New firework attack on French police reported in Paris suburb
as 2 arrested for chucking molotov cocktails at cop car
16 Feb, 2021 17:39
French gendarmes stand guard in front of the National Assembly in Paris, France
© REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes
France's Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin has spoken out for the second time in as many days after police have yet again been attacked with fireworks in a Parisian suburb. Two arrests have been made.
On Tuesday, police confirmed to French broadcaster BMFTV that a squad car had been hit with dozens of fireworks on Monday evening in the town of La Celle Saint-Cloud, Yvelines on the edge of Paris.
Police were reportedly attacked after being called by residents who reported squatters in a local building, but officers left the area once they had carried out their inspections.
The latest attack took place 10 kilometers away from the town of Poissy, where, around the same time, Darmanin was visiting police who had been attacked in a similar incident on Saturday.
Footage of the attack at the weekend, which reportedly involved up to 30 people, appeared to show police being pelted with stones and fireworks, with some of the assailants shouting “kill them, kill them.”
“Two individuals were arrested this afternoon in Poissy after throwing molotov cocktails at a patrolling national police vehicle,” Darmanin said in a statement released on Twitter on Tuesday.
A day earlier, during his visit to the police station, the interior minister condemned Saturday's attack in Poissy and said: “Our job is to make sure that the thugs do not win.”
No injuries have been reported arising from either attack.
Poissy, FR
Contractor killed, American soldier among 6 wounded
in rocket attack near US base in northern Iraq
16 Feb, 2021 00:24
Smoke rises over the Erbil International Airport, after reports of rocket blasts near the US-occupied base in Erbil,
Iraq, February 15, 2021. © Reuters / Thaier al-Sudani
Rocket fire near an airport in Iraqi Kurdistan has left one civilian contractor dead and six others with injuries, including an American soldier, a Pentagon spokesman said. Reports indicate the blasts targeted a US-occupied base.
“Initial reports that Indirect Fire landed on Coalition Forces in Erbil tonight. There was 1 civilian contractor killed, 5 civilian contractors injured and 1 US service member injured,” said Colonel Wayne Marotto, spokesman for the US-led coalition’s Operation Inherent Resolve, in a tweet on Monday evening. He did not specify the nationality of the contractors involved.
A statement from the Interior Ministry of the Kurdistan Regional Government noted that at least three rockets struck near Erbil, the Kurdish capital in northern Iraq, late on Monday night, adding that “several people were injured” in the blasts.
Reuters journalists based in Erbil also reported “several loud explosions” and a fire near the Erbil International Airport around the same time – confirmed to the outlet by Kurdish security sources – while other local reporters circulated footage purporting to show a “huge blaze” near the airport and the military base used by US forces directly adjacent to it.
A militant faction dubbed Saraya Awliya al-Dam has claimed responsibility for the attack on the “American occupation,” pledging to carry out more strikes in the future, according to Reuters and local journalists. However, the Shia militia group, which has previously taken credit for other attacks on US forces in Iraq, offered no evidence to support the claim.
The Kurdistan region’s Prime Minister Masrour Barzani denounced the attack “in the strongest terms” in a tweet later on Monday, stating that an investigation would be launched and that he had discussed ways to coordinate the probe with Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi.
French education minister sparks outrage with warning
about ‘Islamo-leftism’ in universities
17 Feb, 2021 15:30
© Getty Images/Andia/Contributor
The French minister for higher education has been criticized for warning about the spread of “Islamo-leftism” in France’s universities, raising concerns about the approach the government is taking in its fight against extremism.
Speaking to France’s free-to-air channel C-News, Frederique Vidal used the term, which has become popular among right-wing figures, in a discussion about the problem of radical Islam in the country, and President Emmanuel Macron’s mission to combat extremism.
“What we observe in universities is that there are people who can use their titles and the aura they have… to carry radical ideas or to carry militant ideas,” Vidal warned.
I think that Islamo-leftism is eating away at our society as a whole, and universities are not immune and are part of our society.
The Conference of University Presidents (CPU), released a statement in response to Vidal’s remarks, condemning the term as an ill-defined label that has been “popularized” by right-wing individuals who wish to promote an anti-immigrant agenda.
