#‎France‬ train gunman identified as known Islamist militant

France's Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve.

A gunman overpowered by passengers on a train in France on Friday was known to European authorities as a suspected Islamist militant, provided the identity he has given interrogators is correct, France's interior minister said.

Two people were wounded in the struggle to subdue the Kalashnikov-toting attacker aboard the high-speed train from Amsterdam to Paris. Two U.S. servicemen, one of whom suffered knife wounds, were among passengers who stopped the gunman.

"It is important to be careful about his identity which is not yet established with certainty," Cazeneuve said.

"If the identity he has declared is confirmed, he is a 26-year-old man of Moroccan nationality identified by the Spanish authorities to French intelligence services in February 2014 because of his connections to the radical Islamist movement."

He said inquiries in collaboration with other European authorities "should establish precisely the activities and travels of this terrorist".

Spain's interior ministry could not immediately be reached for comment.

A source with knowledge of the case, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the gunman had originally given a different identity which was unknown to the security services.

Cazeneuve said the attacker had a Kalashnikov assault rifle, an automatic pistol with accompanying ammunition clips and a box cutter knife. He said the struggle started when a Frenchman on his way to the toilet tried to stop the man entering a carriage.

The minister said the second person hurt was of Franco-American nationality, hit by a bullet while seated. Authorities said last night a French actor had also been hurt.

Courage

French authorities have been on high security alert since January, when 17 people were killed in shootings by Islamist militants in and around Paris.

The man the attacker claims to be lived in Spain during 2014 and in Belgium in 2015, Cazeneuve said.

According to Le Voix du Nord, citing security sources, the suspected Islamist militant was seen on a plane to Turkey from Germany in May, and was thought to have visited Syria.

The French newspaper said he may have had connections to a group involved in a suspected Islamist shooting in Belgium in January.

President Barack Obama expressed his gratitude on Friday for the "courage and quick thinking" of the passengers, echoing similar words from Cazeneuve at a separate news conference late on Friday.

"It is clear that their heroic actions may have prevented a far worse tragedy," Obama said in a statement.

The wounded U.S. serviceman, named only as Spencer, was expected to be treated at a specialist hospital for people with hand injuries in the northern French city of Lille.

President Francois Hollande's office said he would receive the passengers who subdued the gunman to thank them in the coming days.

The gunman has been transferred to the Paris region from Arras in northern France where the incident took place.

Cazeneuve said under the terms of his arrest the man can be held for four days without being charged.

The shooting took place on a Thalys high-speed train. Thalys is partly owned by French state transport group SNCF and by Belgian railways. It runs international trains joining France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany.

All four countries are part of the Schengen area through which people travel without the need for passports and security check-ins. Experts have long said the trains are a potential target for attacks.

Egypt's Islamic State affiliate claims rocket attack on naval boat

Smokes rises from an Egyptian coastguard vessel on the coast of northern Sinai, as seen from the border of southern Gaza Strip with Egypt July 16, 2015

The Islamic State's Egypt affiliate, Sinai Province, has claimed responsibility for Thursday's missile attack on a naval boat off the Mediterranean coast of Egypt.

The Egyptian army said in a statement earlier that the patrol boat was chasing militants off the coast of Rafah, a town in North Sinai, and had exchanged gunfire with them. The boat caught on fire as a result, but the incident left no fatalities, the military said.

Sinai Province released a statement saying its jihadists had carried out a rocket attack on a naval vessel belonging to the "apostasy army" in the eastern Mediterranean.

The volatile North Sinai region, where Rafah is located, is an epicenter of a mounting Islamist insurgency that has killed hundreds of members of the security forces since the 2013 ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi.

Earlier in July, 21 soldiers were killed after simultaneous militant assaults on army checkpoints in the North Sinai towns of Sheikh Zuweid and Rafah, prompting days-long fighting between troops and insurgents that left over 200 militants killed.

On Wednesday, the army said its troops foiled a suicide car bomb attack on a military post between Cairo and Suez. This attempt was also claimed by Sinai Province, Egypt's most lethal militant group.

Egypt's Islamic State affiliate claims rocket attack on naval boat

Smokes rises from an Egyptian coastguard vessel on the coast of northern Sinai, as seen from the border of southern Gaza Strip with Egypt July 16, 2015

The Islamic State's Egypt affiliate, Sinai Province, has claimed responsibility for Thursday's missile attack on a naval boat off the Mediterranean coast of Egypt.

The Egyptian army said in a statement earlier that the patrol boat was chasing militants off the coast of Rafah, a town in North Sinai, and had exchanged gunfire with them. The boat caught on fire as a result, but the incident left no fatalities, the military said.

