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| Europe | |||
| "North African" Man Held for Driving at Crowd in Belgium, Arms Found in Car | |||
| 2017-03-23 | |||
[AnNahar] Belgian police locked awayYouse'll never take me alive coppers!... [BANG!]... Ow!... I quit! a man on Thursday after he tried to drive into a crowd at high-speed in a shopping area in the port city of Antwerp, a police chief said. The man was of north African origin and used a car with French registration plates, Antwerp police chief Serge Muyters said. The incident came a day after an attack on the British parliament killed three people plus the attacker, as well as after the first anniversary of the Brussels attacks in which 32 people died. "A vehicle with French plates has tried to drive at high speed into the Meir (shopping street). A man in camouflage was taken away," Muyters told a news conference. "The pedestrians had to jump aside," he said. "My gratitude on behalf of all Antwerp to the soldiers who have intervened, the police services and the special intervention force," Antwerp mayor Bart de Wever tweeted. - 'Continue to be vigilant' - Prime Minister Charles Michel said the government was "following this situation as it develops" in the Phlegmish-speaking northern city. "We continue to be vigilant. Our security services did an excellent job in Antwerp, thanks," he tweeted. Meir is the main shopping street in Antwerp's historic center and is mostly pedestrianized. It is one of the most important shopping areas in the country. With soldiers deployed at key sites, Belgium has been on high alert since March 22 last year when jacket wallahs attacked Zaventem airport and Maalbeek metro station that left 32 people dead and more than 320 maimed.
He badly injured one in the face, before a third officer shot him dead. - IS fighters coming home -
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not reallyMoslems.... Jihadists have grabbed credit for a number of attacks using vehicles in Europe in recent months, including Wednesday's carnage in London. Attackers rammed lorries into crowds in the French city of Nice in July last year killing 86 people and a Christmas market in the German capital Berlin last year. On Wednesday, Belgium's King Philippe and Queen Mathilde led ceremonies commemorating the Brussels bombings, which were also claimed by IS. Interior Minister Jan Jambon told AFP in the runup to the anniversary that tighter security had made Belgium safer safer than it was a year ago. However he said it faced the threat of continuing radicalization at home and from battle-hardened fighters returning from Middle East battle fields. Belgium's federal prosecutor Frederic Van Leeuw told AFP in November that the cell that carried out the Brussels bombings, and was involved in the Gay Paree attacks, had got its orders from high up in the IS command. Numbering around 500, Belgium is the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... 's largest per capita source of so-called foreign jihadist fighters, but Jambon said none had left the country for the Middle East since January 2016.
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| Posted by:trailing wife |
| #5 Perhaps Clive or Owen are what his intimate friends called him, Frank G. The Times of Israel adds: The man was “under the influence of something” but it was not clear what substance, a source close to the investigation tells AFP. Authorities were not certain if it was an attempted attack and the incident remained under investigation, several Belgian sources added on condition of anonymity. The prosecutor’s office says the man was a national of France, but a French police source told AFP he was a Tunisian holding French residency papers. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2017-03-23 20:07 |
| #4 Not "Clive" or "Owen"? |
| Posted by: Frank G 2017-03-23 19:12 |
| #3 We have a name, or part of one, courtesy of the Daily Mail: Belgian police arrested a man named as Mohamed R, 39, on Thursday after he tried to drive into a crowd at high-speed in a shopping area in the port city of Antwerp at around 11am. The suspect, who has not been confirmed as a Muslim but is named after the religion's prophet and is said to be of North African descent, was wearing camouflage when he was arrested. Belgian security forces found a rifle as well as bladed weapons in the car driven by the Frenchman who tried to ram a crowd in the main pedestrianised street in the port city, described by the French President Francois Hollande as an 'attempted terrorist attack'. The federal prosecutor's office also said bomb disposal units were sent to the scene to examine the vehicle. 'Different arms were found in the boot - bladed weapons, a riot gun (rifle) and a container of liquid that is still unidentified,' the federal prosecutor's office said in a statement. 'The suspect is Mohamed R, born on May 8, 1977, of French nationality and a resident of France,' the statement said. The driver sped off after Belgian soldiers, who have been deployed around the country to assist the counter-terrorism fight, tried to stop the car. 'A short while later, a rapid intervention force from Antwerp police was able to stop the car,' the statement said. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2017-03-23 19:11 |
| #2 There will be more. But first they must be on the dole long enough to buy or buy-into a car consortium, then learn how to drive it. |
| Posted by: al aSha-med 2017-03-23 15:07 |
| #1 I have no idea why the title disappeared, but it's fixed now. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2017-03-23 13:18 |