The Jim Bakker Show

U.S. says Iran shows ‘true colors’ by restoring Hamas ties

FILE PHOTO: U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley comments as she arrives for a Security Council meeting at United Nations Headquarters in New York City, U.S., August 29, 2017. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

By Michelle Nichols

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said on Thursday Iran had shown its “true colors” by restoring ties with Palestinian militant group Hamas and must be held to account by the international community.

The new leader of Hamas in Gaza said on Monday that Tehran was again its biggest provider of money and arms after years of tension over the civil war in Syria. Hamas had angered Iran by refusing to support its ally, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, in the six-year-old civil war.

Haley described the Hamas leader’s statement as a “stunning admission.” Iran is subject to an arms embargo – with exceptions granted only in cases when it has received U.N. Security Council approval for imports or exports.

“Iran is showing its true colors. Iran must decide whether it wants to be a member of the community of nations that can be expected to take its international obligations seriously or whether it wants to be the leader of a jihadist terrorist movement. It cannot be both,” Haley said in a statement.

“It’s long past time for the international community to hold Iran to the same standard that all countries who actually value peace and security are held to,” she said.

Neither Hamas nor Iran have disclosed the full scale of Tehran’s backing. But regional diplomats have said Iran’s financial aid for the Islamist movement was dramatically reduced in recent years and directed to the Qassam Brigades rather than to Hamas’ political institutions.

Hamas seeks Israel’s destruction. It has fought three wars with Israel since seizing the Gaza Strip from forces loyal to Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in 2007.

Hamas and Abbas’s Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited self-rule in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, are locked in a political dispute over the issue of Palestinian unity.

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Tom Brown)

Finnish police study ‘manifesto’ by knife attack suspect

FILE PHOTO: People attend a moment of silence to commemorate the victims of Friday's stabbings at the Turku Market Square in Turku, Finland August 20, 2017. Lehtikuva/Vesa Moilanen via REUTERS

HELSINKI (Reuters) – Finnish police are studying a handwritten note they believe will offer clues to what motivated a 22-year old Moroccan asylum seeker to kill two women in a knife attack.

Abderrahman Bouanane, who is in pre-trial detention pending an investigation into alleged murder with terrorist intent, told a court last week he was responsible for the Aug. 18 attack but denied his motive was terrorism.

Detective Inspector Olli Toyras, from Finland’s National Bureau of Investigation, said police found the note in Bouanane’s backpack

“It is an important part of understanding his motives,” Toyras told Reuters on Tuesday. “You could call it a manifesto, it reflects the writer’s thoughts.”

Police declined to comment on the contents of the note, or if it included political messages or references to extremist organizations.

Two women died and eight people were wounded in the Aug. 18 attack in the south-western coastal city of Turku.

Bouanane arrived in Finland in 2016, lived in a reception center in Turku and had been denied asylum.

Police released two men earlier on Tuesday who had been detained over the stabbings, leaving Bouanane and one other man in custody.

The second suspect has denied involvement in the attack.

(Reporting by Tuomas Forsell; editing by John Stonestreet)

Belgium launches twin investigations into knife attack

People walk next to the scene where a man attacked two soldiers with a knife in Brussels, Belgium August 25, 2017 in this picture obtained from social media. Picture taken August 25, 2017. Thomas Da Silva Rosa /via REUTERS

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Belgian authorities on Saturday launched twin investigations into a knife attack they consider to be an act of terrorism and released more details of the suspect shot dead by soldiers in central Brussels.

Federal prosecutors said that they had requested an investigating judge look into the incident on Friday that they said constituted attempted murder.

A second investigation would look at the soldiers’ response.

The man shouted “Allahu Akbar” (God is great) as he stabbed the soldiers, one of whom shot him twice.

The assailant died shortly afterwards in hospital. Investigators then found a fake firearm and two copies of the Koran among his possessions.

