Tag Archives: car attack

Barcelona cell planned big bomb attack, suspect tells court

Catalan Mossos D'Esquadra officers leave the scene where Younes Abouyaaqoub, the man suspected of driving the van that killed 13 people in Barcelona last week, was killed by police in Subirats, Spain, August 21, 2017. REUTERS/Albert Gea

By Adrian Croft

MADRID (Reuters) – An alleged member of an Islamist cell suspected of carrying out last week’s deadly Barcelona van attack told a Spanish court on Tuesday that the group had been planning a much bigger strike using explosives, a judicial source said.

The testimony to a closed hearing at Spain’s High Court came from Mohamed Houli Chemlal, one of four detained suspects brought to Madrid to testify for the first time in court about the plot.

Two of the suspects told the court that Abdelbaki Es Satty, the imam in the small town in northeastern Spain where many of the group came from, was the instigator, the source said, adding that the public prosecutor had asked the judge to send all four to jail while investigations continued.

El Mundo newspaper said Chemlal told the court that the group planned to attack architect Antoni Gaudi’s landmark Sagrada Familia church and other Barcelona monuments but this could not be immediately confirmed.

Chemlal was arrested after being hurt in a blast at a house in Alcanar, southwest of Barcelona, a day before Thursday’s van attack on the crowded Las Ramblas boulevard in Barcelona, which left a trail of 13 dead and 120 injured people from 34 countries.

The 21-year-old arrived at court wearing hospital-issue pyjamas, with a bandaged hand and cuts to his face and bare ankles.

Police found 120 butane gas canisters and traces of a home-made explosive in the rubble of the house at Alcanar, where they say two of the plotters were killed. They believe that the accidental explosion led the group to abandon plans for a bomb attack and to stage a vehicle assault instead.

Tuesday’s court hearing was the first in a long legal process, and it could be months or even years before the case is brought to a full trial.

The four are the only alleged members of the group still alive after the driver of the van that plowed through the crowd in Barcelona, 22-year-old Younes Abouyaaqoub, was shot and killed by police on Monday.

RESORT ATTACK

In little more than a year, Islamist militants have used vehicles as weapons to kill nearly 130 people in France, Germany, Britain, Sweden and now Spain.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for the latest attack and a separate deadly assault, hours later, in the coastal resort of Cambrils, south of Barcelona.

In Cambrils, a car rammed passers-by and its occupants got out and tried to stab people. The five assailants, who were wearing what turned out to be fake explosive belts, were shot dead by police, while a Spanish woman died in the attack.

Most of the 12 suspects lived in the town of Ripoll, set in forested hills beneath the Pyrenees north of Barcelona, and most were young men of Moroccan descent.

The four suspects in court on Tuesday were questioned one-by-one by the investigating judge, Fernando Andreu.

Driss Oukabir, 28, whose passport was found in the abandoned van after the Barcelona attack, has maintained his innocence. He told the court that he rented vans used in the attack but believed they were for a house move, according to Europa Press news agency.

Also in court were Mohammed Aalla, 27, owner of the Audi car used in the Cambrils attack, and Salah el Karib, 34, who ran an internet cafe in Ripoll that, according to La Vanguardia newspaper, was used to send money to Morocco.

No charges against the men have yet been specified.

Es Satty, the Ripoll imam who police suspect radicalized the young men, is believed to have died in the Alcanar explosion.

An investigation into whether the cell had international links goes on, police have said.

La Vanguardia said Moroccan authorities had arrested a man who had been in touch with Moussa Oukabir, one of the suspects killed by police in Cambrils, and may have played a role in connecting the Catalan cell with Islamic State.

French Interior Minister Gerard Collomb on Tuesday confirmed press reports that the Audi used in the Cambrils attack had been caught on camera speeding in the Paris region days before the Catalonia attacks.

But he told BFM TV that French authorities had been unaware of the existence of the Catalan cell, saying they were “exclusively Spanish”.

BFM TV later reported that it had been Abouyaaqoub and an accomplice who traveled to the Paris region the weekend of Aug. 12-13, staying overnight at a hotel.

Spanish police have sought information from Belgian authorities on a visit the imam, Es Satty, made there last year.

