Biodun Iginla, BBC News

Biodun Iginla, BBC News
Showing posts with label terrorism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label terrorism. Show all posts

Sunday, May 19, 2019

BREAKING: Bomb blast targets tourist bus near Egypt's famed pyramids


Date created : 20
REUTERS/Ahmed Fahmy | A damaged bus is seen at the site of a blast near a new museum being built close to the Giza pyramids in Cairo, Egypt May 19, 2019

by Nasra Ismail and Biodun Iginla, France24, Cairo. Disclosure: Nasra Ismail and Biodun Iginla dated when she was based in Jerusalem.
At least 17 people were injured on Sunday in a blast targeting a tourist bus near the new Egyptian museum close to the Giza Pyramids, Egyptian officials said.
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The roadside bomb went off as the bus was being driven in Giza, also causing injuries to Egyptians in a nearby car, medical and security sources said.
There were no deaths reported.
"A device exploded and smashed the windows of a bus carrying 25 people from South Africa and a private car carrying four Egyptians," the security source said. 
Video footage captured by AFP showed the bus and car with broken windows on the side of the road.
According to the security source, the wounded were being treated for scratches caused by the broken glass.
Ndivhuwo Mabaya, spokesman for South Africa's department of international relations, told us at France24  that "there might be South Africans involved" but declined to give any figures.
Sunday's incident comes after three Vietnamese holidaymakers and their Egyptian guide were killed when a roadside bomb hit their bus as it travelled near the Giza pyramids outside Cairo in December.
It also comes just little more than a month before the African Cup of Nations hosted by Egypt is to kick off.
Egypt has been battling an insurgency that surged especially in the turbulent North Sinai region following the 2013 military ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi, who was replaced by former army general Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
In February 2018, the army launched a nationwide operation against militants, focusing mainly on the North Sinai region.
Some 650 militants and around 45 soldiers have been killed since the start of the offensive, according to separate statements by the armed forces.
Since first being elected in 2014, Sisi has presented himself as a bulwark against terrorism, promising stability and increased security.
Recently, the country's vital tourism industry has started to slowly rebound after suffering strong blows due to deadly attacks targeting tourists following the turmoil of the 2011 uprising that toppled longtime ruler Hosni Mubarak.
Figures by the official statistics agency showed that tourist arrivals reached 8.3 million in 2017, compared with 5.3 million the previous year. 
Authorities have gone at great lengths to lure tourists back, touting a series of archaeological finds and a new museum next to the pyramids, as well as enhanced security at airports and around ancient sites. 
But that figure was still far short of the record influx of 2010 when more than 14 million visitors flocked to see the country's sites.

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Thursday, December 13, 2018

BREAKING: Strasbourg gunman still on the lam in France, death toll rises

December 13, 2018  22H:27  GMT/UTC/ZULU TIME
STRASBOURG, France - A gunman suspected of killing three people at a Christmas market in Strasbourg was still on the run on Thursday, 48 hours after the attack, eluding security forces who have launched a manhunt across eastern France and neighboring Germany.

French special police forces secure an area during a police operation in the Meinau district after the deadly shooting in Strasbourg, France, December 13, 2018. REUTERS/Vincent Kessler
The death toll from Tuesday night’s attack rose to three, as police combed the city in the east of France for a second day and manned checkpoints on the German border.
(Graphic: tmsnrt.rs/2QQL0XG)

