Australia aviation on alert

SYDNEY, 31 July 2017: Australia has foiled an Islamist-inspired terrorist plot to bring down an aircraft with an improvised explosive device, authorities said Sunday, after four people were arrested in raids across Sydney.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said the plot appeared to be “elaborate” rather than planned by a lone wolf, as security was strengthened at major domestic and international airports across the nation.

“I can report last night that there has been a major joint counter-terrorism operation to disrupt a terrorist plot to bring down an airplane,” Turnbull told reporters. Read more

Terror scare on easyJet

LONDON, 12 July 2017: Three British men overheard talking about “terrorist” activities on a London-bound easyJet flight were released on Sunday after being questioned by German police, the airline said.

The Airbus A319 flying from the Slovenian capital Ljubljana was diverted to Germany’s Cologne-Bonn airport on Saturday, causing a major police operation and hours of air traffic chaos.

Passengers on the plane were evacuated using the emergency slides. Read more

UK suffers another terror attack

LONDON, 5 June 2017: British Prime Minister Theresa May blamed “evil” Islamist ideology Sunday for an attack by three men who smashed a van into pedestrians and attacked revellers with knives in the heart of London, killing seven people.

Saturday night’s rampage by assailants wearing fake suicide vests at the popular nightlife hub of London Bridge was the third deadly terror attack in Britain in three months.

National campaigning for Thursday’s general election was suspended for the day in respect to the victims, including 48 people treated in hospital, but May insisted Thursday’s vote would go ahead. Read more

World leaders condemn UK attack

PARIS, 23 March 2017: World leaders on Wednesday unanimously condemned the attack in the heart of London by a man who was shot dead by armed police, with many saying they “stand” with Britain.

Four people were killed and 40 injured in the attack outside parliament when a man mowed down pedestrians with a car then leapt out and stabbed a police officer.

In an address outside her Downing Street office, Prime Minister Theresa May described the attack as “sick and depraved” saying the assailant chose the site as an assault on Britain’s democratic values. Read more

Airport attacker on drugs

PARIS, 21 March 2017: The man shot dead at Paris’s Orly airport after attacking a soldier was under the influence of drugs and alcohol at the time, a judicial source said Sunday.

Investigators are still trying to understand what motivated Saturday’s assault by 39-year-old Ziyed Ben Belgacem, which led to a major security scare and the temporary closure of the capital’s second-busiest airport.

“Toxicology tests carried out on Sunday showed an alcohol level of 0.93 grams per litre in his blood, and the presence of cannabis and cocaine,” the source said. Read more

Anger in Germany over Christmas attack

BERLIN, 23 December 2016: German authorities were under fire Thursday after it emerged that the prime suspect in Berlin’s deadly truck attack, a rejected Tunisian asylum seeker, was known as a potentially dangerous jihadist.

German prosecutors have issued a Europe-wide wanted notice for 24-year-old Anis Amri, offering a 100,000-euro (USD104,000) reward for information leading to his arrest and warning he “could be violent and armed”.

Asylum office papers believed to belong to Amri, alleged to have links to the radical Islamist scene, were found in the cab of the 40-tonne lorry that rammed through a crowded Christmas market in Berlin on Monday, killing 11. Read more

Terrorism redraws travel map

PARIS, 11 February 2016: The world’s tourism map is being redrawn at lightning speed as holidaymakers switch preferences prompted by terror attacks, epidemics and migrant crises.

Jihadist attacks on tourists in Tunisia last year and the 31 October crash of a Russian plane which took off from its Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh have devastated the tourism sectors in both countries.

But Muslim countries everywhere are the main losers of the shift in tastes, sector professionals say, as tourists move to destinations they consider safe — so long as they’re also sunny. Read more