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 A Frenchman detained last month with a cache of weapons had planned attacks during Euro 2016, according to Ukrainian police. The US State Department has issued a related Europe Travel Alert.
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The second Palestinian that the Israeli military killed after a stabbing attack against soldiers in March was 'executed' while prone, an Israeli rights group said on Monday.
The left-leaning B''Tselem group, which documents Israeli violations in the West Bank, said in a statement that an Israeli soldier shot Palestinian attacker Ramzi al-Qasrawi in the head while he lay on the ground with injuries from a prior gunshot, according to two Palestinian eyewitnesses, Nur Abu ‘Eishah and Amani Abu ‘Eishah.
Another Israeli soldier, Sgt. Elor Azaria, is on trial for the alleged killing of Qasrawi''s fellow attacker, Abdel Fatal al-Sharif, after footage showed him cocking his gun and shooting Sharif in the head while he laid prone on the floor following the attack in the West Bank city of Hebron.
The incident divided the Israeli public and the country''s political elite, with ultranationalist and far-right Israelis protesting against the government and military''s decision to allow Azaria to be prosecuted, alleging that the soldier was doing his duty.
The Israeli military denied B''Tselem''s claims and the accounts of the two eyewitnesses, saying that the soldier fired the fatal shots as Qasrawi carried out his attack.
'The claims by the B''Tselem organization are inconsistent with the findings of the operational investigation and conflict with the information the IDF has about this incident,' the army said in a statement.
'The shots fired at the terrorist were carried out in order to eliminate the threat while he was attacking the soldiers with a knife.'
The new allegation comes after the Israeli military lifted travel restrictions on the Tel Rumeida neighborhood of Hebron, allowing them to take testimonies from eyewitnesses.
Sarit Michaeli, spokesperson for B''Tselem, told Newsweek that the two eyewitnesses are volunteers for the group and had filmed 'sections' of the incident involving Qasrawi, but had not captured the moment an Israeli soldier killed him.
She says that the Israeli military police 'contacted one of them at least' and will meet with at least one of the eyewitnesses to have their version of events checked by the authorities. The eyewitnesses are adamant about what happened and are willing to continue with their testimonies despite the threat of prosecution if they are caught lying, Michaeli adds.
'We are convinced that they have it because we know that virtually every meter of Hebron city center is covered with military security cameras,' she says. 'The question is whether they will release it.'
Israeli authorities have released many clips of attacks by Palestinians against Israeli authorities but in some cases they have withheld the footage. She says that the Israeli authorities have the ability to confirm or deny the eyewitness accounts with the CCTV footage as both men 'are describing a particular sequence.'
According to Michaeli, the eyewitnesses allege that the sequence proceeded as follows: two Palestinians attack a soldier; a soldier shoots Qasrawi; Sharif runs away; an Israeli soldier runs after Sharif and shoots him before coming back to shoot the first assailant Qasrawi while he lay on the floor.
The Israeli military has an open-fire policy that allows soldiers to fire on assailants if they pose mortal danger. Michaeli says that B''Tselem''s interpretation is that 'if [an attacker] is on the floor, that does not mean you are entitled to continue shooting to kill.'
As the trial of Azaria continues, more details have started to emerge about the incident. The IDF''s main investigator charged last week that an ambulance driver who had arrived at
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A Frenchman detained with a large cache of arms was planning mass attacks during the Euro 2016 tournament in France, Ukraine's security agency says.
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Ukrainian authorities claim to have prevented 15 planned attacks that would have targeted the Euro 2016 football tournament in France.
Vasily Gritsak, head of Ukraine's state security service (SBU), said a French citizen detained last month at the border between Ukraine and Poland had been planning a string of attacks aimed at the championship.
The Frenchman was arrested after allegedly making contact with illegal armed groups to buy guns and explosives, Sky News reported.
'The Frenchman spoke negatively about his government's actions, mass immigration, the spread of Islam and globalization, and also talked about plans to carry out several terrorist attacks,' Gritsak told journalists, saying that alleged planned targets included Jewish and Muslim places of worship, Euronews reported.
'The SBU was able to prevent a series of 15 acts of terror [planned] for the eve and during the Euro soccer championship,' he said.
France has faced no shortage of problems in the run-up to the competition. Beyond security fears—tensions remain high in Paris following two large-scale attacks on the capital in November 2015—floods have swept parts of the country, and widespread strikes have threatened power and transport links.
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Just weeks after releasing the details of 3,000 Brooklynites, a hacker collective aligned to the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) has disseminated another hit list among its supporters on the privacy app Telegram.
The 800 names did not originate from a prime U.S. metropolitan hub though, but the rural southeastern state of Arkansas. The target? The Arkansas Library Association.
ISIS released the identities of 800 library workers from backwater towns in Arkansas last month, as well as their addresses, email addresses and telephone numbers. A small prize for a radical Islamist group that has plotted large-scale attacks in capital cities to further its aim of striking fear into the heart of Western 'crusaders,' the association is as obscure as it is an obvious choice for ISIS to target.
The group's cyber-wing has initiated a trend of hacking low-level sites and databases, releasing civilian details in longer lists with increasing frequency. It had previously released the details of military, governmental or diplomatic personnel. It is a key tenet of the group's amateurish cyber strategy of damaging Western interests and affecting civilians in areas of the Western world that the group is unable to reach.
ISIS publishes the lists and calls upon its supporters, more lone wolves than organized cells, to target those named in the list's home country. In the instance of the New York hit list, the NYPD or the FBI visited members to notify them and offer security advice.
But this latest hit list has left security services and members of this particular database breach unmoved. The group's limited success on the battlefield in its self-proclaimed caliphate in Iraq and Syria is being reflected in cyberspace. The Arkansas State Police is not working on the case and is leaving the follow-up to the Arkansas Library Association.
Bill Sadler, spokesperson for the Arkansas State Police, tells Newsweek : 'All I can tell you is that the Arkansas State Police is aware of the breach of the server. The Arkansas police does not have an open investigation and, as far as any notifications, that would be within the purview of the agency who lost the data.'
Instead of visits or direct contact to those on the list, the FBI chose to inform the Arkansas Library Association who would then contact those named. State and federal authorities essentially left the association to its own devices to inform the 800 people of the database hack, according to an email sent to members and obtained by Newsweek. No security advice was offered to the members of the association by the FBI nor the association itself.
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