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Police issued a wanted poster in multiple languages for Cherif Chekatt, the main suspect in the attack, who was on a watchlist as a potential security threat. Authorities say the 29-year-old was known to have developed radical religious views while in jail.
Armed and masked police swooped on Strasbourg neighborhoods with elite RAID officers fanning out across three locations in late afternoon, including the area where the suspected shooter was last seen. Some had their guns trained on the houses in front of them.
But after about two hours the operation ended with no sign of security forces any closer to apprehending the shooter.
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The Paris prosecutor’s office said that an individual close to Chekatt was arrested earlier in the day as part of the investigation into the attack, which also saw 13 other people wounded. His parents and two brothers are already in custody.
Two of his sisters in Paris were also questioned on Thursday and one of their homes was searched, a judicial source said.
Strasbourg’s mayor has said the attack was “indisputably an act of terrorism” and, with the gunman on the run, France has raised its security threat to the highest level.
More than 700 police are taking part in the manhunt. French and German police manned controls on either side of the Europe Bridge, which spans the frontier running along the Rhine river, causing hours of logjams.
Asked if French police had been instructed to catch Chekatt dead or alive, government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux told CNews: “It doesn’t matter. The best thing would be to find him as quickly as possible.”
Police are also searching for a car in which he may have escaped, a source close to the investigation said.
It took police four months to track down Salah Abdesalam, the prime surviving suspect from the November 2015 militant assault on Paris, in an apartment in Brussels. One hundred and thirty people were killed in that attack as well as seven gunmen and bombers.

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RELIGIOUS SYMBOLISM

The Christmas market, a hugely popular attraction in historic Strasbourg, remained closed on Thursday, although people were returning to the area with many marking their respects for the victims by leaving candles in the main Kleber square.
Witnesses told investigators that the suspect Chekatt cried out “Allahu Akbar” (God is Greater) as he opened fire on the market, a target Paris Prosecutor Remy Heitz suggested may have been chosen for its religious symbolism.
French soldiers, who are part of anti-terrorism patrols across the country, shot him in the arm and it remains unclear how bad his injuries are.
BFM TV citing investigators said a taxi driver, who had taken him away from the attack site, had told him he had carried out the attack to avenge his brothers in Syria.
May seeks Europe's help in Brexit debacle
Chekatt’s police file photo shows a bearded man of North African descent, with a prayer bruise on the center of his forehead. He has 27 criminal convictions for theft and violence, and has spent time in French, German and Swiss jails.
Neighbors on the housing estate where Chekatt family’s lived described the suspect as a typical young man who dressed in jogging pants and trainers rather than traditional Islamic robes.
“He was a little gangster, but I didn’t see any signs of him being radicalized,” said a leader of a community group standing outside Chekkat’s apartment building, who asked not to be identified while discussing him.
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Monday, June 25, 2018

US migrant crisis in 'ridiculous moment': Sharon Stone


by Natalie de Vallieres and Biodun Iginla, France24, Paris


    © AFP | Stone was speaking to journalists at the end of the Paris Art and Movie Awards where she screened a short documentary "An Undeniable Voice" directed by Price Arana about Sam Harris, believed to be the youngest Holocaust survivor

    PARIS  - 
    The migrant crisis has reached a "ridiculous moment" in the United States but it is a worldwide problem that underscores a "lack of humanity", US actress Sharon Stone said Monday.
    "We all know there is a ridiculous moment at our border, but there are brutal, horrific life-killing moments at every shore in this globe," the 60-year-old said at a Paris screening of a documentary on the Holocaust.
    "As much as I don't feel children should be separated from their parents at the Mexican-American border, nor do I think they should be dying on boats or at the shores on every other border around the globe," said the star of "Basic Instinct".
    "This is a problem in every country of the world. Children are dying in boats, and dying on your shores... It's a problem of lacking humanity, no matter where you are."
    Stone lamented "how terrorism is literally scaring the humanity out of us, how the terrorists are teaching us to turn our backs on each other".
    The comments came as Italy's far-right Interior Minister Matteo Salvini paid a surprise visit to Tripoli on Monday in his fight to block migrants.
    In the United States, President Donald Trump on Sunday reinforced his hardline stand on migrants despite an about-face on family separations that has seen more than 500 children reunited with relatives.
    He said in a tweet that "we cannot allow all these people to invade our country".
    Stone was speaking to journalists at the end of the Paris Art and Movie Awards where she screened a short documentary "An Undeniable Voice" directed by Price Arana about Sam Harris, believed to be the youngest Holocaust survivor.

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