Armenian police detain seven opposition figures on suspicion of terrorism
The people are affiliated with the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF), also known as Dashnaktsutyun, a group part of the pro-Russian parliamentary coalition headed by Robert Kocharyan, a former president of the South Caucasus country.
Armenia's Investigative Committee said police had arrested seven individuals and charged one of them with preparing a terrorist act. Reuters was not able to determine the identities of all seven of the people.
ARF said in a statement that raids were ongoing at several MPs' homes as of early Thursday morning and that at least one politician and the son of another had been arrested.
Thursday's arrests follow criminal indictments levied earlier this week against three politicians of the Armenia Alliance, the larger umbrella coalition of which the Armenian Revolutionary Federation is a part.
Opposition groups have decried the investigations as politically motivated.
The arrests come on the same day as a meeting between Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in Abu Dhabi, where the two are working to finalise a peace agreement to end nearly four decades of conflict.
Pashinyan, who swept to power during street protests in 2018, has brought Armenia closer to the West and distanced the country from traditional ally Russia.
But recent weeks have seen a widespread clampdown on Pashinyan's political rivals and critics, including opposition figures, a leading Christian cleric and a former president.
Several prominent figures in Armenia, including the cleric, Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan, are accused of orchestrating a coup to usurp power, something they deny.
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The Sun
3 hours ago
- The Sun
Fugitive ‘White Widow' terrorist Samantha Lewthwaite ‘is still alive and active in terror cell financing jihadists'
THE notorious 'White Widow' Brit terrorist linked to 400 deaths who married a 7/7 suicide bomber is still alive and active in terror cells, a new investigation has claimed. Samantha Lewthwaite has been one of the world's most wanted terrorists having eluded capture for years. 6 6 6 6 Rumours have circulated since her disappearance that she died in a drone strike. But an investigation from the Daily Mail has shed lights on the possible whereabouts of a figure linked to a series of ghastly attacks. It comes as Britain marks 20 years since the London bombings on July 7, 2005 this week, in which 52 people died and hundreds were injured. Lewthwaite, who was born in Northern Ireland and grew up in Aylesbury, was married to one of the suicide bombers, Germaine Lindsay. She denied knowing he planned to blow up a tube train, but her subsequent alleged involvement with other terrorists has cast doubt on that. The now 41-year-old left the UK in 2009 and went to South Africa, before heading on to Tanzania in 2011 and then to Kenya. Lewthwaite was put on Interpol's red list of fugitives in 2013 after a shopping mall massacre in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, in which 67 died. She is also accused of orchestrating the attack in Mombasa targeting England fans during Euro 2012, and two other deadly attacks in the country. The Brit has been in total linked to around 400 deaths. Security services across Africa and the Middle East have tried to track her down without any success for a decade and a half. At a court hearing in 2014, one Kenyan detective said: "She is a person with multiple identification. "She keeps moving. We think she is using plastic surgery including her nose." But it is now believed she is still alive and was spotted in Uganda as recently as last year. She is allegedly now based in Somalia, where she is part of an al-Shabaab cell - an al-Qaeda affiliate. "Despite not knowing her exact location, we believe she is active in terrorism activities under al-Shabaab control in Somalia," a source said. The White Widow was also reported to be the "main financier" of the cell, operating in a logistical role. In this position, she allegedly controls the money instead of working on the front lines. She is also said to be a fan of Beyonce and Weetabix. Police previously crossed paths briefly with Lewthwaite when investigating a property in Mombasa in 2011. A British man called Jermaine Grant was arrested when fuses and ammunition were found stashed under a sofa - and he named Lewthwaite as the senior cell member. While cops discovered she was in the adjacent apartment, the passport they found was in a different name. Lewthwaite had fled by the time they realised the passport was a fake. This was the last confirmed sighting of her. It is now alleged the officers accepted a bribe of five million Kenyan dollars (nearly £30,000) from her when they went to the apartment. In 2018, there were alleged sightings in Yemen where she was said to be offering as little as £300 to the desperate families of young women to persuade them to become suicide bombers. She has not yet been charged with any of those offences. As a teenager she was seduced by the teachings of extremist cleric, Trevor Forrest, or Sheik Abdullah el-Faisal. Lewthwaite even visited him in prison in 2006, a year after the bombings. Through el-Faisal she met first husband, bomber Germaine Lindsay who killed himself and 26 others on the Tube in July 7, 2005. 6 6
