Germany: Pakistanis, Syrian attacked in Cologne amid tension

A group of Pakistanis and a Syrian were attacked in Cologne amid tensions over New Year’s Eve assaults in the city that have been blamed largely on foreigners, police said on Monday.

Six Pakistani nationals were attacked on Sunday by around 20 people and two of them were briefly admitted to a hospital, police said. Also on Sunday evening, a Syrian man was attacked by five people. He was injured but didn’t need treatment.

Police said they received tips on Sunday afternoon about groups of people who would “seek provocation,” but were still investigating whether the subsequent attacks were racially motivated and whether there was any link to the New Year’s assaults.

Those assaults have stoked tensions over Germany’s open-door policy to refugees and prompted politicians to call for tougher laws against migrants who commit crimes.

“As abominable as the crimes in Cologne and other cities were, one thing remains clear- there is no justification for blanket agitation against foreigners,” Justice Minister Heiko Maas said, adding that some people “appear just to have been waiting for the events of Cologne.”

Authorities and witnesses said the New Year’s Eve attackers were among a group of about a thousand people, described as predominantly Arab and North African men, who gathered at Cologne’s central train station. Some broke off into small groups and groped and robbed women, police said.

Cologne police say 516 criminal complaints have now been filed with them in connection to the New Year’s attacks. About 40 per cent involve allegations of sexual offenses.

Cologne’s police drew criticism both for their response and for their slowness to release information on what had happened. Police chief Wolfgang Albers was dismissed on Friday by North Rhine—Westphalia state’s Interior Minister, Ralf Jaeger.

At a session on Monday of the state legislature’s home affairs committee, Mr. Jaeger said Cologne police hadn’t called in reinforcements who were offered, news agency dpa reported.

Mr. Jaeger said that witness and police reports “indicate that it was almost exclusively people with an immigrant background who committed these crimes.”

In a separate incident, police said on Sunday two migrants a Syrian and an Afghan were arrested in northern Germany on suspicion of attacking and robbing a French man who was wearing a Jewish skullcap at the Puttgarden ferry port. The incident happened on Saturday, and the two men had been denied entry to Denmark the previous day.

Read More

Islamic State truck bombs kill up to 60 people in Syrian town: Kurds

BEIRUT: A triple truck bomb attack claimed by Islamic State in northeastern Syria killed at least 50 people and wounded 80 others, a spokesman for the Kurdish militia that controls the area said on Friday.
The town in the northeastern province of Hasaka is controlled by the Kurdish YPG militia, which has been battling Islamic State with the support of US-led air strikes.
Kurdish fighters have advanced against the militants in the last few weeks in Hasaka, notably taking over the town of al Houl backed up by a US-backed rebel alliance that includes the YPG.
The three blasts, carried out by at least two suicide bombers, struck outside a hospital, at a marketplace and in a residential area in the town of Tel Tamer late on Thursday, the YPG's Redur Xelil said via an internet messaging service.
"There is massive destruction in the town and the number killed is between 50 and 60, all of them civilians," he said.
Islamic State later said in an online statement that three of its fighters driving three separate vehicles had detonated the suicide bombs targeting "bases" belonging to Kurdish fighters.
Earlier the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights gave a death toll of at least 22 people in the attack, saying that number was likely to increase.
The Observatory said one of the bombs exploded near a health centre and another near a vegetable market. It said there was "confirmed information" about casualties among the Kurdish internal security force, known as the Asayish.
The YPG has been the most effective partner on the ground in Syria for the US-led coalition that is fighting Islamic State. In October, it became part of the new US-backed alliance, called the Democratic Forces of Syria.

Read More

US-led coalition hit army camp: Syria

The Syrian government said on Monday four warplanes from the U.S.-led coalition bombed a Syrian army camp in Deir al Zor province — the first known attack by the coalition against government forces.

Three soldiers were killed and 13 wounded, the Syrian government said. It called the attack an act of aggression.

The jets fired nine missiles at the camp on Sunday evening, Syria's foreign ministry said in a statement flashed on state television. It is the first publicly declared incident of its type since the United States and allied countries began bombing the militant group Islamic State in Syria more than a year ago.

Syria's foreign ministry sent letters to the U.N. secretary general and to the head of the U.N. Security Council condemning the "flagrant aggression... which goes firmly against the aims of the U.N. charter," state news agency SANA said.

It urged the United Nations to take "immediate action and take the necessary measures to prevent a repeat" of the incident.

Also read: Who is fighting whom in Syria?

Earlier reports

A monitoring group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, reported earlier that jets, likely to be from the coalition that is targeting Islamic State, hit an army camp in Deir al-Zor province, killing four Syrian army personnel.

The foreign ministry said three armoured vehicles, four military cars and a weapons cache and ammunition had been destroyed in the air strikes.

The strikes "confirm once again that the American coalition lacks the seriousness and trust (needed) to fight terrorism in an effective way," it said, according to SANA.

The U.S.-led coalition first launched air strikes against Islamic State in Syria in September 2014, after beginning aerial operations against the group in Iraq the previous month.

Its strikes have regularly targeted Deir al Zor province in eastern Syria, most of which is held by Islamic State, including oilfields that are a source of income for the group.

Russia is waging its own aerial campaign in support of President Bashar al-Assad, which has hit some Islamic State targets, but the United States and its allies say most of the Russian raids have hit other foreign-backed rebel groups.

Read More