(Additional reporting by Julien Toyer, Inmaculada Sanz and Carla Raffin and Richard Lough in Paris; Editing by Julien Toyer and Mark Trevelyan)

Spain hunts for driver in van rampage, says Islamist cell dismantled

A man lights a candle at an impromptu memorial where a van crashed into pedestrians at Las Ramblas in Barcelona, Spain, August 19, 2017

By Angus Berwick and Andrés González

RIPOLL/BARCELONA, Spain (Reuters) – Police were searching on Saturday for the driver of a van that killed 13 people when it plowed into a crowd in Barcelona and were trying to determine whether two other suspected Islamist militants linked to the attack had died or were at large.

The Spanish government said it considered it had dismantled the cell behind Thursday’s Barcelona rampage and an attack early on Friday in the Catalan seaside town of Cambrils.

Police arrested four people in connection with the attacks Barcelona and Cambrils, where a woman was killed when a car rammed passersby on Friday. Five attackers wearing fake explosive belts were also shot dead in the Catalan town.

“The cell has been fully dismantled in Barcelona, after examining the people who died, the people who were arrested and carrying out identity checks,” Interior Minister Juan Ignacio Zoido told a news conference.

But authorities have yet to identify the driver of the van and his whereabouts are unclear, while police and officials in the northeastern region of Catalonia said they still needed to locate up to two other people.

Investigators are focusing on a group of at least 12 suspects believed to be behind the deadliest attacks to hit Spain in more than a decade.

In little more than a year, militants have used vehicles as weapons to kill nearly 130 people in France, Germany, Britain, Sweden and Spain.

None of the nine people arrested or shot dead by police are believed to be the driver who sped into Las Ramblas, leaving a trail of dead and injured among the crowds of tourists and local residents strolling along the Barcelona boulevard.

A Moroccan-born 22-year-old called Younes Abouyaaqoub was among those being sought, according to the mayor’s office in the Catalan town of Ripoll, where he and other suspects lived.

Spanish media reported that Abouyaaqoub may have been the driver of the van in Barcelona, but police and Catalan officials could not confirm this.

The driver in the Barcelona attack abandoned the van and fled on foot on Thursday after plowing into the crowd. Fifty people were still in hospital on Saturday following that attack, with 13 in a critical condition.

Many were foreign tourists. The Mediterranean region of Catalonian is thronged in the summer months with visitors drawn to its beaches and the port city of Barcelona’s museums and tree-lined boulevards.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attacks in Cambrils and Barcelona, a statement by the jihadist group said on Saturday.

 

RAIDS

Police searched a flat in Ripoll on Friday in their hunt for people connected to the attacks, the ninth raid so far on homes in the town nestled in the foothills of the Pyrenees near the French border.

The flat had been occupied by a man named as Abdelbaki Es Satty, according to a search warrant seen by Reuters. Neighbors said he was an imam, a Muslim prayer leader. His landlord said he had last been seen on Tuesday.

Scraps of paper covered in notes were strewn around the flat, which had been turned upside down in the police search.

Three Moroccans and a citizen of Spain’s North African enclave of Melilla have been arrested so far in connection with the attacks.

Apart from Abouyaaqoub, authorities are searching for two other people though it is not certain they are at large.

One or even both of them may have been killed in Alcanar, where a house was razed by an explosion shortly before midnight on Wednesday, a spokeswoman for Catalonia’s home affairs department said.

Casting new doubts over the investigation, El Pais said late on Saturday that biological remains of at least three people had been found in the ruins of the Alcanar house. It was not clear whether they could be from the three suspects still sought by the police or if more people were there.

Police believe the house in Alcanar was being used to plan one or several large-scale attacks in Barcelona, possibly using a large number of butane gas canisters stored there.

The Spanish government maintained its security alert level at four, one notch below the maximum level that would indicate another attack was imminent, but said it would reinforce security in crowded areas and tourist hotspots.

Spanish media also said that security at the border with France was being beefed up.

 

TRIBUTES

Of the 14 dead in the two attacks, five are Spanish, two are Italians, two are Portuguese, one Belgian, one Canadian and one a U.S. citizen, emergency services and authorities from those countries have confirmed so far.

A seven-year-old boy with British and Australian nationality who had been missing since the attack in Barcelona was found on Saturday in one of the city’s hospitals and was in a serious condition, El Pais newspaper reported.

