. Finland
On March 22, 2004, two Finnish businessmen were shot dead by small arms in
Baghdad.
. France
- France arrested 6 suspected Islamic militants who are accused to have helped
Richard Reid, the British man who pleaded guilty in Boston last month to try
to blow-up an American Airlines plane from Paris to Miami in December 2001
with explosive in his shoes.
- Four Islamic militants arrested in a Paris suburb with bombing materials
were planning one or more attacks in Europe, the French government said on
December 20, 2002. These people have links to a terror cell in Frankfurt,
Germany that is linked to al-Qaida and they spent some time training in Chechnya.
- On December 27, 2002, France dismantled a terror cell with tie to the Chechen
and to al-Qaida. Their members planned bomb or toxic gas attacks in France
and Russia, including the Russian embassy in Paris and Russians in Chechnya.
This followed the arrest of four Islamic militants near Paris.
- Also on December 29, 2002, the French police arrested a baggage handler
at Charles de Gaulle airport in whose car automatic weapons, explosives, and
detonators were seen by a man of the public who alerted the police. It is
a French citizen of Algerian origin who had access to practically the whole
of the airport. His father, two brothers and a friend were also arrested.
He was freed on January 10, 2003, as it became clear that his in-laws, who
are blaming him for the death of his wife, planted the arms and explosives
in his car.
- On March 27, 2003, the French Prime Minister, Jean-Pierre Raffarin, delivered
a strong attack on the war in Iraq saying that it could end in a bloodbath.
According to him, the US precision bombs, that were supposed to limit civilian
casualties, are a myth and too many civilians are killed. He added, "We
were expecting a technological war, a quick war, a 21t century war. And we
have discovered a war that is among the most horrible, like those of the 20th
century." France is afraid of the aftermaths of this war.
- In France, at the end of March 2003, President Chirac is considered a national
hero for saying No to the USA at the UN Security Council. His approval rating
is reaching 90% and it increased again lately when he said that post-war Iraq
should be administered by the United Nations, and not by the USA and Britain.
- The British media said on April 10, 2003, that President Chirac of France
faces a back-lash from his stance on Iraq. According to these newspapers,
members of his own party said that he had gone too far in opposing Britain
and the USA, and that France risks international isolation. In fact Chirac
and the French people are happy that Saddam Hussein's regime has fallen. However,
they disagree with the way it was done and they still do. A meeting in St
Petersburg between President Vladimir Putin of Russia, chancellor Gerhard
Schroeder of Germany, and Chirac was intended to seal an anti-war alliance
between the three countries, but obviously it came too late.
- On May 15, 2003, France accused the Bush administration of organising a
smearing campaign against its government by leaking false information and
disinformation to the US press.
- On May 22, 2003, US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, in visit to Paris
tried to reduce the tension between France and the USA following the disagreement
about the war in Iraq. Of course the previous crisis is not yet forgotten
and it will take time to bury it.
- On June 17, 2003, the French police raided 13 houses and offices belonging
to Iranian opponents of the Tehran regime. The operation against the People
Mujahideen of Iran (the political wing of the Iraq-based Islamo-marxist Mujahedeen
Khalq) involved 1,300 policemen and it came as a total surprise to the Iranian
opposition leaders and to western diplomats who saw it as a measure to help
the clerical regime that is confronted by popular protests. The police detained
158 Iranians for questioning and seized $1.2m as well as many sophisticated
communication equipment.
- The movement is on the EU and US terrorist network lists, but some of its
members are in contact with the Bush administration. On June 22, 2003, the
French magistrates put 17 members of the People's Mujahedeen of Iran under
formal investigation for aiding terrorism. Six of them were bailed but the
remaining, including Maryam Rajavi, the wife of the movement's founder, Masoud
Rajavi remained in prison; Rajavi is also the head of the Mujahedeen Khalq
in Iraq and of its 10,000 strong army. His brother is also under investigation
for criminal association with a terrorist enterprise and financing it.
- The group has been tolerated in France since 1979 although its military
wing is listed by the EU as a terrorist organisation. Many followers protested
the arrest by putting themselves on fire in many European cities including
London, Rome. and Paris where a woman died.
- On October 23, 2003, a main station of the Paris underground was closed
to the public overnight while 500 policemen, fire fighters and rail staff
staged a training exercise to test their capacity to deal with a terrorist
attack.
- On November 24, 2003, Blair and Chirac had their first meeting since they
disagreed on the Iraq war one year ago. The meeting seemed friendly but there
are still deep divergences between the two countries. For instance, Chirac
said that the new US proposals to hand over power to the Iraqis is still too
slow and incomplete even if they go in the right direction. For instance the
role of the UN should be clarified.
- On December 24, 2003, three Air France flights from Paris to Los Angeles
and the corresponding return flights were cancelled at the request of the
US Embassy in Paris. The US authorities believed that 6 passengers, probably
of Tunisian nationality, had links to al-Qaida. If it was true then it was
good intelligence for a change, and useful one too. However 13 people were
questioned and released. Security was also reinforced at both Paris and Los
Angeles airports.
- On January 11, 2004, we were told that a suspected terrorist arrested in
France one year ago was trying to make poison -possibly ricin. Menad Benchellali
was preparing to hit Russian interests in France, including the Russian embassy
in Paris in retaliation for the Russian intervention in Chechnya. One of his
brothers, Mourad, is held in Guantanamo Bay.
- On April 5, 2004, the French police arrested 13 unidentified suspect Islamic
militants -including five women- in various towns around Paris. Some could
have taken part in the bomb attacks in Casablanca last year, but not to Madrid
attacks on trains. These suspects are believed to be members of the Moroccan
Islamic Combatant Group (MICG) that has links with al-Qaida.
- On June 28, 2004, President Jacques Chirac of France welcomed Monday's transfer
of sovereignty in Iraq but said it was not Nato's role to intervene in the
country. Nato's involvement in Iraq will remain limited, and no Nato troops
are scheduled to be deployed there.
- On August 29, 2004, the French government said it will not drop the law
banning Muslim headscarves and other religious symbols in state schools The
law will be operative from September 2, 2004, despite demands by militants
holding two French journalists in Iraq. France's foreign minister appealed
for the two men to be released before he met Arab League Secretary-General
Amr Moussa in Cairo, who also appealed for the crisis to be resolved as swiftly
as possible. On September 2, 2004, most pupils have been observing the law
by removing the headscarf or other symbols before entering school.
