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TERRORISM

‘Somalia suicide bomber was Norwegian’: Shebab

Somalia's Al-Qaeda-linked Shebab rebels on Wednesday identified a suicide car bomber who struck a town recently captured by African Union troops as a 60-year-old Somali man who held Norwegian citizenship.

'Somalia suicide bomber was Norwegian': Shebab
Local security hired by international agencies in Mogadishu. Photo: EU Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection
The attack in Buulo Burde in the south of the country on Tuesday targeted a hotel crowded with army officers and was followed by an assault by Shebab gunmen, leaving several dead, officials said.
   
"The attacker of Buulo Burde was a 60-year-old man who came from Norway to fight the enemies of Allah," Shebab military spokesman Sheikh Abdul Aziz Abu Musab told AFP, naming the attacker as Abdullahi Ahmed Abdulle, a Norwegian national of Somali origin.
 
"He paid the sacrifice in order to be close to Allah by killing his enemies. The event is showing us that there is no age limit for jihad," the spokesman said.
   
The attack is the latest by the Shebab, launched in apparent retaliation for a new offensive to root them out of areas of the war-torn country still
under their control.
   
African Union soldiers, who are fighting the Shebab alongside Somali government troops, captured the small town from the Islamists last week.
   
The UN-backed AU force this month launched a fresh offensive against Shebab bases, with the gunmen largely fleeing ahead of the assault, only to later stage guerrilla attacks. Shebab fighters once controlled most of southern and central Somalia but withdrew from fixed positions in Mogadishu two years ago.
   
Recent Shebab attacks have targeted key areas of government or the security forces, in an apparent bid to discredit claims by the authorities that they are winning the war.

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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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