BERLIN: A German court on Friday sentenced a 15-year-old boy to four years in jail for planning an Islamist attack on a Christmas market in the western city of Leverkusen.
The teenager wanted to rent a truck and “kill as many people as possible” by ramming it into the traditional market, the court in Cologne said in a statement.
The boy had started to become “radicalized” in autumn 2023, the court said.
The evidence against him included a video in a chat group announcing his plans for an attack on “infidels” with a recognizable Islamist symbol in the background.
The boy had planned the attack along with another teenager who was supposed to film it and share the video, the court said.
The 16-year-old from Brandenburg, the state that surrounds Berlin, will stand trial in a different court from July.
The 15-year-old made a “comprehensive confession” during his trial, a court spokesman told AFP.
Islamist extremists have carried out several attacks in Germany in recent years, the deadliest being a truck rampage at a Berlin Christmas market in December 2016 that killed 12 people.
More recently, an Islamist motive is suspected in the killing of a police officer in a knife attack on the market square in the city of Mannheim in late May.
The number of people considered Islamist extremists in Germany fell slightly from 27,480 in 2022 to 27,200 last year, according to a report from the federal domestic intelligence agency.
However, in presenting the report, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said Germany would be “continuing to step up the fight against Islamist terrorism.”
In another case involving teenagers, two boys and two girls aged 15 to 16 were arrested at Easter this year on suspicion of planning an Islamist attack in the same region of western Germany.
Herbert Reul, interior minister of North Rhine-Westphalia state, said the young age of the suspects left him “speechless,” adding that it posed a “huge challenge for society as a whole.”
Germany’s biggest-selling daily Bild reported that the four youths were allegedly planning to carry out Molotov cocktail and knife attacks in the name of the Daesh group.
Teenager jailed for German Christmas market attack plot
https://arab.news/55627
Teenager jailed for German Christmas market attack plot
- The teenager wanted to rent a truck and “kill as many people as possible” by ramming it into the traditional market, the court in Cologne said
- The boy had started to become “radicalized” in autumn 2023
Mauritania’s President Ghazouani wins re-election, provisional results show
- Ghazouani was re-elected in the Saturday election with over 56 percent of the vote, results from 4,468 polling stations out of 4,503 showed on Mauritania’s independent electoral commission’s website
NOUAKCHOTT: Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Ghazouani has won the country’s presidential election, according to provisional results from over 99.27 percent of polling stations released by the West African nation’s electoral commission Sunday.
Ghazouani was re-elected in the Saturday election with over 56 percent of the vote, results from 4,468 polling stations out of 4,503 showed on Mauritania’s independent electoral commission’s website.
The 67-year-old former army chief of staff and defense minister, who was first elected in 2019, has pledged to boost investment to spur a commodities boom in the West African country of 5 million people, as it prepares to start producing natural gas by the end of the year.
Analysts had expected Ghazouani, who faced six challengers in the election, to win the race in the first round, thanks to Mauritania’s ruling party dominance.
The provisional results showed that his main rival, anti-slavery activist Biram Dah Abeid, was second with 22.14 percent, followed by Hamadi Sidi El Mokhtar of the Islamist Tewassoul party with 12.8 percent.
Earlier on Sunday, Abeid rejected the provisional results, alleging irregularities.
“We’ll not accept these results from the so-called independent electoral commission. We’ll use our own electoral commission to proclaim the results,” Abeid told a news conference in Nouakchott, the capital.
Before the election, El Mokhtar had also warned that his party would not accept the results if it suspected rigging.
In the 2019 election, some opposition candidates questioned the credibility of the vote, sparking small-scale protests.
Preliminary figures showed the turnout at Saturday’s vote was just under 55.33 percent, the commission’s data showed.
Family demands accountability for NY police killing of 13-year-old boy. Police said he aimed BB gun
- The officers believed it was a handgun, police said, but it was later determined to be a BB or pellet gun that closely resembled a Glock 17 Gen 5 handgun with a detachable magazine
NEW YORK: On Wednesday, Nyah Mway finished middle school in the central New York city where his family moved about a decade ago as refugees from Myanmar, relatives said.
By Friday night, the 13-year-old was fatally shot by police who’d tackled him to the ground after he allegedly pointed what turned out to be a BB gun at them during a foot chase.
