destroy their vehicles, raid them … in their shelters so they can taste some of your misery and do not talk yourselves into fleeing,” Muhajer said in an audio recording posted online.

He called on supporters of Islamic State to “redouble your efforts and step up your operations” around the world.

It was not immediately possible to verify the authenticity of the recording.

Islamic State identified Muhajer as its new media spokesman in a recording posted on Al Furqan, a media outlet linked to the group. It gave little information about Muhajer, an obscure figure not widely known in the media or to experts.

The United States confirmed in September that Islamic State’s previous spokesman, Abu Mohammad al-Adnani, had been killed in a U.S. air strike on Aug. 30 in Syria.

Turkey appeared to have been chosen as a target because it has backed rebels in Syria against Islamic State, threatening to drive IS fighters from the town of al-Bab and backing rebels who crossed into Syria and took the border town of Jarablus from the jihadists. Most recently, Turkish warplanes destroyed 12 Islamic State targets on Saturday.

(Reporting by Ali Abdelaty and Asma Alsharif; Writing by Lin Noueihed; Editing by Giles Elgood)

Migrant influx pushes German population growth to highest since 1992

A woman wears an Islamic headdress while visiting Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germ

BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany’s population registered its biggest increase in more than 20 years in 2015, data showed on Friday, as record numbers of migrants entered the country.

More than a million people fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East, Africa and beyond flocked to Europe’s most populous nation last year, drawn by Germany’s strong economy, relatively liberal asylum laws and generous system of benefits.

Net migration reached a record high of 1,139,000, more than doubling from 2014, the Federal Statistics Office said.

A domestic debate about the benefits and drawbacks of migration has been raised a notch by a recent spate of violent attacks on civilians, some of which were claimed by Islamist militants.

Federal elections are due next year and some German politicians have argued the influx will help ease a shortage of skilled labour as the population ages and birth rates fall.

Others are worried such a large number of migrants, many of whom lack the language skills and training Germany needs, is placing a heavy burden on the social safety net.

With 188,000 more people having died in Germany in 2015 than were born, overall the population rose by 978,000 to 82.2 million, its strongest rise since 1992.

The Interior Ministry has said 1.1 million migrants arrived in Germany last year with the aim of seeking asylum, with just under 480,000 applying. Asylum seekers have faced delays in making their applications.

The statistics office said the figures it used to calculate net migration were based on numbers registering at registration offices. Asylum seekers are initially housed in reception centres and generally only register later.

All of Germany’s 16 regions saw their populations increase. Asylum seekers are spread around the country based on each state’s population and tax revenues.

At the end of 2015 there were 8.7 million foreign nationals living in Germany, an increase of 14.7 percent compared with the previous year, with foreigners making up 10.5 percent of the population.

The IAB German labour office research institute estimated on Friday that the number of people who come to Germany in search of protection would fall to around 300,000 to 400,000 this year.

It said that estimate was dependent on the continued existence of the European Union’s migrant deal with Turkey, which aims to stem the flow of illegal migrants to Europe, and the Balkan route remaining closed.

The IAB said the number of new arrivals had stabilised at about 16,000 refugees per month since April. That compares with more than 200,000 in November.

(Reporting by Michelle Martin; additional reporting by Holger Hansen; editing by John Stonestreet and Dominic Evans)

Series of blasts hit resort towns in southern Thailand

Line of police looking for bombs

By Prapan Chankaew

HUA HIN, Thailand (Reuters) – A series of blasts hit three of the most popular tourist resorts as well as towns in southern Thailand on Thursday and Friday, killing four people and wounding dozens, days after the country voted to accept a military-backed charter in a referendum.

Four bombs exploded in the upscale resort of Hua Hin, about 200 km (125 miles) south of Bangkok on Thursday evening and Friday morning, killing two people and wounding at least 24.

Other blasts hit the tourist island of Phuket, a resort town in Phang Nga province, and Surat Thani, a city that is the gateway to islands such as Koh Samui in Thailand’s Gulf.

Hua Hin is home to the Klai Kangwon royal palace, which translates as “Far from Worries Palace”, where King Bhumibol Adulayadej, the world’s longest reigning monarch, and his wife, Queen Sirikit, have often stayed in recent years, until both were hospitalized.

Friday was a public holiday in Thailand to mark the queen’s birthday, which is celebrated as Mother’s Day.

No group has claimed responsibility, though suspicion could fall on groups fighting an insurgency in Muslim-majority provinces in southern Thailand.

SEVEN ATTACKS

Police had intelligence an attack was imminent, but had no precise information on location or timing, national police chief Chakthip Chaijinda told reporters in Bangkok on Friday.