Sinai Province released a statement saying its jihadists had carried out a rocket attack on a naval vessel belonging to the "apostasy army" in the eastern Mediterranean.

The volatile North Sinai region, where Rafah is located, is an epicenter of a mounting Islamist insurgency that has killed hundreds of members of the security forces since the 2013 ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi.

Earlier in July, 21 soldiers were killed after simultaneous militant assaults on army checkpoints in the North Sinai towns of Sheikh Zuweid and Rafah, prompting days-long fighting between troops and insurgents that left over 200 militants killed.

On Wednesday, the army said its troops foiled a suicide car bomb attack on a military post between Cairo and Suez. This attempt was also claimed by Sinai Province, Egypt's most lethal militant group.

Western criticism of death sentences is 'flagrant interference' in #Egypt: Foreign ministry

Egypt hits back at international condemnation of recent death sentences issued against Muslim Brotherhood leaders and others linked with the group

Egypt's foreign ministry has defended a recent rash of death sentences against Islamists accused of violence, slamming western condemnation of the rulings as "flagrant interference" in its judicial system.

In the latest of a series of mass death sentences, a court on Saturday confirmed death sentences for the spiritual leader of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood group, Mohamed Badie, Muslim Brotherhood member and journalist Hani Salah and 12 others over violence-related charges. Dozens of others were given life terms, including an Egyptian-American, Mohamed Soltan, who was convicted of supporting the Islamist group and transmitting false news.

New-York based Human Rights Watch condemned the sentences as "politically motivated" and "blatantly unjust," while the White House called for the immediate release of 27-year-old Soltan, a dual national.

On Tuesday, Egypt's foreign ministry snapped back, condemning countries that "deliberately distort truths and mischaracterise things, overlooking the fact that such verdicts are issued by completely independent judicial bodies that are trusted by the masses of Egyptian people."

In a statement it called on states which it said "install themselves as sponsor[s] of the human rights situation in the world" to focus efforts on giving attention to the conditions of their people and confronting racism directed against particular groups.

The men sentenced earlier this week were among thousands of people detained following the overthrow of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013 as part of a sweeping crackdown on his supporters and allies.

The government has banned the Brotherhood, designating it a terrorist organisation, but the group has said it is committed to peaceful activism.

The rulings can be appealed before the Court of Cassation, the country's highest judicial authority which has overturned dozens of previous death sentences against Islamists.

#Qatar's #emir to attend #Sharm #Arab summit, Egypt minister says

Qatar's emir to attend Sharm Arab summit, Egypt minister says

Despite tensions with Cairo, Egyptian minister says Qatar's emir will attend an Arab League summit due later this month in Sharm El-Sheikh

Emir of Qatar Sheik Tamim bin Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani

Qatar's emir will attend an Arab League summit due to take place in Egypt later this month, an Egyptian official said, sign of a possible ease in political tensions between the two Arab states.

Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said in comments to private TV channel Sada El-Balad on Tuesday that Egypt "has received a notification" that Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad will participate in the annual gathering of the 22-member bloc.

The 26th Arab League summit will take place on March 28-29 in Egypt's Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh, with national security in the Arab countries topping the agenda, officials say.

Saudi Arabia's King Salman is expected to lead a line-up of Arab leaders at the summit who will also include Iraqi President Fouad Masoum.

Egypt and Qatar have fallen out over Doha's backing of Egyptian Islamist president Mohamed Morsi, who was ousted in 2013, and his Muslim Brotherhood group. 

Cairo has been incensed by Doha's hosting of several exiled leaders of the Brotherhood, now banned and designated a terrorist organisation by Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

Qatar's emir did not attend a global investor conference Egypt hosted earlier this month in the coastal city. But a delegation from his country headed by a top economic ministry official participated in the three-day international gathering which saw Egypt secure $12 billion of investments and central bank deposits from Arab Gulf allies of Kuwait, United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, and sign billions of dollars of deals.

In February, Qatar recalled its ambassador to Cairo over a spat at a meeting of the league in Cairo where Egypt's delegates accused Doha of supporting terrorism.

The new flare-up of tension came after Qatar expressed reservations over Egypt's recent air strikes against Islamic State group targets in Libya in response to the beheading of 20 Egyptian Coptic Christians.

Qatar's suspension in December 2014 of its Egypt-focused Al Jazeera channel, accused by Cairo of serving as a mouthpiece for the Brotherhood, as well as its banishing of seven Brotherhood leaders in September were seen as good-will gestures by Doha to mend relations between both states.  

