Tag Archives: Counter terrorism

U.S. government narrows focus of counter-extremism program

FILE PHOTO - U.S. Department of Homeland Security emblem is pictured at the National Cybersecurity & Communications Integration Center (NCCIC) located just outside Washington in Arlington, Virginia September 24, 2010. REUTERS/Hyungwon Kang

By Julia Harte and Dustin Volz

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Department of Homeland Security on Friday announced changes to a $10 million government grant program, narrowing its focus around efforts to combat Islamist extremism.

In an update to awards announced in January by former President Barack Obama’s administration, the department released a new list of grant recipients and amounts, shifting money to law enforcement offices and away from groups that combat U.S.-based extremism.

Reuters reported in February that President Donald Trump’s administration wanted to revamp the program to focus solely on Islamist extremism.

A DHS spokeswoman said the department changed the grant criteria after the release of the initial list to consider whether applicants would partner with law enforcement, had experience implementing counter-extremism prevention programs, and would be able to continue after the awards were spent.

“Top-scoring applications that were consistent with these priorities remained as awardees, while others did not,” said DHS spokeswoman Lucy Martinez.

Three local law enforcement offices in California, Washington state and Minnesota were among the new awardees, receiving grants totaling $1.2 million.

A spokesman for the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office in California said it would use the money to address extremism “on all fronts,” not just Islamist violence. Sergeant Ray Kelly cited violent clashes between right-wing and left-wing demonstrators that recently erupted in the city of Berkeley as an example of local extremism in the county.

Kelly said the office would use the grant money to train officers to better recognize and address signs of alienation that make young people vulnerable to extremism, with the help of behavioral health counselors who are already on staff.

The Muslim Public Affairs Council, a nonprofit group that works to improve public understanding and policies that affect American Muslims, said the Trump administration revoked its nearly $400,000 grant because the group “did not meet the criteria of working with law enforcement to counter violent extremism.”

The revised list also omitted several original awardees focused on U.S.-based extremism, such as Life After Hate, which tries to steer young people away from far-right extremism.

Christian Picciolini, a co-founder of Life After Hate, told Reuters his group was planning to use its $400,000 grant to scale up its counselor network of former extremists to “meet the highly increased requests for our services since Election Day.”

“The current administration’s lack of focus on domestic white extremist terrorism, let alone its denial to even acknowledge it exists, is highly troubling,” Picciolini wrote in an email.

(Reporting by Julia Harte and Dustin Volz; Editing by Bill Rigby and Bill Trott)

Abortive Brussels attack could have been much worse: PM

Belgian soldiers patrol inside Brussels central railway station after a suicide bomber was shot dead by troops in Brussels, Belgium, June 21, 2017. REUTERS/Francois Lenoir

By Philip Blenkinsop and Charlotte Steenackers

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – A suitcase bomb packed with nails and gas bottles could have caused heavy casualties, Belgium’s prime minister said on Wednesday, a day after a soldier shot dead a Moroccan national attempting an attack on Brussels’ central station.

“We have avoided an attack that could have been a great deal worse,” Charles Michel told reporters after a national security council meeting following Tuesday evening’s incident, in which no one else was hurt.

However, no further threat was seen as imminent and the public alert level was left unchanged.

A counter-terrorism prosecutor named the dead man only by his initials, O.Z. He was a 36-year-old Moroccan citizen who lived in the Brussels borough of Molenbeek and had not been suspected of militant links. He set off his bomb on a crowded station concourse below ground at 8:44 p.m. (2.44 p.m. ET).

Walking up to a group of passengers, prosecutor Eric Van Der Sypt said, “he grabbed his suitcase, while shouting and causing a partial explosion. Fortunately, nobody was hurt.”

The suitcase, later found to contain nails and gas bottles, caught fire and then exploded a second time more violently as the man ran downstairs to the platforms.