Struggling to comprehend his death, his anguished relatives and outraged members of their immigrant community called Sunday for justice for him and accountability for police.
“We came to the United States, finally, to get the education and to get the good jobs here” and hoping for a peaceful life after decades of strife and violence in Myanmar, said Lay Htoo, who identified himself as one of Nyah’s cousins.
But instead of celebrating the teen’s ascent to high school, his parents were waiting for medical examiners to release his body and wondering what would become of the officers.
“They want them to be in prison forever,” the cousin said in a phone interview.
As the state attorney general and the Utica Police Department investigate the shooting, Nyah’s relatives and other local members of Myanmar’s Karen ethnic minority said they planned to meet Sunday afternoon with Utica Mayor Michael P. Galime. A message seeking comment was sent to the mayor’s office.
For now, the officers are on paid administrative leave.
The shooting happened Friday night in Utica, an old industrial city where thousands of refugees from various countries have settled in recent decades, creating a measure of revival in a faded Rust Belt hub. The city’s population of 65,000 includes more than 4,200 people from Myanmar, according to The Center, a nonprofit group that helps to resettle refugees.
According to police, Nyah and another 13-year-old boy were stopped Friday night because they fit descriptions of suspects in an armed robbery that had happened Thursday in the same area, and because one teen was jaywalking. The police department declined Sunday to release the armed robbery report and its suspect description, citing the ongoing investigation.
The body camera video shows an officer saying he needs to pat them down for any weapons. Then one of the teens — identified as Nyah — runs away, turns and appears to point a black item at them.
The officers believed it was a handgun, police said, but it was later determined to be a BB or pellet gun that closely resembled a Glock 17 Gen 5 handgun with a detachable magazine. Police released an image showing the device did not have an orange band on the barrel that many BB gun-makers have added in recent years to distinguish their products from firearms.
Officer Bryce Patterson caught up with Nyah, tackled and punched him, and as the two wrestled on the ground, Officer Patrick Husnay opened fire, body camera video showed. Utica Police Chief Mark Williams said at a news conference Saturday that the single shot hit the youth in the chest.
A bystander video posted to Facebook also showed an officer tackling the teen and punching him as two other officers arrive, then a gunshot ringing out as the teen was on the ground.
Under New York law, the attorney general’s office looks into every death at the hands of law enforcement. The police department’s own probe will explore whether officers followed policies and training.
Williams called the shooting “a tragic and traumatic incident for all involved, and his department said it released information and the body camera video in keeping with “our commitment to transparency.”
To Nyah’s cousin, Isabella Moo, however, the police narrative seemed like “trying to criminalize him a lot more and trying to protect the police officers.”
“The escalation of this should not have happened, and our police officers need to be trained a lot better or a lot differently,” she said in a phone interview. “The city needs to be held accountable, and this should not have been done to any child.”
Karens are among groups warring with the military rulers of Myanmar, the Southeast Asian country formerly known as Burma. The army ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in 2021 and suppressed widespread nonviolent protests that sought a return to democratic rule.
Nyah’s family fled about two decades ago from Myanmar to Thailand, where he was born in a refugee camp, and then immigrated through a resettlement program to the United States about nine years ago, Htoo said. He said the teen’s father works at a convenience store.
Htoo said Nyah was keen on math, soccer and spending time with friends when not caring for his younger siblings. Interested in learning, he sometimes attended Bible study with his friends, though his family are Buddhists, the cousin said.
The cousin said he’d been told that on Friday night, the boy informed his mother he was going to a store to buy something, and that was the last she saw of him.
She hasn’t slept since, except for 10-minute naps, her tears resuming every time she awakens, he said.
Top Democrats rule out replacing Biden amid calls for him to quit 2024 race
- “Absolutely not,” responded Georgia Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock, one of several Democrats seen as a possible replacement for Biden
WASHINGTON: Top Democrats on Sunday ruled out the possibility of replacing President Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee after a feeble debate performance and called on party members to focus instead on the consequences of a second Donald Trump presidency.
After days of hand-wringing about Biden’s poor night on stage debating Trump, Democratic leaders firmly rejected calls for their party to choose a younger presidential candidate for the Nov. 5 election.
Biden, 81, meanwhile, was huddling with family members at the Camp David presidential retreat on Sunday.
