Italy foils IS-inspired plot to blow up Rialto Bridge in Venice[IsraelTimes] Three men from Kosovo and an unidentified minor have been arrested in Venice on suspicion of plotting to blow up the city’s celebrated Rialto Bridge and planning other attacks, Italian police said Thursday.
“With all the unbelievers there are in Venice, you put a bomb under the Rialto and you go straight to heaven,” one of the alleged jihadist plotters said in a wiretapped conversation, according to Adelchi d’Ippolito, the Venice prosecutor in charge of the case. He revealed the group had been under surveillance since last year.
Authorities identified the suspects as Fisnik Bekaj, Dake Haziraj and Arjan Babaj. They said the wiretap evidence against the suspects also includes recordings of them celebrating the attack that killed four people outside Parliament in London last week and discussing their desire to join Islamist fighters in Syria.
D’Ippolito said the suspects were “truly dangerous” and were suspected of plotting attacks both in Italy and overseas. One had returned recently from Syria, he said. But he added that they wouldn’t have been able to carry out an attack in Italy since they were being closely watched.
The suspects were detained in an overnight sweep carried out after it was established that they had undergone “religious radicalization”, according to a police statement.
D’Ippolito said a search of a Venice apartment showed the suspects were getting in physical shape and watching videos of Islamic extremists demonstrating how to carry out knife attacks. He also said the suspects appeared to have been studying how to build explosives but did not have the necessary components for making a bomb.
Raids were conducted at 12 locations in the historic center of the city, which is a magnet for millions of visitors from around the world.
Venice Mayor Luigi Brugnaro said all those detained had residency permits to live in Italy.
Migrants accused of being part of Syrian militant group go on trial in Germany
[AlAhram] Two Syrian migrants who came to Germany as part of an influx of refugees in the summer of 2015 went on trial in Munich on Thursday accused of fighting in Syria as part of a militant group. Barbara Stockinger, a judge and spokeswoman for Munich's higher regional court, said 22-year-old Azad R. and 24-year-old Kamel T.H.J. were accused of fighting near Aleppo as part of the Islamist rebel group Ahrar al-Sham between August 2013 and April 2014.
"They armed themselves with kalashnikovs and fought against other rebel groups and the Syrian military government," she said.
Stockinger said one of the men was injured during combat and headed to Turkey for medical treatment along with the other defendant. They then travelled to Germany, where they arrived in around June 2015 before being taken into custody in April 2016.
If convicted, the men could face up to 10 years in prison.
Syrian migrant sets himself on fire in Greece protest: Report
[AlAhram] A Syrian man set himself on fire at a migrant camp on the Greek island of Chios on Thursday in despair over his bid to gain asylum, the Greek news agency ANA reported. The unidentified man was rushed to hospital with burns over 90 percent of his body, ANA said. The policeman who tried to save him was also hospitalised with burns.
Thousands of people, many of them Syrians fleeing war, are stuck in Greece's Aegean islands as a result of an EU-Turkish agreement that curbed the influx of migrants to the European Union. Most of them have filed for asylum to avoid being sent back to Turkey, but these applications take months to handle. Humanitarian groups have repeatedly sounded the alarm over declining morale in their camps.
In a separate incident, Greek police said Thursday they had arrested a people trafficker who imprisoned 23 South Asian migrants for a week in a bid to blackmail their families into paying money for smuggling them into Greece. The 26-year-old Greek national was demanding between 1,500 and 3,000 euros ($1,600 to $3,200) a head. The migrants had only made an up-front payment. Police were alerted by a migrant who complained that his brother and a nephew were being held in the warehouse in Menemeni, a small town near the northern city of Thessaloniki, a police statement said.
Germany: radicalized teen charged over attempted mall attack
[Ynet] German prosecutors have charged a radicalized man with attempted murder for throwing two Molotov cocktails into the entrance of a shopping mall in an effort to kill "infidels." Prosecutors in Celle identified the 18-year-old German citizen Thursday only as Saleh S., in line with privacy rules. He is the elder brother of a 16-year-old girl, Safia S., who was convicted in January of stabbing and wounding a police officer at the behest of the Islamic State group.