Spain’s King Felipe and Queen Letizia on Saturday visited some of the dozens injured whose nationalities ranged from French and German to Pakistani and the Filipino. They are being treated in various Barcelona hospitals.

The royal couple are expected to take part in a Catholic mass on Sunday morning at architect Antoni Gaudi’s famous Sagrada Familia church, a Barcelona landmark, in honor of the victims of the attack.

Barcelona’s football team will wear special shirts, bearing the Catalan words for “We are all Barcelona”, and black armbands in memory of victims when they play their opening league game of the season on Sunday evening against Real Betis.

 

(Additional reporting by Sarah White, Julien Toyer, Carlos Ruano, Rodrigo de Miguel, Alba Asenjo and Adrian Croft, Writing by Sarah White and Julien Toyer; Editing by Janet Lawrence, Edmund Blair and Lisa Shumaker)

 

Barcelona van attacker may still be alive, on the run: police

People gather around an impromptu memorial a day after a van crashed into pedestrians at Las Ramblas in Barcelona, Spain August 18, 2017. REUTERS/Sergio Perez

By Andrés González, Angus Berwick and Carlos Ruano

BARCELONA (Reuters) – The driver of the van that plowed into crowds in Barcelona, killing 13 people, may still be alive and at large, Spanish police said on Friday, denying earlier media reports that he had been shot dead in a Catalan seaside resort.

Josep Lluis Trapero, police chief in Spain’s northeastern region of Catalonia, said he could not confirm the driver was one of five men killed.

“It is still a possibility but, unlike four hours ago, it is losing weight,” he told regional TV.

The driver abandoned the van and fled on Thursday after speeding along a section of Las Ramblas, the most famous boulevard in Barcelona, leaving a trail of dead and injured among the crowds of tourists and local residents thronging the street.

(For a graphic on Barcelona crash, click http://tmsnrt.rs/2fOJ9Sm)

It was the latest of a string of attacks across Europe in the past 13 months in which militants have used vehicles as weapons – a crude but deadly tactic that is near-impossible to prevent and has now killed nearly 130 people in France, Germany, Britain, Sweden and Spain.

Suspected jihadists have been behind the previous attacks. Islamic State said the perpetrators of the latest one had been responding to its call to target countries involved in a U.S.-led coalition against the Sunni militant group.

Hours after the van rampage, police shot dead five people in the Catalan resort of Cambrils, 120 km (75 miles) down the coast from Barcelona, after they drove their car at pedestrians and police officers.

The five assailants had an ax and knives in their car and wore fake explosive belts, police said. A single police officer shot four of the men, Trapero said.

A Spanish woman was killed in the Cambrils incident, while several other civilians and a police officer were injured.

Trapero had earlier said the investigation was focusing on a house in Alcanar, southwest of Barcelona, which was razed by an explosion shortly before midnight on Wednesday.

Police believe the house was being used to plan one or several large-scale attacks in Barcelona, possibly using a large number of butane gas canisters stored there.

However, the apparently accidental explosion at the house forced the conspirators to scale down their plans and to hurriedly carry out more “rudimentary” attacks, Trapero said.

FOUR ARRESTS

Police have arrested four people in connection with the attacks – three Moroccans and a citizen of Spain’s North African enclave of Melilla, Trapero said. They were aged between 21 and 34, and none had a history of terrorism-related activities.

Another three people have been identified but are still at large. Spanish media said two of them may have been killed by the blast in Alcanar while one man of Moroccan origin was still sought by the police.

Police in France are looking for the driver of a white Renault Kangoo van that may have been used by people involved in the Barcelona attack, a French police source told Reuters.

WORST SINCE 2004

It was the deadliest attack in Spain since March 2004, when Islamist militants placed bombs on commuter trains in Madrid, killing 191 people.

Of 126 people injured in Barcelona and Cambrils, 65 were still in hospital and 17 were in a critical condition. The dead and injured came from 34 countries, ranging from France and Germany to Pakistan and the Philippines.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said an American citizen was confirmed dead, and Spanish media said several children were killed.

As Spain began three days of mourning, people returned to Las Ramblas, laying flowers and lighting candles in memory of the victims. Rajoy and Spain’s King Felipe visited Barcelona’s main square nearby to observe a minute’s silence.

