Belgian police said Thursday that they have detained six people in an alleged connection to terror plot targeting Brussels on New Year’s Eve.
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Iraq forces extend Ramadi control, rescue civilians
Warplanes carried out nine air strikes near Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, which fell to Islamic State fighters in 2014. Police chief Hadi Irzayij said the suspected militants “were attempting to flee Ramadi by blending in with civilians”.
Both Brussels and Paris have cancelled annual New Year’s Eve fireworks displays as soldiers and police ramped up security not only in those and other European capitals but also in the Turkish capital Ankara over perceived terror threats.
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One Indian security source blamed the attack on a Pakistan-based militant group, but said it posed no threat to civilians. The Western Air Command chief, Air Marshal S.B.
An ex-con seeking to prove he was worthy of joining the Islamic State group planned to carry out a New Year’s Eve attack at an upstate NY bar using a machete and knives provided by an FBI informant, federal authorities announced Thursday.
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During that same period more than 15,000 Palestinians and 350 Israelis were wounded, the United Nations said on Wednesday. Police said the motive for the attack remained unclear, and little was known about the attacker who had his face covered.
“It is better not to take risks, ” Mayeur said, adding “we can’t check everyone”.
The Belgian national, identified only as Ayoub B., was detained on Wednesday during a raid on a house in the troubled Brussels immigrant neighbourhood of Molenbeek, a statement from the federal prosecutor’s office said.
On Thursday evening, the office announced that three of the people questioned had been released, and that the other three would be kept in detention for up to 24 additional hours.
On Wednesday, a New Year’s Eve fireworks display ended up being canceled in Brussels over fears there would be an attack, reports NBC News. A court on Thursday extended their custody for a month.
In western NY, the Justice Department said Emanuel Lutchman, 25, was arrested after allegedly planning to attack a restaurant in Rochester, N.Y., in coordination with an Islamic State member in Syria he had contacted online.
Workers uninstall the structure for the New Year’s Eve fireworks, after it was cancelled, in Bru …
Molenbeek, a working-class neighborhood west of the Brussels city center, was the home of at least three men believed to have taken part in the attacks: Abdeslam and his brother Ibrahim, who died in the attack, and Abdelhamid Abaaoud, who is believed to have been a planner of the attacks.
“I do not want to categorically say “we escaped” or “we didn’t escape”…when investigations have progressed over the coming weeks we will be able to speak more certainly”, he said in a television interview.
In New York City, where one million people pack into Times Square every year, officials said 6,000 officers, some in plain clothes, would be on hand to watch over celebrations.
About 60,000 police and troops are to be deployed throughout the country to oversee the end of year celebrations.
Since the November 13 attacks in Paris that killed 130 people, Belgian soldiers have been brought to Brussels to deter anything similar from happening there.
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Security was beefed up in Malaysia’s biggest city, Kuala Lumpur, where fireworks greeted 2016 at a historic square and at the Petronas Twin Towers, one of the world’s tallest buildings.