They said the man, aged 30 and of Somali origin, had come to Belgium in 2004. Migration Minister Theo Francken said the man had been granted asylum in 2009 and gained Belgian citizenship in 2015.

Investigators also searched the man’s home in the northern city of Bruges, prosecutors said, without giving any details of what they had found.

They added the man was not known to have any links to Islamist militancy, but had committed an act of assault and battery in February this year.

Brussels prosecutors said they had started an investigation into whether the soldier who killed the man had acted correctly.

“It appears that the soldier twice shot the suspect who had attacked them with a knife. These shots were fired in the context of self-defense and according to the rules of engagement,” the prosecution service said in a statement.

It added that an autopsy would be carried out on Saturday. Prosecutors would take a final decision based on this and a report by a ballistics expert.

Soldiers routinely patrol the streets of the Belgian capital due to a heightened security alert level after Islamist shooting and bomb attacks in Paris in 2015 and Brussels in 2016.

In June, troops shot dead a suspected suicide bomber at Brussels’ central train station. There were no other casualties. Authorities treated the incident as an attempted terrorist attack.

(Reporting By Philip Blenkinsop Editing by Jeremy Gaunt)

Suicide attack at Kabul Shi’ite mosque kills ‘at least 14 civilians’

An Afghan policeman keeps guard the the site of attack in Kabul, Afghanistan August 25, 2017. REUTERS/Omar Sobhani

KABUL (Reuters) – A suicide bomber detonated himself at the gate of a Shi’ite Muslim mosque in the Afghan capital as other attackers stormed the building, killing at least 14 people as worshippers gathered for Friday prayers, officials said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but Islamic State militants have attacked minority Shi’ite targets in Afghanistan in the past.

An official at the Ministry of Interior said there were at least 14 civilian casualties, while at least two policemen had been killed and eight wounded.

At least two bodies and 15 wounded people had been brought to city hospitals, with ambulances retrieving more casualties at the scene, said Ismail Kawosi, a spokesman for the Ministry of Public Health.

Some witnesses at the scene said the attackers threw grenades, while police officials said a suicide bomber detonated himself at the gate.

One witness said an attacker wearing a vest packed with explosives shot and killed the guards at the gate.

“At first a suicide bomber opened fire and martyred two security guards at the entrance of the mosque and then they entered inside,” Sayed Pacha told Reuters. “Some people escaped out of the mosque including women, but there were four attackers who managed to enter the mosque.”

Later explosions rocked the area, but their source was unclear.

(Reporting by Hamid Shalizi; Writing by Josh Smith; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Exclusive: Indonesian militants planned ‘dirty bomb’ attack – sources

By Tom Allard and Agustinus Beo Da Costa

JAKARTA (Reuters) – Indonesian militants planned to detonate a radioactive dirty bomb, security sources said, highlighting the rising ambitions of extremists to wreak destruction in the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation.

But experts cast doubt on their expertise, equipment and chances of success.

The plot was foiled when police raided homes and arrested five suspects in Bandung, West Java, last week, the sources with direct knowledge of the plot said. After the raids, police spoke of a plan to explode a “chemical” bomb but provided no other details.

The plot comes as Indonesia grapples with an influx of militants deported from other countries and the fallout from the Islamic State-led siege in the southern Philippines city of Marawi that regional leaders and analysts worry has energized militants across Southeast Asia

The three counter-terrorism sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the militants had hoped to transform low-grade radioactive Thorium 232 (Th-232) into deadly Uranium 233 (U-233).

The highly radioactive uranium would be combined with the powerful home-made explosive triacetone triperoxide (TATP) to create a “nuclear bomb”, according to an instruction manual used by the militants and reviewed by Reuters.

In fact, the device would be, at best, a radiological dispersal device or dirty bomb that could spray radioactive material when the conventional bomb exploded.

A spokesman for Indonesia’s national police, Inspector General Setyo Wasisto, declined to confirm or deny the plot to construct the device, but said it would have been more potent than the two bombs made from TATP that killed three police in Indonesia’s capital Jakarta in May.

