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’s Khamenei Calls for Death Sentence for Israeli Leaders

A handout picture provided by the office of Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei shows him addressing the crowd during a meeting with members of the Basij volunteer militia in Tehran on November 25, 2024. (KHAMENEI.IR / AFP)
A handout picture provided by the office of Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei shows him addressing the crowd during a meeting with members of the Basij volunteer militia in Tehran on November 25, 2024. (KHAMENEI.IR / AFP)
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Iran’s Khamenei Calls for Death Sentence for Israeli Leaders

A handout picture provided by the office of Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei shows him addressing the crowd during a meeting with members of the Basij volunteer militia in Tehran on November 25, 2024. (KHAMENEI.IR / AFP)
A handout picture provided by the office of Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei shows him addressing the crowd during a meeting with members of the Basij volunteer militia in Tehran on November 25, 2024. (KHAMENEI.IR / AFP)

The supreme leader of Iran, which backs the Hamas and Hezbollah fighters combating Israel in Gaza and Lebanon, said on Monday that death sentences should be issued for Israeli leaders, not arrest warrants.

Ali Khamenei was commenting on a decision by the International Criminal Court to issue arrest warrants on Thursday for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his former defense chief and a Hamas leader, Ibrahim Al-Masri.

"They issued an arrest warrant, that's not enough... Death sentence must be issued for these criminal leaders", Khamenei said, referring to the Israeli leaders.

In their decision, the ICC judges said there were reasonable grounds to believe Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant were criminally responsible for acts including murder, persecution and starvation as a weapon of war as part of a "widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population of Gaza".

The decision was met with outrage in Israel, which called it shameful and absurd. Gaza residents expressed hope it would help end the violence and bring those responsible for war crimes to justice.

Israel has rejected the jurisdiction of the Hague-based court and denies war crimes in Gaza.

The warrant for a Hamas leader, Ibrahim Al-Masri, lists charges of mass killings during the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel that triggered the war on the long-blockaded Palestinian enclave, and also charges of rape and the taking of hostages.

Israel has said it killed Masri, also known as Mohammed Deif, in an airstrike in July but Hamas has neither confirmed nor denied this.