Defiant crowds later chanted “I am not afraid” in Catalan.

Foreign leaders voiced condemnation and sympathy, including French President Emmanuel Macron, whose nation has suffered some of Europe’s deadliest recent attacks.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, speaking after media reports that some Germans were among those killed, said Islamist terrorism “can never defeat us” and vowed to press ahead with campaigning for a general election in Germany in September.

King Mohammed VI of Morocco sent his condolences to Spain.

U.S. President Donald Trump, speaking by phone with Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy on Friday, pledged the full support of the United States in investigating the attacks in Barcelona and Cambrils and bringing the perpetrators to justice.

In a message to the cardinal of Barcelona, Pope Francis said the attack was “an act of blind violence that is a grave offense to the Creator”.

Polish Interior Minister Mariusz Blaszczak said the attack showed the European Union’s system of migrant relocation was wrong. “It is dangerous. Europe should wake up,” he said. “We are dealing here with a clash of civilisations.”

(Additional reporting by Julien Toyer, Sarah White, Andres Gonzalez, Silvio Castellanos and Kylie MacLellan; Writing by Adrian Croft and Julien Toyer; Editing by Mark Trevelyan and Lisa Shumaker)

Rising migrant flow to Spain could become ‘big emergency’: U.N.

Migrants, who are part of a group intercepted aboard a dinghy off the coast in the Mediterranean sea, stand after arriving on a rescue boat at a port in Malaga, Spain August 7, 2017. REUTERS/Jon Nazca

GENEVA (Reuters) – The rising flow of migrants to Spain from North Africa could evolve into a “big emergency” if the pace continues, the U.N.’s migration agency said on Friday.

After large rescues in recent days, including 300 off Spain’s southern coast who had attempted to cross the Mediterranean from Morocco, more than 9,000 migrants have arrived by sea in Spain this year, surpassing the 2016 totals, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said.

In addition, 121 migrant deaths have been recorded on the route, against 128 for all of last year.

“We understand from our experts in the field that Spain now is going through something like what Greece saw in the beginning of 2015 or Italy even earlier,” IOM spokesman Joel Millman told a Geneva news briefing.

The vessels heading to Spain are much smaller and carry fewer migrants than those crossing to Italy from Libya, or previously from Turkey to Greece, but they are now arriving daily, he said.

“Obviously if this grows at the rate it’s growing it could be a big emergency,” Millman said, adding that other aid actors would have to help.

Spain this year has reported a spike in the number of migrants coming by sea or trying to cross the borders in its two North African enclaves, Ceuta and Melilla, and numbers are expected to double when compared to 2016.

“At the moment our estimation is 9 percent of those on the move into Spain are children,” said Sarah Crowe, spokeswoman of the U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

So far this year 119,069 migrants and refugees entered Europe by sea, with almost 83 percent landing in Italy and the rest divided between Greece, Cyprus and Spain, IOM said.

This compared with 266,423 arrivals across the region at the same time last year, it said.

“Deaths on the Mediterranean this year are 800 below what they were at this time last year,” Millman said. IOM figures show that they currently stand at 2,410 dead or missing.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay, editing by Alister Doyle)

Spanish police shoot five suspects dead after van rampage kills 13 in Barcelona

Spanish police shoot five suspects dead after van rampage kills 13 in Barcelona

By Andrés González, Angus Berwick and Carlos Ruano

BARCELONA (Reuters) – Spanish police shot dead five would-be attackers after confronting them early on Friday in a town south of Barcelona where hours earlier a suspected Islamist militant drove a van into crowds, killing 13 people and wounding scores of others.

Islamic State said the perpetrators had been responding to its call for action by carrying out Thursday’s rampage along Barcelona’s most famous avenue, which was thronged with tourists enjoying an afternoon stroll at the peak of the summer season.

Bodies, many motionless, were left strewn across the avenue and authorities said the toll of dead, which included several children, could rise, with more than 100 injured.

Hours later in the early hours of Friday, as security forces hunted for the van’s driver, police said they killed five suspects in Cambrils, 120 km (75 miles) south along the coast from Barcelona, to thwart a separate attack.