Few Egyptians heed calls for 'Islamic revolution'; minor clashes

Low turnout for Islamic protests on Friday in different parts of the country; two security officers and a civilian killed, more than a dozen injured so far

Police stand guard as an army vehicle approaches as they prepare for more possible protests in the eastern suburb of Mataryia, Cairo, November 28, 2014

Few Egyptians heeded a call to carry out an uprising to impose Islamic law and preserve Egypt's "Muslim identity" in planned Friday protests, while militant attacks and clashes killed three.

A limited number of protests kicked off in several governorates across the country, but not much larger than the normal weekly protests staged by supporters of Islamist ousted Mohamed Morsi, who have seen their street presence dwindle amid a police crackdown that has killed hundreds and landed thousands in jail.

Friday's protests were called for by the Salafist Front, a small ultraconservative Islamist group, and were backed by the Muslim Brotherhood.

"The media blew worries about the protests out of proportion. The Islamists definitely failed today," political analyst Amr Hisham Rabei told .

The relative calm of the day was broken by militant attacks as two army officers were killed in drive-by shootings by unknown assailants in Qalioubiya governorate, north of Cairo and Gesr El-Suez in Cairo.

Improvised explosives were also thrown at security forces in the Nile Delta's Sharqiya governorate, injuring two policemen and eight civilians.

Small protests in Cairo and Alexandria turned violent as protesters clashed with police.

A man, 42, was shot dead amid clashes between police and protesters in Cairo's eastern Matariya district, a health ministry spokesman, Hossam Abdel-Ghaffar, told . It is unclear whether the man was taking part in the protests or was passing by, Abdel-Ghaffar said.

Matariya has witnessed near-weekly Friday clashes between Brotherhood supporters and police in the months following Morsi's ouster in July 2013. Last month a child was killed in similar clashes in the district.

Two other officers – one from the police, another from the army – were injured during clashes with Islamist supporters in Alexandria.

The clashes in Cairo and Alexandria were the largest reported. So far, 20 people have been injured nationwide, Abdel-Ghaffar said.

Friday's limited violence occurred despite heightened security measures taken across Egypt in anticipation of the protests, with security forces deployed in major squares and at key buildings.

Many shops closed their doors across the country on Friday and fewer people than usual roamed the streets in the capital and elsewhere.

There were several small demonstrations in the late afternoon to express support to the government in Mansoura and Mahalla in the Nile Delta, as well as Alexandria and Cairo. 

Earlier on Friday, police said they arrested 107 alleged Brotherhood members for intending to carry out acts of violence, As reported.

The figure increased as dozens were rounded up by police during the day.

A police spokesperson said 224 protesters were arrested nationwide.

At least 10 small improvised bombs were defused in four governorates, including Cairo, the police said.

Two sound bombs detonated in highly secured areas of Cairo – in Abdel-Moneim Riad Square, walking distance from Tahrir Square, and near the presidential palace east of Cairo.

Unlike the Brotherhood, several other Islamist groups including the Salafist Nour Party – an ally of the government – and former Brotherhood allies the Wasat Party and Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya movement rejected the demonstrations.

Egypt's Prime Minister Ibrahim Mahlab on Thursday had declared that Friday would be a "normal day."

El #Sisi , #Hollande discuss combating #terrorism

Terrorism focus of talks with Egyptian and French presidents

French President Francois Hollande, right, poses with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi during a meeting at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France, Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2014. Sissi is in France for a two-day official visit

Egypt's President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi and French President Francois Hollande met on Wednesday to discuss challenges facing the Arab region and the threat of international terrorism.

On his first visit to Europe since he was elected president, El-Sisi discussed with his French counterpart the threat of terrorism both inside Egypt and from neighbouring countries.

The two presidents stressed at a press conference their concern over the growing threat of terrorism in Libya, with El-Sisi highlighting the need to support the Libyan government and army.

They also highlighted the importance of reaching a two state solution for Palestinians and Israelis through negotiations.

Hollande hailed El-Sisi's efforts in negotiations concerning the Palestinian Gaza Strip.

Cairo hosted an international conference to rebuild Gaza in October during which $3 billion in aid was raised.

El-Sisi also added that the two politicians agreed that a political solution is needed to end the Syrian crisis.

Both France and Egypt are part of a US-led coalition which is launching airstrikes against Islamic State fighters. France took part in the strikes, while Egypt has not officially announced any participation but said it was committed to giving support to the alliance.

Speaking of bilateral relations, Hollande encouraged furthering cultural cooperation between the two countries. He said that France will be receiving more Egyptian students and academics.

Meanwhile, in terms of tourism, El-Sisi assured in a message to France and other European countries that Egypt is safe to visit.

El-Sisi started a European tour on Monday, first visiting Italy and the Vatican before he headed to France.

El-Sisi was elected president in June, almost a year after the ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi.