At least 14 killed in blast at Pakistani mosque
FILE PHOTO: Paramilitary soldiers gather at the site after a bomb blast in Quetta, Pakistan,
on January 7, 2020. © Reuters / Naseer Ahmed
At least 14 people, including a high-ranking provincial police officer, lost their lives after a powerful explosion rocked a mosque in north-western Pakistan, local media report, citing police and medical sources.
The blast struck a mosque in a satellite town of Quetta – the regional capital and the largest city of the Pakistani Balochistan province – during the Friday prayers. Police Deputy Superintendent Haji Aman Ullah was among those killed in the explosion, Quetta Deputy Inspector General Abdul Razzaq Cheema told the local media.
Haidar Akarar
@HaidarAkarar
#Pakistan : Blast in Madrasa Mosque in Ghousabad #Quetta, 13 people including DSP Amanullah and Imam Masjid killed while more than 20 injured. #Blast#Quettablast
Thirteen more people, including the mosque's imam, died in the blast as well, while 20 others were injured, a spokesman of a local civil hospital, Dr Wasim Baig, confirmed. The exact nature of the explosion is still unclear. Balochistan Home Minister Zia Langove has already branded it a terrorist act. Some reports suggested that the high-ranking police officer was the real target of the attack.
The incident came just days after another blast struck Quetta, targeting a vehicle of the Frontier Corps (FC) – a paramilitary group tasked with guarding the border with Afghanistan and Iran, as well as maintaining law and order in the province. Two people were killed and 13 were injured when a bike packed with explosives blew up near the FC car, damaging nearby shops as well.
Hizbul Ahrar, an offshoot of the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for Tuesday's bike-bomb attack. Yet, no one immediately claimed responsibility for Friday's mosque bombing.
‘Iranian with MACHETE & knives’ arrested
near Trump resort of Mar-a-Lago
Palm Beach police have arrested a man armed with a set of knives near President Donald Trump’s Florida resort. US media emphasized he is an Iranian national while bringing up a non-existent $80mn Iranian ‘bounty’ on Trump’s head.
The man had no known address and was detained on the Flagler Memorial Bridge on Friday morning. He had “several knives” and an undisclosed amount of cash on him, according to WPTV.
Other local outlets claimed the man’s arsenal included a machete, two knives, a pick axe and $2,200 in cash, and that a bomb squad was searching his vehicle, found at the Palm Beach International Airport.
Photos taken by a WPEC-TV reporter showed a Saturn getting towed away from the parking garage, with ‘I’m Germany’ [sic] written on the back window.
The arrest comes just days after Iran fired missiles at two US bases in Iraq, in revenge for the US drone attack that killed Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps General Qassem Soleimani at the Baghdad international airport. There were no casualties in the strikes and both Trump and Iran chose not to escalate the situation any further.
There were multiple reports in Western media that Iran had offered a $80 million bounty for the killing of Trump, but those reports were based on comments made by an unidentified mourner at Soleimani’s funeral, rather than an actual government announcements.
Boko Haram kidnaps pastor, releases video
showing his plea for help
By Samuel Smith, CP ReporterA pastor abducted by a faction of the radical Islamic extremist group Boko Haram during a raid in the Adamawa state of Nigeria last week has issued a plea for help in a video released by the terrorist group.
The Nigeria-based extremist group known for terrorizing the Lake Chad region released a video last week showing the Rev. Lawan Andimi pleading for his release.
Andimi is the head of the Christian Association in Nigeria’s chapter in the Adamawa state and was declared missing on Jan. 3 following a raid in the town of Michika.
His abduction comes as abductions and violence carried about by both Boko Haram factions have increased since December.
According to the U.N.-accredited NGO Christian Solidarity Worldwide, the video was sent to a Nigerian journalist covering Boko Haram. Before the video's release, the pastor was last seen being taken away in a Toyota.
In the video, Andimi pleads for his pastor colleagues to call on Gov. Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri to secure his release.
“I have never been discouraged because of all conditions that one finds himself is in the hand of God,” Andimi assured.
Despite the abduction, the pastor explained that his captors — believed to be part of Boko Haram’s Shekau faction — have treated him well.
“These people have been doing good to me. They are feeding me with what I want to eat,” he said. “They are providing a nice place for me to sleep, a blanket and every need.”
“I believe they didn’t do anything wrong to me,” Andimi added. “I still believe God who make them to act in such a way is still alive and will make all arrangements. By the grace of God, I will be together with my wife and my children and all my colleagues. If the opportunity has not been granted, maybe it is the will of God.”
Andimi urged his supporters to be “patient.” “Don’t cry, don’t worry, but thank God for everything,” he said in the video.
Michika, Nigeria
Blast rattles central Stockholm, another explosion reported in Uppsala shortly afterwards
A posh district in central Stockholm was rocked by an explosion in the early hours of Monday morning. The blast was so intense it shattered windows and bathed the entire street in broken glass.
An explosive charge was reportedly placed on the gate outside a property in the area at roughly 1am local time in the Östermalm area. The blast, which completely destroyed one vehicle, damaged several others and blew the windows out of apartments along the entire street, could be heard several kilometers away.
Swedish Crime Tracker
@CrimeSwedish
Jan 13: Massive explosion blows out building entrances, demolishes vehicles & blows out dozens of windows in central Stockholm https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/stockholm/misstankt-explosion-i-stockholm …
No one was injured in the incident, but 30 residents were evacuated immediately as a precaution and spent the night at emergency accommodation in a local school.
“We believe that the explosion happened in or at the building, but exactly where is still unclear. There are damaged cars nearby, but the explosion probably didn’t happen in them,” Stockholm police spokesperson Mats Eriksson said Monday.