“We just didn’t know which day something would happen,” he said.

Since Sunday’s referendum on the constitution, there have been attacks in seven provinces using improvised explosive devices and firebombs, Chakthip said.

The devices were similar to those used by separatist insurgents in southern Thailand, but that did not conclusively show they were the perpetrators, he said.

Police ruled out any links to international terrorism, as did Thailand’s Foreign Ministry, which said in a statement on Friday: “The incident is not linked to terrorism but is an act of stirring up public disturbance.”

Thai authorities beefed up security at tourism spots, airports and on public transport in Bangkok, while Thai junta chief and Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha expressed frustration about the motives for the attacks.

“Why now when the country is getting better, the economy is getting better, and tourism is getting better? We have to ask why and who did it,” he told reporters.

TRAVEL ADVISORY

The attacks are bad news for Thailand’s tourist sector, which has been one of the few bright spots in a sluggish economy.

Tourism accounts for about 10 percent of gross domestic product and Thailand was expecting a record 32 million visitors this year.

Australia issued a travel advisory saying Australians should “exercise a high degree of caution” and warned: “Further explosions in any part of Thailand are possible.”

Two blasts on Friday morning in Hua Hin came after twin explosions on Thursday. One of those was near a bar in a narrow alley in the town late on Thursday, killing one Thai woman and wounding 21 people, Krisana said.

Ten of those injured in the Hua Hin blasts were foreigners, Krisana said, and eight of them were women.

The two explosions in Hua Hin late on Thursday were detonated by a mobile device, police said. The first took place 20 minutes earlier and about 50 meters from the second, but injured nobody.

Such twin blasts are common in the three Muslim-majority southernmost provinces of Thailand, where a long-running insurgency intensified in 2004, with more than 6,500 people killed since then.

The three provinces near the border with Muslim-majority Malaysia soundly rejected the referendum on the new military-backed constitution, which passed convincingly in most of the rest of the country in Sunday’s vote.

Violence has occasionally spilled over to areas outside the three provinces, which were part of a Malay sultanate until it was annexed by Buddhist-majority Thailand a century ago.

Hua Hin, Phuket and Phang Nga are far from the usual conflict zone, where attacks are typically aimed at the security forces and government representatives, not tourists.

In a separate incident on Friday, media reported two bombs had exploded in the southern province of Surat Thani, killing one person and wounding five. That came after a blast in Trang, also in the south, on Thursday, in which one person died and six were wounded.

No one was killed or seriously wounded on Friday in two blasts in the beach town of Patong on Phuket island or the two explosions in the beach province of Phang Nga. Authorities also defused two explosive devices in Phuket on Wednesday, police said.

The head of Interpol in Thailand, Police Major General Apichat Suriboonya, told Reuters it appears the bombs were meant more to send a message rather than cause death and destruction. “But the thing is, if you observe the bombs, they are not targeted to kill people but to send a message to some groups. It could be a domestic issue.”

Small bombs have been used frequently for attacks during periods of unrest over the past decade of political turmoil but have been rare since the military seized power in a 2014 coup in Thailand.

The latest bombings came almost a year after an attack on a Hindu shrine, crowded with tourists in central Bangkok, killed 20 people and wounded more than 120. Police have accused two ethnic Uighur Muslims from China for the Aug. 17, 2015, attack.

(Additional reporting by Orathai Sriring, Amy Sawitta Lefevre, Panarat Thepgumpanat, Surapan Boonthanom and Kitiphong Thaichareon; Writing by Simon Webb; Editing by Paul Tait and Bill Tarrant.)

Bavarian bomber called in video for more attacks: SITE

German officials after bombing

BERLIN (Reuters) – A Syrian man who injured 15 people when he blew himself up in southern Germany – an attack claimed by Islamic State – called in a video for further attacks, U.S. monitoring group SITE reported, citing Islamic State’s Amaq news agency.

The attack that took place on Sunday outside a music festival in Ansbach, a town of 40,000 people southwest of Nuremberg, was the fourth act of violence by men of Middle Eastern or Asian origin against German civilians in a week.

Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann said on Monday that a video had been found on the bomber’s mobile phone in which he pledged allegiance to Islamic State.

SITE quoted the man in the video saying he was on a “martyrdom-seeking operation” in Ansbach, and calling for more attacks.

He said the attack in Ansbach was in response to “crimes committed by the Coalition in collaboration with Germany by bombing and killing men, women, and children”.

In December the German parliament approved plans to join the military campaign against Islamic State in Syria in a mission that includes sending reconnaissance jets, a frigate, refuelling aircraft and military personnel. But Germany has not joined countries like Britain, France, the United States and Russia in conducting airstrikes.