He then ran back up to the concourse where commuters had been milling around and rushed toward a soldier shouting “Allahu akbar” — God is greater, in Arabic. The soldier, part of a routine patrol, shot him several times. Bomb disposal experts checked the body and found he was not carrying more explosives.

Police raided the man’s home overnight, Van Der Sypt said.

Molenbeek, an impoverished borough with a big Moroccan Muslim population just across Brussels’ industrial canal from its historic center, gained notoriety after an Islamic State cell based there mounted suicide attacks on Paris in November 2015 that killed 130 people. Associates of that group attacked Brussels itself four months later, killing 32 people.

Belgian policemen get out of a house after searching it, following yesterday's attack, in Brussels, Belgium June 21, 2017. REUTERS/Eric Vidal

Belgian policemen get out of a house after searching it, following yesterday’s attack, in Brussels, Belgium June 21, 2017. REUTERS/Eric Vidal

“WE WILL NOT BE INTIMIDATED”

Prime Minister Michel insisted the country, which has been the most fertile European recruiting ground for Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, would not bow to threats that have seen combat troops become a permanent fixture at public spaces in Brussels.

“We will not let ourselves be intimidated,” Michel said. “We will go on living our lives as normal.”

There was no immediate claim of responsibility and no word on how investigations are progressing into whether the man had acted alone or had help, and into any links to radical groups.

The Belgian capital, home to the headquarters of NATO and the European Union, took a heavy hit to its tourist industry last year. Visitors and residents out enjoying a hot summer’s evening on the ornate Renaissance town square, the Grand Place, close to Central Station were cleared quickly away by police.

Smoke billowed through the elegant 1930s marble hallways of the station, sending people fleeing to the surface, well aware of last year’s attacks at Brussels airport and on the metro, as well as of a string of Islamic State-inspired assaults in France, Germany, Sweden and Britain.

“Such isolated acts will continue in Brussels, in Paris and elsewhere. It’s inevitable,” Brussels security consultant Claude Moniquet, a former French agent, told broadcaster RTL.

With Islamic State under pressure in Syria, he said, attacks in Europe may increase, though many would be by “amateurs”.

Witness Nicolas Van Herrewegen, a rail worker, told Reuters: “He was talking about the jihadists and all that and then at some point he shouted: ‘Allahu akbar’ and blew up the little suitcase he had next to him. People just took off.”

Remy Bonnaffe, a 23-year-old lawyer who was waiting for a train home, photographed the flaming suitcase before the second blast, followed by gunfire, prompted him to run.

“I think we had some luck tonight,” he told Reuters.

(Additional reporting by Clement Rossignol, Francesco Guarascio, Jan Strupczewski, Elizabeth Miles and Alastair Macdonald; Writing by Alastair Macdonald; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

UK armed police arrest suspected knifeman near parliament

Armed police officers stand outside the Palace of Westminster, in central London, Britain June 16, 2017. REUTERS/Will James

By William James and Costas Pitas

LONDON (Reuters) – British armed police detained a man on suspicion of having a knife after he ran, shouting, toward one of the gates of the Westminster parliament in central London on Friday.

“The man – aged in his 30s – was arrested,” police said.

A witness at the scene told Reuters the man ran toward one of the gates to parliament where a militant killed a policeman less than three months ago.

“You could tell he was suspicious, he was stood there fists clenched. He looked quite an angry geezer,” Bradley Allen, 19, told Reuters.

“We got seconds down the road and they had him on the floor, pinned. Police around him, telling everyone to move back.”

The incident occurred less than three months since a man drove a car into pedestrians on Westminster Bridge, and then stabbed a policeman to death in the grounds of parliament, the first of three deadly attacks in Britain which has put the security services on high alert.

Another witness near parliament on Friday told Reuters he saw police threatening to use a stun gun on the man. Pictures from the scene showed the man on the ground with an officer pointing a gun at him.

“There were about three or four policeman, one of them shouting at the crowd to get back,” the witness, who declined to give their name, told Reuters.

