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TERRORISM

Toulon website man held over ‘al-Qaeda funding’

A Tunisian administrator of a French website was in custody Wednesday after being charged in connection with financing and recruiting for Al-Qaeda and other Islamist extremist groups, prosecutors said.

The Tunisian, arrested Friday after a police raid on his home in the Mediterranean port Toulon, is suspected of “transmitting information and passing on instructions to terrorist organisations”, Paris prosecutors said.

These organisations included Al-Qaeda and its North African offshoot, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, they said in a statement Tuesday.    

The man, whom prosecutors did not name, is accused of passing on information on how to make bombs, on undercover government agents infiltrating extremist groups, and on trips by foreign government ministers who could serve as potential targets.

He is also suspected of playing a central role in fundraising to finance the purchase by terror groups of weapons such as rocket-launchers, missiles, and machine guns, the statement said.

He has been charged with plotting terrorist acts and financing a terrorist enterprise.

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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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