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TERRORISM

Swiss stabbing suspect ‘linked to jihadism inquiry’

A woman arrested for a knife attack in a Swiss department store was linked to a 2017 jihadism investigation, police said on Wednesday.

Swiss stabbing suspect 'linked to jihadism inquiry'
Ticino police is investigating the Lugano attack. Photo by AFP

The 28-year-old was held on Tuesday after allegedly trying to strangle one woman with her bare hands, and stabbing another woman in the neck.

The second victim in the attack, in Lugano in the south of Switzerland, was said to be seriously wounded.

“The perpetrator is known to @FedpolCH,” the federal police said on Twitter. “She appeared in a police investigation in 2017 in connection with jihadism.”

The regional police had already mentioned a possible terror motive behind the attack.

“The situation is extremely serious,” said Norman Gobbi, head of the Ticino regional government.

The woman was overpowered by customers in the shop before officers arrived.

The Swiss federal police said criminal proceedings were under way.

“This attack does not surprise me”, federal police chief Nicoletta della Valle said Tuesday, underlining that such attacks occurred all over the world.

Switzerland has not suffered a major jihadist attack, but police and officials highlighted several recent incidents being investigated for possible terrorist motives.

And two Swiss nationals aged 18 and 24 were arrested near Zurich due to their alleged links to the perpetrator of a deadly attack in neighbouring Austria's capital Vienna earlier this month.

After Tuesday's incident, Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz tweeted that he condemned the “Islamist terrorist attack” in Lugano.

“We stand with Switzerland in these difficult hours,” he wrote.

“We'll give a joint response to Islamist terrorism in Europe and defend our values.”

An Islamic State sympathiser who had tried to join the jihadist group in Syria was behind the attack in Vienna, in which four people were killed and several others injured. 

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CRIME

Hoax bomb threats against French airports ‘traced to Swiss email’

Repeated bomb threats against dozens of French airports which led to evacuations and flight cancellations have been 'traced to an email address in Switzerland', according to French authorities.

Hoax bomb threats against French airports 'traced to Swiss email'

More than 70 bomb threats have been made against French airports in the past week, leading to evacuations at dozens of airports and at least 130 flights cancelled.

Most of the alerts were triggered by emails warning of a bomb in the airport – more than 70 such emails have been received by airports around the country such as Toulouse, Bordeaux, Paris Beauvais, Marseille and dozens of smaller airports – including Basel-Mulhouse on the Franco-Swiss border. 

On Sunday French Transport Minister Clément Beaune said that “almost all of the threats have been traced to the same email address, situated in Switzerland”.

He added: “Since Wednesday, it is almost always the same email address that is used, located outside the European Union, in Switzerland”.

He called on hosting sites to help the French authorities, saying: “Everyone has a responsibility, including the platforms and social networks, not to support this kind of attack and to cooperate as quickly as possible with the French civil aviation authorities and our justice system.”

In France, the maximum penalty for making a hoax bomb threat is two years in jail and a €30,000 fine.

As well as airport evacuations and flight disruption, French tourist sites have also been hit with bomb hoaxes – the Palace of Versailles has been evacuated seven times in the past week.

It comes in the context of a tense situation in France as the country raised its terror alert to maximum after an apparent Islamist attack on Friday, October 13th in which a teacher was killed and two others wounded.

Security at large events such as the Rugby World Cup matches has been stepped up. 

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