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Spanish Police Kill Algerian Man who Stormed Police Station

Several Mossos d'Esquadra SWAT police officers take part in the search of the residential building where the Algerian man lived in the town Cornella de Llobregat, in Barcelona, northeastern Spain, 20 August 2018. EPA/Alejandro Garcia
Several Mossos d'Esquadra SWAT police officers take part in the search of the residential building where the Algerian man lived in the town Cornella de Llobregat, in Barcelona, northeastern Spain, 20 August 2018. EPA/Alejandro Garcia
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Spanish Police Kill Algerian Man who Stormed Police Station

Several Mossos d'Esquadra SWAT police officers take part in the search of the residential building where the Algerian man lived in the town Cornella de Llobregat, in Barcelona, northeastern Spain, 20 August 2018. EPA/Alejandro Garcia
Several Mossos d'Esquadra SWAT police officers take part in the search of the residential building where the Algerian man lived in the town Cornella de Llobregat, in Barcelona, northeastern Spain, 20 August 2018. EPA/Alejandro Garcia

Catalonia regional police officers on Monday shot dead an Algerian man who entered a police station in Cornella, near Barcelona.

Abdelouahab Taib entered the station just before 6 am "to attack the officers" and was "shot down", police said on Twitter.

Anti-terrorism police sources said the man, a 29-year-old Algerian who lives in the area, had shouted "Allahu akbar" as he entered the station.

Officers searched the man's home, which was located just a few hundred meters from the site of the attack.

Taib had been living in Spain for several years and had a foreigners' identity number. Police sources confirmed his neighbor’s accounts that he had begun divorce proceedings.

They also said he had no criminal record.

According to the neighbors, Taib had moved to the neighborhood around two years ago after having a relationship with a Spanish woman, who later converted to Islam.

The woman had two children from her former husband, an Asian, who also lived in the same apartment, the neighbors said.

Witnesses said that police took the woman for investigation while her children were away on summer vacation with their father.

Commissioner Rafel Comes, the second-in-command of the Catalan regional police, told reporters that police are treating the case as a terrorist attack "for the moment" because the incident was "extremely serious," involving a "premeditated" attack that intended to kill police.

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US Agency Focused on Foreign Disinformation Shuts Down

The State Department's Global Engagement Center has faced scrutiny and criticism from Republican lawmakers and Elon Musk. Mandel NGAN / AFP
The State Department's Global Engagement Center has faced scrutiny and criticism from Republican lawmakers and Elon Musk. Mandel NGAN / AFP
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US Agency Focused on Foreign Disinformation Shuts Down

The State Department's Global Engagement Center has faced scrutiny and criticism from Republican lawmakers and Elon Musk. Mandel NGAN / AFP
The State Department's Global Engagement Center has faced scrutiny and criticism from Republican lawmakers and Elon Musk. Mandel NGAN / AFP

A leading US government agency that tracks foreign disinformation has terminated its operations, the State Department said Tuesday, after Congress failed to extend its funding following years of Republican criticism.
The Global Engagement Center, a State Department unit established in 2016, shuttered on Monday at a time when officials and experts tracking propaganda have been warning of the risk of disinformation campaigns from US adversaries such as Russia and China, AFP reported.
"The State Department has consulted with Congress regarding next steps," it said in a statement when asked what would happen to the GEC's staff and its ongoing projects following the shutdown.
The GEC had an annual budget of $61 million and a staff of around 120. Its closing leaves the State Department without a dedicated office for tracking and countering disinformation from US rivals for the first time in eight years.
A measure to extend funding for the center was stripped out of the final version of the bipartisan federal spending bill that passed through the US Congress last week.
The GEC has long faced scrutiny from Republican lawmakers, who accused it of censoring and surveilling Americans.
It also came under fire from Elon Musk, who accused the GEC in 2023 of being the "worst offender in US government censorship [and] media manipulation" and called the agency a "threat to our democracy."
The GEC's leaders have pushed back on those views, calling their work crucial to combating foreign propaganda campaigns.
Musk had loudly objected to the original budget bill that would have kept GEC funding, though without singling out the center. The billionaire is an advisor to President-elect Donald Trump and has been tapped to run the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), tasked with reducing government spending.
In June, James Rubin, special envoy and coordinator for the GEC, announced the launch of a multinational group based in Warsaw to counter Russian disinformation on the war in neighboring Ukraine.
The State Department said the initiative, known as the Ukraine Communications Group, would bring together partner governments to coordinate messaging, promote accurate reporting of the war and expose Kremlin information manipulation.
In a report last year, the GEC warned that China was spending billions of dollars globally to spread disinformation and threatening to cause a "sharp contraction" in freedom of speech around the world.