“The guy was on the ground on his front on the pavement alongside Parliament Square. They had him on the ground and were warning they would taze (stun) him again.”

Officers later put the man in the back of a police van, a Reuters reporter said. Parliament said it was aware of the incident.

The gates to parliament were closed and armed police were patrolling as usual inside the perimeter, a Reuters reporter inside the building said.

On March 22, Khalid Masood drove a car into pedestrians on Westminster Bridge, killing four people, before he ran into the grounds of parliament and stabbed a police officer to death. He was shot dead at the scene and his attack prompted a review of security around Westminster.

That attack was followed by a suicide bombing in Manchester and a similar deadly attack on London Bridge, thrusting security and policing to the fore of campaigning before last Thursday’s election.

The spate of recent attacks were the deadliest in Britain since four British Islamist suicide bombers killed 52 people on the London transport system in July 2005.

(Reporting by William James and Costas Pitas, writing by Guy Faulconbridge; editing by Michael Holden)

London Bridge attackers had tried to hire 8.3 ton truck: police

People look at floral tributes near London Bridge, London, Britain, June 8, 2017. REUTERS/Marko Djurica

By Michael Holden

LONDON (Reuters) – The three Islamists who killed eight people after driving a van into pedestrians on London Bridge and then attacking nearby revelers had initially tried to hire a 7.5 tonne (8.3 ton) truck, the head of the UK capital’s counter-terrorism unit said on Friday.

Commander Dean Haydon also revealed that the men had a stockpile of petrol bombs in the back of their van and carried out their deadly attack with pink ceramic knives. Officers also discovered a Koran in their safe house, opened at a page on martyrdom.

The discoveries, especially of the plan to hire a truck, suggested more could have been killed.

“Getting hold of a 7.5 tonne lorry – the effects could have been even worse,” Haydon told reporters.

Although Islamic State militants have claimed responsibility for the attack, Haydon said there was no evidence the attackers – Pakistani-born Briton Khuram Butt, Italian Youssef Zaghba and Rachid Redouane who had links to Libya, Morocco and Ireland – were directed by anyone else, either in Britain or abroad.

“We’re not looking for a wider network,” said Haydon, head of London’s Counter Terrorism Command, adding that officers were still trying to piece together how the three men had met. “How did they know each other? They are a diverse bunch,” he said.

Haydon provided unusually extensive details of last Saturday’s attack, the deadliest in London since suicide bombers killed 52 people on the city’s transport network in 2005.

RINGLEADER

On Saturday morning, Butt, who Haydon said was believed to be the ringleader, tried to rent a 7.5 tonne truck but did not provided payment details.

It was not clear why he could not pay, or if he lacked the necessary license to drive such a vehicle. But his attempt echoed last July’s attack in Nice, France, when a 19-tonne truck was driven into crowds, killing 86 people.

Shortly before 1700 GMT, Butt received a text message confirming his hire of a Renault van instead.

At about 1730 GMT, the men drove to pick up the van before heading to Zaghba’s home in east London. At 1838 GMT they left and two hours later the van reached London Bridge which they drove along twice before targeting pedestrians on the sidewalk on their third run.

Three people on the bridge were struck and killed by the van, believed to have been driven by Butt, before the men abandoned the vehicle and began to attack people in bars and restaurants in the nearby bustling Borough Market area.

The men were armed with identical 12-inch (30cm) pink ceramic knives, strapped to their wrists with leather bound around the handle. They were also wearing fake suicide belts – plastic water bottles wrapped in duct tape.

Eight minutes after police were alerted, armed officers arrived at the scene and fired 46 rounds, killing all three men. Their victims were three French nationals, two Australians, a Canadian, a Spaniard and a Briton.

In the attackers’ van detectives found 13 wine bottles, filled with lighter fuel with rags wrapped round them to make Molotov cocktail petrol bombs. There were also two blow torches which Haydon thought could have been used to light the homemade bombs as part of a possible secondary attack.