- French President Jacques Chirac said Tuesday October 12, 2004, that his
country is "entirely committed" to taking part in an international
conference on Iraq next month. He said the conference "was proposed by
France and Russia together a year or year and a half ago." Egypt plans
to host the conference in late November, and participants are to include Iraq,
its neighbours, China, the European Union, the United Nations, the Arab League
and the Organization of the Islamic Conference.
- On November 18, 2004, Chirac was on a state visit to Britain. He repeated
that the invasion of Iraq was a mistake that had increased the terrorist danger
in the world.
- On January 3, 2005, the trial of six men accused of plotting the 2001 bomb
attack on the US Embassy in France started in Paris. The main accused is the
Algerian+-born French citizen Djamel Beghal; he is also accused to be linked
to al-Qaida. If convicted the six men could be condemned to ten years in prison.
They said that they were innocent.
- On January 26, 2005, France destroyed a terrorist cell that was recruiting
fighters for Iraq. Nine men and two women were arrested and more arrests are
expected.
- On February 4, 2005, France said US forces were holding three Frenchmen
captured fighting with insurgents in Iraq last November. These men were detained
by a US patrol during fighting in the city of Falluja. Details concerning
the three were still sketchy but France would exercise its rights in terms
of consular protection for French nationals. That could signal an attempt
by France to have the men face justice in France, but an Iraqi minister appeared
to rule that out.
- On June 1, 2005, a French court has opened an inquiry at the request of
two French citizens, Nizar Sassi and Mourad Benchelalli, who have been kept
prisoners at Guantanamo Bay before being released without any explanation.
The court could decide that the USA has violated international laws in Afghanistan
and at Guantanamo Bay. This would make Bush happy again!
- On September 19, 2005, French police detained six men suspected of recruiting
volunteers to fight against US and British forces in Iraq. The men, who have
not been named, are being held by anti-terrorist police as they may be linked
to another group based in the capital which was broken up at the start of
the year.
- The recent comments of French President Jacques Chirac -January 6, 2007- could not have been more apt when it comes to characterising the situation in Iraq specifically and the Middle East at large. "As France had foreseen and feared, the war in Iraq has sparked upheavals that have yet to show their full effects. This adventure has worsened the divisions among communities and threatened the very integrity of Iraq. It has undermined the stability of the entire region, where every country now fears for its security and its independence".
- The office of French President Jacques Chirac has issued a statement on February 2, 2007, stressing France's opposition to Iran possessing a nuclear bomb. This follows confusion caused by an interview the president gave to two US newspapers and a French magazine in which he said it would not be very dangerous for Iran to possess a bomb or two. He later contacted the papers to say his remarks had been oversimplified.
- French presidential front-runner Nicolas Sarkozy outlined his stance on key foreign policy issues on April 26, 2007, saying he might pull France's troops out of a NATO force in Afghanistan if he is elected. He also denounced the United States' refusal to cap carbon emissions and proposed taxing imports from China because it too has refused to limit greenhouse gases. Sarkozy, the governing conservatives' candidate, said he supported outgoing President Jacques Chirac's decision to pull 200 French Special Forces out of Afghanistan late last year. He said he would continue that policy if elected in the May 6 runoff vote. Some 1,100 French soldiers are currently part of a NATO force in Afghanistan.
- French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner met leaders from Iraq's bitterly divided communities on Monday August 20, 2007, as Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki urged Paris to support his embattled government. Kouchner is the first French minister to visit Iraq since the US-led invasion of 2003, which Paris opposed; he first talked with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani. He was also due to meet Talabani's Sunni and Shiite vice presidents, Tareq al-Hashemi and Adel Abdel Mahdi, as well as Massud Barzani, president of Iraq's northern Kurdish region. Kouchner offered his country's help to try to end the turmoil engulfing Iraq, in a fresh sign of improving US-French ties, but made no concrete proposals of support. He described his visit as being a kind of fact-finding tour designed to reconnect France with Iraqi leaders.
- French President Nicolas Sarkozy affirmed Friday August 24, 2007, during a cabinet meeting that "France must be present in Iraq."
- On August 26, 2007, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner offered to
apologise to Iraq if he had meddled in its affairs. The statement comes a
day after Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Maliki demanded an official apology because
Mr Kouchner had suggested he resign. Meanwhile President Nicolas Sarkozy has
called for a clear timetable for the withdrawal of foreign troops from Iraq.
- A Parisian street preacher, a French youth who lost a forearm and an eye
in Iraq, a pizza delivery man who once considered jihad -these men and four
others were convicted in Paris on Wednesday May 14, 2008, on terrorism charges
for helping funnel fighters to Iraq's insurgency. The seven men -five Frenchmen,
an Algerian and a Moroccan, all between 24 and 40 years old- were sentenced
to between 18 months and seven years in prison. They were convicted of "criminal
association with a terrorist enterprise," a broad charge that carries
a maximum 10-year prison term. Most acknowledged going to Iraq after the U.S.-led
invasion in 2003 or planning to go, but all denied accusations that they were
involved in a cell recruiting French fighters for Iraq's insurgency. The judge,
however, found ample evidence for convictions.
- On July 11, 2008, a French court denied citizenship to a Muslim woman from
Morocco, ruling that her practice of "radical" Islam is not compatible
with French values. The 32-year-old woman, known as Faiza M, has lived in
France since 2000 with her husband -a French national- and their three French-born
children. Social services reports said the burqa-wearing Faiza M lived in
"total submission to her male relatives". Faiza M said she has never
challenged the fundamental values of France. Her initial application for French
citizenship was rejected in 2005 on the grounds of "insufficient assimilation"
into France. She appealed, and late last month the Conseil d'Etat, France's
highest administrative body which also acts as a high court, upheld the decision
to deny her citizenship.
- On September 21, 2008, the French army denied a Canadian newspaper report that troops fatally ambushed in Afghanistan last month were poorly equipped. The newspaper said that French troops ambushed during a reconnaissance mission had to abandon a counterattack when weapons on their vehicles ran out of ammunition 90 minutes into the battle. The article alleged that the single radio of one French platoon went dead, leaving those soldiers unable to call for help. The August 18 ambush in a mountain pass in the Surobi district, about 30 miles east of the Afghan capital, was the biggest single combat loss for international forces in Afghanistan in more than three years.
- The French lower house voted Monday September 22, 2008, to continue with
and beef up its mission in Afghanistan despite crumbling public support for
the deployment. The lower house of Parliament voted 343 to 210 to keep France's
3,300 troops in Afghanistan and nearby areas. The upper house, the Senate,
will also vote on the issue.
- French force will stay in Afghanistan but no more troops will be sent there,
French President Nicolas Sarkozy said in an interview to be published on Friday
October 16, 2009.