The five men attempted to drive into tourists on the Cambrils seafront, police said. Their car overturned and some of them began stabbing people. Four were shot dead at the scene and the fifth was killed a few hundred meters away, police said.

Police said they had arrested a Moroccan and a man from Spain’s north African enclave of Melilla, though neither was the driver of the van. He was seen escaping on foot and was still at large. A third man was arrested in the town of Ripoll on Friday.

Police said later they had made a fourth arrest in connection with the attacks but gave no details.

A Spanish woman was killed in the Cambrils incident while several other civilians and a police officer were injured. Police destroyed explosive belts the men had been wearing, though they turned out to be fake.

Of the 130 people injured in both attacks, 17 were in a critical condition and 30 were serious, an emergency services spokesman said.

Shortly before midnight on Wednesday, the day before the van plowed into the tree-lined walkway of Barcelona’s Las Ramblas avenue, one person was killed in an explosion in a house in a separate town southwest of Barcelona, police said.

A judicial source said investigators believed a cell of at least eight people, possibly 12, may have been involved in the Barcelona and Cambrils operations and that it had been planning to use gas canisters.

Later on Friday, residents and tourists returned to Barcelona’s famous Las Ramblas promenade where hours earlier a white van had zigzagged at high speed through pedestrians and cyclists, leaving bodies and injured writhing in pain in its wake.

The injured and dead came from 34 countries, ranging from France and Germany to Pakistan and the Philippines, Catalan emergency services said. Spanish media said several children were killed.

As Spain began three days of mourning, people laid flowers and lit candles in memory of the victims along the promenade. Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and Spain’s King Felipe visited Barcelona’s main square nearby to observe a minute’s silence.

Defiant crowds later chanted “I am not afraid” in Catalan.

ISLAMIC STATE CLAIM

Islamic State’s Amaq news agency said the attackers had carried out the operation “in response to calls for targeting coalition states” – a reference to a U.S.-led coalition against the Sunni militant group. Spain has several hundred soldiers in Iraq training local forces in the fight against Islamic State.

There was no immediate indication though that Islamic State had directed or organized the attack, although some of those responsible for similar attacks in Europe have been inspired by the jihadist group.

Islamist militants have staged several attacks across Europe in the past 13 months, killing over 100 people in Nice, Berlin, London and Stockholm.

In March 2004, Islamist militants placed bombs on commuter trains in Madrid, killing 191 people.

BODIES ON THE GROUND

Police said the two men detained on Thursday had been arrested in two towns, Ripoll and Alcanar, both in the region of Catalonia, of which Barcelona is the capital.

The explosion was also in the town of Alcanar. One person died and another was injured in that incident, police said.

A man was also found dead in a car which had driven into a police checkpoint in Barcelona, though the police could not immediately confirm it was connected with the van attack.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, speaking after media reports that some Germans were among those killed, said Islamist terrorism “can never defeat us” and vowed to press ahead with campaigning for a general election in Germany in September.

Last December, Berlin suffered a similar attack when a truck plowed into a crowded Christmas market, killing 12.

Italy said two of its nationals were killed and three injured while Belgium said one Belgian had died. German television channel ZDF reported three Germans among the dead.

France said 26 of its citizens were hurt, and 11 of them were in a serious condition. Australia said at least four of its nationals were injured, with broadcaster ABC saying a seven-year-old boy was unaccounted for.

A British Foreign Office spokeswoman said the ministry was assisting “a small number” of Britons.

Foreign leaders voiced condemnation and sympathy, including French President Emmanuel Macron, whose nation has suffered some of Europe’s deadliest militant attacks.

In a message to the cardinal of Barcelona, Pope Francis said the attack was “an act of blind violence that is a grave offence to the Creator”.

Polish Interior Minister Mariusz Blaszczak said the attack showed the European Union’s system of migrant relocation was wrong. “It is dangerous. Europe should wake up,” he said. “We are dealing here with a clash of civilizations.”

Authorities in Vic, a small town outside Barcelona, said a van had been found there in connection with the attack. Spanish media had said that a second van was hired as a getaway vehicle.

