Homeland Security News

A man acquitted of terrorism in 2018 after he was arrested with a metre-long samurai sword outside Buckingham Palace has been convicted of planning an attack at tourist hotspots in London.

Mohiussunnath Chowdhury, 28, from Luton, was found guilty of terrorism offences on Monday after the jury at Woolwich crown court heard he planned to kill members of the public at busy London locations including Madame Tussauds, the Pride parade and on an open-top tour bus.

In December 2018, Chowdhury was acquitted by an Old Bailey jury in relation to the 2017 attack outside the Queen’s London residence.

He had been armed with the sword and shouted “Allahu Akbar” but his lawyer successfully convinced the jury that he had been trying to get himself killed by a police officer, rather than intending to hurt anyone else.

However, a week after his release from remand in December 2018 following the acquittal, he posted online about the virtues of martyrdom and published an image of the police officer who had wrestled the sword away from him outside the Queen’s London residence, calling him a “cuck”.

Read more: The Guardian (UK)

Suspected militant Islamists have killed at least 30 people and abducted women and children in a raid in north-eastern Nigeria, officials say.

Most of the victims were travellers who were burnt to death while sleeping in their vehicles during an overnight stop, officials added

The attack took place in Auno town on a major highway in Borno State.

Militant Islamist group Boko Haram and its offshoots have waged a brutal insurgency in Nigeria since 2009.

The militants came in trucks mounted with heavy weapons, before killing, burning, and looting, state government spokesman Ahmad Abdurrahman Bundi was quoted by AFP news agency as saying. 

The assailants "killed not less than 30 people who are mostly motorists and destroyed 18 vehicles," the governor's office said in a statement. 

It also confirmed the abduction of women and children, but did not give a number. 

Residents said most of the victims were travelling to the state capital, Maiduguri, but were forced to sleep in Auno, about 25km (16 miles) away, because the military had shut the road leading into the city. 

Read more: BBC News
 

A mother driving with her son, a teenager on a motorbike and a mother trying to protect her two-year-old child are among the victims of Thailand's worst mass shooting.

As the country begins to mourn the 29 people who died in Sergeant Major Jakrapanth Thomma's killing spree in a shopping mall in Nakhon Ratchasima, details of some of his victims have started to emerge.

High school student Nachote Chotiklang was in the passenger seat as his mother drove past the gunman's vehicle.

He said that Thomma "got out of the car and fired into the window. At that, I ducked down and didn't do anything until I felt that car hit something. It hit a tree".

His mother had died.

A 13-year-old boy, Rachanon Kanchanamethi, nicknamed 'James Bond', was one of the soldier's first victims.

Read more: Sky News

Over 60 Germans are fighting in Islamist groups in Idlib, the last stronghold of Islamist fighters in northwest Syria, according to reports German broadcaster SWR shared Sunday.

SWR reviewed transcripts of instant messages sent by the fighters and determined that the individuals are largely members of "Hayat Tahrir al-Sham," a group with ties to al-Qaida. At least one person is working with the group "Junud al-Sham."

Using messenger apps like Telegram, the fighters solicited financial aid from supporters back in Germany by way of text, video and voice messages.

"My brothers," said one masked man in a video message, "if you could help, that would be very good. Even if you're in Germany, [by donating,] it's as if you've completed jihad."

Supporters are instructed to send donations to an individual in Turkey via Western Union bank transfer or to use cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.

German security agencies are aware of the practice and said they have been monitoring the use of cryptocurrency to finance terrorism for some time.

Idlib is the final holdout of Islamist rebels in Syria, who are backed by Turkish support. Syrian ruler Bashar Assad, with help from Russia, has vowed to retake control of the region.

Source: Deutsche Welle 
 

A man has been arrested after allegedly deliberately driving a van into a tent full of Trump supporters who were working to register new voters at a shopping center parking lot.

The incident occurred on Saturday afternoon in the Kernan Village Shopping Center in eastern Jacksonville, Florida, when a man, later identified by the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office as 27-year-old Gregory Timm, allegedly drove a van through a tent where people were working to register voters. The driver narrowly missed several people in the tent and fled the scene after the incident by car.

Images posted on Twitter by the Duval County GOP managed to take a pictures of a multi-colored brown and gold van fleeing in the aftermath of the incident.

Read more: ABC News