(Reporting by Michelle Martin Editing by Jeremy Gaunt)

Saudi king vows to fight religious extremists after bombings

United Nations (U.N.) High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein

GENEVA/DUBAI (Reuters) – The king of Saudi Arabia warned his country would strike with an “iron hand” against people who preyed on youth vulnerable to religious extremism, a day after suicide bombers struck three cities in an apparently coordinated campaign of attacks.

In a speech marking Eid al-Fitr, the holiday that celebrates the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, King Salman said a major challenge facing Saudi Arabia was preserving hope for youth who faced the risk of radicalization.

“We will strike with an iron hand those who target the minds and thoughts… of our dear youth,” Salman, 80, said.

Four security officers were killed in Monday’s attacks that targeted U.S. diplomats, Shi’ite Muslim worshippers and a security headquarters at a mosque in the holy city of Medina. The attacks all seem to have been timed to coincide with the approach of the Islamic Eid holiday.

The U.N. human rights chief on Tuesday described the bombing outside the Prophet Mohammed’s Mosque in Medina as “an attack on Islam itself” and many Muslims expressed shock that their second-holiest site had been targeted.

No group has claimed responsibility but Islamic State militants have carried out similar bombings in the U.S.-allied, Sunni Muslim-ruled kingdom in the past year, targeting minority Shi’ites and Saudi security forces.

Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights and a member of the Jordanian royal family, delivered his remarks via a spokesman in Geneva.

“This is one of the holiest sites in Islam, and for such an attack to take place there, during Ramadan, can be considered a direct attack on Muslims all across the world,” he said. “It is an attack on the religion itself.”

ATTACK UNNERVES SAUDIS

Militant attacks on Medina are unprecedented. The city is home to the second most sacred site in Islam, a mosque built in the 7th century by the Prophet Mohammed, the founder of Islam, which also houses his tomb.

Attacks on Mecca, the holiest place in Islam, have been extremely rare. The Al Saud ruling family considers itself the protectors of both sites. Islamic State says the Saudi rulers are apostates and has declared its intention to topple them.

Saudis were rattled by the rare, high-profile attack.

“I apologize to everyone if I don’t congratulate you this Eid,” Khaled bin Saleh al-Shathri, a Saudi businessman, wrote on Twitter. “I am shocked by the deaths of five of my brothers and the wounding of four others as they guarded the holiest places.”

Iran, the region’s major Shi’ite power, also condemned the attacks.

Saudi Arabia’s crown prince and anti-terror tsar, Mohammed bin Nayef bin Abdul-Aziz, sought on Tuesday to reassure Saudis of the country’s security.

“The security of the homeland is good, it is at its highest levels and thanks be to God it gets stronger every day,” the state news agency SPA quoted him as saying during a visit to some of the wounded in the Jeddah attack.

Prince Mohammed has been credited for ending a bombing campaign by al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia between 2003 and 2006.

Monday’s bombings happened days before the end of Ramadan, when Muslims fast from dawn until dusk.

Saudi security officials say Islamic State’s supporters inside the kingdom mainly act independently from the group in Iraq and Syria, its main areas of operations.

Salah al-Budair, the imam of the Prophet’s Mosque, warned young people about being lured by the “malignant” ideology of Islamic State. “(The bomber) is an infidel who has sold himself to the enemies of his religion and his country,” he said.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay, Sami Aboudi, Mostafa Hashem and Tom Finn; Writing by Noah Browning; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky/Mark Heinrich)

Israel to cut Palestinian tax transfers after West Bank killing

People mourn during the funeral of Israeli girl, Hallel Yaffa Ariel, 13, who was killed in a Palestinian stabbing attack in her home in the West Bank Jewish settlement of Kiryat Arba, at a cemetery in the West Bank city of Hebron

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel will reduce monthly transfers of tax collected on behalf of the Palestinians in what aides to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described as a response to the killing of two Israelis in Palestinian attacks in the occupied West Bank this week.

The amount deducted from about $130 million sent to the Palestinian Authority each month will be equal to stipends it pays militants in Israeli prisons and the families of jailed or slain militants, Netanyahu’s office said on Friday.

“Incitement and payouts to terrorists and their relatives constitute an incentive to murder,” it said in a statement.

Palestinian gunmen killed an Israeli and wounded three others in an attack on a family car in the West Bank on Friday, the Israeli army and medics said. On Thursday, a Palestinian stabbed a 13-year-old girl to death in a West Bank settlement.