The New York Times cited people close to the situation as saying that Biden’s family were urging him to stay in the race and keep fighting. The paper said some members of his clan privately expressed exasperation at how his staff prepared him for Thursday night’s event.
A drumbeat of calls for Biden to step aside has continued since Thursday and a post-debate CBS poll showed a 10-point jump in the number of Democrats who believe Biden should not be running for president, to 46 percent from 36 percent in February.
“The unfortunate truth is that Biden should withdraw from the race, for the good of the nation he has served so admirably for half a century,” the Atlanta Journal-Constitution said in an editorial on Sunday. “The shade of retirement is now necessary for President Biden.”
Democratic leaders rejected this.
“Absolutely not,” responded Georgia Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock, one of several Democrats seen as a possible replacement for Biden.
“Bad debates happen,” he told NBC’s Meet the Press program. “The question is, ‘Who has Donald Trump ever shown up for other than himself and people like himself?’ I’m with Joe Biden, and it’s our assignment to make sure that he gets over the finish line come November.”
House of Representatives Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, who could become speaker next year if his party can take control of the House in November, acknowledged that Biden had suffered a setback, but this was “nothing more than a setup for a comeback.”
“So the moment that we’re in right now is a comeback moment,” he told MSNBC.
Senator Chris Coons of Delaware, a leading Biden surrogate, told ABC’s This Week program Biden needed to stay in the race to ensure Trump’s defeat.
“I think he’s the only Democrat who can beat Donald Trump,” Coons said.
RASKIN SOUNDS LESS CERTAIN
With Democratic leaders rallying around him, it will be up to Biden to decide whether he wants to end his re-election bid.
But other Democrats held open the possibility of choosing a different presidential candidate.
Representative Jamie Raskin, a prominent Democrat in Congress, told MSNBC that “very honest and serious and rigorous conversations” were taking place within the party.
“Whether he’s the candidate or someone else is the candidate, he’s going to be the keynote speaker at our convention. He will be the figure that we rally around to move forward,” Raskin said.
During the debate, a hoarse-sounding Biden delivered a shaky, halting performance in which he stumbled over his words on several occasions. Some Democrats later said privately that the showing could prove to be a disqualifying factor.
For his part in the debate, Trump made a series of well-worn falsehoods, including claims that migrants have carried out a crime wave, that Democrats support infanticide and that he actually won the 2020 election.
Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara, co-chair of the Republican National Committee, told Fox News that Trump was feeling “great” after “probably the best debate of his political career.”
Biden headed to Camp David after a frenzied run of seven campaign events across four states following the debate.
While the Camp David trip had been planned for months, the timing and circumstances of Biden being surrounded by family members who have weighed heavily in his past decisions to run for the presidency have added to the scrutiny around the visit.
Two people familiar with the scheduling said the gathering would include a family photo shoot. The attendees include his wife Jill, as well as the Biden children and grandchildren.
The New York Times said one of the strongest voices imploring Biden to resist pressure to drop out was his son Hunter, who on June 11 became the first child of a sitting president to be convicted of a felony after a jury found him guilty of lying about illegal drug use when he purchased a handgun in 2018.
DNC Chairman Jaime Harrison and Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez held a Saturday afternoon call with dozens of committee members across the country, a group of some of the most influential members of the party.
The call was part pep talk, part planning meeting for the upcoming national convention, according to two people who were on the call who requested anonymity to discuss private discussions.
US military raises alert level for Europe bases: reports
- European nations have been on heightened alert since the deadly terror attack outside Moscow last March
- The highest level “Delta” is applied when a terrorist attack has occurred or one is “imminent”
WASHINGTON: The US military has raised the alert level of several bases in Europe to its second-highest level, multiple American media outlets reported Sunday.
The American bases, located across Europe, were raised to the “Charlie” alert level, ABC News and CNN reported, both citing unnamed officials.
That level is ordered when “an incident occurs or intelligence is received indicating some form of terrorist action or targeting against personnel or facilities is likely,” the US Army says on its website.
The highest level “Delta” is applied when a terrorist attack has occurred or one is “imminent.”
The US European Command (USEUCOM) did not confirm the status change when contacted by AFP, but said: “we remain vigilant.”
The Pentagon meanwhile said that “due to a combination of factors potentially impacting the safety and security of US service members and their families stationed in the European theater, US European Command is redoubling its efforts to stress vigilance during the summer months.”
