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Frenchman ‘admits to’ Brussels shooting

A Frenchman who spent a year with islamists in Syria has allegedly admitted, in a recording, to the deadly shooting at the Jewish Museum in Brussels. Without saying if there's a connection, French authorities revealed on Monday a spate of new jihadist arrests.

Frenchman 'admits to' Brussels shooting
This handout videograb taken from security footage shows the suspected gunman who opened fire at the Jewish museum in Brussels on May 24th, 2014 killing three people. AFP/Belgian Police

Mehdi Nemmouche, 29, who was arrested by customs agents on Friday on arrival in the southern French city of Marseille, is believed to have recorded the claim in a 40-second video found in his possession along with a Kalashnikov and a handgun.

Paris prosecutor François Molins said the "repeat offender" explains in the film that he had attached a GoPro camera to his bag to record his shooting rampage, but it had not worked.

Instead Nemmouche later "filmed his weapons and said he carried out the attack against the Jews in Brussels", prosecutor Frederic Van Leeuw told a simultaneous press conference taking place in the Belgian capital.

However Van Leeuw added: "We can't guarantee that it is his voice heard on the recording."

A day later, on Monday, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve told Europe 1 radio police had carried out a series of raids on jihadists in France. He didn't say if the killings and the arrests are related.

"As I speak recruiters for jihad in Syria are being arrested in the Ile de France region (Paris) and in the south of France. There have been four arrests. We want the hunt to be thorough, we don't want to leave any opportunity to the terrorists," Cazeneuve said. 

In regards to the Brussels shooting, Molins said the suspect, who arrived in France on a bus from Amsterdam via Brussels, was also carrying a "white cloth" carrying an inscription in Arabic of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) — Syria's most extremist group — and the words "Allah is great".

He described Nemmouche as a "battle-hardened lone wolf" who left for Syria on December 31st, 2012, just three weeks after being released from prison. He returned to Europe in March this year and appears to have fought alongside the ISIL fighters.

The French prosecutor said Nemmouche converted to radical Islam during five stints in prison, adding the suspect called for "collective prayers while he was let out of his cell for exercises."

President Francois Hollande said the suspect was "arrested as soon as he set foot in France".

A judicial source said he had been detained on suspicion of murder and attempted murder in connection with a terrorist enterprise.

Nemmouche, originally from Roubaix in northern France, is believed to have travelled to join Islamist fighters in Syria in 2013, and was known to the French domestic intelligence agency DGSI, said one source close to the case.

A lone gunman entered the Jewish museum in the heart of Brussels last Saturday, removed an automatic rifle from a bag and opened fire through a door before making an exit.

An Israeli couple and a Frenchwoman died on the scene and a 24-year-old Belgian man was left clinically dead.

Sources confirmed that Nemmouche was carrying a Kalashnikov automatic rifle and a gun with ammunition in his luggage.

"These weapons were of the type used in Brussels," said one source. Another source close to the investigation said that there were many elements "consistent with the shooting in Brussels".

Family 'shocked'

Molins said Nemmouche said little during the interrogation, describing himself as a homeless man who lived in Belgium.

He is being questioned by the DGSI who can hold him for up to 96 hours, until Tuesday, or 144 hours, to Thursday, if investigators invoke an imminent terrorist threat.

His family meanwhile reacted with horror, describing him as taciturn but harmless.

"He is nice, intelligent, educated and has done a year at university," Nemmouche's aunt told reporters, adding that the family was "very shocked."

She said Nemmouche had been raised in a foster home and then by his grandmother, adding that the family lost contact with him after he was sent to prison.

"He never went to the mosque or spoke of religion," she said.

The attack was the first such incident in more than 30 years in Belgium and has revived fears of a return of violent anti-Semitism to Europe.

The European Jewish Congress has called for greater security at Jewish institutions and tougher legislation for dealing with anti-Semitic crime.

Some 40,000 Jews live in Belgium, roughly half in Brussels and the remainder in the port city of Antwerp.

Nemmouche's past also stands to reignite a row in France over the monitoring of those who leave to country to fight in Syria.

Belgian Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo called for closer European cooperation to fight jihadists including tighter monitoring to "avoid such tragedies from being reproduced".