(Additional reporting by Sarah White, Andres Gonzalez, Silvio Castellanos, Alissa de Carbonnel, Ali Abdelaty and Ahmed Aboulenein, Kylie MacLellan; Writing by Mark Trevelyan; Editing by Mark Bendeich, Nick Tattersall and Richard Balmforth)

Van mows down crowd in Barcelona, 13 reported killed

Van crashes into crowds in Barcelona, media say two killed

By Pilar Suarez and Jordi Rubio

BARCELONA (Reuters) – A van plowed into crowds in the heart of Barcelona on Thursday and Spanish media reported at least 13 people were killed, in what police said they were treating as a terrorist attack.

The death toll was reported by Cadena Ser radio, citing police sources. Police said some people were dead and injured but did not confirm the number of casualties. They said were searching for the driver of the van.

Spanish newspaper El Periodico said two armed men were holed up in a bar in Barcelona’s city center, and reported gunfire in the area, although it did not cite the source of the information.

It was not immediately clear whether the incidents were connected.

A source familiar with the initial U.S. government assessment said the incident appeared to be terrorism, and a White House spokeswoman said President Donald Trump was being kept abreast of the situation.

Media reports said the van had zigzagged at speed down the famous Las Ramblas avenue, a magnet for tourists.

“I heard screams and a bit of a crash and then I just saw the crowd parting and this van going full pelt down the middle of the Ramblas and I immediately knew that it was a terrorist attack or something like that,” eyewitness Tom Gueller told the BBC.

“It wasn’t slowing down at all. It was just going straight through the middle of the crowds in the middle of the Ramblas.”

Mobile phone footage posted on Twitter showed several bodies strewn along the Ramblas, some motionless. Paramedics and bystanders bent over them, treating them and trying to comfort those still conscious.

Around them, the boulevard was deserted, covered in rubbish and abandoned objects including hats, bags and a pram.

“We saw a white van collide with people. We saw people going flying because of the collision, we also saw three cyclists go flying,” Ellen Vercamm, on holiday in Barcelona, told El Pais newspaper.

El Pais said the driver of the vehicle had fled on foot.

TOURIST DRAW

Emergency services said people should not go to the area around Barcelona’s Placa Catalunya, one of the city’s main squares at the top of the Ramblas, and requested the closure of nearby train and metro stations.

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said he was in contact with authorities, and the priority was to attend to the injured.

The incident took place at the height of the tourist season in Barcelona, which is one of Europe’s top travel destinations with at least 11 million visitors a year.

Vehicles have been used to ram into crowds in a series of militant attacks across Europe since July 2016, killing well over 100 people in Nice, Berlin, London and Stockholm.

Witness Ethan Spibey told Britain’s Sky News: “All of sudden it was real chaos. People just started running screaming, there were loud bangs. People just started running into shops, there was a kind of mini-stampede where we were, down one of the alleyways.”

He said he had taken refuge with dozens of other people in a nearby church.

“They’ve locked the doors because I’m not sure whether the person who may have done it has actually been caught, so they’ve locked the doors and told people just to wait in here.”

Barcelona is the capital of the wealthy northeastern region of Catalonia, which plans to hold a popular vote on Oct. 1 on whether it should secede from Spain. It is in dispute with the central government, which says the vote cannot go ahead because it is unconstitutional.

In recent weeks, threatening graffiti against tourists has appeared in Barcelona. In one video released under the slogan “tourism kills neighborhoods”, several hooded individuals stopped a tourist bus in Barcelona, slashed the tyres and spray-painted the windscreen.

The attack was the deadliest in Spain since March 2004, when Islamist militants placed bombs on commuter trains in Madrid, killing 191 people and wounding more than 1,800.

(Reporting by Madrid newsroom, writing by Mark Trevelyan; Editing by Alison Williams and Nick Tattersall)

GoDaddy removes white supremacist website after offensive post

The logo for internet company GoDaddy inc is shown on a computer screen

(Reuters) – The web hosting company GoDaddy said on Sunday it had given The Daily Stormer 24 hours to move its domain to another provider after the extremist web site posted an article denigrating the woman who was killed at a white nationalist rally in Virginia.

“We informed The Daily Stormer that they have 24 hours to move the domain to another provider, as they have violated our terms of service,” GoDaddy Inc said on its official Twitter page.

