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
Two detained after attack outside Israeli embassy in Belgrade
- Assailant shot a Serbian police officer in the neck with a crossbow while he was on duty in front of the embassy early Saturday
- The attacker was shot and killed by the officer
BELGRADE: Two men were remanded in custody Sunday in connection with an attack outside the Israeli embassy in Belgrade that Serbian authorities called a “targeted terrorist act,” a minister said.
The assailant, whom the police identified as being a “convert” to Islam, shot a Serbian police officer in the neck with a crossbow while he was on duty in front of the embassy early Saturday.
The attacker was shot and killed by the officer.
The assailant, from Mladenovac, near Belgrade, lived in Novi Pazar, a historical and political center of Serbia’s Bosniak Muslim minority, police said.
Authorities said a number of people known to the security services were suspected of being linked to the attack.
“Searches were conducted at several locations in Serbia, dozens of people were questioned,” Interior Minister Ivica Dacic told the state-run RTS broadcaster on Sunday.
The prosecutors will establish whether they were linked with the “targeted terrorist attack,” he added.
Two men were remanded in custody, the minister said.
Security was stepped up to the highest level throughout the country and the police operation was continuing, Dacic added.
“It is an operation against extremists and terrorists, people directly involved in the attack, but... also against those for whom there are indications they might belong to terrorist groups,” he said.
Police have traced the attacker’s movement in Belgrade, where he arrived early Saturday, saying he headed to the synagogue before the attack, but said he was deterred by a high police presence.
After that he proceeded to the Israeli embassy.
“From that it is clear what the main and possible targets were,” Dacic said.
Israel’s Foreign Minister Israel Katz on Saturday thanked Serbian authorities for “strong support and cooperation following the attempted terror act.”
“Terrorism cannot be tolerated!” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
The Israeli ambassador to Serbia, Yahel Vilan, on Sunday visited the wounded officer in a Belgrade hospital.
The 34-year-old policeman underwent an operation to remove an arrow from his neck and was in stable condition, a doctor said.
Serbia has continued arms sales to Israel since Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel, which claimed 1,195 lives, mostly of civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 37,877 people, also mostly civilians, according to data from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.
Delhi airport accident raises concerns over India’s infrastructure drive
- About $532 billion in new infrastructure will become operational in the next 2 years in India
- Modernizing infrastructure was key part of PM Modi’s campaign during this year’s election
NEW DELHI: The recent deadly roof collapse at New Delhi's main airport was the latest in a series of construction safety incidents in the country, triggering concerns over India’s multibillion-dollar infrastructure drive.
A portion of a canopy and pillars at a departure terminal in the Indira Gandhi International Airport, one of the country’s busiest, collapsed following heavy rain on Friday morning, killing at least one person and injuring several others.
The collapse also caused a temporary suspension of operations at the airport’s Terminal 1, which is used for domestic flights, impacting the travel plans of thousands of people.
It joins a growing list of infrastructure incidents in India in recent years that have raised questions about the rapid pace of mega-development projects in the country under Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Narayan Moorthy, a Delhi-based architect, blamed it on many factors, including “slipshod work culture,” frequent use of poor-quality materials, “reckless hurry towards the end of projects so that some politician can inaugurate it on a pre-decided and politically significant date,” and lack of maintenance after construction.
“This whole cocktail comes together to result in unmitigated disasters, like the collapsed airport roof in Delhi that killed one hapless soul and injured many others … Similar is the case of the roof of the brand-new Jabalpur airport that thankfully had no human casualties but exposes our systemic rot,” he told Arab News.
“We have much to be ashamed of in the quality of our supposedly ‘world-class’ constructions.”
A day before the Delhi accident, a part of the canopy of Jabalpur airport in Rajasthan collapsed under heavy rains, while on Saturday, a canopy fell down at the passenger pickup area at Rajkot airport in Gujarat.
In the eastern state of Bihar, four bridges also recently collapsed and an $80 million underpass in Delhi, which was inaugurated just ahead of India’s hosting of the G20 summit last year, has been waterlogged for several days, disrupting traffic in Delhi’s main thoroughfare.
Under Modi’s building spree, about 44.4 trillion rupees ($532 billion) in new infrastructure will become operational over the next two years, according to Bloomberg Economics.
Modi has presided over many ribbon-cutting ceremonies of these projects, as modernizing infrastructure was a key part of his campaign during this year’s national election, when he won a third term as India’s premier. Over the past decade, his government said it has built 80 new airports, upgraded railways and expanded highways by thousands of kilometers.