- French airport operator "Aéroports de Paris" has won a contract worth around $42.5 million to work on plans for a new international airport in Iraq we were told on Monday November 2, 2009. The airport would be built between the three provinces of Kerbala, Najaf and Hilla, which are home to some of Shiite Islam's holiest cities. Hundreds of thousands of Shiite pilgrims have visited them since the fall of Saddam Hussein. The aim was to have the new airport up and running within three to five years, with an initial capacity of five million passengers per year and eventual capacity of 35 million per year. Baghdad international airport currently manages around seven million passengers a year.
- An Iranian convicted of the 1991 murder of Iranian former Prime Minister Shapour Bakhtiar has been released from prison in France on May 18, 2010. Ali Vakili Rad, who faced a deportation order, boarded a flight from Orly airport to Tehran soon after leaving his prison in Poissy under escort. Iran recently freed a French teacher who had been convicted of espionage after the presidential election. France has denied any deal with Iran to secure Clotilde Reiss's
- France must pull its troops from Afghanistan if it wants to ensure the well-being of five French nationals taken hostage in Niger, the head of al Qaeda's North African wing said on November 18, 2010. The group has said it is responsible for the five French citizens who were kidnapped in September. The five were among seven people linked to a French nuclear energy company who were abducted in the northern town of Arlit in Niger. The other two are from Togo and Madagascar. Areva has been mining uranium for decades in Niger, one of the poorest countries in the world.
- After years of claiming presidential immunity to avoid legal proceedings, Jacques Chirac is finally facing a court. The former president on Monday March 7, 2011 will become France's first former head of state to go on trial since its Nazi-era leader was exiled If the trial goes ahead as planned, Chirac, 78, faces a month in court on charges that he masterminded a scheme to have Paris City Hall pay for work that benefited his political party when he was mayor before he became president in 1995. A prison term is seen as highly unlikely, but in principle if convicted, Chirac could be jailed for up to 10 years and fined euro150,000 ($210,000).
- An Afghan soldier has been sentenced to death for killing four French troops earlier this year in eastern Afghanistan -one of the deadliest in a rising number of attacks in which Afghan forces have turned their guns on their foreign partners we were told on Tuesday July 17, 2012. A military court in the country's capital on Monday ordered the soldier, Abdul Sabor, to be hanged. The soldier can appeal the sentence to higher courts. It was not clear when the soldier was convicted of the crime and Azimi did not have any other details about his case. The four French soldiers were killed on January 20 in Tagab district of Kapisa province. Just a month earlier, on December 29, 2011, another Afghan soldier killed two members of the French Foreign Legion. The French casualties prompted France's new President Francois Hollande to withdraw combat forces from Afghanistan earlier than planned. The decision to put France on a fast-track exit timetable sparked consternation among some members of the U.S.-led military coalition, which is not ending its combat mission until the end of 2014. France will pull 2,000 French combat troops from Afghanistan by the end of the year and leave around 1,400 soldiers behind to help with training and logistics. --
On Wednesday January 7, 2015, gunmen have shot dead 12 people at the Paris office of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in an apparent militant Islamist attack. Four of the magazine's well-known cartoonists, including its editor, were among those killed, as well as two police officers. A major police operation is under way to find three gunmen who fled by car. The masked attackers opened fire with assault rifles in the office and exchanged shots with police in the street outside before escaping by car. They later abandoned the car in Rue de Meaux, northern Paris, where they hijacked a second car.
On Wednesday January 7, 2015, two terrorists shouted that they were from al Qaeda in the Yemen before they launched the brutal attack on Charlie Hebdo in Paris. The men told bystanders to inform the media that they were from the terror group. The men arrived in a black car, stopping in the middle of the street. One of them was carrying a rocket-propelled grenade. They were dressed in black military-style clothing.
On Thursday January 8, 2015, we were told that the two main suspects in the Islamist attack on Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris have robbed a service station in the north of France. Anti-terrorism police have converged on an area near Villers-Cotterets where the gunmen were reported by French media to have stolen food and petrol. France has observed a minute's silence for the 12 people killed at the office of the satirical magazine. Earlier, a gunman shot dead a policewoman south of Paris and fled. It is unclear if the attack in Montrouge, in which a second person was seriously injured, was linked to the Charlie Hebdo shooting, but French prosecutors say they are treating it as a "terrorist act".
French police were still hunting on Thursday night January 8, 2015, for two brothers suspected of being behind the lethal attack on a satirical magazine after a possible sighting in a forested area northeast of Paris earlier in the day. The two suspects were identified by police on Wednesday evening as Said and Cherif Kouachi, aged 34 and 32, French nationals of Algerian descent. Mr. Kouachi spent several weeks in Yemen in 2011 where he may have been trained at a camp run by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the terror group's Yemen-based affiliate.
One of two brothers suspected of carrying out the deadly shooting at a French satirical weekly met leading al Qaeda preacher Anwar al Awlaki during a stay in Yemen in 2011 we were told on Friday January 9, 2015. Kouachi also spent time fighting in Yemen, where he lived until 2012. Kouachi, 34, was among a number of foreigners who entered the country for religious studies in 2011. He met Awlaki while training with Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). U.S.-born Awlaki was prominent in spreading al Qaeda's militant message to European and English-speaking audiences and was an influential leader of AQAP, the group's most active affiliate. He was killed in September 2011 in a drone strike widely attributed to the CIA.
French police have stormed two hostage sites in the Paris area, killing three hostage takers.
Hundreds in southern Afghanistan rallied to praise the killing of 12 people at the French newspaper Charlie Hebdo, calling the two gunmen "heroes" who meted out punishment for cartoons disrespectful to Islam's prophet we were told on Saturday January 9, 2015. The demonstrators also protested President Ashraf Ghani's swift condemnation of the bloody attack on the satirical newspaper.
On Saturday January 10, 2015, we were told that Al-Qaeda's affiliate in Yemen claimed responsibility for the Friday terrorist massacre at a Paris satirical weekly. They said that the attack on Charlie Hebdo, which left 12 dead, was "revenge for the honor" of Islam's prophet Mohammed, who has been ridiculed along with other religious figures by the journal.
France’s most wanted woman, the wife of the terrorist gunman who stormed a Parisian kosher grocery and killed four hostages, may be in war-torn Syria we were told on Saturday January 10, 2015. French police have been conducting an intense manhunt for Hayat Boumeddiene, whose husband Amedy Coulibaly was killed after shooting dead a police officer and taking hostages at the grocery on Friday. Boumeddiene, 26, was suspected of being involved in the killing of the policewoman in a Paris suburb on Thursday with Coulibaly, who was killed in the police raid at the store Hyper Cacher. The four hostages were killed before authorities gained entry. French authorities have described Boumeddiene as armed and dangerous.