The Sun
6 hours ago
- The Sun
Terrorist mastermind of 9/11 Khalid Sheikh Mohammed could be sentenced to DEATH at Guantanamo Bay trial
THE chief architect of the 9/11 terrorist attacks could be sentenced to death after a court tossed out a plea deal that would have saved his life. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is accused of masterminding the September 11, 2001 attacks against the United States - and was regarded as one of al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden's most trusted henchmen. 7 7 7 In 2003, the CIA captured him in Pakistan, after which he spent three years in secret prisons before arriving at Guantanamo in 2006. He is said to have planned out the deadly attacks from "A to Z" -- and was also involved in a string of major plots against the US, where he attended university. Mohammed as well as two alleged accomplices -- Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi -- struck a deal with prosecutors on July 31 and agreed to plead guilty in exchange for a life sentence. The deal would allow the trio to be spared from the death penalty and remain jailed on the southern portion of the American Naval base in Cuba. The agreement has sparked outrage from family members of victims who died during the 9/11 attacks. But a US appeals court on Friday scrapped the agreement, saying that both they and the American public deserved to see the defendants stand trial. Lloyd Austin, the Secretary of Defence under the Biden administration, attempted to halt the agreement by filing a motion to a military appeals court. In his brief, Austin cited the magnitude of the 9/11 attacks and argued that as defence secretary, he should decide on any plea agreements that would save the three men from the death penalty. Austin "acted within the bounds of his legal authority, and we decline to second-guess his judgment," judges Patricia Millett and Neomi Rao wrote in a ruling today. Congressional lawmakers have also slammed the plea deal, calling it a "national disgrace" and a "total miscarriage of justice." "The Biden-Harris Administration's weakness in the face of sworn enemies of the American people apparently knows no bounds," said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell at the time. "The plea deal with terrorists – including Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks that killed thousands of Americans – is a revolting abdication of the government's responsibility to defend America and provide justice. "The only thing worse than negotiating with terrorists is negotiating with them after they are in custody." Mohammed and al-Hawsawi were captured on March 1, 2003, in a joint CIA and Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence operation in the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi. Walid bin Attash was captured in Karachi, Pakistan, in April 2003. Mohammed was held in secret CIA prisons up until his transfer to Guantánamo Bay in September 2006. However, before he was moved to Guantánamo, government officials interrogated Mohammed and his accomplices for years, torturing them and keeping them isolated in undisclosed locations. Mohammed endured 183 rounds of waterboarding - a form of torture where a person experiences the sensation of drowning when water is poured over a cloth covering their face. 7 7 7 Key figures behind 9/11 Here are some of the key figures involved in the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. Hijackers on American Airlines Flight 11 Mohamed Atta Abdulaziz al-Omari Wail al-Shehri Waleed al-Shehri Satam al-Suqami Hijackers on United Airlines Flight 175 Marwan al-Shehhi Fayez Banihammad Mohand al-Shehri Hamza al-Ghamdi Ahmed al-Ghamdi Hijackers on American Airlines Flight 77 Hani Hanjour Khalid al-Mihdhar Majed Moqed Nawaf al-Hazmi Salem al-Hazmi Hijackers on United Airlines Flight 93 Ziad Jarrah Ahmed al-Haznawi Ahmed al-Nami Saeed al-Ghamdi Three suspects have also accepted a plea deal in the two decades since the attacks - Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Walid Bin Attash, and Mustafa al-Hawsawi. The men, along with Ali Abdul Aziz Ali and Ramzi Bin al Shibh, were jointly arraigned on June 5, 2008, and again on May 5, 2012. Al-Hawsawi was charged with helping the hijackers with their finances and travel arrangements. TERROR ATTACKS At least 2,753 people died at the site of the World Trade Center, where two planes crashed into the towers on September 11, 2001. A third plane hit the Pentagon, while a fourth, which was planned to strike Washington DC, crashed in a field in Pennsylvania after crew members and passengers stormed the cockpit. The