“They were still fairly close to the van. There is a possibility that they could have come back,” Haydon said.

There were also office chairs, a suitcase and two bags of gravel which Haydon said might have been to add weight or to act as a cover story for their activities to friends and family.

He said Redouane’s home, an apartment in Barking, east London, was the men’s safe house where they put their plot together and prepared the attack.

There they found an English-language copy of the Koran which had been left open on a page describing martyrdom, along with other items linked to their attack.

Haydon said since last Saturday they had taken 262 statements from people from 19 different countries and numerous international inquiries were ongoing relating to the attackers and the victims.

CRITICISM

British police and security services were criticized after it emerged that they had known about Butt, who featured in a TV documentary entitled “Jihadis Next Door”, in which he joined a group unfurling an Islamic State (IS) flag in a park.

Haydon acknowledged that Butt had links to al Muhajiroun, a banned group headed by cleric Anjem Choudary. He was jailed last year for encouraging support of IS, which has been linked to numerous militant plots in Britain and abroad.

Butt was also arrested for fraud last October but was about to be told by prosecutors he would face no further action.

“We will be looking at intelligence and our processes, and asking ourselves the question: ‘Could we have prevented such an attack?’,” Haydon said. “There is nothing that I’m seeing at the moment that suggested that we got that wrong.”

Police have installed security barriers running alongside the sidewalks at eight bridges across the River Thames, and Haydon said similar protection was being considered at other locations.

Police were also reviewing security at “iconic sites”, crowded places and major events, and refreshing advice to theaters, bars, shopping centers and sports venues.

(Editing by Jon Boyle)

UK arrests three as footage of London Bridge attack appears online

Forensic officers walk along the road at the scene of the attack on London Bridge and Borough Market, London, Britain. REUTERS/Marko Djurica

LONDON (Reuters) – British police investigating the deadly attacks on London Bridge on Saturday said they had arrested three more suspects, as footage of the moment officers shot the assailants dead appeared online.

Counter terrorism officers, backed up by armed colleagues, arrested two men on the street in Ilford, east London, late on Wednesday, while a third was arrested at a house nearby, police said in a statement.

Two of the men, aged 27 and 29, were held on suspicion of preparing acts of terrorism while the third was detained over suspected drugs offences.

Eight people were killed and 50 injured after three Islamist militants drove into pedestrians on London Bridge late on Saturday, then attacked revelers in nearby bars and restaurants with knives.

Closed circuit TV footage, which appeared online and in British media, showed the attackers – Khuram Butt, Rachid Redouane and Youssef Zaghba – cornering a victim and starting to stab him before police are seen arriving and opening fire.

Police have previously said eight officers who rushed to scene fired about 50 rounds, killing the three attackers.

The Times newspaper also said it had obtained footage of the men laughing and joking five days before the attack as they met outside the Ummah Fitness Center, a gym in east London where Butt trained.

Earlier this week the gym put a note on its door which read: “While Mr Butt did occasionally train here at UFC gym we do not know him well nor did we see anything of concern.”

Police and the security agencies are facing questions about whether they missed chances to thwart the attack.

Butt had appeared in a television documentary called “The Jihadis Next Door”, as one of a group of men who unfurled an Islamic State flag in a park and who had connections with known radical preachers.

Zaghba, an Italian-Moroccan national, was identified as a possible militant threat after he was stopped at Bologna airport in 2016 as tried to reach Syria. He was not charged, but local police monitored him carefully and said they had tipped off Britain when he subsequently moved to London.

The authorities have said Butt was known to police and the domestic security service MI5 but there was no intelligence that an attack was being planned. They said they were unaware of the other two men.

Police have made more than a dozen arrests in the wake of the London Bridge attacks, but most have now been released without charge.

In a separate investigation not linked to the London Bridge attacks, officers backed up by armed police arrested three men in east London on Thursday on suspicion of preparing for acts of terrorism.