In a bold act of defiance, the remaining staff of the satirical French newspaper Charlie Hebdo plan to publish a million copies of an 8-page edition this week and will include caricatures of the prophet Mohammed. "We will not give in. The spirit of 'I am Charlie' means the right to blaspheme". The front page of the publication, which comes on Wednesday, would be released Monday January 12, 2015.
The Syrian government has accused Turkey of allowing "terrorists" to freely cross the border after Ankara said the common-law wife of one of the Paris attackers entered Syria from Turkey earlier this month. Turkey's Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Monday January 12, 2015, that the woman, Hayat Boumedienne, arrived in Turkey from Madrid on January 2 before crossing into Syria on January 8, the day after the attack on the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.
Both brothers who carried out the attack against satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo traveled to Yemen via Oman in 2011 and had weapons training in the deserts of Marib, where al Qaeda has a presence we were told on Sunday January 11, 2015.
France is mobilising 10,000 troops to boost security after last week's deadly attacks, and will send thousands of police to protect Jewish schools. On Sunday January 11, 2015, an estimated 3.7 million people took to the streets to show solidarity with the victims, including 1.5 million people in Paris. About 40 world leaders joined the start of the Paris march, linking arms in an act of solidarity. President Francois Hollande ordered the deployment of troops during a crisis meeting with top officials early on Monday.
The suspected female accomplice of Islamist militants behind attacks in Paris was in Turkey five days before the killings and crossed into Syria on January 8, Turkish officials said on Monday January 12, 2015.
A top leader of Yemen's al-Qaeda branch has claimed responsibility for last week's attack on Paris satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo when two masked gunmen killed 12 people, including much of the weekly's editorial staff and two police officers. Nasr al-Ansi, a top commander of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula appeared in an 11-minute video posted online on Wednesday January 14, 2015, saying that the massacre at Charlie Hebdo was in "vengeance for the prophet". Al-Ansi said that France belongs to the "party of Satan" and warned of more "tragedies and terror". He said that Yemen's al-Qaeda branch "chose the target, laid out the plan and financed the operation".
Anti French protests on Friday January 16, 2015:
Protests against Charlie Hebdo's front cover have seen thousands more take to the streets -with students in Somalia declaring 'Je Suis Muslim- and I love my Prophet'. Students marched through Mogadishu on Saturday morning January 17, 2015, three days after the commemorative edition of the satirical magazine went on sale. The magazine features a cartoon of the Prophet Mohamed shedding a tear underneath the words 'All is forgiven', after 12 of Charlie Hebdo's staff were killed in a massacre earlier this month. But the use of the Prophets image has angered many Muslims around the world, with protests taking place from Somalia to Niger, and Pakistan to Jordan. ---
Around 5,000 people gathered in Lahore, Pakistan, on Sunday January 18, 2015, for the latest rally against French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo‘s depiction of the Prophet Muhammad. Protesters held posters that read, “This is not freedom of expression, it is open aggression against Islam,” while a terrorist group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, which is linked to attacks in India, encouraged a boycott of French products, Reuters reported.
Hundreds of people in eastern Afghanistan demonstrated Monday January 19, 2015, against the French weekly Charlie Hebdo, burning a French flag and calling for the government to cut diplomatic relations with France. The demonstrators in the city of Jalalabad, the capital of Nangarhar province, chanted anti-France slogans and vowed to defend Islam after the magazine featured a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed on the cover of its first issue following the deadly attack on its Paris office by two jihadist.
At least 20,000 people protested in the western Afghan city of Herat on Friday January 23, 2015, against French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo for publishing a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed. The demonstrators burned French flags, chanted death slogans against France and demanded Paris apologise to Muslims in Afghanistan's biggest rally yet against the weekly. A smaller protest was held in the capital Kabul, where a few demonstrators threw stones at the French embassy, prompting guards to fire one or two warning shots. “No Muslim can tolerate insults to our beloved prophet Mohammed, we demand the French government apologise to all Muslims and punish those who have insulted Islam," said one protester in Herat. There have been small, sporadic protests across Afghanistan since the magazine ran a cover image of the prophet with a tear in his eye, holding a sign saying "Je suis Charlie".
The suspect in a shooting incident on an Amsterdam-Paris train on Saturday August 22, 2015, had travelled to Syria. The individual lived in Spain until 2014, then moved to France, travelled to Syria, and then returned to France. French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said that the suspect is a 26-year-old Moroccan flagged by Spanish authorities last year for links to Islamic radical movements. The violence began when a French passenger ran into the heavily armed suspect while trying to enter a bathroom and the gunman fired a weapon. ---
Paris Friday November 13, 2015:
Paris Saturday November 14, 2015:
On Sunday November 15, 2015, police have issued a photograph of a French national wanted in connection with Friday's deadly attacks in Paris. The man, named as Abdeslam Salah, 26, is described as dangerous. Seven attackers, including two who had lived in Belgium, died during assaults on a series of targets. French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said the attacks had been prepared "by a group of individuals based in Belgium" who had "benefited from accomplices in France."
Senior Iraqi intelligence officials warned coalition countries –including France- of imminent assaults by ISIS just one day before last week's deadly attacks in Paris killed 129 people. Iraqi intelligence said the group's leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, had ordered an attack on coalition countries fighting against them in Iraq and Syria, as well as on Iran and Russia, "through bombings or assassinations or hostage taking in the coming days." The Iraqis had no specific details on when or where the attack would take place, and a senior French security official told the AP that French intelligence gets this kind of communication "all the time" and "every day."
The investigation into the deadly Paris terrorist attacks steadily accumulated clues on Sunday November 15, 2015:
French jets began bombing ISIS targets in eastern Syria Sunday night November 15, 2015, hours after the country's national police launched an international manhunt for a "dangerous" suspect wanted for involvement in the Paris attacks. They targeted a command post and a terrorist training camp, dropping 20 bombs on ISIS’s de facto capital in Raqqa, Syria. The first target included a command post, jihadist recruiting center and a weapons warehouse.
France invoked a never-before-used European Union "mutual-defense clause" to demand Tuesday November 17, 2015, that its partners provide support for its operations against the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq and other security missions in the wake of the Paris attacks. All 27 of France's EU partners responded positively. Article 42.7 of the EU's Lisbon Treaty states that if a member country "is the victim of armed aggression on its territory," other members have "an obligation of aid and assistance by all the means in their power." The EU's foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, said that "France has been attacked, so the whole of Europe has been attacked."
