German far-right group planned Christchurch-style mosque attacks
The group, 12 of whom were detained on Friday, wanted to attack Muslim places of worship during prayers
The alleged leader of the group, which was known to the authorities and had been under observation, had detailed his plans at a meeting organized with his accomplices last week
Updated 17 February 2020
AFP
BERLIN: Members of a far-right group arrested in Germany as part of a massive counter-terrorism investigation were planning large-scale attacks on mosques similar to the ones carried out in New Zealand last year, media reported on Sunday.
The group, 12 of whom were detained on Friday, wanted to attack Muslim places of worship during prayers, Der Spiegel magazine and the daily Bild said.
They planned to imitate the attacks in Christchurch in New Zealand in which 51 people were killed at two mosques and intended to use semi-automatic weapons.
The alleged leader of the group, which was known to the authorities and had been under observation, had detailed his plans at a meeting organized with his accomplices last week.
Investigators learned about it from someone who had infiltrated the group, the two publications said.
Investigators launched the raids to determine whether the suspects already had weapons or other supplies that could be used in an attack.
German authorities have turned increased attention to the country’s underground extreme right scene since the murder of conservative local politician Walter Luebcke last June and an October attack on a synagogue in eastern city Halle.
Nigerian villagers are rattled by US airstrikes that made their homes shake and the sky glow red
Updated 4 sec ago
JABO: Sanusi Madabo, a 40-year-old farmer in the Nigerian village of Jabo, was preparing for bed on Thursday night when he heard a loud noise that sounded like a plane crashing. He rushed outside his mud house with his wife to see the sky glowing a bright red. The light burned bright for hours, Madabo said: “It was almost like daytime.” He did not learn until later that he had witnessed a USattack on an alleged camp of the militant Daesh group. US President Donald Trump announced late Thursday that the United States had launched a “powerful and deadly strike” against Daesh militants in Nigeria. The Nigerian government has since confirmed that it cooperated with the US government in its strike. A panicked village Nigerian government spokesperson Mohammed Idris said Friday that the strikes were launched from the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean shortly after midnight and involved “16 GPS-guided precision” missiles and also MQ-9 Reaper drones. Idris said the strikes targeted areas used as “staging grounds by foreign” Daesh fighters who had sneaked into Nigeria from the Sahel, the southern fringe of Africa’s vast Sahara Desert. The government did not release any casualty figures among the militants. Residents of Jabo, a village in the northwestern Nigerian state of Sokoto, spoke to The Associated Press on Friday about panic and confusion among the villagers following the strikes, which they said hit not far from Jabo’s outskirts. There were no casualties among the villagers. They said that Jabo has never been attacked as part of the violence the US says is widespread — though such attacks regularly occur in neighboring villages. Abubakar Sani, who lives on the edge of the village, recalled the “intense heat” as the strikes hit. “Our rooms began to shake, and then fire broke out,” he told the AP. “The Nigerian government should take appropriate measures to protect us as citizens,” he added. “We have never experienced anything like this before.” It’s a ‘new phase of an old conflict’ The strikes are the outcome of a months long tense diplomatic clash between the West African nation and the US The Trump administration has said Nigeria is experiencing a genocide of Christians, a claim the Nigerian government has rejected. However, Nigeria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs now said the strikes resulted from intelligence sharing and strategic coordination between the two governments. Yusuf Tuggar, Nigeria’s foreign minister, called the airstrikes a “new phase of an old conflict” and said he expected more strikes to follow. “For us, it is something that has been ongoing,” Tuggar added, referring to attacks that have targeted Christians and Muslims in Nigeria for years. Bulama Bukarti, a security analyst on sub-Saharan Africa, said the residents’ fear is compounded by a lack of information. Nigerian security forces have since cordoned off the area of the strikes and access was not allowed. Bukarti said transparency would go a long way to calm the local residents. “The more opaque the governments are, the more panic there will be on the ground, and that is what will escalate tensions.” Foreign fighters operate in Nigeria Analysts say the strikes might have been intended for the Lakurawa group, a relatively new entrant to Nigeria’s complex security crisis. The group’s first attack was recorded around 2018 in the northwestern region before the Nigerian government officially announced its presence last year. The composition of the group has been documented by security researchers as primarily consisting of foreigners from the Sahel. However, experts say ties between the Lakurawa group and Daesh are unproven. The Islamic State West African Province — a Daesh affiliate in Nigeria — has its strongholds in the northeastern part of the country, where it is currently involved in a power struggle with its parent organization, Boko Haram. “What might have happened is that, working with the American government, Nigeria identified Lakurawa as a threat and identified camps that belong to the group,” Bukarti said. Still, some local people feel vulnerable. Aliyu Garba, a Jabo village leader, told the AP that debris left after the strikes was scattered, and that residents had rushed to the scene. Some picked up pieces of the debris, hoping for valuable metal to trade, and Garba said he fears they could get hurt. The strikes rattled 17-year-old Balira Sa’idu, who has been preparing for her upcoming marriage. “I am supposed to be thinking about my wedding, but right now I am panicking,” she said. “The strike has changed everything. My family is afraid, and I don’t even know if it is safe to continue with the wedding plan in Jabo.”