(Reporting by Michael Holden; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

Man shot after attacking police outside Paris’ Notre Dame

French police stand at the scene of a shooting incident near the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France, June 6, 2017. REUTERS/Charles Platiau

PARIS (Reuters) – French police shot and wounded a man who attacked officers with a hammer outside the Notre Dame cathedral on Tuesday and the Paris prosecutor’s office swiftly launched a counter-terrorism investigation.

Armed police cordoned off the site and the cathedral in central Paris that is visited by millions of tourists every year was locked down during the incident.

The motive for the attack was not immediately clear. It comes just three days after Islamist militants killed seven people in London in a knife and van attack.

“Situation under control, one policeman injured, the assailant was neutralized and taken to hospital,” Paris police said on Twitter.

Two police sources said the officers shot the assailant in the thorax after he had threatened them with a hammer and refused to stop. One policeman was hurt, according to one source.

Karine Dalle, a spokeswoman for the Paris diocese, told BFM TV 900 people were still inside the cathedral as police secured the area.

One holidaymaker inside Notre Dame wrote on Twitter: “Not the holiday experience wanted. Trapped in Notre Dame Cathedral after police shoot a man. We are with our 2 terrified children.”

France is under a state of emergency after a wave of militant attacks since early 2015 that have killed more than 230 people across the country.

It has soldiers patrolling its streets alongside police to protect tourist sites, government buildings and events.

Three women were arrested in September after police found a car laden with gas cylinders abandoned near Notre Dame cathedral in what the interior ministry at the time said was a likely planned imminent attack.

(Reporting by Maya Nikolaeva and Emmanuel Jarry; writing by John Irish; Editing by Richard Lough)

Trump administration asks Supreme Court to revive travel ban

A picture of the travel advisory page of Qatar Airways advising passengers bound for the United States from seven newly banned majority Muslim countries that they need to have either a U.S. green card or diplomatic visa, January 28, 2017 in London, Britain. Picture taken January 28, 2017. REUTERS/Russell Boyce

By Lawrence Hurley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump’s administration on Thursday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to revive his plan to temporarily ban travelers from six Muslim-majority nations after it was blocked by lower courts that found it was discriminatory.

In deciding whether to allow the ban to go into effect, the nine justices are set to weigh whether Trump’s harsh election campaign rhetoric can be used as evidence that the order was intended to discriminate against Muslims.

The administration filed emergency applications with the nine high court justices seeking to block two different lower court rulings that went against Trump’s March 6 order barring entry for people from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen for 90 days while the U.S. government implements stricter visa screening.

The move comes after the Richmond, Virginia-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on May 25 upheld a Maryland judge’s ruling blocking the order.

The administration also filed a separate appeal in that case.

“We have asked the Supreme Court to hear this important case and are confident that President Trump’s executive order is well within his lawful authority to keep the nation safe and protect our communities from terrorism,” Justice Department spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores said in a statement.

The American Civil Liberties Union, one of the legal groups challenging the ban, tweeted in response: “We’ve beat this hateful ban and are ready to do it again.”

At least five votes are needed on the nine-justice court in order to grant a stay. The court has a 5-4 conservative majority, with Justice Anthony Kennedy – a conservative who sometimes sides with the court’s four liberals – the frequent swing vote. Another of the court’s conservatives, Neil Gorsuch, was appointed by Trump this year.

If the government’s emergency requests are granted, the ban would go into effect immediately.

The court first has to act on whether to grant the emergency applications, which could happen within a fortnight. Then, the justices will decide whether to hear the government’s full appeal. The Supreme Court is not required to hear the case but is likely to due to its importance and the fact that the request is being made by the U.S. government.

The Justice Department has asked the court to expedite the case so that the justices could hear it at the beginning of their next term, which starts in October. That means, if the court allows the ban to go into effect, the final decision would be issued long after the 90 days has elapsed.

