SOLINGEN, Germany: German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Monday the government would tighten weapons controls and speed up deportations after a suspected Islamist knife attack in the western city of Solingen.
Friday night’s deadly stabbing at a street festival has reignited a debate over immigration in the country and put extra pressure on Scholz ahead of key regional elections set for Sunday.
“This was terrorism, terrorism against us all,” Scholz said on a visit to Solingen, where he laid flowers at a memorial to the victims.
A 26-year-old Syrian with suspected links to the Daesh group is alleged to have carried out the attack, which left three people dead and eight more wounded.
Scholz said he was “angry... at the Islamists who threaten our peaceful coexistence.”
“We will now have to tighten up the weapons regulations... in particular with regard to the use of knives,” Scholz said.
Stronger weapons controls would come “very quickly,” Scholz said.
Germany would also have to “do everything we can to ensure that those who cannot and must not stay here in Germany are repatriated and deported,” Scholz said.
The suspect, named as Issa Al H., was able to evade the police after the attack before reportedly handing himself in to law enforcement on Saturday evening.
The Syrian was detained on suspicion of murder, attempted murder and belonging to a “terrorist group.”
The Daesh group on Saturday said one of its members had carried out the attack in an act of “revenge.”
The group subsequently published a video via the jihadists’ Amaq news agency purporting to show the Solingen attack, in which the veiled man said he intended to carry out reprisals for “massacres” in the Middle East and beyond.
The claim could not be immediately verified.
The suspected attacker has raised concerns in Germany for the seeming ease with which he avoided authorities attempts to remove him.
According to the Bild and Spiegel news outlets, the suspect arrived in Germany in December 2022 and had a protected immigration status often given to those fleeing war-torn Syria.
He was meant to have been deported to Bulgaria, where he had first arrived in the European Union, but he went missing.
The suspect was not known to German security services as a dangerous extremist, according to officials.
According to federal police figures, almost 52,976 people were supposed to be deported or expelled from Germany last year.
Successful deportations however only took place in 21,206 instances — less than half of the total planned — often because the individuals concerned were “not handed over” to police.
The attack spurred a new debate around immigration in the EU’s most populous country ahead of regional elections next weekend in Saxony and Thuringia, where the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is set to make gains.
The attack would strengthen the perception that the government was “overwhelmed,” Ursula Muench, the director of the Academy for Political Education, told AFP.
The AfD has accused successive governments of contributing to “chaos” by allowing in too many immigrants, and called for a stop to new entries.
Friedrich Merz, the leader of the CDU, Germany’s main opposition party, meanwhile urged the government to stop taking in refugees from Syria and Afghanistan.
The government — a fraught coalition between Scholz’s Social Democrats, the Greens and the pro-business FDP — had already announced moves to toughen immigration rules.
Following an attack by a 25-year-old Afghan at an anti-Islam rally in Mannheim in May, the government said it would look to restart deportations directly to Afghanistan and Syria after years in which they were halted.
German security services have been on high alert for Islamist attacks since the Gaza war erupted on October 7 with the Hamas attacks on Israel.
Germany has been hit by several such attacks in recent years, with the most deadly being a truck rampage at a Berlin Christmas market in 2016 that killed 12 people.
Scholz promises new weapons controls after Germany knife attack
https://arab.news/6v8be
Scholz promises new weapons controls after Germany knife attack
- A 26-year-old Syrian with suspected links to the Daesh group is alleged to have carried out the attack, which left three people dead and eight more wounded
- Germany has been hit by several such attacks in recent years, with the most deadly being a truck rampage at a Berlin Christmas market in 2016 that killed 12 people
Ukraine’s air defense units trying to repel Russian drone attack on Kyiv, Ukraine’s military says
KYIV: Ukraine’s air defense systems were engaged on the outskirts of Kyiv in trying to repel a Russian drone attack, the military administration of the Ukrainian capital said on Wednesday on the Telegram messaging app.
Reuters witnesses said they heard several blasts in what sounded like air defense units in operation.
Trump says will meet India’s Modi during US visit
Flint, US: Former US president Donald Trump said Tuesday he plans to meet next week with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who will be visiting the United States for several official events.
During a campaign event in Michigan, Trump slammed India as a “very big abuser” on trade, but said Modi was “fantastic.”
“He happens to be coming to meet me next week,” Trump told the crowd without providing further details.
Modi will be traveling this weekend to Wilmington, Delaware — President Joe Biden’s hometown — as part of the “Quad Leaders” summit alongside Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio.
The four-way Quad grouping dates back to 2007, but Biden has strongly pushed the alliance as part of an emphasis on international alliances to rein in adversaries — especially China.
The upcoming summit marks Biden’s last with the group as US president, having abandoned his bid for another White House term, with Vice President Kamala Harris replacing him at the top of the Democratic ticket.
After the summit, Modi will attend the United nations General Assembly in New York, as well as a meeting with Indian community members.
Despite no longer being president, Trump met in Florida in July with Hungary’s nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban, a close ally who is hoping the Republican reclaims the White House in November.