Hollande meanwhile said: "The government is mobilized to track down jihadists and prevent them from causing more harm."

According to the latest figures, some 780 people have left France to fight with jihadists in Syria.

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TERRORISM

Update: Germany increases police presence amid ‘very high’ security threat from far-right

German ministers promised on Friday to ramp up security and put more police on the streets to quell public fears, two days after a racist gunman killed nine people.

Update: Germany increases police presence amid 'very high' security threat from far-right
Tributes and a sign that reads 'we are more' in Hanau. Photo: DPA

Thousands joined vigils on Thursday night to show solidarity with the victims of the right-wing extremist attack at a shisha bar and cafe in the city of Hanau, which sparked debates over gun laws and protection of migrants and minorities.

Announcing an “increased police presence” at mosques, train stations, airports and borders, Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said right-wing extremism was the “biggest security threat facing Germany”.

He said it had left “a trail of blood” in recent months – two died in an attack on a synagogue in the city of Halle in October and a pro-migrant politician was murdered at his home in June.

Separately, 12 men were arrested across Germany a week ago on suspicion of planning attacks on mosques aimed at bringing about “a civil-war-like situation” in Germany.

'Time bombs'

Seehofer insisted that “in this government… no-one is blind” to the threat from the extreme right.

He and Justice Minister Christine Lambrecht highlighted that Germany has updated its law on firearms licensing in recent weeks and a new bill targeting online hate speech is being considered.

The security threat from right-wing extremism, anti-Semitism and racism is very high,” Seehofer said at a press conference in Berlin.

“The act in Hanau is clearly a racially motivated terrorist attack,” Seehofer said, adding that it was “the third right-wing terrorist attack” in recent months.

READ ALSO:

In December, Seehofer also announced hundreds of new posts for federal police and security services to strengthen surveillance of the far-right scene.

Yet both Seehofer and Lambrecht underlined the difficulty of detecting attackers who act alone, as the key suspect in the Hanau shootings appeared to have done.

“Despite all our efforts, we cannot completely rule out such terrible crimes,” said Seehofer.

Federal police chief Holger Münch warned that “around half” of those who carry out such attacks were previously unknown to the authorities.

READ ALSO: After Hanau: How can Germany deal with extreme right wing terror

Horst Seehofer in Hanau on Thursday. Photo: DPA

Suspects in both the Halle synagogue attack and the Hanau shootings appear to have been radicalised largely online, publishing racist screeds only shortly before their attacks.

“The problem is perpetrators who act almost without any structure behind them, practically with only an internet connection… how can potential perpetrators be identified, that's the big challenge,” Münch said.

Such people were “time bombs”, justice minister Lambrecht said.

King's College London counter-terror expert Peter Neumann told Die Welt daily that “what is already happening regarding jihadism must happen regarding right-wing extremism”.

“Security services should infiltrate and surveil forums” where people with far-right leanings gather, he said.

It echoed other calls.

Political scientist Florian Hartleb and far-right expert told The Local authorities needed to find better strategies for dealing with the online world in order to stop these so-called lone wolves from acting this way.

“The only way to stop it is to observe Internet activities more carefully,” he said.

Questions for AfD

The Hanau shooter legally owned firearms, dragging Germany's gun licensing laws into the focus of public debate.

People demonstrating Thursday night at Berlin's Brandenburg gate held signs calling to “disarm fascists”.

There are thought to be around 5.4 million weapons in circulation in Germany, according to Bild newspaper.

Increasing numbers of guns are being seized from radical-right suspects, mounting to 1,091 in 2018 compared with 676 the previous year.

Even members of the Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative CDU party have argued for tougher controls, in a country where hunting and sport shooting remain popular pastimes.

The role far-right political party AfD, in parliament since 2017, has also come under scrutiny – some arguing that they provide the ideological foundations for extremists.

The anti-immigrant outfit, whose leaders denounce Germany's culture of remembrance for Nazi crimes, should be “placed under surveillance” by security services, Social Democratic Party (SPD) secretary general Lars Klingbeil said.

“One man opened fire in Hanau, but there were many who provided him with ammunition,” Klingbeil told public broadcaster ARD.

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