'Islamo-leftism’ is not a concept,” the group said, calling it “a pseudo-notion” that defies “scientific definition” and which should simply not be used.
Vidal’s comments came as Macron continues to push to reduce the threat of what he calls “Islamic separatism” from extremists in France after a number of terrorist attacks in recent years.
The term “Islamo-leftism” was also used by Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer in October 2020, where he accused it of “wreaking havoc” on the academic sector. Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin took a similar stance to Vidal and Blanquer last week during a debate with the National Rally’s Marine Le Pen, where he accused the anti-immigration politician of being “soft” on Islam.
France approves controversial bill against ‘Islamist separatism’
Nearly 200 people protested in Paris on Sunday against the bill accusing it of
“reinforcing discrimination against Muslims”.
By Usama Hazari|
Updated: 17th February 2021 8:27 pm IST
The French national assembly on Tuesday passed legislation to combat “Islamist extremism and separatism”, which the French government claims will put a leash on religious groups that undermine French republican and secular values.
However, critics of the French government say it restricts religious freedom and violates Article 18 (Right to freedom of thought, conscience and teaching, practice, worship and observance of one’s religion) and Article 19 (freedom to opinion and expression) of the United Nations declaration of human rights.
With an eye on 2022 general election, French President Emanuel Macron’s centrist party passionately supported the bill which won 347 votes in favour of it, 151 against and 65 abstaining. Supporters of the bill say it has been passed in response to the wave of attacks seen in France and also to crack down on “religious funding” from Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. The law will require associations to declare donations over 10,000 euros and have their accounts certified.
France’s Muslim community, which is the largest Muslim community in Europe, has fears over the bill which specifically targets them and imposes restriction on every aspect of their life. It prevents families from giving Islamic education to children at home, which is a norm in Muslim homes around the world.
And is one of the reasons why Muslims often don't blend into western societies.
It also prohibits patients from choosing doctors based on gender. The bill gives French govt. the power to intervene and control finances of mosques and Muslim-run non-governmental organisations and the bill also makes “secular education” compulsory for all Muslim homes.
Critics say the French government is forcing its version of secularism and liberalism on the minorities of France and not allowing them freedom of thought and expression.
Nearly 200 people protested in Paris on Sunday against the bill accusing it of “reinforcing discrimination against Muslims”.
Isn't Muslim home-schooling a form of discrimination against the French?
Today's bill passed the lower house of parliament, and will reach the upper house by the end of March, where it is likely to pass.
Suspected Islamists kill ten people with knives, machetes in Congo
Written by Reuters
17th Feb 2021-21
Pangas are often used in farm attacks.
Men armed with knives, machetes and pick-axes killed ten people in an overnight attack on a village in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, a witness and a local rights group said on Tuesday, blaming a Islamist militia.
Killings by armed groups more than doubled last year, according to the United Nations.
In late 2019 the Congo army began a campaign to eliminate the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a Ugandan militia that has been operating in the vast country since the 1990s. The ADF has responded with a rash of retaliatory massacres of civilians.
“We are now preparing for the burial of our fallen compatriots. They were executed,” said Jean Manzekele, the head of Kalembo village in North Kivu, 45 km southeast of Beni.
“We realized that it was the ADF because of the way they attacked. They were shouting loudly in a foreign language which was difficult to understand.”
The army said it had secured the village and was pursuing the attackers, who also injured two people.
Violence in the three eastern provinces of Ituri, North Kivu and South Kivu has “become part of a systematic pattern to disrupt civilians’ lives, instil fear and create havoc,” UNHCR spokesman Babar Baloch said in Geneva on Tuesday.
People displaced by previous attacks have been targeted, Baloch told reporters. “Attacks by armed groups are carried out on the suspicion of collaboration with other groups or the Congolese security forces. Civilians find themselves trapped in the middle of confrontations between different groups.”
While the army’s operations against militia groups are more successful than in the past, they lack the capacity to maintain control of the areas they secure, leaving space for armed groups to return, Baloch said.
