Homeland Security News

Authorities said Thursday that they prevented an "unimaginable tragedy" by foiling a teenager's elaborate plot to kill his family and bomb the junior and senior high school in the southern Minnesota city of Waseca.

Police arrested the 17-year-old suspect Tuesday and charged him in juvenile court Thursday with four counts of attempted first-degree murder, six counts of possessing explosive or incendiary devices and two counts of criminal damage to property. The charges say he told police he intended to kill "as many students as he could."

Capt. Kris Markeson told reporters that authorities believe the teenager was acting alone and would have carried out the attack in the next few weeks if he had not been caught. Markeson said he was disturbed by the amount of guns and other material the youth obtained. He said he could not divulge if specific students were targeted. He said police were tipped by a resident who reported a suspicious person at a self-storage facility.

"This case is a classic example of citizens doing the right thing in calling the police when things seem out of place. By doing the right thing, (an) unimaginable tragedy has been prevented," Markeson said.

Read More:  USA Today

A car bomb attack has killed at least 19 people and injured 60 more in the Nigerian capital Abuja, officials say.  The explosion happened in the suburb of Nyanya, close to a bus station where at least 70 people died in a bomb blast on 14 April.  Witnesses said the explosion targeted a police checkpoint near a bus station.

No group has said it carried out Thursday's attack. The Islamist militant group Boko Haram said it was behind the fatal explosion last month.

REad More:  BBC News

At least 18 people, including 11 children, have been killed in two suicide bombings in the Syrian province of Hama, state media has reported.  It said the "terrorist explosions" took place in Jibrin - north-east of Hama city - and al-Humeiri.  The villages are under the control of the government.

The attack comes days after scores of people were killed and injured in explosions in government-controlled parts of the central city of Homs.

There has so far been no claim of responsibility for the bombings, correspondents say, but al-Qaeda affiliated rebels of the Nusra Front have carried out several car bombings in recent weeks.

Read More:  BBC News

Five people were killed and at least 10 wounded when militiamen tried to storm Libyan government security headquarters in Benghazi, army officials said, triggering a firefight that lasted more than a hour.  The officials said the attackers were probably members of an Islamist militia.

Libya's central government is struggling to control armed groups, militias and brigades of former rebels who helped oust Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 and now refuse to disarm.  Special forces in Libya's second-largest city, a port that dominates the country's volatile eastern region, have often clashed with the Islamist group Ansar al-Sharia - listed as a terrorist organization by Washington.

Car bombings and assassinations of soldiers and police have become common in Benghazi, where a suicide bomber detonated an explosives-packed minibus outside a special forces camp on Tuesday, killing two people and wounding two more.

Most countries have closed their consulates in the city and some foreign airlines have stopped flying there since the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans were killed in an Islamist militant attack in September 2012.

Source:  Reuters