Tag Archives: Islamist

Hamburg attacker was known to security forces as Islamist: minister

Security forces and ambulances are seen after a knife attack in a supermarket in Hamburg, Germany, July 28, 2017. REUTERS/Morris Mac Matzen

HAMBURG (Reuters) – The migrant who killed one person and injured six others in a knife attack in a Hamburg supermarket on Friday was an Islamist known to German security forces, who say they believed he posed no immediate threat, the city-state’s interior minister said on Saturday.

A possible security lapse in a second deadly militant attack in less than a year, and two months before the general election, would be highly embarrassing for German intelligence, especially since security is a main theme in the Sept. 24 vote.

A Tunisian failed asylum seeker killed 12 people by driving a truck into a Christmas market in Berlin in December, slipping through the net after intelligence officers who had monitored him reached the conclusion he was no threat.

Hamburg Interior Minister Andy Grote told a news conference on Saturday that Friday’s 26-year-old attacker was registered in intelligence systems as an Islamist but not as a jihadist, as there was no evidence to link him to an imminent attack.

He also said the attacker, a Palestinian asylum seeker who could not be deported as he lacked identification documents, was psychologically unstable.

The Palestinian mission in Berlin had agreed to issue him with documents and he had agreed to leave Germany once these were ready, a process that takes a few months.

“What we can say of the motive of the attacker at the moment is that on the one side there are indications that he acted based on religious Islamist motives, and on the other hand there are indications of psychological instability,” Grote said.

“The attacker was known to security forces. There was information that he had been radicalized,” he said.

“As far as we know … there were no grounds to assess him as an immediate danger. He was a suspected Islamist and was recorded as such in the appropriate systems, not as a jihadist but as an Islamist.”

Prosecutors said the attacker pulled a 20-centimetre knife from a shelf at the supermarket and stabbed three people inside and four outside before passers-by threw chairs and other objects at him, allowing police to arrest him.

A 50-year-old man died of his injuries. None of the other six people injured in the attack is in a life-threatening condition.

Chancellor Angela Merkel is seeking a fourth term in office in September. Her decision in 2015 to open Germany’s doors to more than one million migrants has sparked a debate about the need to spend more on policing and security.

Tunisian asylum seeker Anis Amri, who could not be deported because he lacked identification documents, carried out his attack at a Christmas market in Berlin in December after security agencies stopped monitoring him because they could not prove suspicions that he was planning to purchase weapons.

(Reporting by Frank Witte in Hamburg; Writing by Joseph Nasr in Berlin; Editing by Andrew Bolton)

Christians caught up in Philippines’ urban battle with Islamists

A view of a fire caused by continued fighting between the government soldiers and the Maute group, in Marawi City in southern Philippines May 28, 2017.

By Tom Allard

ILIGAN CITY, Philippines (Reuters) – Bishop Edwin Dela Pena was sipping coffee after dinner in a southern Philippines coastal town last Tuesday when he received a phone call: it was from one of his diocese priests, who sounded panicky and distressed.

Father Teresito “Chito” Sugarno, the vicar general of Marawi City, had been taken hostage by Islamist militants along with about a dozen of his parishioners.

“He was only given a few lines to deliver, and it was simply echoing the demands of the kidnappers – for the troops to withdraw,” said Dela Pena. If the demand was not met, he was told, “something bad would happen”.

There has been no further word from the group of Christians since they were caught up in a ferocious battle that has raged between Islamist insurgents and Philippines soldiers in Marawi for the past week.

As many as 180,000 people, about 90 percent of the population, have fled the usually bustling lakeside town nestled in lush tropical hills that, almost overnight last week, became a theater of urban warfare.

Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte declared martial law across Mindanao – the country’s southernmost island and an area the size of South Korea – as troops outside Marawi closed in on  Isnilon Hapilon, who was proclaimed “emir” of Southeast Asia last year after he pledged allegiance to Islamic State.

Mindanao has long been a hotbed of local insurgencies and separatist movements: but now, Islamist fighters from Malaysia, Indonesia and other countries have converged in Mindanao, stoking fears that it could become a regional stronghold of Islamic State.

More than 90 percent of the Philippines’ 100 million people are Christian, but here Muslims are in the majority. In 1980 Marawi proclaimed itself an “Islamic City” and it is the only city in the country with that designation.

For the small Christian community of Marawi, however, life in the city had until recently been peaceful and prosperous.

“We don’t consider ourselves Muslims or Christians, we are just friends,” said Dela Pena, who has lived for 17 years in Marawi but was out of town when the violence broke out.

That peace was shattered some months ago, he said, after the army bombed an encampment of Islamist groups some 50 km (30 miles) away.

“They said they pulverized the whole camp, but these people simply transferred their base of operation from the jungle to the urban center, to the city, Marawi,” he told Reuters in an interview from Iligan City, 37 km (23 miles) from Marawi.

“They came in trickles, a few people at a time. They have relatives there. They lived, they recruited,” he said, adding that authorities appear to have missed the looming threat.

Members of Philippine Marines walk next to an armoured fighting vehicle (AFV) as they advance their position in Marawi City, Philippines May 28

Members of Philippine Marines walk next to an armoured fighting vehicle (AFV) as they advance their position in Marawi City, Philippines May 28, 2017. REUTERS/Erik De Castro

CATHEDRAL ATTACKED AND TORCHED

Chaos was unleashed upon Marawi when troops searching for Hapilon were ambushed by heavily armed militants.