In the court filings, Acting Solicitor General Jeff Wall highlighted the unprecedented nature of courts second-guessing the president on national security and immigration.

“This order has been the subject of passionate political debate. But whatever one’s views, the precedent set by this case for the judiciary’s proper role in reviewing the president’s national-security and immigration authority will transcend this debate, this Order, and this constitutional moment,” he wrote.

In its 10-3 ruling, the appeals court in Virginia said the challengers, including refugee groups and others represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, were likely to succeed on their claim that the order violated the U.S. Constitution’s bar against favoring or disfavoring a particular religion.

The government had argued that the court should not take into account Trump’s comments during the 2016 U.S. presidential race since he made them before he took office on Jan. 20. But the appeals court rejected that view, saying they shed light on the motivations behind Trump’s order.

During the campaign, Trump campaign called for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.”

His administration has argued that the travel ban is needed to prevent terrorism in the United States.

Federal courts in both Maryland and Hawaii issued rulings suspending key parts of the ban. The appeals court in Virginia upheld the Maryland ruling. A San Francisco-based appeals court is currently considering the Hawaii case.

The administration is asking the Supreme Court to throw out the injunction imposed in both cases.

The March ban was Trump’s second effort to implement travel restrictions on people from several Muslim-majority countries through an executive order. The first, issued on Jan. 27, led to chaos and protests at airports and in major U.S. cities before it was blocked by courts.

The second order was intended to overcome the legal issues posed by the original ban, but it was blocked by judges before it could go into effect on March 16.

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Sue Horton, Christian Schmollinger, Shr Navaratnam and Michael Perry)

State Dept. seeks tougher visa scrutiny, including social media checks

A person stands at the counter of U.S. Immigration upon arriving at Miami airport March 13, 2013. REUTERS/Desmond Boylan

By Yeganeh Torbati and Mica Rosenberg

WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) – The U.S. Department of State has proposed tougher questioning of visa applicants believed to warrant extra scrutiny, according to a document published Thursday, in a push toward the “extreme vetting” that President Donald Trump has said is necessary to prevent terrorist attacks.

Questions about social media accounts would be part of the stepped-up criteria, which would apply to 65,000 people per year, or about 0.5 percent of U.S. visa applicants worldwide, the State Department estimated. It did not target nationals of any particular countries.

A set of new questions would apply to visa applicants “who have been determined to warrant additional scrutiny in connection with terrorism or other national security-related visa ineligibilities,” the State Department said in a notice to the Federal Register.

Those applicants would be required to provide all prior passport numbers, five years’ worth of social media handles, email addresses and phone numbers, as well as 15 years of biographical information, when applying for a U.S. visa. Consular officers would not request user passwords for social media accounts, the document said.

If granted, the new criteria would mark the first concrete step toward more stringent vetting that Trump asked federal agencies to apply toward travelers from countries he deemed a threat to the United States in an executive order issued in January and revised in March.

While parts of the travel order, including a temporary ban on the entry of nationals from several majority-Muslim countries, were halted by federal courts, the review of vetting procedures detailed in an accompanying memorandum remains in place.

“Collecting additional information from visa applicants whose circumstances suggest a need for further scrutiny will strengthen our process for vetting these applicants and confirming their identity,” a State Department official said.

The State Department’s proposal also says that applicants may be asked to provide additional travel dates if a consular officer determines they have been in an area which was “under the operational control of a terrorist organization.”

The proposed changes must undergo a public comment period before being approved or denied by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) by May 18. OMB did not respond to a request for comment.

The Department of Homeland Security, which was also tasked with reviewing vetting procedures for visa applicants, said the State Department request does not preclude DHS from identifying new “ways to protect the American people.”

“Some improvement will be classified, others will be public, but the Department has only just begun ways to enhance the security of our immigration system,” DHS spokesman David Lapan said.

