(AFP) “Aline, Patricia, Leopold, Gilles, Johanna, Loubna …” Five years on, the 32 victims of the Brussels bomb attacks were the focus of Monday’s national day of commemoration. The March 22, 2016, bombings were the worst massacre in the country’s modern peacetime […]
(AFP) French maritime authorities said they had rescued 72 migrants in the English Channel on Sunday whose vessels ran into difficulties as they tried to reach the UK. Early Sunday, the coastguard was alerted that several boats were in trouble off the […]
(AFP) It has been five years since Islamist bombers slaughtered 32 people in the Belgian capital Brussels, in an attack then-prime minister Charles Michel says changed the country forever. In an AFP interview, Michel — now the president of the European Council […]
(AFP) Denmark plans to crack down further on disadvantaged neighbourhoods by reducing the number of “non-Western” residents, the Social Democratic government said Wednesday, scrapping the controversial term “ghetto” in its proposed legislation. In the bill — a review of existing legislation on […]
(AFP) “Okay, um … My name’s Shamima. I’m from the UK. I’m 19.” Spoken with a nervous laugh, the introduction to a room full of women and restless babies could be the start of any young mothers’ support group. But the speaker […]
(AFP) A Greek court has jailed two Afghan youths for five years for starting a fire that burnt down Europe’s largest migrant camp last year on the island of Lesbos, lawyers said on Wednesday. The Lesbos court handed down the sentences late […]
(AFP) The lawyer for the family of beheaded French teacher Samuel Paty expressed her anger on Tuesday over lies spread on social media which led to the murder. Paty, a secondary school teacher in a town near Paris, was killed last October […]
(AFP) Dutch anti-Islam leader Geert Wilders has said he has no regrets and is ready to “step up” his campaigning against immigration, despite the coronavirus set to dominate next week’s general election. Once dubbed the “Dutch Trump” for his bleached-blonde hair and […]
(AFP) Italian police said Monday they had arrested a 36-year-old Algerian on suspicion of belonging to the Islamic State group and helping the authors of the November 2015 Paris attacks. The man, identified by La Repubblica newspaper as Athmane Touami, is alleged […]
(AFP) Belgium must do everything it can to ensure the safe return of Belgian jihadists’ children being held in Kurdish-controlled camps in northern Syria, Prime Minister Alexander de Croo said Thursday. De Croo warned that conditions in the two camps, packed with […]
(AFP) The suspect in the stabbing that left seven injured in Sweden is a 22-year-old Afghan, who arrived in the Nordic country in 2018, media reported Thursday. Swedish police are investigating a possible terror incident after a man stabbed and injured at […]
(AFP) The French government on Wednesday banned far-right group Generation Identity, which gained notoriety through several attempts to block migrants from entering the country. Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin posted the decree dissolving the group on Twitter, saying it “incites discrimination, hatred and […]
(AFP) A man stabbed eight people Wednesday in the Swedish city of Vetlanda, seriously injuring five of them in what police called a potential terror incident. The assailant was taken to hospital after being shot in the leg by police as he […]
(AFP) A woman on trial in Norway for supporting the Islamic State group provided a glimpse this week of life with members of the terror group she said she was unable to flee despite numerous attempts. The woman, who AFP and other […]
(AFP) Belgium will put 14 suspects on trial for allegedly aiding those who carried out the November 2015 Paris attacks that left 130 people dead, the federal prosecution service said Wednesday. Those facing trial are accused of having transported, housed or provided […]
(AFP) A notorious Iraqi preacher said to be the Islamic State jihadist group’s de facto leader in Germany was sentenced to 10 years and six months in prison by a German court on Wednesday. The 37-year-old Ahmad Abdulaziz Abdullah Abdullah, better known […]
(AFP) Cyprus hit out at Turkey on Friday for acts it said were behind the creation of a new migration route that had “disproportionally burdened” it with the EU’s highest percentage of asylum-seekers. The Republic of Cyprus, a member of the European […]