“If this bomb was finished, it would have had a more destructive impact than the bomb made from ‘Mother of Satan’,” he said, using the nickname for TATP.

“It could burn anything and make it hard for people to breathe.”

Thorium-232 can be transformed into Uranium-233 but requires the Thorium to absorb a neutron, a process that needs powerful irradiation, generally from a nuclear reactor, according to three analysts contacted by Reuters and the website of the World Nuclear Association, which represents reactor vendors and nuclear engineers, among other industry stakeholders.

The militants’ manual advised an X-Ray machine or microwave be used instead.

“X rays would not have enough punch to overcome the binding energy of the Thorium atoms,” said Peter Hayes, an expert in radiological devices from the Nautilus Institute, in an email.

“And, no, you can’t cook Th-232 to make U-233 in a microwave and, if you could, you would have a painful and rapid death from the radioactive nature of the co-present U-232 produced alongside U-233.”

One senior Indonesian counter-terrorism source said the Bandung-based cell had bought a large amount of a household item and had begun to extract the Thorium. Reuters has chosen not to name the item.

“They needed three weeks. It was still only one week (into the process when police raided),” the source said.

“A MUSLIM’S DUTY”

Indonesia has suffered a series of mostly small attacks by extremists over the past 18 months, although police have disrupted many more.

Indonesian terrorism analyst Rakyan Adibrata fears militants have been inspired by the events in Marawi, where IS fighters continue to occupy part of the city despite a three-month offensive by Philippines force to re-take it.

“They don’t have the ability to occupy a city like has happened in Marawi, but they want to do something big that pleases their bosses in Islamic State,” said Adibrata.

A radiological bombing could fit the bill, although Adibrata said that it was highly unlikely that the Bandung cell had either “the equipment or the knowledge” to succeed.

Most of Indonesia’s recent attacks have involved members of Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD), a pro-IS alliance of Indonesian militants. Many have been directed from Syria by an Indonesian national and JAD leader Bahrun Naim, according to police.

Naim is identified as the author on the front page of the 47-page Indonesian-language bomb instruction manual – named “Nuclear for Dummy” (sic) – and posted on a blog that has since been taken down.

“Mastering weaponry is essentially every Muslim’s duty,” it says.

“This paper, we hope, also can motivate the Muslim mujahideen to learn nuclear science easily and apply it.”

Last week, police said the militants had been working off Naim’s manual, but did not disclose its contents.

According to police, the suspected Bandung plotters were members of JAD and were considering targets like the presidential palace in Jakarta and police headquarters in Bandung and the capital.

Two of the five suspects are Indonesian migrant workers deported from Singapore and Hong Kong this year for posting radical Islamist material on social media.

They spent a month or less in a deradicalization shelter before joining up with the other militants, sources told Reuters.

About 177 Indonesian militants have been deported from other countries this year, according to Adibrata, citing the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

(Reporting by Tom Allard and Agustinus Beo Da Costa Additional reporting by Stefanno Reinard; Editing by Ed Davies and Nick Macfie)

Finns want tougher immigration policy after knife attack, poll shows

HELSINKI (Reuters) – An increasing number of Finns want the government to get tougher on immigration after last week’s knife attack by a Moroccan asylum seeker that killed two women and wounded eight other people, an opinion poll showed on Thursday.

Friday’s stabbings in the city of Turku have been treated as the first suspected Islamist militant attack in Finland, which boasts one of the lowest crime rates in the world. However, the main suspected has denied terrorism was a motive.

Some 58 percent of Finns want the government to tighten immigration policy and give police and other officials extra powers to prevent future attacks, according to the poll, which was taken after the attack and published by the Finnish newspaper Iltalehti.

A similar poll in April showed only 40 percent supported stricter policies.

Finnish police have detained four men and arrested two in connection with the Turku killings. An international arrest warrant has been issued for a fifth.

