Russia detains 4 over IS terror plot
Finland acquits Iraqi twins
MOSCOW, May 25, (Agencies): Russia’s security service on Thursday said it had uncovered an alleged bomb-making laboratory in Moscow as officers detained four suspected Islamic State group members plotting “terror attacks” on public transport.
The FSB said those held included citizens of Russia and ex-Soviet Central Asia who were “preparing terror attacks with the use of homemade explosives on Moscow’s transport infrastructure.”
“As a result of searches at the detainees’ places of residence a laboratory for making explosives was discovered and a ready-made explosive device,” the agency said in a statement. The alleged terror cell was directed by IS leadership in Syria and the suspects planned to flee there after the planned attacks to fight for the extremist group, it added.
The detentions are the latest in a broad security sweep as Russia remains on heightened alert after a suicide attack on the Saint Petersburg metro that killed 15 people in April.
Authorities have attributed the attack to 22-year-old Kyrgyzstan-born Russian national and arrested 11 of his alleged
Djalilov
Akbarjon Djalilov accomplices.
A lawyer for two brothers Abror and Akram Azimov — accused of playing key roles in organising the attack — told Russian news agencies Thursday that they had officially been charged with terrorism.
The Imam Shamil Battalion, a group suspected of links to al-Qaeda, claimed responsibility for the bombing, US monitor SITE Intelligence Group said last month.
Finland acquits Iraqi twins:
A Finnish court on Wednesday acquitted twin Iraqi brothers accused of war crimes over their alleged role in a 2014 massacre of up to 1,700 unarmed recruits by the Islamic State group in Iraq.
The court in Tampere, in southwestern Finland, said there was not enough conclusive evidence for a conviction. The two men, born in 1992, came to Finland as asylum seekers in September 2015 and were arrested three months later.
The prosecution had sought life terms in prison for the brothers’ alleged role in the massacre of unarmed, mostly Shiite military recruits who were captured outside the Camp Speicher military base near Tikrit in northern Iraq.
One of the two brothers was accused of appearing in a propaganda video later released by IS, where he is seen shooting dead at least 11 prisoners who had been forced to lay down in a pit for execution.
Germany arrests militants:
Police arrested four suspected Islamists in dawn raids in Berlin on Wednesday as the German capital geared up for a long weekend of mass gatherings, capped by a joint appearance by Chancellor Angela Merkel and former US president Barack Obama.
Police said the raids targeted a gang of armed drug smugglers and nine arrests had been made, four of which were men from the “violent Islamist” scene. None were linked to the Manchester bomb attack which killed 22 people on Monday.
However, a senior politician promised security would be reviewed in the wake of the attack, as the German capital braces for some 100,000 extra visitors over the next few days, but that plans were in place for any such eventuality.
“We’ll take another look, but our security plans are designed so we’re well prepared for events like that in Manchester,” Berlin’s interior affairs senator, Andreas Geisel, told RBB radio on Wednesday.
With the city hosting Germany’s football cup final, a mass religious meeting as well as Obama, huge crowds are expected throughout the spring weekend.
Memories are still fresh of the Berlin Christmas market attack last December, in which 12 people were killed, and flags hung at half-mast across Germany on Wednesday to express solidarity with Manchester after the attack.
Geisel said some 6,000 police will be deployed on Berlin’s streets over the Ascension Day long weekend, which begins with the German protestant church’s biennial four-day Kirchentag festival.