RUTHFULLY YOURS

BERLIN—German police said Wednesday they arrested a 16 year-old Syrian refugee with connections to Islamic State who had been planning a bomb attack, the latest in a series of arrests of suspected radical Islamists and terrorists among the over one million migrants that came to the country last year.

The teenager, who police didn’t identify in keeping with German privacy laws, had radicalized in only a few months after coming to Germany with his family in January last year, Cologne’s police chief Jürgen Mathies said in a press conference.

“This shows how fast a radicalization can unfold,” Mr. Mathies said. “The teenager changed his behavior drastically in only three months.”

Searches of the young man’s cellphone found evidence that he had been in contact with a person connected to Islamic State living abroad, prosecutors and police said.

In such chat conversations, the young man had received instructions on how to build a bomb as well as information on where explosives should be placed to have an impact, senior Cologne prosecutor Ulf Willuhn said. He also discussed whether Islam allowed the killing of nonbelievers, Mr. Willuhn said.

The teenager expressed his “unmistakable readiness” to commit such an attack, said Klaus-Stephan Becker from the Cologne police. Police, however, had no indications that he had begun to buy any of the materials needed to make explosives, Mr. Mathies said.

The arrest follows several others lately of recently arrived refugees suspected of planning terrorist acts as well as two terror attacks this summer committed by refugees.

Recent opinion polls showed rising fears among voters about further attacks as well as widespread discontent with Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to let in hundreds of thousands of often undocumented migrants into the country last year without even the most cursory background check.

The police of Sheraz city, Iran, put a number of Afghan refugees on public display inside steel cages as part of the police’s achievements. This action drew strong reactions from everywhere. Afghan parliamentarians protested the action calling it against human rights, human dignity, and international law.

The police of Sheraz put an exhibition of the findings and achievements of its stations on Tuesday. Among alcoholic drinks, drugs, and other criminal cases, Afghan refugees were also displayed inside cages.

The photos quickly spread through social networking websites and drew strong reactions from people around the world, especially Afghans and Iranians.

The Iranian police told its media that 277 illegal immigrants had been arrested by the police which they saw as an achievement.

But even Iranian users on social networking websites called this action wrong. Sina, an Iranian user wrote, “They are stampeding humanity, just like African-Americans were placed inside cages 200 years ago.”

Shohab, another Iranian wrote, “It is a catastrophe when you see this news on websites and read the views of commentators and discover that half of the nation supports this action, this filthy racism is completely normal for them.”

Many Iranian users condemned this action and apologized to their Afghan friends. Afghan users took the view that people and governments are separate. Behnush wrote, “The dignity of every nation is in the hands of its rulers. When the fate of our countrymen inside and outside have no importance for the leaders of our country, then we cannot complain about other countries.” He continued, “People will behave with us how we allow them to.”

Reza another Afghan who was an Iranian refugee once and is currently in Germany wrote, “Iran shares our language and religion. But non-Islamic countries treat aliens with respect. Here, humanity is what matters, nothing else.”

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This is not the first time such actions have been taken against Afghan refugees by the Iranian government. Some time back, an Afghan girl lost her life due to the transplant laws of the country.

Muslim militants killed 26 civilians in a predominantly Christian village in the Central African Republic (CAR) after going door-to-door seeking out Christians to slaughter, Morning Star News reported.
Reuters
An IDP camp at Bangui in the Central African Republic.

In what was reportedly the worst violence in the country for months, rebels from the former Seleka group – an alliance of rebel militia factions that overthrew the CAR government in March 2013 – attacked the village of Ndomete, about 220 miles north of the capital city of Bangui on Friday.

Hostility between Seleka, officially disbanded in 2013, and Christian “anti-Balaka” militias – who emerged after the 2013 coup – has increased in the past year, but government and UN officials said the attack targeted civilians.

One Christian leader from the area cast doubt on the country’s ability to bring order, telling Morning Star News: “If the government is not going to beef up the security, then we are going to defend ourselves. We shall not keep quiet as our brothers are dying.”

Fighting between Muslims and Christians worsened in 2013, when Seleka deposed the then-President Francois Bozize and installed Michel Djotodia, a Muslim. Djotodia announced the disbanding of Seleka in September 2013, but rebels have since rampaged throughout the country, killing Christians and political enemies. Christian militia groups have formed in response.

Human Rights Watch has documented executions, rape and looting by ex-Seleka fighters. In May 2014, rebels killed 11 people in a grenade and shooting attack at the Church of Fatima in Bangui.

In February, the former prime minister Faustin-Archange Touadera was elected president, bringing hope that political and religious conflict would subside. But rebel and militia fighters are still active throughout the country outside the capital.

French authorities have made eight new arrests in connection with the Bastille Day truck attack in Nice that left 86 people dead, the Paris prosecutor’s office said Tuesday.

The office said the suspects detained Monday were French and Tunisian and had links to the attacker, Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, who plowed a 19-ton truck down Nice’s Promenade des Anglais and into a crowd assembled for a July 14 fireworks display. All eight were arrested in the Alpes-Maritimes region in the southeastern corner of France that includes Nice.

At least five people already face preliminary terrorism charges in the attack, and are accused of helping Bouhlel obtain a pistol and providing other support. It wasn’t immediately clear what the men arrested this week are suspected of.

The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the July 14 attack. French authorities say Bouhlel, a Tunisian with French residency, was inspired by the extremist group’s propaganda, but they say no evidence has been found that IS orchestrated the attack.

France remains under a state of emergency after the Nice killings and IS attacks on Paris last year. Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said Tuesday that the threat to France is higher than ever. He said about 300 people have been arrested in investigations into extremist networks so far this year, according to his office.

Also Tuesday, authorities detained two boys, 14 and 17, in an investigation into a hoax hostage alert at a Paris church, the prosecutor’s office said. The false alarm Saturday prompted a big police deployment and activation of an app-based terrorism alert system. A 16-year-old detained Monday remains in custody.

The government is seeking financial compensation from the perpetrators for wasting security services’ time and money, and scaring the public unnecessarily. Obs magazine reported it was a case of “swatting,” where hoaxers make anonymous threats to trigger a response from police and SWAT teams.