The Daily Stormer is a neo-Nazi, white supremacist website associated with the alt-right movement, which was spear-heading the rally on Saturday in Charlottesville, Virginia which resulted in violence, including the death of Heather Heyer, who was fatally struck by a car allegedly driven by a man with white nationalist views.

The hosting company’s rules of conduct ban using its services in a manner that “promotes, encourages or engages in terrorism, violence against people, animals or property.” Company representatives could not immediately be reached for comment.

The post on Heyer denigrated her physical appearance and what it said were anti-white male views.

On Monday, a note appeared on the Daily Stormer’s home page, which claimed that the site had been taken over by Anonymous, a loose-knit collective of hacker activists that intended to permanently take it offline in 24 hours.

Other original content remained on the Daily Stormer site, including appeals for financial support and the article attacking Heyer.

YourAnonNews, a Twitter feed that promotes attacks conducted by hackers who identify with Anonymous, said it had no confirmation that members of the group were involved.

It said it suspected the notice was posted as a “stunt.”

Daily Storm publisher Andrew Anglin could not immediately be reached for comment.

Scottsdale, Arizona-based GoDaddy, is one of the largest U.S. web hosting providers with some 6,000 employees.

 

(Reporting by Chris Michaud and Jim Finkle; Editing by Michael Perry and Nick Zieminski)

 

Suspect in hit-and-run on French soldiers unknown to spy agencies: source

Suspect in hit-and-run on French soldiers unknown to spy agencies: source

PARIS (Reuters) – The Algerian national suspected of ploughing a hire car into a group of soldiers in a wealthy Paris suburb is believed to be unknown to French intelligence services and had no criminal record, a police source said on Thursday.

Investigators late on Wednesday raided several addresses associated with the 36-year-old suspect, who was cornered by armed police from elite units on a motorway some 260 kilometers (162 miles) north of the capital.

Interior Minister Gerard Collomb said the incident was a “deliberate act” and prosecutors opened a counter-terrorism investigation. The police source said the suspect is called Hamou Benlatreche, confirming local media reports.

Benlatreche was not thought to be on a secret service list of people linked to radical Islam, the police source said.

“When a suspect is on the list, we know immediately,” the source said. “But in this case we’ve not been given any indication that he is.”

Benlatreche’s uncle described his nephew as a faithful Muslim who prayed regularly, and expressed shock at hearing that his relative was linked to the attack.

“I couldn’t believe it. It totally stunned us,” Mohammed Benlatreche told BFM TV.

The attack targeted a group of soldiers as they began a morning patrol in the upscale area of Levallois-Perret, home to France’s domestic intelligence agency and only a few kilometers from landmarks such as the Arc de Triomphe and Eiffel Tower.

Six of the soldiers were injured, three of them seriously.

They were part of Operation Sentinel, a 7,000-strong force launched in the wake of Islamist attacks in Paris in early 2015.

Wednesday’s attack was the sixth on troops belonging to the force and has raised questions about the strain the operation on home soil has placed on an army facing budget cuts.

Opponents say it is overstretching the army, reducing time between operational rotations, depriving regiments of time for training for foreign deployments and hurting morale. Some say the troops are sitting ducks for would-be militants.

“All it has done is hand Daesh clear targets,” Vincent Desportes, former director of France’s Ecole de Guerre, was quoted as saying in daily newspaper Le Parisien. Daesh is the commonly used Arabic name for Islamic State.

Supporters of Operation Sentinel, which costs hundreds of millions of euros a year, say the force has served as a deterrent and given French citizens and tourists greater peace of mind.

Jacques Bessy, president of the Association for the Defence of Soldiers’ Rights, acknowledged the strains placed on the military but said the mission was essential.

“It is true that the operation is tiring and stressful,” said Bessy. “We need to examine the resources in order to refocus the patrols on priority areas such as stations, tourist sites, certain places of worship.”

 

(Reporting by Caroline Pailliez, Cyril Camy and Miranda Alexander-Webber; Writing by Richard Lough; Editing by Catherine Evans)

 

Car rams into soldiers in Paris suburb in suspected terrorist attack

Armed soldiers secure the scene where French soliders were hit and injured by a vehicle in the western Paris suburb of Levallois-Perret, France, August 9, 2017. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier

By Benoit Tessier and Richard Lough

PARIS (Reuters) – A car rammed into a group of soldiers in a Parisian suburb on Wednesday, injuring six before speeding off in what officials identified as a suspected terrorist attack.

