Homeland Security News

German authorities confirmed on Monday that they had issued a re-entry ban against Sami A. (the full surnames of suspects in Germany are not published for legal reasons), a suspected former bodyguard for Osama bin Laden who was controversially deported from Germany to his native Tunisia last month.

A spokesperson for the city of Bochum said the re-entry ban was a normal procedure under European Union immigration law. Once a suspect has been deported, he or she is barred from re-entering any country within the EU's Schengen area.

The Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger newspaper first reported that Sami A. had been listed by security authorities as an undesirable person in the Schengen Information System database.

In 2012, it emerged that Sami A. had been living in the German city of Bochum for almost 20 years where, despite suspicions that he had trained with al-Qaeda militants and protected the group's leader bin Laden. According to reports he collected almost $1,365 a month in welfare payments during his time in Germany.

Read more:  USA Today

A detachment of Nigerian troops fired into the air on Sunday - at an airport in the north-eastern city of Maiduguri - to protest against their redeployment to the frontline of the conflict against Islamist militants.

Local media reported that the soldiers refused to board the plane that was to transfer them from Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state, to the town of Marte, close to the border with Niger.

Witnesses said the soldiers were shooting for around four hours from 18:30 local time (1730 GMT), news agency Reuters reports.

“We are angry and that is why we are shooting. Why are they taking us again to another place after spending about four years?” said a soldier, adding that they had previously been told they would only fight insurgents for a maximum of three years.

Read more:  BBC News

Jordan’s interior minister said on Monday militants behind an attack on police supported Islamic State, and investigations had revealed plans for more attacks on security and civilian targets.

Jordanian police said last week a homemade explosive device planted near a police van killed a policeman and injured six others.

Interior Minister Sameer al-Mobaideen said the militants did not belong to a group but subscribed to Islamic State ideology. “The investigations are secret and ongoing,” he told a news conference.

Source:  Reuters

White supremacists held a rally in Washington on Sunday, and almost no one but their opponents and the police showed up.

Jason Kessler, one of the organizers of last year’s violent and deadly “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, wanted to hold an anniversary demonstration there, but the city wouldn’t let him. So he brought his show to Washington, where he hoped 400 supporters would join him for a rally at Lafayette Square, across from the White House. Fewer than 40 turned out.

The group was met by thousands of protesters who filled their half of the leafy, seven-acre park chanting “Go home, Nazis!” “No Trump! No KKK! No fascist USA!” and “Black lives matter!” They drowned out whatever message Kessler and his small band of followers had hoped to deliver — and that was their goal.

For opponents, the day felt like a victory, albeit an often tense and angry one.

Samaj Calhoun, a Southwest Washington resident, came to protest the rally with friends to show they wouldn’t be intimidated by the white supremacists. Calhoun said she hopes the rest of the country watching the District sees “that we’re not afraid. And we can defend our city.”

City leaders and law enforcement officials were determined that the event would not be a repeat of the mayhem in ­Charlottesville last year, when city police and Virginia state troopers allowed white supremacists and neo-Nazis to clash in the streets with anti-hate protesters. Counterprotester Heather Heyer was killed when a man police say identified himself as a Nazi drove a car into a crowd. Two state troopers died when their helicopter crashed following a day of monitoring the civil disturbance.

A massive police presence Sunday kept the two sides separated, and outside of a confrontation between some antifa, or ­anti-fascist, protesters and police long after the rally had ended, there were no reports of violence. Police reported that one man was arrested after he assaulted a man wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat.

Read more:  Washington Post