Russia Kills Islamic State Men as German Police Shoot Man Threatening Crowds
By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
MOSCOW/HAMBURG/BUDAPEST (Worthy News) – Russian special forces freed two guards and killed six men linked to the Islamic State group while elsewhere in Europe, in Germany, police shot a man threatening huge soccer crowds, officials said.
In Russia, forces shot Islamic State-linked inmates who had taken guards hostage at a detention center in the southern city of Rostov, the prison service said.
Automatic gunfire could be heard in footage published on social media.
The six hostage takers, one of whom wore a headband with the flag used by the Islamic State that bears an Arabic inscription, knocked out window bars, witnesses said.
He climbed down several floors by rope before taking the guards hostage with a knife and fire axe. In negotiations with the authorities, they demanded free passage from prison.
But Russian special forces decided to storm the prison. Video published later showed the six dead men in pools of blood. “The employees who were being held hostage were released. They are uninjured,” the prison service said.
Islamic State, a Sunni Muslim militant group, was defeated in Iraq and Syria by a combination of U.S.-led forces, Kurdish fighters, and Russian, Iranian, and Syrian soldiers. It spread out into different regional groups that have claimed several deadly attacks across the world.
MASSIVE ATTACK
Islamic State Khorasan (ISIS-K), named after an old term for the region that included parts of Iran, Turkmenistan, and Afghanistan, claimed responsibility for the March attack on the Crocus City Hall outside Moscow in which 145 people died.
The hostage-takers were reportedly from Russia’s southern republic of Ingushetia, and three of them had been detained in 2022 for planning an attack on a court in another Russian republic, Karachay-Cherkessia.
Soon after the attacks in Germany, a man wielding a pickaxe and carrying an incendiary device was shot by police near a “Euro 2024” soccer fan park in Hamburg ahead of the Poland-Netherlands match.
The unnamed suspect was said to have been shot in the leg after he emerged out of a kebab shop with a gold-tinted pickaxe and started to threaten those around him.
The suspect was said to be a 39-year-old man from Buchholz in der Nordheide, southwest of Hamburg, who is known to have received treatment for mental health problems.
A police spokesman said: “At St Pauli [a district in the center of Hamburg], there is currently a major police operation. According to initial findings, a person threatened police officers with a pickaxe and an incendiary device. The police then used their firearms. The attacker was injured and is currently receiving medical treatment.”
The incident at 12.30 pm local time occurred close to the Heiligengeistfeld fan zone in the northern German city where around 40,000 Dutch and Polish fans had gathered ahead of the kick-off of the Sunday afternoon game.
KNIFE ATTACK
It came shortly after another knife-wielding man attacked a Euro 2024 party, injuring at least two people and prompting police to rush to the event in the backyard of a single-family home in the town of Wolmirstedt, near Magdeburg in Saxony-Anhalt state late Friday, officials said.
Police shot the attacker at the scene after he ran towards the officers to attack them. “Firearms were used. The perpetrator died in hospital.”
He reportedly threatened another group of people with a knife in a nearby garden “prior to his Euros party rampage,” local media reported.
In a separate attack, the knifeman also reportedly killed a man in an apartment building.
Also, late Friday evening, officials said a Euro 2024 fan zone in Berlin was locked down after a suspicious object was found in the viewing area.
Police said one arrest was made as bomb-sniffing dogs and disposal experts rushed to the venue just hours before the opening match between Germany and Scotland.
Germany has deployed a vast security operation across the nation amid fears of hooliganism and terrorism after Islamic State, also known as ISIS, hurled out repeated threats against the soccer event and the Paris Olympics, which starts next month.
HOOLIGAN VIOLENCE
While on the lookout for possible terror, German police were also forced to intervene in several riots, including on Sunday when clashes broke out between England and Serbia fans in central Gelsenkirchen.
Hundreds of riot police were forced to take action in the western German city as a dozen England fans started a running battle with Serbs after rushing fans sitting outside the Hirt Steakhouse.
The English hooligans hurled bottles, chairs, and tables as they started the “premeditated” brawl with Serbs, witnesses said.
Police arrested seven Serbs who retaliated and detained several England fans following the fight, which left a man in his twenties from Birmingham with “blood pouring from his head.”
And with Euro 2014 far from over, more violence was expected.
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