heinous attacks sparked the war on terror after President George W. Bush ordered the US military to invade Afghanistan and Iraq in search of the terrorists responsible. The US government was warned by the CIA that the likely targets would be famous landmarks or symbols of US capitalism - but they did not know when or how. And none of them could have imagined the extent or horror of 9/11 when it did happen. On May 1, 2011, the most classified operation of the last 25 years was launched to kill Osama Bin Laden. The Saudi-born terror chief became the world's most wanted man, hiding in plain sight in Pakistan for years before U.S. Navy SEALs took him out in a daring raid. In the cover of night, Seal Team Six was sent to Abbottabad in Pakistan - where Bin Laden was hiding. Within minutes, the Seals were within the compound and shot and killed the world's most wanted terrorist. 9/11 timeline of events On September 11, 2001, al-Qaeda operatives coordinated a terrorist attack against the United States, hijacking four commerical airplanes and crashing them into the Twin Towers and Pentagon. Timeline: 5:45 am: Two hijackers get through security in Portland, Maine, and board a flight to Boston, where they will link up with three more hijackers and check in for American Airlines Flight 11 to Los Angeles. 7:59 am: American Airlines Flight 11 takes off. The plane is carrying 76 passengers, 11 crew members, and five hijackers. 8:15 am: United Airlines Flight 175, carrying 51 passengers, nine crew, and five hijackers, takes off from Boston to Los Angeles. 8:20 am: American Airlines Flight 77 takes off from Washington DC Dulles to Los Angeles. The plane is carrying 53 passengers, six crew members, and five hijackers. 8:42 am: United Airlines Flight 93 takes off from Newark. The plane is carrying 33 passengers, seven crew members, and four hijackers. The flight was bound for San Francisco. 8:46 am: Flight 11 crashes into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. 9:03 am: Flight 175 hits the South Tower of the World Trade Center. 9:36 am: Vice President Dick Cheney is evacuated by Secret Service agents to an undisclosed location. 9:37 am: Flight 77 hits the Pentagon building in Washington DC. 9:45 am: The US Capitol and White House are both evacuated. 9:59 am: The South Tower is the first to collapse after burning for around 56 minutes. 10:03 am: United Airlines flight 93 crashes into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. The passengers and crew got together and stormed the cockpit of the hijacked plane. All on board are killed. 10:28 am: The North Tower collapses. 8:30 pm: President George W. Bush addresses the US from the White House regarding the attacks. Almost 3,000 Americans died in the terror attacks.
Daily Mail
6 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Bombshell new information that suggests 'White Widow' Samantha Lewthwaite IS still alive: British mother linked to 7/7 bombings likes Beyonce and Weetabix... and may have evaded capture with £30,000 bribe
Samantha Lewthwaite, like other infamous figures, is better known by her unwanted sobriquet: the 'White Widow'. It has a chilling ring to it, even after all these years. Lewthwaite, for anyone who may have forgotten, is the Christian-born daughter of a former British soldier who became a Muslim convert and married one of the 7/7 suicide bombers. Her 'martyred' husband, Germaine Lindsay, was responsible for 26 of the 52 deaths in the coordinated wave of attacks on London 's transport network in 2005, after detonating an explosive-filled rucksack on a Piccadilly Line Tube train at King's Cross. Who could have predicted in the immediate aftermath of the carnage that his seemingly innocent young wife from Buckinghamshire – then eight months pregnant with their second child – would end up having more blood on her hands than him in the ensuing two decades? Hence the reason Samantha Lewthwaite, wanted for a string of terrorist atrocities in Africa after leaving the UK, is called the 'White Widow.' Today, after inevitably fading from public consciousness with the passage of time, she is back in the news. Lewthwaite has been featured in TV programmes and newspaper articles to mark the 20th anniversary this week of the July 2005 bombings. Her transformation – from Home Counties prom queen to fanatical jihadist – is, controversially, also being made into a feature film called Girl Next Door starring Bella Ramsey from the post-apocalyptic TV series The Last Of Us. Her 'martyred' husband, Germaine Lindsay (right), was responsible for 26 of the 52 deaths in the coordinated wave of attacks on London's transport network in 2005, after detonating an explosive-filled rucksack on a Piccadilly Line Tube train at King's Cross Behind her notorious image is a woman, it has since emerged, who loves Beyonce and compiled shopping lists (complete with everyday British items such as Weetabix on it) while on the run. Lewthwaite is now 41 and a mother of four. Her eldest children, a boy and a