Homeland Security News

A man who died when he rammed his car into a police van in Paris this week told people he joined a gun sports club to prepare as a jihadi fighter, France's top public prosecutor said on Thursday.

Prosecutor Francois Molins did not explain how the assailant he named as Adam D. managed for years to obtain gun permits and renew them, even after his name was put on a secret service list of potentially radicalized individuals.

It is a question that remains unanswered as investigators probe the latest of a string of attacks by Islamist assailants who have killed more than 230 people in France since early 2015.

Read more: Reuters

A New York man accused of attempting to travel to Syria to join the Islamic State was charged with one count of attempting to provide aid to the militant group Thursday after his arrest at Kennedy International Airport, authorities said.

Mohamed (Adam) Raishani, 30, was arrested Wednesday as he prepared to board a flight to Lisbon, federal prosecutors said. Raishani could face up to 20 years if convicted.

Raishani "acted on his own desire to wage violent jihad, planning to leave his family and life in New York City for the battlefields of the Middle East," Acting Manhattan U.S. Attorney Joon H. Kim said.

The criminal complaint alleges Raishani contacted someone in January about traveling abroad to join the Islamic State. The contact was actually a confidential source working for law enforcement. Raishani told the contact he had previously helped another man leave New York to join ISIS and wanted to go himself, the complaint alleges.

Read more: USA Today

The U.S. military said on Thursday it carried out an air strike in Yemen that killed Abu Khattab al Awlaqi, the emir for al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula's Shabwa province, along with two other militants.

"Al Awlaqi was a senior leader responsible for planning and conducting terrorist attacks against civilians," the U.S. military's Central Command said in a statement.

"He had significant influence throughout AQAP's terrorist stronghold, had ties and access to the group's other senior leaders, and was implicated in planning and leading efforts to exacerbate instability in southern Yemen."

Read more: Reuters

A car bomb targeting a police station killed at least seven people in Somalia's capital Mogadishu on Thursday, police said, and al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab said it was behind the attack, the second this week.

A Reuters witness saw bodies lying on the ground at the Waberi police station, near Maka al Mukarama road, the busiest street in Mogadishu. Cars were ruined and the building damaged.

"We carried seven dead people and 12 others injured from the scene," Abdikadir Abdirahman, director of the Amin ambulance service, told Reuters. Major Mohamed Hussein, a police officer, had earlier given a toll of four dead.

The blast came despite thousands of security personnel, including police, intelligence and military, being assigned to secure Mogadishu earlier this month.

On Tuesday, a car bomb attack on a government building in Mogadishu, also claimed by the al Shabaab militant group, killed at least 10 people.

"As you can see, the terrorists attacked the station which is now destroyed," Ahmed Mohamed, spokesman for the Mogadishu security forces told reporters at the scene.

Al Shabaab, which wants to force out African Union peacekeepers, oust the Western-backed government and impose its strict interpretation of Islam on Somalia, claimed responsibility for the attack.

Read more:  Reuters

A Canadian man from Tunisia shouted in Arabic before stabbing a police officer in the neck at a Michigan airport, and referenced people being killed overseas during the attack that’s now being investigated as an act of terrorism, federal and court officials said.

Amor Ftouhi, 49, of Montreal, was immediately taken into custody. A criminal complaint charging him with committing violence at an airport says Ftouhi asked an officer who subdued him why the officer didn’t kill him.

The attack Wednesday at Bishop International Airport in Flint, Michigan, is being investigated as an act of terrorism, but authorities have no indication at this time that the suspect was involved in a “wider plot,” said FBI Special Agent in Charge David Gelios.

“At this time we view him as a lone-wolf attacker,” Gelios said. “We have no information to suggest any training.”

The criminal complaint says Ftouhi stabbed airport police Lt. Jeff Neville with a large knife after yelling “Allahu akbar,” the Arabic phrase for “God is great.” According to the FBI, Ftouhi said something similar to “you have killed people in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan, and we are all going to die.”

More charges against Ftouhi could be filed as prosecutors take the case to a grand jury seeking an indictment, Gelios said. The Flint Journal, citing court officials, said that Ftouhi is a dual citizen of Canada and Tunisia.

Read more:  AP