The vehicle, a BMW, was parked in an alley before it accelerated into the soldiers as they left their barracks to go on patrol, said Patrick Balkany, mayor of Levallois-Perret.

“The vehicle did not stop. It hurtled at them … it accelerated rapidly,” he told broadcaster BFM TV.

Armed Forces Minister Florence Parly said the driver was on the run and being sought, and an investigation was under way to determine “the motives and circumstances” for what she called a “cowardly act”.

A justice ministry official said counter-terrorism investigators had been assigned to the case.

The incident follows a string of Islamist-inspired attacks on soldiers and police, who have been deployed in large numbers nationwide after calls by militant group Islamic State for attacks on France and other countries bombing its strongholds in Syria and Iraq.

The soldiers hit on Wednesday were rushed to hospital and police said two of the six were seriously injured.

SCRAPING METAL

Balkany said that what he called a “disgusting” act of aggression was “without any doubt” premeditated.

Jean-Claude Veillant, resident of an apartment building directly above the scene, witnessed part of the attack.

“I heard a loud noise, the sound of scraping metal. Shortly after, I saw one of the badly wounded lying in front of the Vigipirate (army patrol) vehicle and another one behind it receiving treatment,” he told reporters.

France remains on maximum alert following a string of attacks over the past two years in which Islamist militants or Islamist-inspired attackers have killed more than 230 people.

Most were civilians killed in Paris in early and late 2015 as well as in the southern seaside city of Nice in mid-2016, Since then a string of attacks have primarily targeted police and soldiers.

This year, assailants attacked soldiers at the Louvre museum site in Paris in February and at Orly airport in March. An assailant shot a policeman dead on the Champs Elysees avenue in the capital in April. Another man died after ramming his car into a police van in June and soldiers disarmed a knife-wielding man at the Eiffel Tower earlier this month.

The car in Wednesday’s attack, which police said was dark-colored and probably a BMW, was parked near the edge of the Place de Verdun square in the center of Levallois-Perret, a relatively affluent suburb on the western edge of Paris.

The area, quieter than normal in peak summer holiday season, was cordoned off after the incident, which happened at around 8:00 a.m., police said.

Levallois-Perret is about 5 km (3 miles) from city center landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower and the Elysee Presidential Palace.

(Additional reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta, Caroline Paillez, Brian Love and Johnny Coton; Writing by Brian Love; editing by John Stonestreet)

Times Square driver who mowed down pedestrians denies guilt

FILE PHOTO: A vehicle that struck pedestrians and later crashed is seen on the sidewalk in Times Square in New York City, U.S., May 18, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Segar

By Peter Szekely

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The man accused of killing a woman and injuring 22 others by using his car to cut a three-block swath through the crowded sidewalks of New York’s Times Square denied all charges on Thursday related to the May attack, prosecutors said.

Richard Rojas, 26, pleaded not guilty to second degree murder, second degree attempted murder and first and second degree assault, prosecutors said. A grand jury indicted him on May 24.

Rojas, a Navy veteran, drove his Honda sedan down Seventh Avenue on May 18 and made a U-turn, mowing down pedestrians on sidewalks for three city blocks before crashing, prosecutors said. His lawyer could not immediately be reached for comment.

Alyssa Elsman, an 18-year-old woman visiting from Michigan, was killed, while 22 other pedestrians suffered various injuries, some serious.

After the car crashed, the driver was subdued by onlookers and police as he tried to flee on foot.

Rojas previously told the New York Post in a tearful jailhouse interview shortly after the crash that he had unsuccessfully sought psychiatric care and had no recollection of the incident.

He was believed to be under the influence of some intoxicating substance, a police source previously told Reuters, while law enforcement officials told ABC News he was apparently high on synthetic marijuana.

Rojas has had numerous run-ins with the law over the past decade, according to Navy and public court records. He has had at least four prior arrests, including two for drunken driving and one for allegedly threatening a man with a knife outside his apartment in New York City’s Bronx borough.

While serving in the Navy in 2013, he spent two months in a military jail in South Carolina, though records do not disclose the reason.

(Reporting by Peter Szekely; Editing by Bernard Orr)