BERLIN: German police detained on Tuesday two Afghan citizens accused of planning to attack police near the Swedish parliament in response to the burning of copies of the Qur’an, the Muslim holy book, federal prosecutors said.
The suspects, identified only as Afghan citizens Ibrahim M.G. and Ramin N., were detained in the eastern city of Gera, the federal prosecutor’s office said in a statement. The men were only identified by their first names and initial, according to German privacy laws.
The prosecutors said the Daesh group’s affiliate in Afghanistan tasked the suspects in mid-2023 with carrying out an attack in Europe in response to Qur’an burnings in Sweden and other countries.
The pair made preparations for an attack on police and other people near the parliament in the Swedish capital, Stockholm, “in close coordination” with Daesh members, including doing online research of the location and tried unsuccessfully to procure weapons, the statement said. The attack never materialized.
Anti-Islam activists have carried out a string of public desecrations of the Qur’an in Sweden, sparking outrage among Muslims around the world and threats from Islamic extremists. In October, a gunman killed two Swedish soccer fans before a match in Brussels.
Swedish authorities had raised the terror alert to its second-highest level in August. They were concerned of a similar escalation as the fury Denmark faced from Muslim countries in 2006, following the publication of newspaper caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.
Danish consulates and embassies were burned and the cartoonists faced death threats from radical Islamists. Danish officials’ attempts to explain how such caricatures were protected under freedom of speech were widely dismissed in the Muslim world.
Prosecutors said Ibrahim M. G. joined the Daesh affiliate in August 2023. Together with Ramin N., he had raised 2,000 euros ($2,170 ) in donations for the Daesh group to help a member jailed in northern Syria.
The Afghans are suspected of crimes including providing support to a terrorist organization, conspiracy to commit a crime, and infringements against trade laws.
German police detain 2 Afghans for plotting an attack near Swedish parliament over Qur’an burnings
https://arab.news/4rjv4
German police detain 2 Afghans for plotting an attack near Swedish parliament over Qur’an burnings
- The suspects, identified only as Afghan citizens Ibrahim M.G. and Ramin N., were detained in the eastern city of Gera
- Prosecutors said the Daesh group’s affiliate in Afghanistan tasked the suspects in mid-2023 with carrying out an attack in Europe in response to Qur’an burnings in Sweden
Trump says Zelensky ‘isn’t ready’ yet to accept US-authored proposal to end Russia-Ukraine war
- Trump said he was “disappointed” and suggested that the Ukrainian leader is holding up the talks from moving forward
- He also claimed Russia is “fine with it” even though Putin last week had said that aspects of Trump’s proposal were unworkable
KYIV, Ukraine: President Donald Trump on Sunday claimed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky “isn’t ready” to sign off on a US-authored peace proposal aimed at ending the Russia-Ukraine war.
Trump was critical of Zelensky after US and Ukrainian negotiators completed three days of talks on Saturday aimed at trying to narrow differences on the US administration’s proposal. But in an exchange with reporters on Sunday night, Trump suggested that the Ukrainian leader is holding up the talks from moving forward.
“I’m a little bit disappointed that President Zelensky hasn’t yet read the proposal, that was as of a few hours ago. His people love it, but he hasn’t,” Trump claimed in an exchange with reporters before taking part in the Kennedy Center Honors. The president added, “Russia is, I believe, fine with it, but I’m not sure that Zelensky’s fine with it. His people love it it. But he isn’t ready.”
To be certain, Russian President Vladimir Putin hasn’t publicly expressed approval for the White House plan. In fact, Putin last week had said that aspects of Trump’s proposal were unworkable, even though the original draft heavily favored Moscow.
Trump has had a hot-and-cold relationship with Zelensky since riding into a second White House term insisting that the war was a waste of US taxpayer money. Trump has also repeatedly urged the Ukrainians to cede land to Russia to bring an end to a now nearly four-year conflict he says has cost far too many lives.
Zelensky said Saturday he had a “substantive phone call” with the American officials engaged in the talks with a Ukrainian delegation in Florida. He said he had been given an update over the phone by US and Ukrainian officials at the talks.
“Ukraine is determined to keep working in good faith with the American side to genuinely achieve peace,” Zelensky wrote on social media.
Trump’s criticism of Zelensky came as Russia on Sunday welcomed the Trump administration’s new national security strategy in comments by the Kremlin spokesman published by Russia’s Tass news agency.
Dmitry Peskov said the updated strategic document, which spells out the administration’s core foreign policy interests, was largely in line with Moscow’s vision.
“There are statements there against confrontation and in favor of dialogue and building good relations,” he said, adding that Russia hopes this would lead to “further constructive cooperation with Washington on the Ukrainian settlement.”
The document released Friday by the White House said the US wants to improve its relationship with Russia after years of Moscow being treated as a global pariah and that ending the war is a core US interest to “reestablish strategic stability with Russia.”
Speaking on Saturday at the Reagan National Defense Forum, Trump’s outgoing Ukraine envoy, Keith Kellogg, said efforts to end the war were in “the last 10 meters.”
He said a deal depended on the two outstanding issues of “terrain, primarily the Donbas,” and the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant.
Russia controls most of Donbas, its name for the Donetsk and neighboring Luhansk regions, which, along with two southern regions, it illegally annexed three years ago. The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant is in an area that has been under Russian control since early in Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine and is not in service. It needs reliable power to cool its six shutdown reactors and spent fuel, to avoid any catastrophic nuclear incidents.
Kellogg, who is due to leave his post in January, was not present at the talks in Florida.
Separately, officials said the leaders of the United Kingdom, France and Germany would participate in a meeting with Zelensky in London on Monday.
As the three days of talks wrapped up, Russian missile, drone and shelling attacks overnight and Sunday killed at least four people in Ukraine.
A man was killed in a drone attack on Ukraine’s northern Chernihiv region Saturday night, local officials said, while a combined missile and drone attack on infrastructure in the central city of Kremenchuk caused power and water outages. Kremenchuk is home to one of Ukraine’s biggest oil refineries and is an industrial hub.
Kyiv and its Western allies say Russia is trying to cripple the Ukrainian power grid and deny civilians access to heat, light and running water for a fourth consecutive winter, in what Ukrainian officials call “weaponizing” the cold.
Three people were killed and 10 others wounded Sunday in shelling by Russian troops in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, according to the regional prosecutor’s office.