(Writing by Dan Williams; Editing by Louise Ireland)

France will see further terror attacks says Prime Minister

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls leaves the Elysee Palace following the weekly cabinet meeting in Paris

PARIS (Reuters) – France is doing all it can to prevent terrorist attacks but there will be more of them, Prime Minister Manuel Valls said on Wednesday following this week’s murder of a policeman and his wife by a Frenchman who pledged allegiance to Islamic State.

Valls said the intelligence and police services had foiled 15 attacks since 2013 and were waging a non-stop battle to track down would be terrorists.

“We need to tighten the net and give police and intelligence services all the means they need, but we will witness further attacks,” he said on France Inter radio.

“More innocents will lose their lives,” he said.

(Reporting By Brian Love; Editing by Andrew Callus)

Two French Police killed in attack claimed by Islamic State

Police vehicles at the scene where a French police commander was stabbed to death in front of his home in the Paris suburb of Magnanville

By Chine Labbé and Simon Carraud

PARIS/LES MUREAUX (Reuters) – A suspected Islamist attacker stabbed a French police commander to death outside his home and later killed his companion, a policewoman, in an attack claimed by Islamic State and denounced by the government as “an abject act of terrorism”.

The assailant, a 25-year-old Frenchman of Moroccan origin, was jailed in 2013 for helping Islamist militants go to Pakistan and had been under security service surveillance, including wiretaps, at the time of the attack, police sources said.

The attacker filmed part of the assault live on the social network Facebook, according to David Thomson, a journalist specialized in radical Islamists. In his Facebook message, he linked the attack to the Euro 2016 soccer tournament now under way in France, saying: “The Euros will be a graveyard.”

The attacker, named by police and justice sources as Larossi Abballa, knifed the 42-year-old commander repeatedly in the stomach on Monday evening.

He then barricaded himself inside the house in Magnanville, a suburb some 60 km (40 miles) west of Paris, taking the man’s 36-year-old partner and their three-year-old son hostage.

Police commandos shot Abballa dead when they stormed the house after negotiations failed but they found the woman, a secretary at a police station in a nearby suburb, killed with a knife, a source close to the investigation said.

The boy was unharmed but in a state of shock.

“An abject act of terrorism was carried out yesterday in Magnanville,” Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said after an emergency government meeting, before visiting Les Mureaux, where the police commander worked.

President Francois Hollande said the killings were “undeniably a terrorist act” and that the terrorist threat in France was very high.

Police searched Abballa’s home and other locations on Tuesday and detained two people close to him for questioning, a police source said.

The killings came as France, which has been under a state of emergency since Islamic State gunmen and bombers killed 130 people in Paris last November, was on high security alert for the Euro 2016, which began last Friday.

Police are under “extreme pressure” and “close to burn-out,” the head of FO labor union Jean-Claude Mailly told France 2 television.

ISLAMIC STATE

Islamic State claimed the attack. “God has enabled one of the caliphate’s soldiers in city of Les Mureaux near Paris to stab to death the deputy police chief and his wife,” an official broadcast on its Albayan Radio said.

If it is confirmed that the group was behind the killing, it would be the first militant strike on French soil since the multiple attacks on bars, restaurants, a concert hall and the national soccer stadium in Paris in November.

Details started to emerge on the profile of the attacker. Abballa was born in the nearby town of Meulan and lived in Mantes-la-Jolie, where he had set up a fast food outlet in April, documents from the Versailles court showed.

He was given a three-year prison sentence in 2013 for helping Islamist militants go to Pakistan. His name appeared in a separate ongoing investigation into a man who went to Syria, but he was not considered a threat, a source close to the probe said.

“He wanted to do jihad (holy war), that was clear,” Marc Trevidic, a former anti-terrorism judge who was in charge of the 2013 investigation told Le Figaro newspaper. But he was seen as having a minor role in that case, he said.

Abballa had also been convicted three times on charges of aggravated theft and driving without a license, a source close to the investigation said.

“Many things are being analyzed,” a justice source said, including messages posted on social networks.

Thomson, an RFI radio journalist specialized in Islamic radicalism, wrote on his Twitter page that Abballa had filmed himself on Facebook live during the attack.

With the couple’s boy behind him he said: “I don’t know yet what I’m going to do with him,” Thomson wrote.

Islamic State’s claim of responsibility came after the Islamist militant group said it was responsible for the shooting that killed 49 people in a massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida.

(Additional reporting by Leigh Thomas, Marc Joanny, Matthieu Rosemain, Richard Lough in Paris and Muhammad Yamany in Cairo; Writing by Ingrid Melander; Editing by Paul Taylor and Dominic Evans)