BARCELONA: Spanish police mounted a counter-terrorism operation in Barcelona and a nearby city on Tuesday against an alleged militant Islamist cell suspected of plotting an attack, local officials said.
Officers arrested 18 people in Barcelona and Igualada, 60 kilometres (40 miles) west of the Catalan capital, as part of the raid, Catalonia's Mossos d'Esquadra police said in a statement.
Five suspects were arrested for terrorism offences while the rest allegedly committed theft, drug trafficking and other crimes to help support the cell's activities.
The five "were in an advanced process of radicalisation with the aim to attack," the statement said.
"The group defended the doctrine and actions of the jihadist movement and they consumed a significant amount of publications that advocated the theses of Daesh," it added, using the Arabic acronym for the so-called Islamic State group.
The authorities said the suspects were constantly under surveillance and there was never any danger to the public.
The suspects "intended to carry out an attack", but police work "ensured that at no moment did they have the capacity to carry out these actions," Catalan regional interior minister Miquel Buch said.
More than 100 officers were taking part in the "counter-terrorism operation" launched by the Catalan police force at 6:00 am (0500 GMT), the Mossos said on Twitter.
Armed officers, wearing black ski masks, stood guard outside a building in central Barcelona as boxes and bags were removed from a flat, according to an AFP reporter on the scene.
The operation was ordered by Spain's High Court, which is charged with terrorism investigations and had been investigating the suspected cell since mid-2017.
One of the suspects was arrested in the Catalan town of Igualada while the rest were detained in Barcelona.
The five people arrested for terrorism offences are aged 33-44. Three are from Algeria, while the others are from Libya and Iraq.
The rest of the suspects had Algerian, Spanish, Egyptian, Moroccan, Lebanese and Iraqi citizenship.
Barcelona, Spain's most visited city, was on alert last month after the US State Department warned of the risk of a terrorist attack in Spain's second-largest city over Christmas.
Spanish media reported at the time that the authorities were looking for a Moroccan man with a licence to drive buses who could try to drive a bus or other large vehicle into crowds in Barcelona.
On August 17, 2017, a van rammed crowds on Barcelona's Las Ramblas boulevard, killing 14 people and injuring more than 130 others.
The 22-year-old Moroccan driver then stole a car after killing the driver and fled.
Several hours later five of his accomplices mowed down pedestrians on the promenade of the seaside resort of Cambrils, south of Barcelona, before stabbing a woman to death.
The Daesh group claimed responsibility for the attack, Spain's worst since the Madrid train bombings in 2004 when 191 people died and more than 1,800 were injured.
Spain has had its terrorist alert at the second-highest level since 2015.
Catalonia has a long history of Islamist militant activity. A member of the Algerian Armed Islamic Group (GIA) was uncovered in the region in 1995.
Mohammed Atta, who flew a passenger plane into a tower of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, in New York, spent time in Catalonia shortly before the attacks.
In 2008, a plot targeting Barcelona's metro system was foiled when it was in its advanced stages.
In a separate operation, police arrested a 27-year-old Moroccan national in the southern province of Malaga who allegedly used several social network profiles to express his allegiance to the Daesh group.
Spanish police raid Barcelona cell suspected of plotting attack
Spanish police raid Barcelona cell suspected of plotting attack
- Officers arrested 18 people in Barcelona and Igualada as part of the raid
Canadian school boards sue Snapchat, TikTok and Meta for disrupting students’ education
- Lawsuits claim platforms like Facebook and Instagram are “designed for compulsive use, have rewired the way children think, behave, and learn” and teachers have been left to manage the fallout
TORONTO: Four of the largest school boards in the Canadian province of Ontario said Thursday they launched lawsuits against TikTok, Meta and SnapChat alleging the social media platforms are disrupting student learning.
The lawsuits claim platforms like Facebook and Instagram are “designed for compulsive use, have rewired the way children think, behave, and learn” and teachers have been left to manage the fallout.
Meta Platforms Inc. owns Facebook and Instagram, while Snap Inc. owns SnapChat and ByteDance Ltd. owns TikTok.
Rachel Chernos, a trustee for the Toronto District School Board, said teachers and parents are noticing social withdrawal, anxiety, attention problems, cyberbullying and mental health issues.
“These companies have knowingly created programs that are addictive that are aimed and marketed at young people and it is causing significant harm and we just can’t stand by any longer and not speak up about it,” Chernos said.
Dozens of US states, including California and New York, are also suing Meta Platforms Inc. for harming young people and contributing to a youth mental health crisis by knowingly and deliberately designing features on Instagram and Facebook that addict children to its platforms.
The school boards in Canada suing are the Toronto District School Board, the Peel District School Board, the Toronto Catholic District School Board and the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board.
They are seeking damages in excess of $4 billion Canadian ($2.9 billion) for disruption to student learning and the education system.
A spokeswoman for Snap Inc., Tonya Johnson, said Snapchat helps its users stay connected with their friends.
“Snapchat opens directly to a camera — rather than a feed of content — and has no traditional public likes or comments,” she said. “While we will always have more work to do, we feel good about the role Snapchat plays in helping close friends feel connected, happy and prepared as they face the many challenges of adolescence.”
Representatives of Meta and ByteDance didn’t immediately respond to messages seeking comment.
Duncan Embury, a lawyer for the firm representing the boards, said there is a real addiction issue with the designed algorithms.
