Tag Archives: Terrorists

Uzbekistan says uncovering militants daily among returning migrants

Uzbek Interior Minister Abdusalom Azizov attends a news conference in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, April 2, 2017. REUTERS/Muhammadsharif Mamatkulov

TASHKENT (Reuters) – Uzbekistan’s police routinely uncover militant Islamists among Uzbek migrants returning home and plan to expose those who remain abroad via social networks, Interior Minister Abdusalom Azizov said on Tuesday.

An Uzbek asylum seeker has been charged by a Swedish court over a deadly truck attack in Stockholm last month that put Uzbekistan, a largely Muslim Central Asian nation, in the global spotlight. Five people were killed in the attack.

“I will not hide the fact that almost every day we uncover people … who have returned (from abroad) and start spreading the Wahhabi ideology here,” Azizov told reporters, referring to the ultra-conservative strand of Islam that inspires some militant groups and is banned in Uzbekistan.

“There are many attempts (to spread it in Uzbekistan), but so far we are stopping them all,” he added.

Azizov said most Islamist suspects returning to Uzbekistan had been radicalized while living abroad, “in Russia, Turkey, other countries”.

Uzbekistan, which battled armed Islamists on its own soil in the 1990s, said last month it had tipped off a western nation before the Stockholm attack that Rakhmat Akilov, the suspected perpetrator, was an Islamic State recruit.

It did not say which nation it had contacted about Akilov.

Tashkent’s poor human rights track record under its late president Islam Karimov limited its security cooperation with the West. But Shavkat Mirziyoyev, elected president last year following Karimov’s death, has overseen the release of several political prisoners, winning praise from Washington.

“But in some countries, including Sweden, our (suspected radicals) are treated as refugees,” said Azizov.

He added that his ministry planned to publish a wanted list of Uzbek militants on social networks to help draw them to the attention of potential foreign employers and landlords.

Azizov did not say how many Uzbek nationals were returning home or how many of them were suspected militants.

(Reporting by Mukhammadsharif Mamatkulov; Writing by Olzhas Auyezov; Editing by Gareth Jones)

Islamic State claims Istanbul attack, gunman remains at large

Flowers are placed outside the Reina nightclub by the Bosphorus, which was attacked by a gunman, in Istanbul, Turkey.

CAIRO/ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Islamic State claimed responsibility on Monday for a New Year’s Day mass shooting in a packed Istanbul nightclub that killed 39 people, an attack carried out by a lone gunman who remains at large.

It described the Reina nightclub, where many foreigners as well as Turks were killed, as a gathering point for Christians celebrating their “apostate holiday”. The attack, it said, was revenge for Turkish military involvement in Syria.

“The apostate Turkish government should know that the blood of Muslims shed with airplanes and artillery fire will, with God’s permission, ignite a fire in their own land,” the Islamic State declaration said.

There was no immediate comment from Turkish officials.

The jihadist group has been blamed for at least half a dozen attacks on civilian targets in Turkey over the past 18 months but, other than targeted assassinations, this is the first time it has directly claimed any of them. It made the statement on one of its Telegram channels, a method used after attacks elsewhere.

NATO member Turkey is part of the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State and launched an incursion into neighboring Syria in August to drive the radical Sunni militants from its borders, sending in tanks and special forces backed by fighter jets.

Nationals of Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Lebanon, Libya, Israel, India, a Turkish-Belgian dual citizen and a Franco-Tunisian woman were among those killed at the exclusive nightclub on the shores of the Bosphorus waterway. Twenty-five of the dead were foreigners, according to the state-run Anadolu news agency.

Police distributed a hazy black-and-white photo of the alleged gunman taken from security footage. State broadcaster TRT Haber said eight people had been detained in Istanbul.

The authorities believe the attacker may be from a Central Asian nation and suspect he had links to Islamic State, the Hurriyet newspaper said. It said he may be from the same cell responsible for a gun-and-bomb attack on Istanbul’s main airport in June, in which 45 people were killed and hundreds wounded.

