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TERRORISM

Gothenburg man arrested over Somali terror plot

A man has been arrested in Gothenburg on suspicion of planning terror attacks in Somalia, the Swedish Security Service (Säpo) has said.

The man, a Swedish citizen, was arrested on Tuesday morning in the Gothenburg area, Göteborgs Posten reports. A warrant for his arrest had been issued some time ago, according to police.

He was originally arrested on suspicion of ‘crimes against national security’, but police later said he was now being held pn suspicion of ‘conspiracy to commit acts of terror’.

Police must either charge or release the man by Friday.

Prosecutors were on Tuesday giving little information about the man or the nature of the accusations against him. Agneta Hilding Qvarnström, at the national prosecutors’ office for security cases in Stockholm, told Göteborgs Posten:

“The identity is classified, the circumstances are classified, everything is classified.”

The Security Service warned recently that Al-Shabaab, an al-Qaeda-linked extremist group in Somalia, had recruited more than 20 young people from the Gothenburg area to fight in the war-torn country. It is not known whether the latest arrest is linked directly to the warning.

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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