More than 200 local and foreign fighters from the Maute group and others allied to Islamic State fanned out across the city, seizing the main hospital and prison before attacking the Cathedral of Maria Auxiliadora.

Inside, nearby residents told Dela Pena, Father Teresito and a group of worshippers were decorating the church for a holy day to celebrate the life of Mary, a sacred figure in both Christianity and Islam.

Dela Pena said they ran to the nearby bishop’s house, hoping they would be safe there, but the militants burst in after them. That evening, after bundling their captives into vehicles, they torched the church, according to the residents.

Photos showing the priest, a young man and a woman slumped against a wall have circulated on the internet. Dela Pena believes they are being used as human shields by the militants.

“I cannot imagine. I have no words to describe it,” he said.

Still, he remains hopeful that the city can unite again. The vast majority of Marawi’s citizens, whatever their faith, are appalled by the violence and disruption, he said.

“I think we can begin something more effective in terms of working together, in terms of dialogue, in terms of peaceful coexistence,” he said. “After all, we have shared the same predicament.”

(Additional reporting by Karen Lema in MANILA; Editing by John Chalmers and Lincoln Feast)

Thousands of Indonesians expected to rally against rising intolerance

Members of hardline Muslim groups hold a big national flag as they attend a protest against Jakarta's incumbent governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, an ethnic Chinese Christian running in the upcoming election, in Jakarta, Indonesia

By Eveline Danubrata

JAKARTA (Reuters) – Thousands of Indonesians are expected to rally on Saturday against what they see as growing racial and religious intolerance in the world’s largest Muslim-majority country.

Religious leaders, human right groups and other organizations will join the parade in central Jakarta, spokeswoman Umi Azalea said by telephone.

The movement was not political but aimed at “celebrating Indonesia’s diversity”, Azalea said.

“Indonesia has so many religions, cultures and ethnicities. Yet now we are seeing some groups that are forcing their own will, and that is very worrying.”

Indonesian police said on Wednesday they would investigate a complaint by Muslim groups that the Christian governor of Jakarta, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, had insulted Islam.

The decision has stoked concerns about rising hardline Islamic sentiment in the country of 250 million people and is also seen by some analysts as a blow to democracy.

More than 100,000 Muslims protested against Purnama earlier this month. Police fired tear gas and water cannon to quell the protest.

There are also signs of rising religious tension elsewhere in Indonesia. Last Sunday, police arrested a suspected militant who threw an explosive device at a church in the eastern island of Borneo.

(Reporting by Eveline Danubrata; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Myanmar allows food aid delivery to conflict-torn region

Children recycle goods from the ruins of a market which was set on fire at a Rohingya village outside Maugndaw in Rakhine state, Myanmar,

By Simon Lewis

YANGON (Reuters) – Myanmar is allowing the first food deliveries for more than four weeks to the troubled north of Rakhine state, the UN humanitarian agency announced on Monday, amid an ongoing military lockdown of the area.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a statement that the World Food Programme had been granted permission to deliver aid to four villages, but repeated a call for full access to the area where tens of thousands remain cut off from assistance.

Rakhine Buddhists who fled from recent violence in Maungdaw pass their time in a temporary shelter at a stadium in Sittwe, Myanmar, Octobe

Rakhine Buddhists who fled from recent violence in Maungdaw pass their time in a temporary shelter at a stadium in Sittwe, Myanmar, October 25, 2016. Picture taken October 25, 2016. REUTERS/Soe Zeya Tun

“This is the first time humanitarian access has been granted to the affected areas of Maungdaw Township since the violence that erupted on 9 October,” the statement said.

Security forces have fanned out in the Muslim-majority region seeking the perpetrators of attacks in early October in which nine border guard police officers were killed.

The government believes a group of some 400 Rohingya Muslims with links to Islamists overseas planned and executed the attacks.

At least 33 alleged attackers and five government soldiers have been killed. Another police officer was also killed by motorcycle-riding assailants in the latest incident on Thursday, according to state media.

The military has designated the area an “operation zone,” blocking aid deliveries to the Rohingya population and barring foreign journalists and observers from entering.

Human rights monitors and members of the mostly stateless Rohingya community say troops have shot civilians on sight, raped Rohingya women and looted and burned homes during the operation.

The government, led by Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, denies any abuses have been committed.

Diplomats and the United Nations have been pushing an independent investigation, as well as for aid access to be resumed in the Maungdaw area.

“The UN continues to advocate strongly for full access to all affected areas to assess and respond to all humanitarian needs and to resume pre-existing humanitarian activities,” the OCHA said.

The high-level diplomatic mission from the UN, United States and Britain visited the area last week and told reporters officials had agreed to allow the resumption of pre-existing aid programs in the area and to extend assistance to newly displaced people.

Approximately 150,000 people had been cut off from food, cash and nutrition assistance for the past four weeks, the statement said.

WFP had been granted access to four affected villages, it said, without stating how many people would be reached.

OCHA’s head of office in Myanmar, Mark Cutts, said in a post on Twitter it was “welcome news that some food aid in #Maungdaw given go-ahead, but thousands of malnourished children still waiting for life-saving treatment.”

Before the current crises erupted, there was a malnutrition rate of 19 percent among children aged under five in Maungdaw, according to statistics cited in a WFP report in May.

(Editing by Nick Macfie)