The attack at Reina, popular with Turkish celebrities and wealthy visitors, shook Turkey as it tries to recover from a failed July coup and a series of deadly bombings in Istanbul and elsewhere, some blamed on Islamic State, others claimed by Kurdish militants.

Around 600 people were thought to be inside when the gunman shot dead a policeman and civilian at the door, forcing his way in then opening fire with an automatic assault rifle. Witnesses said he shouted “Allahu Akbar” (God is Greatest).

Some at the club jumped into the Bosphorus after the attacker began shooting at random just over an hour into the new year. Witnesses described diving under tables as he walked around spraying bullets.

A woman reacts outside the Reina nightclub by the Bosphorus, which was attacked by a gunman, in Istanbul, Turkey,

A woman reacts outside the Reina nightclub by the Bosphorus, which was attacked by a gunman, in Istanbul, Turkey, January 2, 2017. REUTERS/Yagiz Karahan

KALASHNIKOV IN SUITCASE

The attacker was believed to have taken a taxi from the southern Zeytinburnu district of Istanbul and, because of the busy traffic, got out and walked the last four minutes to the entrance of the nightclub, newspaper Haberturk said.

He pulled his Kalashnikov rifle from a suitcase at the side of the road, opened fire on those at the door, then threw two hand grenades after entering, Haberturk said, without citing its sources. It said six empty magazines were found at the scene and that he was estimated to have fired at least 180 bullets.

Security services had been on alert across Europe for new year celebrations following an attack on a Christmas market in Berlin that killed 12 people. Only days ago, an online message from a pro-Islamic State group called for attacks by “lone wolves” on “celebrations, gatherings and clubs”.

In a statement hours after the shooting, President Tayyip Erdogan said such attacks aimed to create chaos and destabilize the country.

Four months into its operation in Syria, the Turkish army and the rebels it backs are besieging the Islamic State-held town of al-Bab. Erdogan has said he wants them to continue to Raqqa, the jihadists’ Syrian stronghold.

Turkey has also been cracking down on Islamic State networks at home. In counter-terrorism operations between Dec 26-Jan 2, Turkish police detained 147 people over links to the group and formally arrested 25 of them, the interior ministry said.

The New Year’s Day attack came five months after a failed military coup, in which more than 240 people were killed, many of them in Istanbul, as rogue soldiers commandeered tanks and fighter jets in a bid to seize power.

More than 100,000 people, including soldiers and police officers, have been sacked or suspended in a subsequent crackdown ordered by Erdogan, raising concern both about civic rights and the effectiveness of Turkey’s security apparatus.

The government says the purges will make the military, police and other institutions more disciplined and effective.

Turkey has seen repeated attacks in recent weeks. On Dec. 10, two bombs claimed by Kurdish militants exploded outside a soccer stadium in Istanbul, killing 44 people. A security guard who survived that attack was killed at Reina.

A car bomb killed at least 13 soldiers and wounded 56 when it ripped through a bus carrying off-duty military personnel in the central city of Kayseri a week later, an attack Erdogan also blamed on Kurdish militants.

Islamic State’s Amaq website said the group was behind a car bomb attack that killed 11 people and wounded 100 in the city of Diyarbakir in November, but Turkish authorities denied this and said Kurdish militants carried out the attack.

The Russian ambassador to Turkey was shot dead as he gave a speech in Ankara on Dec. 19 by an off-duty police officer who shouted “Don’t forget Aleppo” and “Allahu Akbar”.

(Reporting by Ahmed Aboulenein and Ahmed Tolba in Cairo; Editing by Giles Elgood and Ralph Boulton)

Wildfires tear across Israel, Netanyahu calls arsonists ‘terrorists’

By Rami Amichai

HAIFA, Israel (Reuters) – Wildfires tore across central and northern Israel on Thursday, forcing tens of thousands of residents to flee the city of Haifa, as leaders blamed arsonists for some of the blazes and branded them terrorists.