The projects have been criticized by India’s opposition leaders, with Mallikarjun Kharge, president of the Indian National Congress party, among the latest to accuse Modi’s government of corruption following Friday’s incident.
“Corruption and criminal negligence is responsible for the collapse of shoddy infrastructure falling like a deck of cards, in the past 10 years of Modi Govt,” Kharge wrote on X.
Niranjan Sahoo, a senior fellow at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi, highlighted how infrastructure was “turned into a vote bank ploy” under Modi’s government at an unmatched level.
“While the government might have good intent to build infrastructure at a rapid pace to match the requirements of a growing nation, (it) is done without adequate attention to their up-keeping, reliable maintenance and auditing,” Sahoo told Arab News.
“Never before has the country witnessed a kind of infrastructure blitz largely timed before the elections,” he added. “In a sense, infrastructure fits into populist narratives of taking India to the comity of great powers. However, the recent incidents badly expose India’s ambition and capabilities.”
Prof. A.K. Gosain, a civil engineer at the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi said one of the major reasons for infrastructural failures can be traced back to “falling quality” of construction, adding that “there is no accountability at the top,” leaving people at the lower levels as scapegoats whenever problems arise.
Anuj Srivastava, an architect from the School of Planning and Architecture in the Indian capital and a veteran of the Corps of Engineers of the Indian Army, also highlighted the lack of maintenance and accountability in India’s infrastructure projects and the indifference toward the environment amid a rapidly changing climate.
“The reason for accidents and collapse of infrastructure is the lack of concern for the environment and the haste in planning and executing the project, proving the adage ‘haste makes waste’,” Srivastava told Arab News.
“Infrastructure disaster damages India’s reputation in the world. In the unseemly haste to build ‘world-class infrastructure’ in a hurry and its subsequent collapse, irreparable damage is being caused to India’s reputation.”
Taliban delegation attends UN-led meeting in Qatar on Afghanistan, with women excluded
- The two-day meeting is the third UN-sponsored gathering on the Afghan crisis in the Qatari capital of Doha
ISLAMABAD: A Taliban delegation on Sunday attended a United Nations-led meeting in Qatar on Afghanistan after organizers said women would be excluded from the gathering.
The two-day meeting is the third UN-sponsored gathering on the Afghan crisis in the Qatari capital of Doha.
Zabihullah Mujahid, the chief spokesman for the Taliban government who leads its delegation, wrote on social media platform X that the delegation met with representatives from countries including Russia, India and Uzbekistan on the sidelines of the meeting.
The Taliban were not invited to the first meeting, and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said they set unacceptable conditions for attending the second one in February, including demands that Afghan civil society members be excluded from the talks and that the Taliban be treated as the country’s legitimate rulers.
The Taliban seized power in August 2021 as US and NATO forces were in the final weeks of their pullout from the country following two decades of war. No country has officially recognized the Taliban as Afghanistan’s government, and the UN has said recognition is almost impossible while bans on female education and employment remain in place.
Mujahid on Saturday in the capital, Kabul, told reporters the delegation was going to Doha “to seek understanding and resolve issues.”
“We urge all countries not to abandon the Afghan people in difficult times, and actively participate in Afghanistan’s reconstruction and economic strengthening,” he said.
He said they would discuss issues including international restrictions imposed on Afghanistan’s financial and banking system, challenges in growing the private sector and government actions against drug trafficking.
Earlier, the United Nations’ top official in Afghanistan, Roza Otunbayeva, defended the failure to include Afghan women in the meeting in Doha, insisting that demands for women’s rights are certain to be raised.
Russia claims two more east Ukrainian villages
- Moscow has claimed new villages in the east of Ukraine regularly for weeks, as outgunned and outmanned Ukrainian forces struggle to hold them back
MOSCOW: Russia on Sunday claimed two more east Ukrainian villages as its forces have had the upper hand over Kyiv on the battlefield for months.
Moscow has claimed new villages in the east of Ukraine regularly for weeks, as outgunned and outmanned Ukrainian forces struggle to hold them back.
Russia’s defense ministry said its forces had “liberated the settlement” of Novooleksandrivka as the Russian army pushes further westwards into the Donetsk region.
The village — which lies north-west of occupied Ocheretyne — is now the most western point of the region that Moscow holds.
Moscow also said its forces captured the small village of Spirne, further north in the Donetsk region near the border with the neighboring Lugansk region.