(AFP) Two French citizens and a Moroccan on Wednesday received heavy prison terms for an attack plot that was foiled after an intelligence agent posing as a jihadist infiltrated their cyber network. The criminal court sentenced Hicham Makran to 22 years in […]
(AFP) Spanish judges on Wednesday began deliberating a verdict in the trial of three men accused of helping the jihadists behind the 2017 attacks in Barcelona and a nearby town that killed 16. The Islamic State (IS) group took responsibility for the […]
(AFP) The French minister for higher education has sparked a backlash from university heads after warning about the spread of “Islamo-leftism” in the country’s academic institutions. The term “Islamo-leftism” is often used in France by far-right politicians to discredit left-wing opponents they […]
(AFP) France’s lower house of parliament on Tuesday voted in favour of a law to battle “Islamist separatism” that is billed by the government as a riposte to religious groups attempting to undermine the secular state. The draft legislation, which has been […]
(AFP) After months of controversy and 135 hours of parliamentary debate, MPs in France are set to approve a draft law to crack down on what has been termed “Islamist separatism” on Tuesday. AFP examines what is, and what isn’t, in the […]
(AFP) The families of two of the victims of November’s jihadist attack in Vienna city centre are suing the Austrian state for compensation because of official failings, their lawyers said Tuesday. Convicted Islamic State sympathiser Kujtim Fejzulai killed four people before being […]
(AFP) Germany has charged five Tajik men with membership of an Islamic State terror cell that recruited members and planned attacks on German soil, prosecutors said Monday. A sixth member of the same cell, Ravsan B., was sentenced to seven years in […]
(AFP) French President Emmanuel Macron is seeking to gain ground on far-right leader Marine Le Pen ahead of a possible duel in 2022 elections by seizing votes on the right, with a tough-talking interior minister and a bill cracking down on radical […]
(AFP) There was an “unprecedented escalation” of human rights violations against migrants in the Aegean Sea last year, a campaign group said Friday, accusing Greece and the EU’s border patrol agency Frontex of being behind a soaring number of illegal returns to […]
(AFP) German and Danish authorities announced Thursday they had arrested 14 people over alleged attack plots, including three Syrian brothers … accused of planning an attack with several kilogrammes of explosive chemicals. Denmark’s intelligence service PET announced a total of 14 people […]
(AFP) French far-right leader Marine Le Pen appeared in court Wednesday on charges she broke hate speech laws by tweeting pictures of Islamic State atrocities, a case she slammed as a politically motivated attempt to silence her. The trial comes as opinion […]
(AFP) President Joe Biden’s administration believes countries should repatriate jihadists and their families to counter the threat from the Islamic State group, an American diplomat told the United Nations on Wednesday. “The global threat from Isis will grow if the international community […]
(AFP) “We will try again,” Mohammad Amin Ibrahimi, a teacher from Kabul, says as he looks west towards the hills of neighbouring Croatia, a country he has tried to enter 30 times in his dream to bring his family to the European […]
(AFP) The Austrian justice ministry said Wednesday it would take into account fierce criticisms levelled by judges and the opposition at proposals for an anti-terror law formulated following a deadly jihadist terror attack. In the days after the convicted sympathiser of the […]
(AFP) The fallout from last November’s shootings on the streets of Vienna has shone a light on Europe’s dilemma in dealing with jihadists, particularly the continent’s struggles to deradicalise such individuals. An Austrian court had in 2019 already convicted Kujtim Fejzulai, the […]
(AFP) French far-right leader Marine Le Pen proposed a ban on Muslim headscarves in all public places on Friday, seeking to build on a record recent poll putting her almost neck-and-neck with President Emmanuel Macron. The hijab policy, which would be contested […]
(AFP) Born amid the horrors of war in Iraqi Kurdistan, Danish author Sara Omar now uses her voice to denounce violence inflicted on women in the name of reactionary Islam, a “calling” that has left her living under police protection. “I broke […]