The main suspect, who is in custody, has been named as Abderrahman Mechkah, an 18-year-old Moroccan. He told a court he was responsible for the attack but denied his motive was terrorism.

At the time of the attack, Mechkah was appealing against a decision on his application for asylum, which apparently was denied.

Prime Minister Juha Sipila has urged the parliament to fast-track a bill that would give authorities new powers to monitor citizens online.

Some officials have also promoted establishing better-controlled “return centers” to monitor more closely those who had been denied asylum.

The poll showed 80 percent of Finns supporting both proposals.

(Reporting by Tuomas Forsell, editing by Larry King)

Boko Haram Nigerian child bombings this year are quadruple 2016’s: UNICEF

Nigeria to release $1 billion from excess oil account to fight Boko Haram

By Stephanie Nebehay and Alexis Akwagyiram

GENEVA/LAGOS (Reuters) – Boko Haram militants in northeast Nigeria have sent out four times as many child suicide bombers this year as they used in all of 2016, the United Nations Children’s Fund said on Tuesday.

Eighty-three children had been used as bombers since Jan. 1, 2017, UNICEF said. Of those, 55 were girls, mostly under 15 years old and 27 were boys. One was a baby strapped to a girl. Nineteen children were used last year, UNICEF said.

The Boko Haram insurgency, now in its eighth year, has claimed over 20,000 lives and forced more than two million people to flee their homes over eight years.

The frequency of suicide bomb attacks in northeastern Nigeria has increased in the past few weeks, killing at least 170 people since June 1, according to a Reuters tally.

UNICEF, in a statement released on Tuesday, said it was “extremely concerned about an appalling increase in the cruel and calculated use of children, especially girls, as ‘human bombs’ in northeast Nigeria. The use of children in this way is an atrocity”.

Boko Haram is trying to create an Islamic state in the Lake Chad region, which spans parts of Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon and Chad. It gained notoriety by abducting more than 200 girls from the northeast Nigerian town of Chibok in April 2014. Aid groups say it has kidnapped thousands more adults and children.

Children who escape are often held by authorities or ostracized by their communities and families. Nigerian aid worker Rebecca Dali, who runs an agency that offers counseling for those who were abducted, said children as young as four were among the 209 escapees her organization had helped since 2015.

“They (former abductees) are highly traumatized,” Dali told Reuters on Monday at the United Nations in Geneva, where she received an award from the Sergio Vieira de Mello Foundation for her humanitarian work.

Her team, which includes former police officers, identified some returnees as having been trained as suicide bombers.

“There were two girls taught by Boko Haram to be suicide bombers … The girls confirmed that they were taught that their life was not worth living, that if they die detonating the bomb and killing a lot of people, then their lives will be profitable,” Dali said.

Some 450,000 children are also at risk of life-threatening malnutrition in 2017 by the end of the year in northeast Nigeria, UNICEF said.

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari said on Monday the country would “reinforce and reinvigorate” its fight against the group following the latest wave of attacks.

Analysts say the Boko Haram faction led by Abubakar Shekau may have been paid ransom by the government to gain the release of 82 of the Chibok girls in May, which then was used to buy weapons and recruit fighters. The government did not disclose details of the negotiations.

(Additional reporting by Kieran Guilbert in Dakar)

Spain to review police response to Barcelona attack amid questions

By Angus Berwick and Julien Toyer

BARCELONA (Reuters) – Regional police in Spain may have missed an opportunity to uncover a militant plot ahead of last week’s deadly Barcelona attack due to procedural errors and a lack of communication among investigators, two police sources and two individuals close to the investigation said.

The errors and miscommunication centered around a major blast on Aug 16, the eve of the attack, at a house where suspected Islamist militants were making explosives, the sources said.

For several hours, Catalan police did not link the explosion to militancy and so no public alarm was raised, before an accomplice drove a van into crowds in Barcelona, killing 13 people in Spain’s deadliest attack in more than a decade.