Moscow’s Ukraine offensive has dragged on for nearly two and a half years.
French voters propel far-right National Rally to strong lead in first-round legislative elections
- 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 high-stakes legislative elections propelled the far-right National Rally to a strong but not decisive lead in the first-round vote Sunday, polling agencies projected, dealing another slap to centrist President Emmanuel Macron.
The projections indicated that Macron’s risky decision to call voters back to the polls for the second time in three weeks appeared to have backfired.
French polling agencies said Macron’s grouping of centrist parties could finish a distant third in the first-round ballot. Those projections put Macron’s camp behind both Marine Le Pen’s National Rally and a new left-wing coalition of parties that joined forces to keep her anti-immigration party with historical links to antisemitism from being able to form the first far-right government in France since World War II.
But with another torrid week of campaigning to come before the decisive final voting next Sunday, the election’s ultimate outcome remained uncertain.
Macron urged voters to rally against the far right in the second round.
Addressing a jubilant crowd waving French tricolor flags of blue, white and red, Le Pen called on her supporters and voters that didn’t back her party in the first round to push it over the line and give it a commanding legislative majority. In that scenario, Le Pen’s 28-year-old protege, Jordan Bardella, would become prime minister. Macron, who has said he will not step down before his term expires in 2027, would be forced into an awkward power-sharing arrangement called ” cohabitation” in France.
Still, the National Rally isn’t there yet.
Although polling agency projections gave it around one-third of the national vote on Sunday, it remains unclear how the party’s surge will translate into actual seats in round two.
Some polling agency projections indicated that in the best-case scenario for the far right, the National Rally and its allies could collectively clear the bar of 289 seats needed for a secure majority in the 577-seat National Assembly. That could spook European financial markets, affect Western support for Ukraine and the management of France’s nuclear arsenal and global military force.
But, depending on how the second round shakes out, the far right could also fall short, with no single bloc securing a clear majority, polling agencies projected. Predictions are difficult because of the two-round voting system, and because parties will work between the rounds to make alliances in some constituencies or pull out of others. Early official results for the first round were expected later Sunday.
Many French voters are frustrated about inflation and other economic concerns, as well as Macron’s leadership, seen as arrogant and out-of-touch with their lives. The National Rally party has tapped that discontent, notably via online platforms such as TikTok.
Voters in Paris had issues including immigration and the rising cost of living on their minds as the country grew more divided between the far-right and far-left blocs, with a deeply unpopular and weakened president in the political center. The campaign was marred by rising hate speech.
“People don’t like what has been happening,” said Cynthia Justine, 44. “People feel they’ve lost a lot in recent years. People are angry. I am angry.” She added that with “the rising hate speech,” it was necessary to express frustrations with those holding and seeking power.
She said it was important as a woman to vote since women haven’t always had that right. And “because I am a Black woman, it’s even more important. A lot is at stake on this day.”
Macron called the early elections after his party was trounced in the European Parliament election earlier in June by the National Rally, which has historic ties to racism and antisemitism and is hostile toward France’s Muslim community. It also has historical ties to Russia.
Macron’s call was an audacious gamble that French voters who were complacent about the European election would be jolted into turning out for moderate forces in national elections to keep the far right out of power.
A 64-year-old voter, Philippe Lempereur, expressed fatigue with politicians from the left, right and center and what he called their inability to work together on issues such as ensuring people have shelter and enough to eat. “We vote by default, for the least worse option,” he said. “I prefer to vote than do nothing.”
Bardella, who has no governing experience, says he would use the powers of prime minister to stop Macron from continuing to supply long-range weapons to Ukraine for the war with Russia.
The National Rally has also questioned the right to citizenship for people born in France, and it wants to curtail the rights of French citizens with dual nationality. Critics say this undermines human rights and is a threat to France’s democratic ideals.
Meanwhile, huge public spending promises by the National Rally and especially the left-wing coalition have shaken markets and ignited worries about France’s heavy debt, already criticized by EU watchdogs.
In the restive French Pacific territory of New Caledonia, polls closed earlier due to a curfew that authorities have extended until July 8. Violence flared there last month, leaving nine people dead, due to attempts by Macron’s government to amend the French Constitution and change voting lists, which the Indigenous Kanaks feared would further marginalize them. They have long sought to break free from France.
Voters in France’s other overseas territories of Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, Saint-Barthélemy, Saint-Martin, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Guyana and French Polynesia, and those voting in offices opened by embassies and consular posts across the Americas cast their ballots Saturday.
