Up to 80, including children, killed as truck plows into crowd in French resort city of Nice

NICE, France --Up to 80 people were killed when a truck plowed into a crowd watching a Bastille Day fireworks display in the southern French resort of Nice late Thursday.

French President Francois Hollande, in a televised address, said "several children" were among the dead as he extended the state of emergency in the country for three months, stressing the "terrorist nature" of the attack was "undeniable."

The latest death toll, which had steadily risen since the original estimate of 60, was given by French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve who also said 18 of the estimated hundred injured were in a "critical condition."

Nice prosecutor Jean-Michel Pretre said the truck drove two kilometers through a large crowd that was watching the fireworks.

The driver had also opened fire on the crowd, local government chief Christian Estrosi told BFM TV, and weapons and grenades were found inside the truck after he was killed.

If confirmed as an act of terror, the incident will be the third major attack on French soil in 18 months -- with several smaller-scale jihadist killings also having taken place.

Identity papers belonging to a 31-year-old French-Tunisian were found inside the truck, a police source said.

"The identification of the truck driver is still underway," said the source. The identity papers indicate the man is a resident of Nice.

The French government denied there was a hostage-taking incident after the attack.

"There is no hostage-taking," interior ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet told AFP, denying dozens of rumors following the incident. "An individual drove a truck into the crowd. He was killed by police."

"Investigations are currently under way to establish if the individual acted alone or if he had accomplices who might have fled," Brandet said.

Anti-terrorism investigators have taken over the probe, prosecutors said.

Sub-prefect Sebastien Humbert described the incident as a clear criminal attack, although the driver was not yet identified. Residents of the Mediterranean city close to the Italian border were advised to stay indoors. There was no sign of any other attack.

"Dear Nicois," local mayor Christian Estrosi tweeted, "The driver of a truck appears to have killed dozens of people. Stay at home for the time being. More news to follow."

The incident comes as France remains badly shaken by November 2015 attacks which killed 130 people at the Bataclan concert hall in Paris and nightspots across the city.

An AFP reporter described seeing a white truck driving at high speed onto the famed Promenade des Anglais as people were leaving.

"We saw people hit and bits of debris flying around," he said.

Terrified pedestrians screamed as they fled the area. "It was absolute chaos," he added.

Regional newspaper Nice Matin quoted its reporter at the scene saying there were many injured people and blood on the street. It published a photograph of a damaged, long-distance delivery truck, which it said was riddled with bullets and images of emergency services treating the injured.

Damien Allemand, the paper's correspondent, was quoted as saying: "People are running. It's panic. He rode up onto the Prom and piled into the crowd ... There are people covered in blood. There must be many injured."

Social media carried images of people lying apparently lifeless in pools of blood.

US President Barack Obama condemned "what appears to be a horrific terrorist attack", although no group had claimed responsibility for the incident.

US government agencies have received constant reports of Islamic State threats to attack France and those threats are regarded as current, a US security official said. However, two US officials said they had no information at this point about whether militants were involved in the Nice incident.

CNN said it has spoken to a witness, identified as an American pilot, who saw the truck ramming the crowd. The witness said the driver mowed people down, accelerating as he hit them. The witness said there was only one person in the truck.

Local mayor Estrosi has warned in the past of the risk of Islamist attacks in the region, following Islamic State bloodshed in Paris and Brussels over the past 18 months.

French President Francois Hollande, who was in the south of France at the time, had hours earlier said a state of emergency put in place after the Paris attacks in November would not be extended when it was due to expire on July 26.

"We can't extend the state of emergency indefinitely, it would make no sense. That would mean we're no longer a republic with the rule of law applied in all circumstances," Hollande told journalists in a traditional Bastille Day interview.

source: interaksyon.com

Two gunmen dead in Indian air base attack - police

PATHANKOT, India - Two suspected Islamic insurgents were killed Sunday when fighting flared up again at an Indian air force base, a senior police officer said, a day after the initial bloody raid on the base close to Pakistan.

Seven soldiers and four attackers were earlier confirmed killed during the assault on the Pathankot base in the northern state of Punjab, which triggered a 14-hour gunbattle Saturday.

The attack -- a rare targeting of an Indian military installation outside disputed Kashmir -- threatens to undermine improving relations with Pakistan.

