ISIS claims assassination of Iraq election candidate

Baghdad, May 7: Gunmen shot dead a parliamentary candidate at his home in northern Iraq on Monday, a local official said, in an attack claimed by the Islamic State group.

The candidate was “shot dead” by armed men at dawn “after they forced their way into his home,” said Salah al- Juburi, a local official in Qayyarah, 70km south of Mosul city. The official named the slain candidate as Faruq Zarzur al- Juburi, 45, a Sunni from Shiite Vice President Ayad Allawi’s National Alliance list.

National elections are set to take place in the Shiite majority country on Saturday.

In a statement on the messaging app Telegram, ISIS said Zarzur al- Juburi was killed because he was “an atheist”.

ISIS threatened in late April to attack polling stations, voters and candidates, in a statement by its spokesman Abu Hassan al- Muhajir.

“Oh Sunnis... We know that the government of Rafida ( a pejorative Arabic term for Shiites) is on the verge of what they Berlin, May 7: Germany’s top court said on Monday that it has rejected the appeal of a suspected Islamic State member from Tunisia against deportation to his homeland, strengthening the legal position of German authorities separately seeking to remove an alleged associate of Osama bin Laden from the country.

The Federal Constitutional Court said German authorities had obtained sufficient assurances from Tunisia that the man, born in 1980 and identified only as Haikel S., wouldn’t face capital punishment and might eventually become eligible

call elections,” he said.

“Our judgement will apply to those who call for them and participate in them... The voting centres and those in them are targets for our swords, so stay away from them and do not walk nearby,” he added. for parole — two preconditions for deportation required by German law. S. was arrested in Frankfurt in January 2017 on suspicion of being a recruiter and smuggler for ISIS since August 2015, and of planning an attack.

Tunisia separately accused him of involvement in the March 2015 attack on the Bardo museum in Tunis, as well as a March 2016 attack on the border town of Ben Guerdane.

His lawyer, Seda BasayYildiz, told The Associated Press she has submitted an urgent appeal to the European Court of Human Rights to halt his deportation.

In a video posted on Facebook the day before he died, Juburi called on voters to be wary of outgoing candidates “and those who buy votes,” in a message featuring him carrying his 6- year- old son Rayan in his arms.