Embury said proper warnings are needed, age parameters need to change and there needs to be an increase in the level of resources school boards get to adapt to the new reality. He said the companies have knowingly and negligently designed their products to maximize the amount of time young people spend on their platforms at the expense of their well-being and education.
“There is an inability for students to focus,” he said.
The use of social media among teens is nearly universal in the US and many other parts of the world. Almost all teens ages 13 to 17 in the US report using a social media platform, with about a third saying they use social media “almost constantly,” according to the Pew Research Center.
In May, US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy called on tech companies, parents and caregivers to take “immediate action to protect kids now” from the harms of social media.
This week, Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill that will ban social media accounts for children under 14 and require parental permission for 14- and 15-year-olds. It takes effect Jan. 1 and is expected to face legal challenges.
No money will be paid to the attorneys handling the Canadian lawsuits unless they win.
Bus plunges off a bridge in South Africa, killing 45 people; 8-year-old child is lone survivor
- Authorities said the bus carrying worshippers was traveling from the neighboring country of Botswana to the town of Moria, which hosts a popular Easter pilgrimage
CAPE TOWN, South Africa: A bus carrying worshippers headed to an Easter festival plunged off a bridge on a mountain pass and burst into flames in South Africa on Thursday, killing at least 45 people, authorities said.
The only survivor of the crash was an 8-year-old child, who was receiving medical attention, according to authorities in the northern province of Limpopo. They said the child was seriously injured.
The Limpopo provincial government said the bus veered off the Mmamatlakala bridge and plunged 50 meters (164 feet) into a ravine before busting into flames.
Search operations were ongoing, the provincial government said, but many bodies were burned beyond recognition and still trapped inside the vehicle.
Authorities said they believe the bus was traveling from the neighboring country of Botswana to the town of Moria, which hosts a popular Easter pilgrimage. They said it appeared that the driver lost control and was one of the dead.
Minister of Transport Sindisiwe Chikunga was in Limpopo province for a road safety campaign and changed plans to visit the crash scene, the national Department of Transport said. She said there was an investigation underway into the cause of the crash and offered her condolences to the families of the victims.
The South African government often warns of the danger of road accidents during the Easter holidays, which is a particularly busy and dangerous time for road travel. More than 200 people died in road crashes during the Easter weekend last year.
The Zionist Christian Church has its headquarters in Moria and its Easter pilgrimage attracts hundreds of thousands of people from across South Africa and neighboring countries. This year is the first time the Easter pilgrimage to Moria is set to go ahead since the COVID-19 pandemic.
Macron says G20 must agree before inviting Putin to summit
BRASILIA: French President Emmanuel Macron said Thursday that members of the G20 would have to agree before Russian leader Vladimir Putin is invited to attend the group’s summit in Brazil in November.
“The meaning of this club is that there must be consensus with the 19 others. That will be a job for Brazilian diplomacy,” he said during a joint press conference in Brasilia with his counterpart Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
If such a meeting can be “useful, it must be done,” Macron said, though he warned division on the matter could scuttle any Russian invitation.
Brazil, the current chair of the G20 group — which represents 80 percent of the global economy — has opposed the US-led drive to isolate and punish Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, arguing that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Western countries share some of the blame for the war.
Putin missed last year’s G20 summit in the Indian capital New Delhi, avoiding possible political opprobrium and any risk of criminal detention under an International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant.
In September 2023, Lula said there was “no way” that Putin would be arrested if he attended the Rio de Janeiro summit.
Shortly after, he backtracked and said that it would be up to the justice system to decide on Putin’s eventual arrest and not his government.
Israel has not received everything it has asked for, top US general says
- Some Democrats and Arab American groups have criticized the Biden administration’s steadfast support of Israel, which they say provides it with a sense of impunity
WASHINGTON: The United States’ top general said on Thursday that Israel had not received every weapon it has asked for, in part because some of it could affect the US military’s readiness and there were capacity limitations.
Washington gives $3.8 billion in annual military assistance to Israel, its longtime ally. The United States has been rushing air defenses and munitions to Israel, but some Democrats and Arab American groups have criticized the Biden administration’s steadfast support of Israel, which they say provides it with a sense of impunity.
“Although we’ve been supporting them with capability, they’ve not received everything they’ve asked for,” said General Charles Q. Brown, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff.
“Some of that is because they’ve asked for stuff that we either don’t have the capacity to provide or not willing to provide, not right now,” Brown added, while speaking at an event hosted by the Defense Writers Group.
A spokesperson for Brown later on Thursday said his comments were in reference to “a standard practice before providing military aid to any of our allies and partners.”
“We assess US stockpiles and any possible impact on our own readiness to determine our ability to provide the requested aid,” Navy Captain Jereal Dorsey said in a statement.
“There is no change in US policy. The United States continues to provide security assistance to our ally Israel as they defend themselves from Hamas,” Dorsey added.
More than 32,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip by Israel’s devastating offensive, according to health authorities in the territory.
Israel retaliated following an attack by militant group Hamas on southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and abducting 253 hostages according to Israeli tallies.
The Israeli offensive prompted opposition from within Biden’s Democratic Party, leading thousands to vote “uncommitted” for him in recent party presidential primaries.
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin met with Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant in Washington earlier this week and the Pentagon said security assistance to Israel was discussed.
“It is a constant dialogue,” Brown said.