Portugal battles ferocious wildfires as toll rises to seven
AGUEDA, Portugal: Thousands of firefighters on Tuesday battled wildfires in Portugal that have killed seven people and burnt more land in a matter of days than the rest of the summer combined.
Fanned by bellowing winds in the stifling heat, the three largest fires concentrated in the northern Aveiro region scorched some 10,000 hectares (24,700 acres) by Monday evening, according to a civil protection report.
Three firefighters died on Tuesday when their vehicle was trapped by the flames, civil protection authorities said, bringing the fire-related toll up to seven, with some 50 injured.
The two women and a man were killed while fighting flames in the central region of Coimbra, the interior ministry said. The trio was previously reported to have been killed in the north.
Across the Iberian nation, more than 4,500 firefighters, more than 1,000 vehicles and around 20 aircraft on Tuesday were battling some 50 fires in all, with an alert warning in force since Saturday afternoon extended until Thursday evening.
“We’re in for some very difficult times over the next few days,” Portugal’s Prime Minister Luis Montenegro — who canceled all his Tuesday engagements in response to the blaze — warned on Monday evening.
“Nobody is sleeping here, we’ve been up since two o’clock in the morning,” Maria Ludivina Castanheira, 63, said in the village of Arrancada, south of the coastal city of Porto, where villagers hurried to a small warehouse to fight a fire there.
“We opened the cages so that the pigeons could escape” and “we moved the chickens to a neighbor’s,” Antonia Estima, 39, said as she took a break from helping to fight the flames.
Portuguese authorities have invoked the European Union’s civil protection mechanism to obtain eight additional firefighting aircraft.
Following the two Canadair water bombers sent from Spain on Monday, aircraft made available by France, Italy and Greece were also expected to arrive.
In the municipality of Albergaria-a-Velha, a 28-year-old Brazilian employed by a forestry company died after he became trapped by the flames as he tried to collect some tools.
Another person suffered a heart attack on Monday, while on Sunday a volunteer firefighter died suddenly while taking a lunch break from battling a blaze near Oliveira de Azemeis in hard-hit Aveiro.
Raging since the weekend before worsening on Monday, the blazes have also left around 50 people injured, including 33 firefighters, according to the latest figures from the authorities.
Several roads are still cut off in the northern Portuguese districts of Aveiro, Viseu, Vila Real, Braga and Porto as well as in the central Coimbra region.
Monday saw the highest fire-risk weather conditions in the northern half of the country since 2001, according to experts interviewed by the weekly Expresso.
Scientists say that fossil fuel emissions are worsening the length, frequency and intensity of heatwaves across the world.
The rising temperatures are leading to longer wildfire seasons and increasing the area burnt in the flames, according to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Air France suspends services to Beirut and Tel Aviv
Air France is suspending services from the French capital’s Charles de Gaulle airport to Beirut and Tel Aviv up to and including Sept. 19 due to escalating security concerns in the Middle East, the airline said on Tuesday.
The operations will resume following an assessment of the situation, Air France added.
Earlier in the day, Lufthansa Group said it is suspending all connections to and from Tel Aviv and Tehran and will bypass Israeli and Iranian airspace up to and including Sept. 19.
US senator accuses Muslim advocate of supporting extremism in hearing on hate
- “This harassment is alarming,” Muslim American advocacy group Engage Action said
WASHINGTON: Republican US Senator John Kennedy accused a leading Muslim civil rights advocate of supporting extremism during a Senate hearing on hate incidents in the US, drawing criticism from many rights groups.
“You support Hamas, do you not?” Kennedy told Arab American Institute Executive Director Maya Berry, who replied by saying: “You asking the executive director of the Arab American Institute that question very much puts the focus on the issue of hate in our country.”
In a follow-up question, the senator asked, “You support Hezbollah, too, don’t you?” He later told her, “You should hide your head in a bag.”
Berry repeatedly said in her responses that she did not support those groups, and added that she found the line of questioning “extraordinarily disappointing.”
Islamist militant groups Hamas, which carried out a deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israel, and Hezbollah are both designated as “foreign terrorist organizations” by the US government.
Multiple rights advocates denounced Senator Kennedy.
“It is absolutely reprehensible that a US senator would weaponize the racial identity of a witness and accuse her of supporting terrorism by using an anti-Arab and anti-Muslim trope in a hearing meant to tackle precisely that kind of bigotry,” Council on American Islamic Relations Government Affairs Director Robert McCaw told Reuters.
“This harassment is alarming,” Muslim American advocacy group Engage Action said.
The Democratic-led Senate Judiciary Committee, which organized Tuesday’s hearing, also condemned the senator and called Berry’s response to him “powerful.”
Rights advocates have warned about rising threats against American Muslims, Arabs and Jews since the eruption of Israel’s war in Gaza following Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack.
US incidents in recent months include the attempted drowning of a 3-year-old Muslim girl in Texas, the fatal stabbing of a 6-year-old Muslim boy in Illinois, the stabbing of a Muslim man in Texas, the beating of a Muslim man in New York, threats of violence against Jews at Cornell University that led to a conviction and sentencing, and an unsuccessful plot to attack a New York City Jewish center.