Prosecutors say the suspect sympathized with groups such as ISIS. He allegedly threw the home-made firebombs—filled with diesel fuel that didn't ignite—into the entrance of the mall in Hannover on Feb. 5 last year. They sideswiped two people, but no one was hurt and no damage caused.
Danish minister urges people to report illegal labor in pizzerias
[DW] Ordinary Danes should inform the authorities if they suspect food vendors are employing illegal immigrants, Danish Integration Minister Inger Stoejberg has said. The police cannot be everywhere at once, she added. Stoejberg recommended informing on food businesses on Wednesday after Danish media reported that a growing number of people were living in Denmark illegally.
The hardline minister is no stranger to controversy. Two weeks ago, she sparked outrage by posting a picture of herself with a cake commemorating the 50th government measure to tighten immigration law. She was also involved in the push to seize immigrants' valuables and jewelry in order to pay for their stay in immigration centers.
According to Danish media, the number of foreigners living illegally in the Scandinavian country has risen from 877 people in 2015 to 1,348 last year. The state, with its population of 5.6 million, has been mostly spared from the immigration wave that hit Germany and Sweden.
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30 March
European Parliament President Antonio Tajani claims there could be as many as 30 million migrants heading to Europe in the coming years and advocates “refugee cities” as an answer to the crisis.
Hungary Begins Detaining Migrants in ‘Container Villages’ Amidst Protests from EU
30 March
The Hungarian government has begun the process of relocating asylum seekers into two “container villages” while the European Court of Human rights (ECHR) has fought against the move.
Auditors: German Courses For Migrants Waste of Millions of Euros
29 March
German auditors have slammed the government’s German language courses for asylum seekers saying that it is likely that millions of euros have been wasted on programmes where no measure of success could be found.
German Minister Threatens Sanctions on Countries Who Refuse to Take Back Migrants
29 March
The German government is putting pressure on African countries to take back their citizens who have failed to claim asylum by threatening economic sanctions.
Austrian Government to Ban Burqa
29 March
The grand coalition government of the Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) and the Socialist Party (SPÖ) have now agreed to ban the full-face Islamic veil, known as the burqa, as part of a new integration package.
Austria Wants to Exit EU Migrant Redistribution Scheme
28 March
Austria should withdraw completely from the European Union’s migrant redistribution programme because it has already taken enough, government ministers have said.
European Union Attacks Hungary’s Anti-Migrant Laws
28 March
Hungary’s new legislation allowing for the detention of asylum-seekers in shipping containers at border camps took effect Tuesday, with the European Union’s commissioner for migration saying that it needs to comply with the bloc’s rules.
Eastern EU Members Slam ‘Blackmail’ by Brussels on Migrants Resettlement
28 March
Leaders from Central Europe said Tuesday they reject a European Union policy that calls for all member states to receive migrants, protesting suggestions that the level of their compliance could be linked to the availability of EU funds to them.
Hungary Refuses to Take 5,000 Migrants From Sweden
28 March
Hungary has refused a request by the Swedish government to take in 5,000 asylum seekers, and the Swedes want to take the matter to court.
Underage Runaway Migrants in Germany Forced into Prostitution and Drug Peddling
28 March
Underage migrants who run way from asylum homes are finding themselves reduced to selling drugs or becoming child prostitutes for as little as €10 in the German capital of Berlin.
Italian Public Prosecutor Accuses NGOs of Abetting Illegal Immigration into Italy
26 March
An Italian public prosecutor has called for monitoring of the funding of NGOs engaged in rescue operations in the Mediterranean Sea, noting that “the facilitation of illegal immigration is a punishable offense regardless of the intentions.”
Hungarian Government Denies Widespread Abuse of Migrants Claimed by Campaign Groups
26 March
A new report shows that while there have been instances of violence from Hungarian border guards or police, the extent is nowhere near what various pro-migrant NGOs have claimed. Over the last year, many humanitarian non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have accused Hungarian border