(AFP) The United Nations appealed Wednesday for $100 million to help it boost support for refugees fleeing escalating conflicts and crises in Africa who embark on risky migration routes to Europe. The UN refugee agency voiced deep concern over swelling displacement from […]
(AFP) French authorities are looking at shutting down a far-right group that has staged several attempts to block migrants from entering the country by crossing the Alps or the Pyrenees mountains, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said Tuesday. Darmanin, who has also led […]
(AFP) A clear majority of Swiss voters favour introducing a nationwide prohibition against wearing face-covering garments in public spaces, known as a “burqa ban,” a poll showed Friday. According to the Tamedia poll of 15,000 eligible voters, a full 63 percent of […]
(AFP) The head of France’s main Muslim organisation on Thursday slammed a “unilateral” move by three Islamic groups not to sign up to an anti-extremism charter championed by President Emmanuel Macron. Macron wants French Muslim groups to sign up to the charter […]
(AFP) Three Muslim groups refused on Wednesday to back an anti-extremism charter pushed by French officials following a spate of jihadist-inspired attacks, dealing a blow to a flagship initiative of President Emmanuel Macron’s government. The charter rejects “instrumentalising” Islam for political ends […]
(AFP) Syrian mother Dahouk Idriss says she can’t wait for US President-elect Joe Biden to be inaugurated Wednesday, so she can finally visit her son for the first time in four years. Biden has pledged that, on his first day in office, […]
(AFP) President Emmanuel Macron praised French Muslim leaders on Monday after they agreed on a “charter of principles” aimed at combatting sectarianism and radicalised teachings blamed for a surge in jihadist attacks in France in recent years. The charter offers “a clarification […]
(AFP) France’s Muslim federations agreed Sunday on a “charter of principles” requested by President Emmanuel Macron in his bid to eradicate sectarianism and extremism. Macron urged the French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM) to devise the charter in November, after the […]
(AFP) France said on Wednesday it had brought home seven children of French jihadists from northeast Syria, continuing a repatriation process begun after the toppling of the Islamic State’s so-called caliphate. The children, aged between two and 11 and “particularly vulnerable,” were […]
(AFP) An Italian man of Turkish origin who claimed to have been tasked with killing public figures in Austria has been expelled from the country, his lawyer said Tuesday. Feyyaz Ozturk, 53, turned himself in to the Austrian intelligence services last year. […]
(AFP) A court in Spain on Monday remanded in custody three suspected members of Islamic State arrested last week in Barcelona, including an Algerian man who had fought for the Islamist group in Iraq. Spanish authorities began their investigation after becoming aware […]
(AFP) The European Union’s foreign policy chief on Tuesday called on Bosnia to assume responsibility for hundreds of Bosnian migrants left sleeping out in the cold after their camp burned down. In a damning summary of the crisis there, the EU’s High […]
(AFP) Nearly 2,200 migrants died trying to reach Spain by sea this year, the vast majority of them on their way to the Canary Islands, a migrant rights group said Tuesday. [Migrant] arrivals in the archipelago have increased this year as they […]
(AFP) Austria’s intelligence agencies missed several chances to spot the danger posed by a jihadist [gunman] who launched a deadly attack in Vienna in November, an official report said on Wednesday. The report is the first from a government commission assessing how […]
(AFP) French authorities have charged and detained four Pakistanis suspected of links to a meat cleaver attack by a compatriot outside the former offices of the Charlie Hebdo weekly that wounded two people, the national counter-terrorism prosecutor’s office said Friday. The four […]
(AFP) A French court on Thursday jailed for life a Moroccan man who planned a terror attack on a Paris-bound international train in 2015 but was thwarted by passengers including off-duty US soldiers. The Paris court convicted Ayoub El Khazzani, now 31, […]
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