girl by Lindsay, would be around 21 and 19; and her youngest children, also a boy and a girl by her late second husband, an Islamist terrorist she married in Africa, around 16 and 15. Her life since disappearing from Britain in the wake of the 7/7 bombings leaves many unanswered questions, with the result that Lewthwaite has reached almost mythical status. Where is she? How has she managed to evade capture for so long? Could she even be dead? The starting point to unpick the mythology is Kenya, where she still faces terrorism charges relating to four separate attacks in the country between 2012 and 2019 which killed 244 innocent people. Willis Oketch, an investigative reporter on the highly respected Standard, the oldest newspaper in the country, has been working alongside us to try to find answers. A senior security source he contacted on our behalf told him the 'White Widow' is very much alive and was seen in neighbouring Uganda as recently as last year. She is actually based in Somalia, he said, which also borders Kenya, where she is believed to be part of an al-Shabaab cell, the al-Qaeda affiliate with a stronghold in the failed state. 'Despite not knowing her exact location, we believe she is active in terrorism activities under al-Shabaab control in Somalia,' the security source told Oketch. Lewthwaite, he said, was the 'main financier' of the cell – a logistical role, in other words, controlling the money, not a frontline operative fighting alongside men with AK-47s and grenade-launchers. It has not been possible to verify this intelligence but it chimes with the few details we have learned about Lewthwaite down the years. Somalia is a logical place for her to hide out. With some areas of the country in anarchy, Lewthwaite, the subject of an international arrest warrant – with a high-priority 'red notice' – is beyond the reach of the Kenyan authorities and Western governments. Lewthwaite has certainly led a charmed life as one the world's most wanted women. Initially, she portrayed herself as another victim in the wake of the 7/7 bombings and said she had absolutely no knowledge of her husband's murderous plans. Yes, she was a Muslim convert – she met Lindsay, a 19-year-old, Jamaican-born carpet-fitter and convert himself – in an Islamic chatroom when she was 18, but in an interview with The Sun newspaper, for which she was paid £30,000, she called his actions 'abhorrent'. Police placed her in a safe house after their marital home in Aylesbury, the county town of Buckinghamshire, was torched in an arson attack. Yet the clues about where her real sympathies lay were there all along. Lewthwaite gave birth to her daughter shortly after the bombings. She was given the middle name Shahidah ('martyr' in Arabic). The child's older brother also had the male form, Shaheed, as a middle name. 'Samantha played dumb – I am just the wife,' former Metropolitan Police anti-terrorism officer David Videcette recalled when interviewed for the Netflix series, World's Most Wanted. 'I really pressed hard to have her arrested. I really wanted her on the suspect list. Sadly, the senior investigating officer felt there was not enough evidence to prosecute and the CPS [Crown Prosecution Service] were going to say 'no'. I massively regret that she got this opportunity to kill other people.' Lewthwaite left the country a free women with her children in 2008, and landed in Johannesburg, South Africa. Shortly afterwards she married for the second time. Husband number two, Fahmi Salim, the father of her two youngest offspring, was a Kenyan with family links to al-Qaeda and al-Shabaab. Five years after their wedding, David Videcette's worst fears materialised when masked gunmen ran amok at the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi, murdering 71 people. Lewthwaite is accused of planning, funding or taking part in the outrage, along with a grenade attack on a bar in the coastal resort of Mombasa the previous year in 2012 (three dead); the 2015 massacre at Garissa University (148 dead); and, in 2019, she was also linked with a terrorist attack on a hotel in Nairobi (21 dead). More than 240 deaths in all have been linked to her, in other words. Al-Shabaab says Kenyan targets are legitimate because they voted for the government which has declared war on the group. It's hard to comprehend, even now, how a girl from the Home Counties, whose father served in Northern Ireland during the 1970s at the height of the Troubles (and whose paternal grandfather was also in the Armed Forces) could be implicated in so much bloodshed. Police fleetingly caught up with Lewthwaite when they got wind of imminent attacks which led them to a property in Mombasa in 2011. Hidden under a sofa, they found a haul of fuses and 60 rounds of ammunition with magazines of bullets for AK-47 assault rifles. They arrested a British man called Jermaine Grant at the scene who was later jailed but who named Lewthwaite as the senior member of the cell. 