A staircase was reportedly severely damaged, which may have prompted the ongoing evacuation. In addition, a door was blown to the opposite side of the street by the sheer force of the explosion, which also took out a large section of an apartment balcony.
The Swedish bomb squad was also deployed to the scene to begin their investigations into the circumstances of the explosion. However, just two hours after the Stockholm blast, there was another suspicious explosion reported in the university town of Uppsala, roughly an hour away.
Again, one building and several vehicles were damaged in the explosion but there were no reports of any injuries. Police have not indicated whether the explosions were connected.
Sweden’s authorities are struggling to curb a spate of bombings which has swept the country in recent months despite the establishment of a specialized task force.
Jersey kosher market shooters had devastating bomb, explosive range of 5 football fields
January 14, 2020
Jersey kosher market shooters had devastating bomb, explosive range of 5 football fieldsIn this Dec. 11, 2019 photo, emergency responders work at a kosher supermarket, the site of a shooting in Jersey City, N.J. (AP/ Seth Wenig, File)
By The AlgemeinerSenior law enforcement officials in New Jersey on Monday disclosed that the bomb discovered in the van of the two individuals who carried out an anti-Semitic massacre in Jersey City on Dec. 10 would have caused dozens more deaths had it been detonated.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the local FBI in the state, the bomb found in the van of the two shooters — David Anderson, 47, and Francine Graham, 50 — was powerful enough to explode the length of five football fields, about 500 yards.
Anderson and Graham were killed by police in an exchange of fire after they fatally shot a police officer and then three civilians in a kosher market in Jersey City.
Authorities also disclosed that enough material to make a second bomb was found in the couples’ van.
Anderson fired an AR-15-style weapon and Graham was armed with a 12-gauge shotgun as they entered the store, officials said. A 9mm Glock and 9mm semi-automatic firearm were recovered inside the market, and a .22-caliber gun equipped with a homemade silencer was found inside the assailants’ vehicle.
The four-hour gun battle at the JC Kosher Supermarket erupted after the assailants shot police officer Joseph Seals at a nearby cemetery and then fled in a white van. It ended after police crashed an armored vehicle through the wall of the market.
The three civilian victims inside the market were co-owner Mindy Ferencz, 31, Douglas Miguel Rodriguez, 49, and Moshe Deutsch, 24.
An FBI investigation including a review of their internet search history showed that the attackers had run a Google search prior to the shooting for “Bayonne Jewish Community Center,” about three miles from the kosher market, said Matthew Reilly, a spokesman for Craig Carpenito, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of New Jersey.
“They were targeting Jewish people and also law enforcement,” Reilly said on Monday.
The investigation uncovered social media posts by Anderson in which he called Jewish people “imposters” (sic) who “inhabited synagogues of Satan,” Reilly said.
NYPost:
Graham also told the woman she was part of a religion pertaining to “black Jews” — likely the Black Hebrew Israelite movement, of which Anderson has been identified as a one-time follower by law enforcement sources.
The group believes they are the true descendants of the ancient Israelites, are known to vilify white and Jewish people and are considered a black supremacist group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Anderson and Graham were heard chanting and reading the New Testament from their home, another neighbor told The Post.
Synagogue massacre thwarted in Germany:
Police arrest Muslim terror cell, maybe
BY BTNEWSFive Chechen Muslim terrorists who were planning to carry out terror attacks, including a plot to massacre Jewish worshipers at a Berlin synagogue, have been arrested in a series of raids across Germany.
The Chechen nationals ranging in age from 23 to 28 have scouted locations for a possible terrorist attack.
The Berlin attorney general’s office announced in a tweet:
“On suspicion of planning a serious violent act endangering the state, search warrants are being executed in Berlin, Brandenburg, North Rhine-Westphalia and Thuringia.”
Berlin prosecutors said that authorities acted after discovering photographs and footage of synagogues and shopping malls on one terrorist’s cellphone during a police check, leading to a wider investigation culminating in Tuesday’s raids.
Later Tuesday, prosecutors said the evidence collected so far wasn’t sufficient to justify arrest warrants against the five terrorists, but that the material seized in the raids — which included knives, cash and data storage devices — was now being reviewed.
French prosecutors say Paris suburb knifeman had Koran but ‘no sign’ of radicalization
I beg to differ
While some witnesses reported hearing the man shout “Allahu Akhbar” as he began stabbing people – seemingly at random – in a park in the Paris suburb of Villejuif on Friday, prosecutors have stated they do not have evidence of radicalization as a motive, though “elements linked to religion” that “suggested he had converted to Islam” were found among his belongings, according to AFP.
The man, identified as 22-year-old Nathan C. from his credit card and fingerprints, stabbed four people, killing a 56-year-old man who tried to protect his wife from the knife-wielding attacker. Another victim is said to be in serious condition. The attacker was shot by police after fleeing to the nearby suburb of Hay-les-Roses.
Prosecutors confirmed that Nathan C. had a history of mental health episodes. He is described in French media as a European (presumably white) man, barefoot and bearded in a black djellaba (a traditional Arab cloak).
As I have quoted many times:
“I came to the absolute conviction that it is impossible…impossible…for any human being to read the biography of Mohammed and believe in it, and then emerge a psychologically and mentally healthy person.” - Syrian Psychiatrist Dr. Wafa Sultan
Was he radicalized? The fact that he was mentally ill, might well be a sign that he was. And if you do the research, you will probably find that most Islamic terrorists are mentally ill, if not all. Radical, and fundamental Muslims must be assumed to be mentally ill and should be segregated from European society.
No comments:
Post a Comment