SOCIAL MEDIA SNAGS

Immigration lawyers and advocates say the request for 15 years of detailed biographical information, as well as the expectation that applicants remember all their social media handles, is likely to catch applicants who make innocent mistakes or do not remember all the information requested.

They also question whether the time-consuming screening can achieve its intended goal of identifying potential terrorists.

“The more effective tactics are the methods that we currently use to monitor terrorist organizations, not just stumbling into the terrorist who is dumb enough to post on his Facebook page ‘I am going to blow up something in the United States,'” said John Sandweg, a former senior official at DHS who is now with the firm Frontier Solutions, which provides investigatory, crisis management and other services.

Applicants may not necessarily be denied a visa if they fail to provide all the information if it is determined they can provide a “credible explanation,” the notice said.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson first introduced similar measures in a March cable to American consular officers that outlined questions officers should ask in order to tighten vetting of visa applicants.

But Tillerson had to withdraw that guidance just days later because the OMB had not approved those specific questions.

The State Department estimated that the additional screening measures would take approximately an hour per applicant, meaning an additional 65,000 additional hours of work per year.

Tillerson’s cables anticipated delays as a result of the rules implementation.

“Somebody’s got to do the work,” said Greg Siskind, an immigration attorney in Memphis. “It’s going to cause operations at a lot of consulates slow to a crawl.”

(Link to proposal: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2017/05/04/2017-08975/notice)

(Reporting by Yeganeh Torbati in Washington and Mica Rosenberg in New York; Additional reporting by Arshad Mohammed; Writing by Julia Edwards Ainsley; Editing by Yara Bayoumy, Alistair Bell and Leslie Adler)

London terrorism suspect was on Gaza flotilla ship in 2010: sources

A man is held by police in Westminster after an arrest was made on Whitehall in central London, Britain. REUTERS/Toby Melville

LONDON/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A man arrested on suspicion of planning a terrorist act on Thursday, carrying knives near Prime Minister Theresa May’s office, was on a ship raided by Israeli soldiers in 2010, sources familiar with the investigation have told Reuters.

The 27-year-old man was arrested by armed counter-terrorism officers during a stop-and-search as part of an ongoing security operation, British police said.

No one was injured in the incident and police said knives had been recovered from the man, who was being monitored by British intelligence agents and counter-terrorism officers.

He remains in custody on suspicion of terrorism offences and possession of an offensive weapon.

Sources told Reuters on Friday the suspect was Khalid Omar Ali from London.

Ali was on board the Mavi Marmara, part of a flotilla which was challenging an Israeli naval blockade of the Gaza Strip when it was intercepted by the Israeli Defence Forces in May 2010, the sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said.

Nine Turkish activists were killed in the raid.

However, one source close to the current investigation said that investigators believed that Ali’s involvement in the boat protest was entirely separate from whatever might have led up to Thursday’s incident.

A man who is identified as Ali also features on a video on an activist’s website from 2010.

In the footage, he states he was among a group who said they were held against their will by the captain of the Greek-managed ship Strofades IV when they tried to take aid by sea from Libya to Gaza some months after the Mavi Marmara incident.

He also talks about joining the Road to Hope convoy which sought to take aid to Gaza in Nov. 2010 via Egypt.

(Reporting by Michael Holden and Mark Hosenball in Washington; editing by Ralph Boulton)

France mobilized for election security after Paris attack

The eleven French presidential election candidates take part in a special political television show entitled "15min to Convince" at the studios of French Television channel France 2 in Saint-Cloud, near Paris, April 20, 2017. REUTERS/Martin Bureau/Pool

By Leigh Thomas and Marine Pennetier

PARIS (Reuters) – France said its security forces were fully mobilized for a presidential election at the weekend after the killing of a policeman by an Islamist militant threw a dark shadow over the last day of an unpredictable campaign.

With the first round of voting in the two-stage election due to take place on Sunday, centrist Emmanuel Macron still held on to his position as frontrunner in the closely contested race.

