Swiss Police Identify Stabbing Suspect as Militant

Police seen in central Zurich, Switzerland. Reuters file photo
Police seen in central Zurich, Switzerland. Reuters file photo
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Swiss Police Identify Stabbing Suspect as Militant

Police seen in central Zurich, Switzerland. Reuters file photo
Police seen in central Zurich, Switzerland. Reuters file photo

Police have identified a Swiss woman who knifed a victim in the neck and grabbed another by the throat in a Lugano department store in the south of Switzerland on Tuesday as a known militant.

Federal prosecutors have called the incident in the Italian-speaking southern canton of Ticino a suspected terrorist attack and taken charge of the investigation.

The assailant is known to Fedpol from police investigations in 2017 with a militant background, the Federal Office of Police tweeted.

The suspect, a 28-year-old who lives in the area, was in custody after passersby subdued her until police could arrive.

Swiss media cited witnesses as saying she called out that she belonged to ISIS during the attack.

One victim sustained serious but not life-threatening injuries and another was lightly injured.

Switzerland has identified hundreds of residents deemed a threat and militants who have travelled to war zones.

Two men arrested in the town of Winterthur near Zurich this month over possible links to an extremist shooting attack in Vienna that killed four people on Nov. 2 visited the attacker in July.

In September, a man Swiss media dubbed the "Emir of Winterthur" and described as a leading militant in Switzerland was sentenced to 50 months in prison for ties to ISIS.

Federal prosecutors have said that a fatal stabbing of a Portuguese man in September in the town of Morges, in western Switzerland, was still being investigated for a possible "terrorist motive". A Swiss-Turkish national has been arrested.



Iran to Hold Nuclear Talks with Three European Powers in Geneva on Friday

Western countries successfully moved a resolution at the IAEA to censure Iran over its nuclear program - AFP
Western countries successfully moved a resolution at the IAEA to censure Iran over its nuclear program - AFP
TT

Iran to Hold Nuclear Talks with Three European Powers in Geneva on Friday

Western countries successfully moved a resolution at the IAEA to censure Iran over its nuclear program - AFP
Western countries successfully moved a resolution at the IAEA to censure Iran over its nuclear program - AFP

Iran plans to hold talks about its disputed nuclear program with three European powers on Nov. 29 in Geneva, Japan's Kyodo news agency reported on Sunday, days after the UN atomic watchdog passed a resolution against Tehran.
Iran reacted to the resolution, which was proposed by Britain, France, Germany and the United States, with what government officials called various measures such as activating numerous new and advanced centrifuges, machines that enrich uranium.
Kyodo said Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian's government was seeking a solution to the nuclear impasse ahead of the inauguration in January of US President-elect Donald Trump, Reuters reported.
A senior Iranian official confirmed that the meeting would go ahead next Friday, adding that "Tehran has always believed that the nuclear issue should be resolved through diplomacy. Iran has never left the talks".
In 2018, the then-Trump administration exited Iran's 2015 nuclear pact with six major powers and reimposed harsh sanctions on Iran, prompting Tehran to violate the pact's nuclear limits, with moves such as rebuilding stockpiles of enriched uranium, refining it to higher fissile purity and installing advanced centrifuges to speed up output.
Indirect talks between President Joe Biden's administration and Tehran to try to revive the pact have failed, but Trump said in his election campaign in September that "We have to make a deal, because the consequences are impossible. We have to make a deal".