Catalan police, the Mossos d’Esquadra, also took 10 hours to send bomb experts to the scene of the explosion in a town about 200 km (125 miles) southwest of Barcelona, the region’s capital, delaying the discovery of the militant cell, the sources added.

The sources declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue or because they were not authorized to speak to the press.

A judicial source said that, as part of the investigation into the attacks, police would look at whether a lack of coordination or information-sharing had contributed to the delay in discovering links between militancy and the explosion.

The source said police needed to complete the investigation before reaching any conclusions about possible errors.

Mossos chief Josep Lluis Trapero told reporters on Monday that it was unfair to criticize his force with the benefit of hindsight.

“Now, with all the information that we have, yes, it is easier to make the link, but that’s playing dirty and it deceives people,” Trapero told a news conference.

In response to Reuters questions about the agency’s handling of the attack, a spokesman for the Mossos declined to comment and referred to Trapero’s comments at the press briefing.

INITIAL CONFUSION

According to the Mossos, another suspected member of the bomb-makers’ militant cell, 22-year-old Younes Abouyaaqoub, had begun to mow down pedestrians in the central walkway of Barcelona’s most famous avenue, Las Ramblas, at around the time bomb experts determined the real cause of the blast.

A bomb squad should be called immediately to the scene of such an incident given the possibility it could be linked to terrorism, a judicial source said.

The Mossos also did not promptly pass information on the blast to the national police and to Madrid’s Civil Guard, viewed as Spain’s most experienced anti-terrorism force, said sources from both police forces.

Despite the criticism, Spanish and Catalan authorities have publicly praised the Mossos for its response to the attacks.

All of the known suspects are now arrested or dead, with police on Monday killing the van’s driver, Abouyaaqoub, after four days on the run.

“Great job Mossos!” Spain’s national police said on its Twitter account.

The head of Catalonia’s regional government also praised the service.

“I want to thank the Mossos d’Esquadra for their efficiency. They’ve shown great professionalism, in close coordination with the rest of Catalonia and the state’s security forces,” Carles Puigdemont said after Abouyaaqoub was killed.

A Civil Guard spokesman declined to comment on coordination with the Mossos and the investigation. The Civil Guard’s main union said in a statement on Tuesday that they had been excluded from the investigation. The spokesman declined to comment on this.

LOCAL PRIDE IN THE MOSSOS

The sources said the Mossos normally coordinated efficiently with the national police, barring occasional minor problems, and could not explain why these procedures had not been followed.

The Mossos has said it first suspected a gas leak or narcotics laboratory was to blame for the blast, which tore through the house near midnight. Police had noticed butane gas cylinders and acetone, a compound used in laboratories to produce drugs.

Some terrorism experts have speculated that if the Mossos had discovered the presence of militants at the house in Alcanar more quickly, it might have had time to raise the alarm and perhaps even foil the van attack in Barcelona.

Salvador Burguet, chief executive of Spanish intelligence firm AICS, which works with anti-terrorism authorities in several countries, said police “could have linked the explosion with an Islamist terrorist cell.

“But that didn’t happen, and they lost a lot of time,” said Madrid-based Burguet, adding that his remarks were based on information he gathered from his own police sources.

Had police immediately sent the bomb squad to the Alcanar house, Burguet said, they would have quickly detected signs of Islamic State’s signature explosive, TATP, and the coffee filters used to strain the solution.

The Mossos says it now believes explosives accidentally ignited, killing two of the three militants inside the house.

They belonged to what police have said was a 12-member cell which decided after the explosion on a less elaborate attack than the one they were apparently planning: drive a rented van into the Las Ramblas crowds and stage a similar attack in the coastal resort of Cambrils, south of Barcelona.

On Tuesday, a Spanish judge ruled that one of the four arrested suspects be released on certain conditions, while another remain in police custody pending further investigation. The judge jailed the other two.

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. A Spanish woman was killed in that attack.