An Elabe survey of voter intentions, carried out before the Thursday night shooting on the Champs Elysees shopping avenue in central Paris, showed Macron with 24 percent of the first-round vote and far right leader Marine Le Pen falling back slightly to 21.5 percent.

Two other candidates – former conservative prime minister Francois Fillon and the far left’s Jean-Luc Melenchon – were snapping at their heels with 20 and 19.5 percent respectively.

Campaigning and the publication of voter surveys are banned from midnight on Friday until polling stations close. Sunday’s round of voting will be followed by a second-round runoff on May 7 between the top two candidates.

The Champs Elysees attack was claimed by militant group Islamic State. One attacker was killed and officials said they were looking for a potential second suspect.

Emerging from an emergency meeting of security officials, Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve announced a full mobilization of security forces, including elite units, to back up 50,000 police already earmarked to ensure citizens’ safety during the election.

“The government is fully mobilized. Nothing must be allowed to impede the fundamental democratic process of our country,” Cazeneuve told reporters. “It falls to us not to give in to fear and intimidation and manipulation which would play into the hands of the enemy.”

The shooting abruptly pushed national security up the agenda, potentially making the outcome of Sunday’s first round vote even more difficult to call. With their hardline view on security and immigration, the positions of Le Pen and Fillon may resonate more strongly for some voters.

But attacks that have taken place soon before elections, including the November 2015 attacks in Paris ahead of regional elections and the shooting in a Jewish school before the 2012 presidentials, have not appeared to change the course of those ballots.

An assault on a soldier in February at the Paris Louvre museum by a man wielding a machete also had no obvious impact on this year’s opinion polls, which have consistently said that voters see unemployment and trustworthiness of politicians as bigger issues.

CROWDED CONTEST

Le Pen, who leads the National Front, has made immigration and security a core part of her campaign.

She wants to tighten French borders controls and build more jails, and says authorities are not doing enough to protect citizens from militant attacks, which have killed more than 230 people in France since January 2015.

“Today fundamentalist Islam is waging war and … the measures are not being taken to limit the risks,” she said on RFI radio.

Macron, who from 2014 to 2016 was economy minister in the Socialist government that Le Pen has criticized repeatedly for its security record, said the solutions were not as simple as she suggested.

“I’ve heard Madame Le Pen saying again recently that with her in charge, certain attacks would have been avoided,” he said on RTL Radio. “There’s no such thing as zero risk. Anyone who pretends (otherwise) is both irresponsible and deceitful.”

In the Elabe poll, which was conducted on Wednesday and Thursday, both Fillon and Melenchon were seen narrowing Macron and Le Pen’s lead over them.

Should Macron and Le Pen do make it to the second round, the former economy minister was projected to win the runoff – and thus the presidency – with 65 percent against 35 percent for Le Pen, the survey for BFM TV and L’Express magazine showed.

For the first round, Macron’s projected 24 percent of the vote represented a steady score from the last time the poll was conducted three days earlier. Le Pen’s 21.5 percent was a fall of 1.5 percentage points.

Fillon, who has slowly clawed back some ground lost after being hit by a fake jobs scandal, saw his score in the first round rise half a percentage point to 20 percent.

Melenchon, who would hike taxes on the rich and spend 100 billion euros ($107 billion) of borrowed money on vast housebuilding and renewable energy projects, gained 1.5 points to 19.5 percent as he built further on momentum he has seen after strong performances in television debates.

If Melenchon makes it to the runoff, he is projected to beat both Le Pen and Fillon by comfortable margins although he is seen losing to Macron 41 percent to 59 percent.

The number of people surveyed who expected to definitely turn out for the first round rose to 71 percent, the highest so far during the campaign although that is nonetheless low by historical standards.

(Additional reporting by Elizabeth Pineau, Ingrid Melander, Laurence Frost, Bate Felix; Writing by Richard Balmforth; Editing by Andrew Callus and Pravin Char)