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TERRORISM

Many young Swedes doubt al-Qaida 9/11 guilt

Almost one in five Swedes aged under 30 think that George W Bush's US government lay behind the attacks on September 11th 2001, according to a new survey by Novus Opinion.

The TV4 programme Kalla Fakta, which commissioned the survey, will on Sunday address the subject of the Truth Movement, an international group which espouses the conspiracy theory that the terror network al-Qaida was not behind the September 11th attacks.

The movement, also known as the “September 11th research community” argues that it was in fact the US government that staged the attacks, which claimed the lives of 3,000 people, in order to legitimize the war on terrorism.

The Novus poll indicates that a significant number of young Swedes are persuaded by the logic of the argument.

Of the 1,000 Swedes surveyed in an internet panel, 70 percent responded that al-Qaida were behind the attacks, while seven percent did not think so.

Among those under-30 only 58 percent believed responsibility lay with al-Qaida, while 15 percent did not.

When asked whether the US government orchestrated the attacks, eight percent supported the theory while 64 percent rejected it.

However among the under-30s there was once again more scepticism: 51 percent rejected the conspiracy theory while 18 percent believed that the US government, led at the time by President George W Bush, had a role in the attacks.

As many as 31 percent of the young people interviewed in the survey responded that they did not know what to believe.

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TERRORISM

Italian police arrest Algerian wanted for alleged IS ties

Police in Milan said on Thursday they had arrested a 37-year-old Algerian man in the subway, later discovering he was wanted for alleged ties to Islamic State.

Italian police arrest Algerian wanted for alleged IS ties

When stopped by police officers for a routine check, the man became “particularly aggressive”, said police in Milan, who added the arrest took place “in recent days”.

He was “repeatedly shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ while attempting to grab from his backpack an object that turned out to be a knife with a blade more than 12cm (nearly five inches) long,” they said in a statement.

The man was later found to be wanted by authorities in Algeria, suspected since 2015 of belonging to “Islamic State militias and employed in the Syrian-Iraqi theatre of war,” police said.

Police said the suspect was unknown to Italian authorities.

The man is currently in Milan’s San Vittore prison and awaiting extradition, they added.

Jihadist group IS proclaimed a “caliphate” in 2014 across swathes of Syria and Iraq, launching a reign of terror that continues with hit-and-run attacks and ambushes.

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