Islamic State, the militant group under siege in Syria and Iraq, claimed responsibility for both attacks, although its direct involvement has yet to be established.

Catalonia’s government, which plans to hold a referendum on independence in October, says the Mossos are capable of acting effectively without the central government’s help.

In the past, Catalonia’s government and police have bristled at the fact that the Mossos has been excluded from international meetings on terrorism because they are not a national force.

Since the attack, the Catalan and national governments have sought to put aside the issue of independence to present a united front, although a day after the attack, national and Catalan authorities held separate crisis meetings.

Barcelona residents have expressed pride in the Mossos, sometimes applauding uniformed officers spontaneously in the street. The Mossos officers will lead an anti-terrorism demonstration on Saturday in place of Catalan politicians.

(Editing by Mark Bendeich and Mike Collett-White)

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.

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)

Finnish stabbings treated as terror, suspect ‘targeted women’: police

By Jussi Rosendahl and Tuomas Forsell

HELSINKI/TURKU, Finland (Reuters) – Finnish police said on Saturday that an 18-year-old Moroccan man arrested after knife attacks that killed two people in the city of Turku appeared to have specifically targeted women and that the spree was being treated as terrorism-related.

The suspect arrested on Friday after being shot in the leg by police had arrived in Finland last year, they said, adding they later arrested four other Moroccan men over possible links to him.

“Due to information received during the night, the Turku stabbings are now being investigated as murders with terrorist intent,” Crista Granroth from the National Bureau of Investigation told a news conference.

While the identity of the victims has not been disclosed by authorities, police said the attacker appeared to have targeted women during the stabbing spree in downtown Turku, a city of just under 200,000 people in southwest Finland.

“It seems that the suspect chose women as his targets, because the men who were wounded were injured when they tried to help, or prevent the attacks,” Granroth said.

Both of those killed in the attack were women, as well as six of the eight wounded, she added. The two who died were Finns and an Italian and two Swedish citizens were among the injured.

Finnish broadcaster MTV, citing an unnamed source, said the main suspect had been denied asylum in Finland. The police said only that he been “part of the asylum process”.

SCREAMING

“First thing we heard was a young woman, screaming like crazy. I thought it’s just kids having fun … but then people started to move around and I saw a man with a knife in his hand, stabbing a woman,” said Laura Laine, who was sitting in a cafe during one of the attacks.

“Then a person ran towards us shouting ‘He has a knife’, and everybody from the terrace ran inside. Next, a woman came in to the cafe. She was crying hysterically, down on her knees, saying someone’s neck has been slashed open.”

Four of the wounded were still in hospital, three of them in intensive care, while the other injured persons would be sent home on Saturday, the hospital said.

Local media said the police raided an apartment in the eastern Turku suburb of Varissuo, which is home to a large immigrant population, and located about seven kilometers from the market square where the attacks took place.

Flags were at half mast on Saturday across Finland, whose Security Intelligence Service (SIS) raised the terrorism threat level in June to ‘elevated’ from ‘low’, saying it had become aware of terrorism-related plans.

Leaders of Turku’s Iraqi and Syrian community condemned the attacks and said they would hold a rally of solidarity in the city’s main square, but canceled the plan due to security concerns.

An anti-immigration group was planning a demonstration in Helsinki.

“Terrorists want to pit people against each other. We will not let this happen. Finnish society will not be defeated by fear or hatred,” Interior Minister Paula Risikko said on Twitter.

On Thursday, a suspected Islamist militant drove a van into crowds in Barcelona in Spain, killing 13 people and wounding scores of others.

Finnish police said they were looking into any possible links between the Finnish stabbings and the attack in Spain and that they had issued an international arrest warrant for a sixth Moroccan national.

(Additional reporting by Lefteris Karagiannopoulos; Writing by Jussi Rosendahl and Niklas Pollard; Editing by Niklas Pollard and Andrew Bolton)

Sign up for Jim Bakker Show