Television pictures showed a wall of flames raging through central neighborhoods of Israel’s third largest city. Firefighters dowsed a petrol station with water as the blaze edged closer.

The fires have been burning in multiple locations for the past three days but intensified on Thursday, fueled by unseasonably dry weather and strong easterly winds.

“Every fire that was caused by arson, or incitement to arson, is terrorism by all accounts. And we will treat it as such,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told reporters gathered in Haifa. “Whoever tries to burn parts of Israel will be punished for it severely.”

Internal Security Minister Gilad Erdan referred to “arson terrorism” and said there had been a small number of arrests, providing no other details.

On social media, some Arabs and Palestinians celebrated the fires and the hashtag #Israelisburning was trending on Twitter.

“It’s likely that where it was arson, it goes in the direction of nationalistic,” Police Chief Roni Alsheich told reporters, without going into further detail.

With fires burning in the forests west of Jerusalem, around Haifa, on central and northern hilltops and in parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, the government sought assistance from neighboring countries to tackle the conflagration.

Greece, Cyprus, Croatia, Turkey and Russia offered help, with several aircraft already joining efforts to quell the blaze, dropping fire-retardant material to try to douse the heaviest fires and stem their spread.

Netanyahu said he had asked for a “Super Tanker” fire fighting aircraft to be sent from the United States.

The Palestinian Authority had offered assistance as well, he said.

A thick haze of smoke hung over Haifa, which rises up from the Mediterranean Sea overlooking a large port. Schools and universities were evacuated, and two nearby prisons transferred inmates to other jails, a prisons service spokesman said. Patients were moved out of a geriatric hospital.

WORRYING FORECAST

A lack of rain combined with very dry air and strong easterly winds have spread the fires this week across the center and north of the country, as well as parts of the West Bank. Hundreds of homes have been damaged or destroyed but no deaths or serious injuries have been reported.

Education Minister Naftali Bennett, the leader of the Jewish Home party which supports settlements in the West Bank where Palestinians seek statehood, said on Twitter that arsonists were disloyal to Israel, hinting that those who set the fires could not be Jewish.

“Only those to whom the country does not belong are capable of burning it,” he said in a tweet in Hebrew.

Firefighters work as a wildfire burns in the northern city of Haifa,

Firefighters work as a wildfire burns in the northern city of Haifa, Israel November 24, 2016. REUTERS/Baz Ratner

Haifa’s mayor said he feared for the city and called on residents with water sprinklers to turn them on to help keep the flames at bay. Those leaving their homes were urged to go to sports stadiums and other safer locations.

Highway 443, which links Jerusalem and Tel Aviv as it cuts through a southern flank of the West Bank, was temporarily closed to morning rush-hour traffic as flames reached the city of Modi’in, about half way between the two conurbations.

Local weather forecasters have said the tinder-dry conditions – it has not rained in parts of Israel for months – and strong winds are set to continue for several days and they see little prospect of normal seasonal precipitation arriving.

“Meteorology is not responsible but it is conducive to the spread of these fires,” said Noah Wolfson, the chief executive of weather forecasting company Meteo-Tech. “The atmosphere will remain very dry, at least until Monday or Tuesday.”

(Additional reporting by Steven Scheer in Modi’in, Luke Baker and Ari Rabinovitch in Jerusalem; Writing by Luke Baker; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Andrew Heavens)

Islamic State executes scores, stockpiles chemicals in Mosul

Recently displaced people rush a food distribution point in Khazer refugee camp,

GENEVA, Nov 11 (Reuters) – Islamic State fighters have executed scores more people around Mosul this week and are reportedly stockpiling ammonia and sulphur in civilian areas, possibly for use as chemical weapons, U.N. human rights spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said on Friday.

A mass grave with over 100 bodies found in the town of Hammam al-Alil was one of several Islamic State killing grounds, Shamdasani said, citing information gleaned from sources on the ground including a man who played dead during a mass execution.