The US State Department currently advises American citizens in Germany, where the USEUCOM is headquartered, to exercise increased caution due to terrorism.
While no specific threat has been mentioned, European nations have been on heightened alert since gunmen in March killed nearly 150 people outside Moscow, an attack claimed by the Daesh group, an offshoot of the Al-Qaeda terrorist network.
France has also increased its state of alert ahead of the Paris Olympics, while Germany is currently hosting an international football tournament.
French far right eyes power after election win
- The two-round vote could put the far-right in power in France for the first time since the Nazi occupation in World War II
PARIS: France’s far right was on Sunday eyeing a historic chance to form a government and claim the post of prime minister after winning the first round of legislative elections with the centrist forces of President Emmanuel Macron coming in only third.
But it remained unclear if the far-right National Rally (RN) party of Marine Le Pen would win the absolute majority of seats in the new National Assembly in the July 7 second round. That is what it would need to be certain of taking power and for Le Pen’s protege Jordan Bardella, 28, to become prime minister.
Macron had stunned the nation and baffled even some allies by calling snap polls after the RN trounced his centrist forces in European Parliament elections this month.
But that gamble risks backfiring, with Macron’s alliance now expected to win a far smaller minority contingent in parliament. That would make the president a far less powerful figure for the remaining three years of his term.
Projections from prominent French polling firms gave the RN 33.2-33.5 percent of the vote, compared to 28.1-28.5 percent for the left-wing New Popular Front alliance, and 21.0-22.1 percent for Macron’s centrist camp.
The polling agencies projected this would give the RN a majority of seats in the 577-seat National Assembly after the second round. But it was far from clear the party would garner the 289 seats needed for an absolute majority.
The projections varied sharply, with Ipsos forecasting 230-280 seats, Ifop 240-270 and Elabe the only organization to put it in the range of an absolute majority on 260-310 seats.
In a statement, Macron called for a “broad” alliance against the far right in the second round, which will see run-off votes where there was no outright winner in the first round.
The leftwing alliance and the president’s camp will be hoping that tactical voting to prevent RN candidates winning seats will leave it short of the absolute majority.
French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, who is likely to be forced to resign after the second round, warned the far right was now at the “gates of power.” The RN should not get a “single vote” in the second round, he said.
“We have seven days to spare France from catastrophe,” said Raphael Glucksmann, a key figure in the left-wing alliance.
With the French facing their most polarizing choices in recent history, turnout soared to 65 percent, way above the turnout in 2022 polls of just 47.5 percent.
Macron said the high turnout in the first round spoke of “the importance of this vote for all our compatriots and the desire to clarify the political situation.”
The arrival of anti-immigration and euroskeptic RN in government would be a turning point in French modern history and be the first time a far-right force has taken power in the country since World War II when it was occupied by Nazi Germany.
“Nothing is won and the second round is decisive,” Le Pen, who has long worked to distance the party from its extremist origins, told supporters.
“We need an absolute majority so that Jordan Bardella is in eight days named prime minister by Emmanuel Macron.”
Bardella said he wanted to be the “prime minister of all French.”
This would create a tense period of “cohabitation” with Macron, who has vowed to serve out his term until 2027.
Bardella has said he will only form a government if the RN wins an absolute majority in the elections.
The alternative is months of political paralysis and negotiations to find a solution for a sustainable government that can survive no-confidence votes.
Hard-left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon said Macron’s centrist alliance had suffered a “heavy and undisputable” defeat in the snap polls.
Risk analysis firm Eurasia Group said the RN now looked “likely” to fall short of an absolute majority. France was facing “at least 12 months with a rancorously blocked National Assembly and — at best — a technocratic government of ‘national unity’ with limited capacity to govern,” it added.
Macron’s decision to call the snap vote sparked uncertainty in Europe’s second-biggest economy. The Paris stock exchange suffered its biggest monthly decline in two years in June, dropping by 6.4 percent, according to figures released on Friday.
The turmoil also risks undermining Macron’s stature as an international leader taking a prime role in helping Ukraine fight the Russian invasion. In the immediate aftermath of the second round he is due to attend the NATO summit in Washington.
French daily Liberation urged voters to unite to halt the march of the far-right. “After the shock, form a block,” the newspaper said on its Monday front page.
