|
Europe colonist briefs
 Slovak police charge five with smuggling migrants to Germany, Italy[Ynet] Five Slovaks are facing charges of smuggling at least 300 illegal migrants last year from Hungary to western Europe, mostly to Germany and Italy, Slovakian police said on Friday. The five men were arrested in a series of house raids by Slovak police on Tuesday morning and face up to 10 years in prison. Police said they hid migrants from Syria, Pakistan and Afghanistan in customized cars from Slovak and Czech rental companies and charged each of them 500-1,000 euros ($550-$1,100). Slovakia has not been a principal route for the hundreds of thousands of migrants from the Middle East, Asia and Africa who have sought to reach richer parts of the EU via the Balkans and Hungary over the past two years. Last year, 71 refugees from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan were found dead in an abandoned truck on an Austrian highway near the Slovak and Hungarian borders. Refugee who planned airport attack radicalised in Germany not Syria [Ynet] The Syrian refugee suspected of planning to bomb a Berlin airport was radicalised only after arriving in Germany, Der Spiegel magazine reported on Friday, citing the suspect's brother who still lives in Syria. Jaber Albakr committed suicide in prison in Leipzig on Wednesday after two fellow Syrians had handed him over to police. Alaa Albakr, told Spiegel by telephone from Syria that a Muslim preacher in Berlin had radicalised his brother and told him to return to his homeland to fight, which he did, before heading back to Germany once again. French couple under formal investigation as Telegram friends of Rachid Kassim [Ynet] A man and his pregnant, teenage girlfriend suspected of plotting to kill in the name of the Islamic State were put under formal investigation on Friday following their arrest on Tuesday in the Paris suburb of Noisy-le-Sec, a judicial source told Reuters. The two partners, aged 21 and 17, were in contact with Islamist State militant Rachid Kassim via the Telegram encrypted messaging system, the source said, confirming an earlier report by French newschannel iTele. Kassim is suspected of having participated in several attacks or attempted attacks in France. French police arrested at least six teenagers last month, all suspected of having plotted to kill in the name of ISIS, after having been spotted on social networks. All were in contact via Telegram with Kassim, who is currently located in the Syrian-Iraqi region, according to police and judicial sources. Merkel: 'national effort' to ensure rejected migrants leave [Ynet] Chancellor Angela Merkel says Germany needs to make a "national effort" to ensure that migrants who are refused asylum leave the country. Germany has seen a steep decline this year in the number of asylum-seekers arriving after 890,000 came last year. The government says some 213,000 newcomers arrived in this year's first nine months. However, officials have long said that Germany needs to do more to ensure that rejected asylum-seekers leave. Some 60,000 left or were deported between January and September. Merkel told a conference of her conservative bloc's youth wing in Paderborn on Saturday: "We need a national effort to return those who are rejected—that is undisputed and we are working on that at present with great vigor." Syrian bombing suspect spoke to ISIS contact about attack plans [Ynet] A Syrian refugee arrested on suspicion of planning a major attack in Berlin spoke to a member of Islamic State in Syria by telephone about a possible target a day before police discovered explosives in his apartment, a newspaper reported on Saturday. Jaber Albakr was detained on Monday, two days after police discovered about 1.5 kg of explosives in his apartment. He was found dead in prison on Wednesday. Authorities said he had committed suicide. Germany's Welt am Sonntag (WamS) cited investigation sources as saying U.S. intelligence had provided a tip-off on Albakr after tapping several phone calls between him and an Islamic State member in Syria. During the calls, 22-year-old Albakr spoke about his attack plans, the newspaper said. Syrian bombing suspect visited Berlin airport, met contact - media [Ynet] Jaber Albakr had met a contact in the city and visited the airport he wanted to bomb, German media reported. Berliner Morgenpost newspaper and regional broadcaster rbb cited federal security sources saying Albakr spent a night in Berlin in the second half of September and met a contact there. During that time, he visited one of the city's two airports, they added, without saying which one. Posted by: trailing wife 2016-10-16 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=470334 |