Agence France-Presse
Geneva, Dec 10: Police in Geneva raised the terror alert level and were searching Geneva today for several suspected jihadists believed to have links to the Islamic State (IS) group, security sources said. A statement from the Canton of Geneva’s security department said it had received information yesterday from Swiss federal authorities concerning “suspicious individuals likely to be in Geneva or the Geneva area.” Police were “actively looking” for these individuals “in the context of the investigation following the Paris attacks”, the statement said, while reinforcements were deployed at key locations including United Nations buildings.
“We went from a vague threat to a specific threat,” Geneva security spokesman Emmanuelle Lo Verso told Swiss Radio, adding that the search for the suspects was at “a very active phase.” A security source at the United Nations complex in Geneva told AFP that the search was for four people with possible ties to the Islamic State group which claimed the attacks that killed 130 people in Paris last month. The individuals were not believed to have any direct link to the Paris atrocities. The UN source said the Palais des Nations – the UN’s European headquarters – was evacuated last night as security personnel conducted an office-to-office searches.
Security guards posted at the UN gates were also carrying sub-machine guns today, a departure from normal practice. The statement from Geneva’s government said police “have increased their level of vigilance”, while the ATS new agency reported that security reinforcements were being deployed at key buildings around the city, including the headquarters of major international organisations and the airport. According to ATS, the heightened alert level has not led to the cancellation of a major festival due to be held in Geneva’s historic old city over the weekend. Geneva is just over 500 kilometres from Paris and the Swiss city is almost entirely enclosed by France, with border crossings often unmanned.
Shooters radicalised before marriage
Washington: The Pakistani-origin couple involved in the California shooting last week were radicalized even before they met and got married and discussed jihad while dating online, the FBI has said. “San Bernardino involved two killers who were radicalized for quite a long time before their attack,” FBI Director James Comey told members of the Senate Judiciary Committee during a Congressional hearing yesterday. The two — Pakistani national Tashfeen Malik and her husband Syed Rizwan Farook — were shot dead by the police in an exchange of fire hours after they killed 14 people and injured 17 others last week.