On Wednesday November 18, 2015, a woman has blown herself up and a suspect was shot dead during a police raid on a flat in a Paris suburb, while seven arrests were made. Police targeted the flat in Saint-Denis in a search for the alleged mastermind of Friday's gun and bomb attacks in Paris, when 129 people were killed. The fate of Abdelhamid Abaaoud, previously thought to be in Syria, is still unclear. Prosecutor Francois Molins said intelligence indicated he was in Paris. All victims of Friday's attacks -which targeted a concert hall, cafes and the Stade de France stadium and were claimed by the so-called Islamic State (IS) group- have now been identified.
A third body has been recovered from the apartment in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis raided by police after last Friday's attacks. It was also confirmed that one of the dead was Hasna Aitboulahcen, 26, who reportedly blew herself up in the raid. The alleged ringleader of the attacks, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, is also confirmed to have died in Wednesday's raid. The third body is still being identified. ---
On Monday April 4, 2016, we were told that Air France’s female flight attendants will be allowed to refuse to work the company’s new route to Iran. Unions for the airline’s cabin crew held talks with management after several female crew members opposed an order to wear a headscarf in Iran. Air France will fly to Tehran three times a week from 17 April. The company will introduce an exception so that employees who don’t want to work on the route will be reassigned on other destinations with no sanctions. A note sent to female cabin crew members requires them to wear a headscarf on their arrival in Tehran. They must also wear the uniform’s long-sleeved jacket and trousers rather than a knee-length dress. The headscarf rule is already in place when flying to destinations such as Saudi Arabia. The unions, however, wanted the Tehran flights to be staffed on a voluntary basis and an agreement that any staff who refused to fly to Iran because of the headscarf rule would not have their pay deducted.
A man suspected of having supplied weapons to Amedy Coulibaly, the terrorist who attacked a Jewish supermarket in Paris last year, has been arrested in the south of Spain. The man, a 27-year old French national identified as Antoine Denevi, was arrested together with other two people from Serbia and Montenegro. All are related to arms trafficking. Police believe Denevi provided arms and munitions to Coulibaly, who is accused of first having killed and injured two policemen in a town near Paris. He later attacked a Jewish supermarket in the French capital, killing four people and injuring other four. He was killed by the French police during a confrontation. The men in Spain were arrested Wednesday April 13, 2016, in the village of Rincon de la Victoria, in the Southern province of Malaga.
At least 84 people have been killed, including more than 10 children, after a lorry slammed through a crowd celebrating Bastille Day in the southern French city of Nice. The driver ploughed on for 2km on the Promenade des Anglais at about 23:00 local time on Thursday July 14, 2016, before being shot dead by police. The lorry swerved in an apparent attempt to hit more people. Guns and a grenade found inside the lorry were reported to be fakes. President Francois Hollande, who is in Nice, said the attack was of "an undeniable terrorist nature".
Two Islamist extremists armed with knives were shot dead by police in northern France on Tuesday July 26, 2016, after taking five people hostage and killing an elderly priest. The hostages —who also included two nuns and two worshipers— were held by the knifemen in the church in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, Normandy.
One of the attackers suspected of killing a priest at a church in north France was on probation and wearing a surveillance tag. One suspect, Adel Kermiche, 19, was twice arrested last year trying to reach Syria. Kermiche and a fellow attacker stormed the church in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, a suburb of Rouen, during morning Mass. They slit the throat of the elderly priest before being killed by police. The two men had been carrying a "fake explosive device covered in aluminium foil" along with hand-held weapons when they entered the Catholic Church. They took four people -some of them elderly parishioners- hostage along with 84-year-old Father Jacques Hamel. Those who were able to escape alerted the police, who sent in a team specialised in dealing with hostage situations. Three of the hostages were used as a barrier to block the police from entering the church. When they were eventually let go, the two attackers followed them out of the church shouting "Allahu Akbar. ---
Tuesday we were told that more than 200 French fighters were killed in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). It is believed that 700 French jihadists including more than 200 female fighters are believed to be fighting with ISIS in Iraq and Syria. French intelligence services were watching 15 thousand people suspected of being radicalized.
Paris Prosecutor François Molins said Friday November 25, 2016, that five men arrested in weekend raids in Strasbourg and Marseille had received orders from the Islamic State (IS) group in Iraq or Syria and were planning a terror attack for next week. An imminent attack was thwarted. A Strasbourg commando team and a man arrested in Marseille were told to acquire weapons by a commander from the Iraqi-Syrian region via encrypted apps.
. Georgia
- Georgia has peacekeepers in Kosovo and is a member of the US-led stabilization
force in Iraq.
- Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili said Friday August 8, 2008, that his country will withdraw peacekeepers from Iraq on August 9. Georgia took part in the peacekeeping operation in Iraq in 2003and it has had 2,000 peacekeepers in Iraq since last summer. The peacekeepers are rotated every six months. It was reported earlier that the Georgian troops would stay in Iraq until the end of this year.
- On August 9, 2008, Russian jets have bombed a Georgian town amid a deepening crisis over the breakaway South Ossetia region. Georgia says 60 people died in Gori when the bombs hit residential buildings as well as military targets. Russian officials say hundreds of civilians have been killed in South Ossetia. Georgia denies the figure, which cannot be independently verified. Russian PM Vladimir Putin has stopped in Russia's North Ossetia region on his return from the Olympics.
- Half of Georgia's 2,000 troops in Iraq plan to leave the country by Monday August 11, 2008, to join the fight against separatists in the breakaway province of South Ossetia, with the rest following as soon as possible. The US will provide us with the transportation. Georgia had said initially that it planned to withdraw just half of its contingent in Iraq.
- Georgia said on August 11, 2008, its troops have pulled out of the breakaway region of South Ossetia and that Russian forces are in control of its capital, Tskhinvali. But Russia said that while heavy artillery had been seen leaving the territory, Georgian troops were still present in other areas of the region.
- On Wednesday June 12, 2013, Georgia has closed two of its bases in Afghanistan after 10 of its soldiers were killed by militant attacks within the last four weeks, but it will not reduce the number of troops serving there. A massive truck bomb killed seven Georgians at their base in Helmand province’s Now-e-Zad district on June 6, while three other Georgian soldiers died May 13 in a bomb attack on another base in Helmand’s Musa Qala district.
. Germany
- Mounir al-Motassadeq, a 28 year-old Moroccan, a student in Hamburg, Germany,
has been accused of 3116 charges of aiding and abetting the terrorists that
crashed the planes in the World Trade Centre and in Washington DC. In other
words he was accused of helping the al-Qaida terrorist in their deadly mission.
