Homeland Security News

A suspected supporter of Islamic State stabbed and wounded three Indonesian police on Thursday in what appeared to be the latest violence inspired by the militant group in the world's biggest Muslim-majority nation.

The man also threw a pipe bomb which failed to explode during the rush hour attack in Tangerang, on the outskirts of Jakarta, police said.  He was shot and died of his wounds, a police spokesman said, while the three victims were being treated in hospital.  A second pipe bomb and a large IS sticker were found at the scene, police said.

Read more: Reuters

A predawn attack on a French policeman’s home, the killing of a priest during Mass and a car bomb planted near Notre Dame Cathedral in recent months were plots that appeared isolated until investigators discovered a common thread.

Their authors had all allegedly been in contact with a man whom authorities identify as 29-year-old  Rachid Kassim.

From somewhere in Islamic State-held territory in Iraq or Syria, authorities say, the French national had used the encrypted Telegram chat app and other social-media tools to contact people back home—mainly French teenagers who are believed to have little or no previous connection to the terror group or each other—and instruct them on how to mount attacks.

Read more: Wall Street Journal

A high-profile terrorism trial has kicked off in Russia's mostly Muslim-populated region of Tatarstan.  A military court in the regional capital, Kazan, started hearings into the case on October 20 against nine men charged with terrorism-related offenses.  The men, all residents of Tatarstan's central city of Chistopol, are accused of being members of the so-called Chistopol Jamaat radical Islamist group.

Investigators say the group is behind the July 2012 attacks in Kazan in which Tatarstan's Grand Mufti Ildus Faizov was seriously injured and his former deputy, Valiulla Yakupov, was killed.  They are also accused of carrying out seven arson attacks against Orthodox churches in Tatarstan and a handmade-missile attack against a chemical plant in 2013.

Read more: Radio Free Europe

A U.S. service member died on Thursday from wounds sustained in an improvised explosive device blast in northern Iraq, the U.S.-led military coalition said in a statement.  A U.S. defense official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the incident took place near the northern Iraqi city of Mosul. 

Roughly 5,000 U.S. forces are in Iraq. More than 100 of them are embedded with Iraqi and Kurdish Peshmerga forces involved with the Mosul offensive, advising commanders and helping them ensure coalition air power hits the right targets, officials have said. 

Read more: NBC News

A Hungarian man has been arrested on suspicion of detonating a bomb in Budapest last month which seriously injured two police officers, authorities said Thursday.  The young male suspect with no prior criminal record was arrested in the town of Keszthely, 190 kilometres (118 miles) southwest of Budapest on Wednesday afternoon.  He is believed to have acted alone in the September 24 explosion, Keresztes said.

A female policewoman, 23, and her male colleague, 26, had been on foot patrol in downtown Budapest when the homemade, shrapnel-packed device detonated.

Read more: World Bulletin