Islamic State has claimed responsibility for several suspected ADF attacks in the past, but UN experts in the region? have found no direct link between the two groups.
Itiru, DRC
Russia detains 19 suspected Islamists for 'planning attacks'
By Deutsche Welle
2021/02/17 09:40
Russia's Federal Security Service detains suspected members of the Takfir wal-Hijra Islamist group
Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) on Wednesday said it had detained 19 suspected Islamist militants planning attacks in the North Caucasus.
The FSB said it had seized a suicide belt, homemade bombs and automatic weapons from the suspects this month.
"Besides spreading ideological propaganda and recruiting new followers, they were plotting acts of sabotage and terror attacks in the North Caucasus," the FSB said.
Who were the people arrested?
The detainees are suspected members of the Takfir wal-Hijra Islamist group, an organization which was founded in Egypt and has ties to al-Qaeda.
Ten out of the 19 arrested were organizers, and the rest were active participants, Russian news agency RIA said.
The members were spread across the Rostov, Krasnodar and Karachay-Cherkessia regions, as well as Crimea, the peninsula Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
Footage from the arrest showed FSB operatives climbing an apartment building and entering through a window to detain a suspect.
How often does this happen?
In November 2014, the FSB detained 14 members of the suspected members of the group under similar circumstances.
The group's targets include "civilians, media, mosques, journalists, political leaders, military, and Jews with assassination, armed assault, and bombings," according to trackingterrorism.org.
Russia has repeatedly been targeted by Islamist militant groups, including in an attack on a train in a St. Petersburg metro tunnel in 2017. The North Caucasus have also faced similar attacks in recent years.
Russian authorities have announced several operations to snuff out suspected Islamist cells, particularly in the south of the country and the Muslim-majority republic of Chechnya. The region's authoritarian head, Ramzan Kadyrov, has, however, been accused by rights groups of using the threat of Islamism to quash dissent.
President Vladimir Putin's war against Islamist insurgents in Chechnya in 1999 helped fuel Kadyrov's initial popularity.
Five Bangladesh Islamists receive death sentence for writer’s murder
Published on: Wednesday, February 17, 2021
By: AFP
Police escort a convicted man (2R) after a Bangladesh anti-terrorism court sentenced five Islamist extremists to death
over the brutal murder of Avijit Roy, a Bangladeshi-US writer and rights activist, in Dhaka.
DHAKA: Five Islamist extremists were sentenced to death on Tuesday over the brutal murder of a Bangladeshi-American writer and rights activist six years ago.
Avijit Roy, a prolific blogger and the author of 10 books including the best-selling “Biswasher Virus” (“Virus of Faith”), was hacked to death outside Bangladesh’s largest book fair by machete-wielding extremists in February 2015.
The murder, part of a reign of terror by extremists at the time, enraged the Muslim-majority nation’s secular activists who staged days of protests.
The judge at Dhaka’s Special Anti-Terrorism Tribunal found six people guilty, sentencing five to death and one to life in prison, prosecutor Golam Sarwar Zakir told AFP.
Two of them were tried in absentia, including sacked army officer Syed Ziaul Haque who was accused of leading the group that carried out the attack—known as Ansarullah Bangla Team, or Ansar al Islam.
Roy was born in Bangladesh in 1972 and moved to the United States in 2006 from where he continued to criticise the government for the jailing of atheist bloggers.
A defence lawyer said they would appeal the verdict in a higher court.
It comes less than a week after eight Islamist extremists were sentenced to death for the murder of a publisher who brought out books by secular writers, including two by Roy.
The attacks were part of a wave of violence between 2013 and 2016 targeting secular activists, bloggers and atheist writers at a time of heightened political tensions.
Several top Islamist political party leaders were hanged over the violence under the government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
The Bangladesh government has since set up two major anti-terrorism police units to crack down on Islamist extremists.
More than 100 suspects have been killed in anti-terror raids and hundreds detained. Around half a dozen Islamist militant outfits have been banned.
Bangladesh cricket star Shakib Al Hasan has become the latest target of radicals, and had to be given an armed bodyguard after he was threatened for attending a Hindu ceremony in India.
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