Mounir was arrested in November 2001 and kept in prison until now.
- He witnessed the will of Mohammed Atta the leader of the September 11, 2001
attack. He also had power of attorney on the account of a second pilot, Matwan
al-Shehhi. Large sums of money transited on this account that was used to
pay the flying lessons in the US as well as to allow the terrorists to live
in America for long period of time.
- Mounir al-Motassadeq was condemned to 15 years in prison on February 18
2003 for belonging to a terrorist organisation and aiding the murder of more
than 3,000 people in the USA on September 11, 2001.
- That same day, January 10 2003, the German police, acting at the request
of the US, arrested two Yemeni in Frankfurt on suspicion of being members
of the al-Qaida organisation. They are Mohammed Sheik Ali Hassan al- Moayyed
and Said Mohammed Mohsen. They will, in all probability, be extradited to
the USA.
- On January 14, 2003, a German court dropped charges of membership of a terrorist
organisation against four Algerians suspected of plotting the bombing of a
French Christmas market.
- In Berlin, Germany, on March 20, 2003, five suspected Islamic terrorists
have been detained on suspicion that they were preparing an attack in coincidence
with the start of the Iraq war.
- In Germany, at the end of March 2003, the people approve Gerhard Schroeder
decision to vote against an UN Security Council resolution that could have
authorised the USA to invade Iraq and for staying out of the war.
- Germany charged a second Moroccan, Abdelghani Mzoudi, with aiding al-Qaida
in the attack on the World Trade Centre on September 11, 2001. A third Moroccan
suspect, Zakariya Essabar is thought to have wanted to participate in the
attack but was denied an entry visa in the USA. Mzoudi is accused to have
been a paymaster for Essabar and in helping members of the Hamburg al-Qaida
cell, including their leader Mohammed Atta and Marwan al-Shehi.
- On December 11, 2003, a German court released an al-Qaida suspect, Abdelghani
Mzoudi, because the USA refused to let another al-Qaida man, Ramzi Binalshibh,
in jail in the US to testify. Ramzi Binalshibh told the US court that only
four people, three suicide pilots and he, knew about the plot in advance.
Mzoudi was released but the trial goes on as he is still an al-Qaida suspect.
- On January 8, 2004, prosecutors in Hamburg, Germany, required the maximum
15-year sentence for Abdelghani Mzoudi who is accused of being an accessory
to murder of 3,000 people in the USA besides being a member of a terrorist
organisation. However on February 5, 2004, the judges acquitted him of helping
a terrorist cell planning the September 11, 2001 suicide attacks.
- On December 30, 2003, a German military hospital in Hamburg that treats
American soldiers was sealed off after the German authorities were told by
US intelligence that the radical Islamic group Ansar al-Islam was planning
a bomb attack on its facilities.
- On December 31, 2003, the German authorities increased security around the
American military bases and other sensitive facilities in their country after
American warnings that Islamic militants may attack them. Nothing suspicious
was found and nothing happened. People around the world are asking themselves
if the Americans are serious in the warnings sent all over the world. And
if they are no serious threats, what games are the Americans playing?
- On February 25, 2004, the German chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, was
going to Washington to make peace with President Bush after the divergences
over the invasion of Iraq. Schröder will confirm that Germany will not
send troops to Iraq, but he is ready to help in the reconstruction. He will
offer to train Iraqi policemen in the United Arab Emirate, to write off a
large part of the Iraqi debt of £2.6bn and he will not oppose NATO troops
deployement there after power is handed back to the Iraqis.
- On April 1, 2004, the intelligence services of Germany and the USA were
in a new row again. According to the Germans, the Iraqi defector known as
Curveball, who claimed that Saddam Hussein had mobile chemical weapons factories
was known to them to be unreliable, and they passed the information to the
CIA. The Bush administration ignored the German's warning and the US Secretary
of State, Colin Powell, used this information known to be wrong at the UN
Security Council to justify the war. Curveball is the brother of a top aide
to Ahmad Chalabi, the pro-western Iraqi exile with link to the Pentagon.
- On April 2, 2004, Mounir el Motassadeq, the only suspect convicted until
now for the September 11, 2001, attacks could be set free. He was jailed for
15 years in February 2003 for 3,000 counts of accessory to murders, but he
won a retrial as an appeal court ruled that his first trial was unfair.
- On April 7, Mounir el Motassadeq won his appeal and was freed by a federal
court in Hamburg. The trial collapsed mainly because the Americans refused
to let a possible witness, a prisoner in Guantanamo Bay, testify in Germany.
He will, however, have to come back in front of the court on minor charges
in June. He has been ordered not to leave Hamburg and his passport has been
confiscated.
- A German court decided that Mounir al-Motassadek, whose original conviction
was overturned by the German Supreme Court in April, because the US barred
a key witness from testifying, will have a second trial on August 10, 2004.
Before his retrial in Hamburg, his lawyers argued that the witness, Ramzi
Binalshibh, may have been tortured in US custody. On August 10, 2004, the
US says it will not allow its al-Qaida suspects to testify in Germany. A letter
from the US Justice Department read in court said terror suspects in American
custody would not be allowed to testify for security concerns, as well as
the need to protect secret information. The Justice Department also said an
FBI agent would be sent to give evidence at the retrial.
- On October 13, 2004, German officials reaffirmed their policy of not contributing
troops to the American-led coalition in Iraq and rejected speculationthat
that policy might change in the foreseeable future.
- On December 3, 2004, the German police arrested three Iraqi suspected of
planning to attack Iraqi interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi during his visit
in Germany. The three men belong to Ansar al-Islam, a group believed to be
linked to al-Qaida.
- On January 12, 2005, the German police arrested 22 people suspected of financing
and providing illegal documents to terrorists, possibly in Iraq. Most people
-including five women- are Muslims of different nationalities: Germans, Bulgarians,
Tunisians, Algerians, Libyans, and Egyptians.
- On January 23, 2005, German police arrested two people suspected of being
al-Qaida terrorists. It is believed that Ibrahim Mohamed K. tried to buy small
amount -nearly two ounces- of enriched uranium (the material used in nuclear
bomb) and the second, Yasser Abu S. of preparing a suicide attack in Iraq.
Ibrahim Mohamed K., a German of Iraqi origin, is assumed to be a high ranking
member of al-Qaida in charge of recruiting suicide bombers and of planning
attacks in Iraq from Europe. He seems to have had direct contact with Osama
bin Laden and Ramzi Binalshibh, one of the men involved in the September 11,
2001, attacks on the USA.