Public executions were being carried out for “treason and collaboration” with Iraqi forces trying to recapture the city,
or for the use of banned mobile phones or desertion.

People with explosive belts, possibly teenagers or young boys, were being deployed in the alleys of Old Mosul, while
abducted women were being “distributed” to fighters or told they would be used to accompany Islamic State convoys, she said.

(Reporting by Tom Miles and Stephanie Nebehay)

Turkey’s Erdogan says Germany has become ‘haven for terrorists’

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan makes a speech during his meeting with mukhtars at the Presidential Palace in Ankara, Turkey, October 19, 2016. Murat Cetinmuhurdar/Presidential Palace/

ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday Germany had become a haven for terrorists and would be “judged by history”, accusing it of failing to root out supporters of a U.S.-based cleric Ankara blames for July’s failed military coup.

Erdogan said Germany had long harbored militants from the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has waged a three-decade insurgency for Kurdish autonomy, and far-leftists from the DHKP-C, which has carried out armed attacks in Turkey.

“We are concerned that Germany, which has protected the PKK and DHKP-C for years, has become the backyard of the Gulenist terror organization,” Erdogan said, referring to the network of U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen.

“We don’t have any expectations from Germany but you will be judged in history for abetting terrorism … Germany has become an important haven for terrorists,” he told a ceremony at his palace in the capital Ankara.

Ankara blames Gulen for the coup attempt and has suspended or dismissed more than 110,000 of his suspected followers from the civil service, security forces and other institutions in a crackdown. Gulen has denied involvement in the putsch.

German Justice Minister Heiko Maas told reporters on Tuesday that he did not want to judge whether the Gulenist movement was political in nature or not. He also said Berlin would not extradite suspects if they faced political charges.

“That would certainly not happen,” he said. For any extradition to take place, there had to be firm indications of “classic criminal activity”.

Erdogan said he was concerned by Germany’s reluctance, and warned that “the menace of terrorism would come back and strike it like a boomerang.”

(Reporting by Ece Toksabay and Tuvan Gumrukcu; Madeline Chambers in Berlin; Editing by Nick Tattersall)

Merkel cuts short holiday to face refugee policy storm

German Chancellor Merkel addresses a news conference in Berlin

By Paul Carrel

BERLIN (Reuters) – Chancellor Angela Merkel interrupted her vacation on Thursday to face down accusations at home and abroad that her open-door refugee policy allowed Islamist terrorism to take hold in Germany.

Merkel returns to Berlin to hold a news conference at 12 p.m. (07:00 a.m. EDT) after a spate of attacks since July 18 left 15 people dead – including four attackers – and dozens injured.

Two assailants, a Syrian asylum seeker and a refugee from either Pakistan or Afghanistan, had links to Islamist militancy, officials say.

The attacks have burst any illusions in Germany that the country is immune to attacks like those claimed by Islamic State in neighboring France.

Politicians from left and right say Merkel’s refugee policy is at fault, after more than a million migrants entered Germany in the past year, many fleeing war in Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq.

“All our predictions have been proven right,” Horst Seehofer, Bavaria’s state premier and a long-standing critic of Merkel’s open-door refugee policy, said on Tuesday. “Islamist terrorism has arrived in Germany.”

Seehofer demanded that Merkel’s government adopt tougher security measures and tighter immigration policies.

Merkel has been on holiday in northern Germany since chairing a security meeting on Saturday, leaving Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere – who twice returned from vacation in the last 10 days – to present the government’s response.

Unlike French President Francois Hollande, who on Tuesday visited Normandy where two assailants killed a priest, Merkel has not been to the scene of any of the attacks in Germany – an absence that has raised questions about her leadership.

“How big will the pressure on Merkel be?” asked mass-selling daily Bild. Business daily Handelsblatt said: “Above all, the new situation puts the chancellor in a difficult position.”

Merkel’s popularity, already eroded by the refugee crisis, is likely to suffer again after a temporary boost following Britain’s vote last month to leave the European Union.

