Poland Thwarts Planned Attacks on Muslims

Police officers investigate the site of a stabbing in Warsaw, Poland, April 11, 2019. Agencja Gazeta/Adam Stepien via REUTERS
Police officers investigate the site of a stabbing in Warsaw, Poland, April 11, 2019. Agencja Gazeta/Adam Stepien via REUTERS
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Poland Thwarts Planned Attacks on Muslims

Police officers investigate the site of a stabbing in Warsaw, Poland, April 11, 2019. Agencja Gazeta/Adam Stepien via REUTERS
Police officers investigate the site of a stabbing in Warsaw, Poland, April 11, 2019. Agencja Gazeta/Adam Stepien via REUTERS

Two members of an "extremist group" suspected of planning bomb and gun attacks on Muslims have been arrested in Poland, the security services announced Wednesday.

Officers arrested the two suspects in Warsaw and in the northwest city of Szczecin, Stanislaw Zaryn, of the country's internal security service (ABW), told Agence France Presse.

They seized chemicals that could have been used to make large quantities of explosives after searching locations in the center, south and northwest of the country.

"The arrests are the result of an intelligence-gathering exercise by the ABW about an extremist group whose aim was to terrorize people" of the Muslim faith in Poland, said a statement from the agency.

"These are the first two arrests of members of this group, which was preparing acts of violence in Poland," Zaryn said.

While he did not name the group involved in this new plot or go into details of what they were planning, he said they had been inspired by attacks carried out by right-wing extremists Anders Breivik and Brenton Tarrant.

Breivik used a truck bomb and then guns to kill 77 people, many of them young people, in Norway in July 2011.

Australian Tarrant killed or wounded dozens of Muslims in an attack on two mosques in New Zealand in March this year.

There are around 20,000 Muslims in Poland, a country of 38 million people, most of them Catholic.



Italy Says No US Extradition Request for Detained Iranian Businessman So Far

A seagull stands in front of an Italian flag flying at half-mast on the Altare della Patri-Vittorio Emanuele II monument in Rome, Tuesday, March 31, 2020. (AFP Photo)
A seagull stands in front of an Italian flag flying at half-mast on the Altare della Patri-Vittorio Emanuele II monument in Rome, Tuesday, March 31, 2020. (AFP Photo)
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Italy Says No US Extradition Request for Detained Iranian Businessman So Far

A seagull stands in front of an Italian flag flying at half-mast on the Altare della Patri-Vittorio Emanuele II monument in Rome, Tuesday, March 31, 2020. (AFP Photo)
A seagull stands in front of an Italian flag flying at half-mast on the Altare della Patri-Vittorio Emanuele II monument in Rome, Tuesday, March 31, 2020. (AFP Photo)

The United States has not submitted any formal request of extradition for an Iranian businessman Mohammad Abedini detained in Milan, Italy's justice minister said in an interview published on Thursday.
"The matter of Abedini is purely legal ... regardless of the (freeing of Italian journalist) Cecilia Sala. It is premature to talk of extradition, also because no formal request has been sent to our ministry so far," Justice Minister Carlo Nordio told daily La Stampa.
Abedini is wanted by the United States on suspicion of involvement in a drone strike against US forces in Jordan. Iran has denied involvement and said last week the detention of the Iranian national amounted to hostage-taking.
His arrest has been linked to the detention three days later of Italian reporter Cecilia Sala, who was seized in Tehran on Dec. 19 while working under a regular journalistic visa and freed on Jan. 8.