- On January 24, 2005, two al-Qaida suspects accused of plotting an attack
in Iraq were remanded in custody by a German judge.
- US President George W Bush and Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder have made a
show of unity following their divisions over the war in Iraq. Mr Bush is in
Germany on February 23, 2005, the third day of a European tour designed to
reconcile transatlantic differences. He had talks in the city of Mainz with
Mr Schroeder, with both men stressing afterwards that their differences over
Iraq were in the past. Anti-war campaigners protested nearby against the US-led
war.
- On June 9, 2005, the Moroccan Albdelghani Mzoudi resident in Germany has
been definitely cleared by the Federal Court of any wrongdoing with the September
11, 2001, attacks on the US. He was accused of complicity in the preparation
of these attacks and of links with al-Qaida but the Federal Court said that
he was not guilty.
- German opposition leader Angela Merkel said in an interview published Friday
July 15, 2005, she will not send troops to Iraq if she wins the upcoming elections.
Merkel, who is seen as more supportive of America than Schroeder, said that
a conservative-led German government ``will put Europe's relationship with
the USA back on a sensible footing.'' Asked whether voters could count on
her continuing Schroeder's policy of keeping German soldiers out of Iraq in
the future, Merkel replied: ``Yes.''
- A Moroccan man who was friends with three of the 9/11 suicide hijackers
has been found guilty in Germany on August 19, 2005, of belonging to a terrorist
organisation. Mounir al-Motassadek, 31, was sentenced to seven years in prison
following a year-long retrial. However, the court in Hamburg ruled there was
no proof that he knew about the 11 September 2001 plot.
- Motassadek was originally convicted of those charges in 2003 but the verdict
was quashed by the Germany's Supreme Court last year, and a retrial ordered.
Prosecutors argued that Motassadek provided key assistance to the "Hamburg
cell", pointing out that he signed the will of Atta - believed to be
the ringleader of the 19 suicide hijackers - and held power of attorney on
the bank account of another hijacker. Motassadek had also admitted attending
an al-Qaida training camp in Afghanistan in early 2000. But he has repeatedly
denied any prior knowledge of the attacks on New York and Washington, saying
that the favours he did for the hijackers were just part of being a good Muslim.
- Four Arab men accused of planning attacks on Jewish targets in Germany have
been sentenced to jail terms of between five and eight years on October 25,
2006. Three members of the group were convicted of supporting a terrorist
organisation, al-Tawhid linked to al-Qaida. The three Jordanians and an Algerian
denied the charges against them. The Jordanians -Mohammed Abu Dhees, Ismail
Shalabi, and Ashraf al-Dagma- were convicted of plotting attacks and belonging
to a terrorist organisation.
- On December 5, 2005, US Secretary of States, Condoleezza Rice, in visit
in Germany defended the American tactics against terrorism. She implicitly
admitted that the CIA is or was running secret prisons for terrorists in Eastern
Europe and used European airports without authorisation to fly them there.
She added that the US laws forbid torture and that no prisoner in American
hands was tortured.
- In Germany voices have been going on for a few days saying that some German
intelligence agents helped the Americans to locate targets in Iraq at the
time of the invasion. It is well known that the Schroeder government officially
refused to join the Americans n the Iraq war. The new German foreign minister
denied the information but the opposition in parliament is not convinced and
ask for a formal inquiry.
- A small plane carrying at least four passengers, three of them German, crashed
in mountainous northern Iraq on Thursday February 16, 2006, en route to Iraq
from Azerbaijan. Aviation officials lost contact with the plane when it was
flying at 8,000 feet in northern Iraq. It was not immediately clear whether
any of the passengers or the pilots had survived.
- Germany's opposition parties are asking on Thursday February 23, 2006, for
a full parliamentary inquiry into the role of German intelligence during the
US-led and occupation of Iraq. A government-commissioned report said two German
spies provided the US with intelligence on Iraq but rejected allegations it
aided the US bombing campaign in 2003. The issue is sensitive because Germany's
former Social Democrat chancellor Gerhard Schroeder strongly criticised the
war and insisted Germany had no direct part in it. Incumbent chancellor Angela
Merkel has also ruled out sending troops to Iraq. The report found that German
Gereral Intelligence Service (BND) agents provided the US with intelligence,
but said this was mostly limited to reports about items such as "civilian
protected or other humanitarian sites, such as Synagogues and Torah rolls
and the possible locations of missing US pilots. It rejects media allegations
at the centre of the spying affair that BND agents were in the capital to
identify these targets for the US military.
- Germany's foreign intelligence agency BND said Friday March3, 2006, that
one of its agents worked alongside the US military at its operations command
centre during the Iraq war but did not pass on any information to the Americans.
The admission came a day after the New York Times reported that a BND liaison
officer based at US Central Command in Qatar passed on information gathered
by two other BND agents in Iraq before and during the early stages of the
war in 2003. The BND said the German intelligence agency made 25 reports to
the Americans and answered 18 specific requests for information during the
first few months of the Iraq war. The Times also reported that the German
intelligence agents in Baghdad in 2003 obtained a copy of Saddam Hussein's
defence plans for the capital, which were passed on to the United States.
The German government strongly denied the story and said it was never aware
of the Baghdad defence plans. The Times said the US-German intelligence-sharing
arrangement was made and approved in late 2002 by officials that included
then- foreign minister Joschka Fischer and the current foreign minister, Frank-Walter
Steinmeier, who was Schroeder's secret service coordinator. The three German
agents in Iraq were rewarded with the American Meritorious Service Medal for
their work, a procedure which the BND said was standard practice. A Parliamentary
Control Commission is due to meet on Monday in Berlin to discuss the revelations
amid calls by opposition parties for a full parliamentary inquiry.
- Opposition parties Friday March 10, 2006 cleared the way for parliament
to conduct an investigation into the activities of Germany's foreign intelligence
agency in the fight against terrorism and allegations that German spies in
Baghdad supplied target information to the US during the 2003 Iraq war. In
addition to examining the activities of the BND intelligence service, the
inquiry will also look into clandestine CIA flights transporting terrorist
suspects across German territory to secret prisons for torture.
- The German parliament on Thursday May 11, 2006, formally began an investigation into the activities of the country's foreign intelligence service during the Iraq war. The 11-member parliamentary commission of inquiry will focus on whether the BND intelligence agency helped the US military during the March 2003 invasion to topple the regime of Saddam Hussein. Opposition parties in parliament mustered enough votes for the inquiry, following claims in the US media that German intelligence agents in Iraq passed on sensitive information to American forces.