After a 27-year-old Syrian with Islamist ties blew himself up in the town of Ansbach on Sunday, Sahra Wagenknecht of the far-left Linke party criticized as “flippant” Merkel’s mantra of “Wir schaffen das”, or “We can do this,” for handling the influx.

“The events of recent days show that the admission and integration of a large number of refugees and migrants is associated with many problems,” Wagenknecht said.

(Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

Terrorists smuggled into Europe with refugees, Merkel says

Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel attends a working session at the NATO Summit in Warsaw, Poland July 9, 2016.

BERLIN (Reuters) – Militant groups smuggled some of their members into Europe in the wave of migrants who have fled from Syria, German Chancellor Angela said on Monday.

“In part, the refugee flow was even used to smuggle terrorists,” Merkel told a rally of her Christian Democrats in eastern Germany.

More than 1 million migrants arrived in Germany last year, many of them Syrians.

(Reporting by Noah Barkin and Paul Carrel)

Belgian Police Seek “Man in Hat” suspect

CCTV image made available by Belgian Police shows details clothing worn by a man whom officials believe may be a suspect in the attack which took place at the Brussels international airport

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Belgian prosecutors appealed for help in finding a man suspected of leaving a bomb at Brussels Airport on March 22, saying they were eager to find a coat he had discarded and to speak to people who saw him on his hour-long walk back into the city.

Federal prosecutors released new pictures of the suspect, dubbed the “man in the hat”, who appeared to arrive at the airport with two suicide bombers and left along with passengers after the first two bombs exploded.

In a video to accompany their appeal, investigators indicate the route the man took, out of the airport, through the nearby town of Zaventem and along a main road into the city. His last appearance on security cameras was in the district of Schaerbeek almost an hour after the bombing.

Along the way, he took off his light-colored coat and was then seen in a light blue shirt with dark patches. He was wearing a dark hat throughout.

“It is especially the coat which interests us,” prosecutor Eric Van Der Sypt told a news conference, asking if anyone might have seen it along the suspect’s route.

Prosecutors also want to people to come forward who might have filmed or taken a photograph of the suspect or may be able to determine where he went.

Twin bombs at Brussels Airport and another on the city’s metro killed 32 people, excluding the suspected bombers. A controlled explosion destroyed a third bomb at the airport about six hours after the initial attack.

(Reporting by Robert-Jan Bartunek; editing by Philip Blenkinsop)

Ten Sentenced To Life In Attack On Malala Yousafzai

Ten terrorists who attempted to kill child activist Malala Yousafzai in 2012 have been sentenced to life in prison.

The men could be eligible for release in 25 years.

The men were arrested last September in a district of Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, two years after the attack on the then 15-year-old Malala.  Taliban militants had targeted the girl for her outspoken insistence that girls had a right to education.

Authorities in the case say the terrorists were taking instructions from the Pakistan Taliban’s leader Mullah Fazlullah.  The Taliban told the men that Malala was “a symbol of the infidels and obscenity” for her desire to have girls obtain education.

Officials could not say if the men sentenced today were the actual gunmen in the attack.  The Pakistani government has claimed they arrested “the entire gang” involved in the attack but have not named the actual gunmen.

Malala went on to continue her activism after recovering in England from her wounds and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014.

Tunisia Arrests 23-Member Terror Cell

Tunisian officials announced that a 23-member terror cell has been arrested in connection with the attack on the Bardo Museum that left 20 tourists and police dead.

All of the members of the jihadist network were Tunisian.  Officials say they are looking for another Tunisian, two Moroccans and an Algerian who have connections to the terrorist networks.

The Tunisian man was identified as Maher Ben Mouldi Kaidi, also known as the “third attacker”, that provided the weapons for the terror attack.

The investigators say they have confirmation that the group was connected with Al-Qaeda, not ISIS as originally believed by some investigators.  The group was working with Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.

AQIM had been the segment of the terrorist group that had been in control of much of Mali until French forces drove them out of the major cities and into the mountains.