The Malta Independent 7 June 2024, Friday
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Italy expels 9 suspected jihadis, police release 3 suspects arrested in France

Associated Press Sunday, 18 January 2015, 15:27 Last update: about 10 years ago

Italy says it has expelled nine suspected jihadis since late December and is vowing more expulsions in a heightened terrorism crackdown.

Interior Minister Angelino Alfano told reporters Sunday that the expelled include five Tunisians and citizens from Turkey, Egypt, Morocco and Pakistan. The expulsions to their countries of origin began before the Jan. 7 terror attack in Paris.

Alfano said the nine long held residency permits and included people who supported, and recruited members for, the Islamic State group and who "radicalized themselves on the Web."

In addition, Italy has identified 59 people who have traveled from Italy to Syria to fight, including five Italian citizens and two with double-citizenship, Alfano said.

He said Italy has put "far more than 100" persons suspected of jihadi activities under intense scrutiny.

French police have released three women arrested Friday and will continue to interrogate nine others who were detained in an anti-terror sweep connected to last week's attacks in Paris that has put Europe on high alert.

Paris prosecutor spokesman Denis Fauriat said the nine suspects will have their interrogations prolonged by 48 hours, a step allowed under France's tough anti-terror laws.

Police in France, Germany, Belgium and Ireland have arrested dozens of suspects in recent days as part of the crackdown on terrorism sparked by last week's bloody spree in and around Paris, in which brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi and their friend Amedy Coulibaly killed 17 people at the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, a kosher grocery, and elsewhere.

Fallout from the attacks has spread around the world. Demonstrations in support of the murdered Charlie Hebdo journalists have been held in countries from the United States to Brazil, and violent protests against the magazine's depictions of the Prophet Muhammad have taken place in Niger, Pakistan and Algeria.

French authorities banned an anti-Islamist demonstration in Paris Sunday, and a German group protesting what it calls "the Islamization of the West" called off a rally planned in the eastern city of Dresden on Monday after a terrorist threat against one of its organizers.

Meanwhile, Italy's interior minister said that nine suspected jihadis have been expelled from the Mediterranean country since December, and vowed more expulsions in a heightened crackdown on terrorism.

In Belgium, police on Thursday launched a vast anti-terrorism sweep in and around Brussels and the eastern industrial city of Verviers, which left two suspects dead. Police say the suspects were within hours of implementing a plan to kill police.

On Saturday, soldiers fanned out to guard possible terror targets in Belgium while police in Greece detained at least two terrorism suspects.

Authorities say there was no apparent link between the foiled plots in Belgium and the terror attacks in Paris.

President Francois Hollande said France was "waging war" on terrorism and it showed on the streets of Paris and elsewhere, where 122,000 police and well-armed troops have been deployed to protect the country.

Two of the three terrorists responsible for the attacks in France were buried over the weekend. Said Kouachi was buried in Reims in eastern France and his younger brother Cherif was buried in a suburb of Paris. Both were given anonymous graves in a bid to prevent their tombs from being turned into shrines for radicals.

There has been no word on burial plans for Coulibaly, the third Paris gunman who murdered five people before he was killed by police Jan. 9.

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