- The public prosecutor's office in Munich on Wednesday January 31, 2007, issued arrest warrants against 13 suspected CIA agents. The 11 men and 2 women are accused of the kidnapping and mistreatment of German citizen Khaled el-Masri. The warrants accuse them of unlawful detention and inflicting grievous bodily harm. El-Masri was born in Lebanon but acquired German citizenship in 1995. The father of four children had been arrested in Macedonia at the end of December 2003 under suspicion of terrorism and abducted by the US intelligence agents to Afghanistan. There he was interrogated and tortured for a period of four months. When it became clear that his arrest was an obvious mistake, el-Masri was flown in the dead of night to the Balkans and left in a forest close to the Albanian border.
- Three men have been arrested in Germany on September 5, 2007, on suspicion of planning a "massive" attack on US facilities in the country. Federal prosecutor Monika Harms said the three had trained at camps in Pakistan and procured some 700kg of chemicals for explosives. She said the accused had sought to target facilities visited by Americans, such as nightclubs, pubs or airports. Defence Minister Franz Josef Jung said the men had posed "an imminent threat". Media reports said the men were planning attacks against a US military base in Ramstein and Frankfurt airport.
- On July 15, 2008, a German court has convicted three Iraqi men of plotting to kill former Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi during a visit to Germany in 2004. They were also convicted of belonging to Ansar al-Islam -a group reportedly linked to al-Qaeda. Ata Abdoulaziz Rashid was jailed for 10 years; Rafik Mohamad Yousef and Mazen Ali Hussein were sentenced to eight and seven-and-a-half years respectively. The three men, who are all ethnic Kurds, denied the charges.
- Germany will send 100 more troops to Afghanistan to help with reconstruction efforts in the war-ravaged nation we were told on Friday November 13, 2009. The troops, to be deployed in mid-January, will join about 4,000 others who are stationed in the northern provinces. The northern region includes the Kunduz province, which has recently seen a spike in militant activity. So far, Germany has lost 36 soldiers during its mission in Afghanistan.
- German cabinet minister Franz Josef Jung resigned on Friday November 27,
2009, over an Afghan airstrike. Mr. Jung, who was defence minister at the
time of the September 4 airstrike, now is Germany's labour minister. He is
the third senior official to lose his job over allegations that the German
military withheld information about civilian casualties. On Thursday, the
chief of Germany's armed forces and a junior defence secretary both stepped
down. The U.S. airstrike on two fuel trucks hijacked by Taliban insurgents
in northern Afghanistan was ordered by a German commander, and is thought
to have killed roughly 100 people, including 30 or 40 civilians. Mr. Jung,
a conservative politician, insisted in the days after the attack that "exclusively
terroristic Taliban" had been killed.
- Federal prosecutors in Germany said on Tuesday October 19, 2010, that they have indicted eight people for supporting foreign terrorism and being members of a criminal organisation. The eight -seven men and one woman aged between 17 and 30- are accused of supporting al-Qaeda, al-Qaeda in Iraq and the Kurdish group Ansar al-Islam, through their membership of the German chapter of the so-called Global Islamic Media Front (GIMF). All but the 17-year-old, who is Turkish, are German citizens.
- Fears are growing that two German men who went missing after setting off to climb snow-capped mountains in war-torn Afghanistan could have been kidnapped, we were told on Tuesday August 23, 2011. The pair vanished near the Salang Pass, a major route through the Hindu Kush mountains connecting the capital, Kabul, to northern Afghanistan. One local official suggested they might have been abducted by nomads. Taliban insurgents are not thought to be active in the relatively peaceful area where they vanished, just north of the capital Kabul.
- Eight German citizens fighting alongside the Islamic State group were among dozens of militants killed in US-led airstrikes in the ISIS stronghold city of Mosul we were told on Sunday June 21, 2015. One of the dead Germans was known as Abu Arqam, identified as a top foreign ISIS leader in Iraq.
- A German army chief in the U.S.-led coalition fighting ISIS in Iraq was found dead in his hotel room there Wednesday September 23, 2015. Colonel Stephan Spoettel was found dead in the Cristal Erbil Hotel in the northern Kurdish city of Irbil. Spoettel was the head of the coalition's German training contingent in northern Iraq. There was no information to suggest suicide or "third-party involvement".
- On Wednesday December 3, 2015, Germany's parliament has voted to send military support to the US-led coalition fighting Islamic State (IS) militants in Syria. MPs approved the plan for a German non-combat role by 445 votes to 146. Tornado reconnaissance jets, a naval frigate and 1,200 soldiers will be sent to the region.
- German riot police broke up far-right protesters in Cologne on Saturday January 9, 2016, as they marched against Germany's open-door migration policy after dozens of asylum seekers were arrested for mass assaults on women on New Year's Eve. The attacks, ranging from sexual molestation to theft, shocked Germany, which took in 1.1 million migrants and refugees in 2015 under asylum laws championed by Chancellor Angela Merkel, despite fervent opposition. Shortly before Saturday's protest began, Merkel hardened her stance toward migrants, promising expulsion for criminals and a reduction in migrant numbers over the longer term to Germany.
- German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Saturday January 30, 2016, tried to placate the increasingly vocal critics of her open-door policy for refugees, insisting that asylum seekers from Syria and Iraq would go home once the conflicts there had ended. Merkel, despite appearing increasingly isolated over her policy, has resisted pressure from some conservatives to cap the influx of refugees, or to close Germany's borders. A record 1.1 million migrants arrived in Germany last year. But growing concern about the country's ability to cope and worries about crime and security after assaults on women are weighing on support for Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU). ---
- On Friday July 22, 2016, a shooting at a Munich shopping centre left nine people dead; it was carried out by one gunman who then killed himself. The suspect was an 18-year-old German-Iranian dual national who lived in Munich but his motive is unclear. Sixteen people were injured, three critically. A huge manhunt was launched following reports that up to three gunmen had been involved in the attack. The body of the suspect was found about 1km from the Olympia shopping centre in the north-western suburb of Moosach.
- On Saturday August 20, 2016, the leader of the populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has spoken out in favor of people arming themselves with guns and self-defense devices following a series of violent attacks last month. The anti-immigrant AfD has won growing popular support in Germany due in part to Europe's migrant crisis, which has seen more than 1 million refugees arrive over the past year, and it now has seats in eight of Germany's 16 state assemblies. She said that: "Many people are increasingly feeling unsafe. Every law-abiding citizen should be in a position to defend themselves, their family and their friends”. Luckily she is only the head of a minority party.