'There is someone much bigger you want,' he told them when he was seized. Police discovered she was in the adjacent apartment – the flats shared the same balcony – but the passport they found was in the name of Natalie Faye Webb, a 26-year-old nurse from Southend-on-Sea, so they left. By the time they realised their 'mistake' – that the passport was a fake and Miss Webb had been the victim of identity theft – Samantha Lewthwaite had fled. It was the last confirmed sighting of her. Once again, the 'White Widow', as she would soon become known, managed to escape justice. This is the official version of events which was reported in the media at the time, but her getaway was more controversial, it seems, at least by Western standards. Reporter Willis Oketch was given a different account of what is alleged to have happened. He says the officers in question found Lewthwaite, aka Natalie Webb, playing with her children when they first entered her accommodation around midnight. They said they thought she was 'innocent' of any involvement with Grant and another accomplice who was also taken into custody. Or so they reported, when they got back to the station. But they were strongly suspected of accepting five million Kenyan dollars (nearly £30,000) from Lewthwaite on the night, which she produced from her handbag, security sources have now told Oketch – an allegation, which, it should be stressed, remains unproven. 'She left the flat immediately afterwards,' he said. 'Officers returned the following day after anti-terrorist officers in the UK told them who she was. 'Several posh houses in the Nyali and Shanzu districts of the city were searched but she was nowhere to be found.' Police discovered Lewthwaite subsequently got out of Kenya with the help of a police informer – a woman – who was the widow of a Kenyan terrorist killed in Somalia. It is unclear whether she slipped back into the country again for the attack at the Westgate mall in Nairobi in 2013 or simply helped organise and fund the terror campaign from outside. Either way, what Samantha Lewthwaite left behind in her Mombasa apartment in her hurry to escape has not been widely reported and provides a tantalising glimpse into her psyche. Among her discarded possessions was her laptop which revealed a browsing history of any ordinary young women including websites for hair, make-up, fashion, weight loss – and There was a handwritten journal in which she tells herself to 'look fabulous' for social occasions, along with a typical weekly shopping list: '32 eggs, 12 cheese, Weetabix, orange juice and tuna ...' Yet the same journal contains a 32-line ode to Osama bin Laden, and she also gives thanks for having a husband – it's not clear whether she is referring to Lindsay or Salim, who is also thought to be dead now – 'that would go forth, give all he could for Allah and live a life of terrorising the disbelievers'. What of her children? They would be following in their parents bloody footsteps, judging by this paragraph in her scribblings. 'Recently, my beloved husband [Salim] gave a talk to my eight-year-old son and five-year-old daughter,' she wrote. 'He asked them what do you want to be when you are older? Both had many answers but both agreed to one of wanting to be a mujahid [a person engaged in jihad].' The trail has now gone cold, aside from the fact that she is thought to be somewhere in Somalia. Omar Mahmood is a senior analyst and Somalia security expert with the International Crisis Group (ICG) think-tank. 'I think there is definitely a degree of legend in the Samantha Lewthwaite story,' he told the Mail this week. Two things he said, however, complement what journalist Willis Oketch was told by security sources in Kenya. Firstly, he does not think reports that she may have been killed in a drone strike are credible. 'A death, particularly that of a woman like Samantha Lewthwaite, is hard to keep quiet in Somalia – al-Shabaab makes propaganda out of such strikes.' Secondly, the role of women in al-Shabaab, says Mahmood, is consistent with the position she is believed to occupy in the terror group. 'Women often help organise finances and accounts, as well as carrying communications back and forth as they attract less suspicion crossing government and al-Shabaab lines in Somalia [they are in conflict with each other]', he said. Members of Lewthwaite's family still live in Aylesbury. At her uncle's house, a woman who answered the door said she understood the interest of the Press, as it was the anniversary of the bombings, but politely declined to comment. There is a photograph of Samantha Lewthwaite, before she converted, attending an end-of-year ball at her school that is still circulating. She is wearing a pink silk gown set off by a diamond tiara and matching gold earrings and necklace. 'She was a perfectly normal teenager with normal friends,' said Niknam Hussain, who has been a councillor in Aylesbury since 1999 and knew her well. 'I can't believe I am still talking about her as one of the world's most wanted women 20 years on.'