It came just about a week after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid a surprise visit to Pakistan, the first by an Indian premier in 11 years

Security officials suspect the gunmen belong to the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed, the group that staged the 2001 attack on the Indian parliament which brought the two countries to the brink of war.

Indian Home Minister Rajnath Singh Saturday tweeted "all five terrorists" have been killed but security officials at the site had found only four bodies.

Early Sunday afternoon security forces came under heavy fire inside the base during a search for munitions and possible militants.

The police officer told AFP on condition of anonymity the two militants were killed four hours after the first contact was made Sunday. But the search would continue before the base was declared safe.

"Both have been killed. We are yet to retrieve their bodies," the officer said.

The base commander, J S Dhamoon, told reporters separately the operation was close to completion but gave no information on any fresh casualties.

The Pathankot air base houses dozens of jet fighters and is important for its strategic location about 50 kilometres (30 miles) from the Pakistan border.

Rajiv Mehrishi, a top home ministry official, said troops and police had foiled the aim of the intruders to damage equipment at the base.

"Due to active intelligence and quick action taken by forces we were able to ensure there was no damage to the assets," Mehrishi told reporters in New Delhi.

Mehrishi said seven security personnel were killed and 20 injured but declined to give any details of Sunday's gunbattle.

Among the military dead was a lieutenant-colonel in the elite National Security Guard, a commando unit. Also killed was Subedar Fateh Singh, a gold medallist at the 1995 Commonwealth Shooting Championships in New Delhi, an air force spokeswoman said.

In July three gunmen said to be Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba militants killed seven people including four policemen in an attack in the Sikh-majority state of Punjab.

The possible involvement of Pakistan-based militants in the latest raid could be a setback for peace overtures between the nuclear-armed rivals, who have fought three wars since independence in 1947.

Modi Saturday termed the attackers as "enemies of humanity" but did not blame Pakistan.

Islamabad, meanwhile, moved quickly to condemn the attack which it described as a "terrorist incident".

The US State Department termed the assault "a heinous" terrorist attack and urged the two rivals to work together to hunt down those responsible.

Modi's December 25 visit to the Pakistani city of Lahore to meet his counterpart Nawaz Sharif indicated a potential thaw in tensions, and the foreign secretaries of both countries are scheduled to meet in Islamabad this month.

source: interaksyon.com

London attack mirrors plot to behead Muslim soldier

London (CNN) -- The attack on a soldier hacked to death on a London street has echoes of other plots on British soil in recent years.

The victim of Wednesday's attack in Woolwich was a serving soldier based at a nearby barracks, London police say, and the UK government is treating it as a suspected terrorist attack.

In 2007 four men were imprisoned over a plot to kidnap and kill a British Muslim soldier on leave and behead him in a Birmingham garage. The group's ringleader Parviz Khan intended to behead the soldier "like a pig" and release footage of the killing on the internet.

Khan was later imprisoned for life and must serve a minimum of 14 years before he will be considered for release. Three other men, Basiru Gassama, Mohammed Irfan, and Hamid Elasmar, were handed down sentences of between two and seven years for their roles in the plot.

High Court judge Mr Justice Henriques said Khan's aim was to deter any Muslim from joining the British army.

"So rampant are your views, so excitable your temperament, so persuasive your tongue and so imbued with energy are you, it's quite impossible to predict when, if ever, it will be safe for you to be released into the public," the Guardian quoted the judge as saying.

"It was a plot whose purpose was to undermine democratic government, to demoralize the British army and to destabilize recruitment, and to cause anguish to the then prime minister of the day and the loyal citizens of the country," the judge said.

Prosecutors said Khan hoped to kidnap the Muslim soldier in Birmingham's Broad Street entertainment quarter with the help of drug dealers.

This is not the only recent example of serving soldiers being the targets of terrorist attacks. Last month three British-born men were imprisoned for between four and nine years for preparing acts of terrorism. The men, who pleaded guilty had discussed targeting Royal Wootton Bassett, a town that became a focal point for parades by UK troops returning from service in Afghanistan.

The judge, Mr. Justice Simon, said they had shown themselves to be "committed fundamentalists" ready to kill. Muslim convert Richard Dart, a former BBC security guard, and co-defandant Imran Mahmood had discussed how to make explosives, with the western English town as a potential bombing target.

source: CNN