MOSCOW: Russia’s foreign spy service said on Monday that it had received intelligence that the US military was grooming Islamist militants to attack targets in Russia and the former Soviet Union.
Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, headed by an ally of President Vladimir Putin, said it had intelligence that 60 such militants from groups affiliated with Daesh and Al-Qaeda had been recruited and were undergoing training at an American base in Syria.
“They will be tasked with preparing and carrying out terrorist attacks against diplomats, civil servants, law enforcement officers and personnel of the armed forces,” said the Foreign Intelligence Service, known by the initials SVR.
“Special attention is paid to attracting immigrants from the Russian North Caucasus and Central Asia,” the SVR said in a statement.
The agency did not publish the intelligence behind its assertion and Reuters was unable to independently verify it.
The SVR, once part of the mighty Soviet-era KGB, is headed by Sergei Naryshkin who met CIA Director William Burns last year in Ankara.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine pushed relations with the United States to the lowest level since the crises of the Cold War.
Putin casts the United States as an empire that has repeatedly refused to take into account Russian interests since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union. President Joe Biden casts Putin as an autocrat who is a major threat to the United States.
Russian spy service says US grooming militants to attack Russia
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Russian spy service says US grooming militants to attack Russia
- Militants from groups affiliated with Daesh and Al-Qaeda had been recruited and were undergoing training at an American base in Syria
France’s Le Pen insists party acted in ‘good faith’ at EU fraud appeal
- Le Pen said on her second day of questioning that even if her party broke the law, it was unintentional
- She also argued that the passage of time made it “extremely difficult” for her to prove her innocence
PARIS: French far-right leader Marine Le Pen told an appeals trial on Wednesday that her party acted in “good faith,” denying an effort to embezzle European Parliament funds as she fights to keep her 2027 presidential bid alive.
A French court last year barred Le Pen, a three-time presidential candidate from the far-right National Rally (RN), from running for office for five years over a fake jobs scam at the European institution.
It found her, along with 24 former European Parliament lawmakers, assistants and accountants as well as the party itself, guilty of operating a “system” from 2004 to 2016 using European Parliament funds to employ party staff in France.
Le Pen — who on Tuesday rejected the idea of an organized scheme — said on her second day of questioning that even if her party broke the law, it was unintentional.
“We were acting in complete good faith,” she said in the dock on Wednesday.
“We can undoubtedly be criticized,” the 57-year-old said, shifting instead the blame to the legislature’s alleged lack of information and oversight.
“The European Parliament’s administration was much more lenient than it is today,” she said.
Le Pen also argued that the passage of time made it “extremely difficult” for her to prove her innocence.
“I don’t know how to prove to you what I can’t prove to you, what I have to prove to you,” she told the court.
Eleven others and the party are also appealing in a trial to last until mid-February, with a decision expected this summer.
- Rules were ‘clear’ -
Le Pen was also handed a four-year prison sentence, with two years suspended, and fined 100,000 euros ($116,000) in the initial trial.
She now again risks the maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a one-million-euro ($1.16 million) fine if the appeal fails.
Le Pen is hoping to be acquitted — or at least for a shorter election ban and no time under house arrest.
On Tuesday, Le Pen pushed back against the argument that there was an organized operation to funnel EU funds to the far-right party.
“The term ‘system’ bothers me because it gives the impression of manipulation,” she said.
EU Parliament official Didier Klethi last week said the legislature’s rules were “clear.”
EU lawmakers could employ assistants, who were allowed to engage in political activism, but this was forbidden “during working hours,” he said.
If the court upholds the first ruling, Le Pen will be prevented from running in the 2027 election, widely seen as her best chance to win the country’s top job.
She made it to the second round in the 2017 and 2022 presidential polls, before losing to Emmanuel Macron. But he cannot run this time after two consecutive terms in office.
