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Spain Arrests Man For Suppling Arms To Paris Gunman

Spanish police have arrested a man suspected of supplying arms to Paris gunman Amedy Coulibaly, who murdered four people at a kosher supermarket in January 2015.

Antoine Denive, 27, was detained in a joint Franco-Spanish raid on a house in Malaga, Madrid authorities say. The Frenchman is suspected of fleeing France weeks after the 9 January supermarket siege.

In all, 17 people were killed in three days of Islamist violence in Paris. Brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi murdered 12 people in an attack of the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. Amedy Coulibaly shot dead a policewoman in Montrouge. Coulibaly then held up a supermarket, murdering four Jewish customers and employees, before being shot by police.

Spain’s interior ministry said two other suspects from Serbia and Montenegro were detained during the raid on a building in the Rincon de la Victoria area of Malaga on Tuesday.

The French suspect, from the Pas de Calais region of north-west France, was said to have had ties to Serbs who may have provided him with arms and ammunition. Mr Denive left France after the attacks before settling in Malaga, police said.

He appeared before a judge in Madrid on Wednesday and denied the charges. Unconfirmed reports said he had agreed to be extradited to France. Evidence of a Spanish link to the suspects has previously emerged. In the aftermath of the attacks in Paris sources said Coulibaly and his girlfriend Hayat Boumeddiene had travelled to Madrid on 31 December 2014, where they spent a few hours.

Meanwhile Paris venue the Bataclan has announced its first shows since 90 music fans were shot dead there by Islamist gunmen last November. A Facebook post (in French) said renovation work had begun and that the concerts were scheduled to take place days after the first anniversary of the attacks. A specific reopening date was not given.

 

Two Men Charged Over Brussels Bombings

Two men have been charged by Belgian police investigating the 22 March Brussels bombings, after they were linked to a safe house said to have been used by two of the attackers.

Prosecutors identified the men as Smail F and Ibrahim F. Local reports said they were brothers. Three suicide bombers killed 32 people at Brussels international airport and Maelbeek metro station. Two other suspected bombers were arrested in a police raid last Friday.

According to the prosecutors, Mohamed Abrini has confessed to being he « man in the hat » – the third airport bomber who fled without detonating his device. Swedish national Osama Krayem is thought to have been a man spotted with metro bomber Khalid el-Bakraoui before the Maelbeek attack.

Smail F and Ibrahim F were apparently arrested a day later and one of the brothers is thought to have rented a house in the central Etterbeek area of Brussels used by Osama Krayem and el-Bakraoui before the metro bombing.

The house in Avenue des Casernes was raided on Saturday but no explosives or weapons were found. « They are charged with participation in the activities of a terrorist group, terrorist murders and attempts to commit terrorist murders, as a perpetrator, co-perpetrator or accomplice, » prosecutors said in a statement.

Turkish Cargo Ship Attacked By Pirates

Pirates have attacked a Turkish cargo ship off the coast of Nigeria kidnapping six of the crew, says the Nigerian navy.

The ship carrying chemicals was believed to be travelling from Gabon to Ivory Coast. The pirates attacked the ship late at night as it was sailing close to the oil-rich Niger Delta.

Analysts say winding down an amnesty to former Niger Delta militants has resulted in an increase in piracy. The Nigerian navy say the vessel’s captain and the chief engineer were among those kidnapped. The ship’s Turkish owners say none of the crew were injured in the attack but that they have no information on their whereabouts.

Nigerian officials say they are working with Interpol and the country’s secret police to secure the crew’s release. Nigeria’s coastal areas are increasingly becoming a hotspot for piracy.

Most of Nigeria’s oil wealth comes from the Niger Delta, but the area remains underdeveloped.

An amnesty in 2009 for tens of thousands of militants in the region – who receive a monthly stipend from the government – stemmed the level of violence there. But some of the former militants are believed to have turned to piracy.

Increase In Boko Haram Child Bombers

Boko Haram’s use of child bombers has increased over the last year with one in five suicide attacks done by children, the UN’s child agency says.

Girls, who are often drugged, were behind three-quarters of such attacks committed by the militant Islamist group in Cameroon, Nigeria and Chad. It is an 11-fold increase with four attacks in 2014 compared to 40 the next year, including January 2016.

The change in tactics reflects the loss of territory in Nigeria by the group. The seven-year insurgency which has mainly affected north-eastern Nigeria as well as its neighbours around Lake Chad has left some 17,000 people dead.

Unicef says up to 1.3 million children have been forced from their homes across four countries: Cameroon, Chad, Nigeria and Niger.

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Suicide Bomb Attack In Mogadishu Kills Five

At least five people have been killed and seven wounded after a suicide bomb attack on a restaurant near a local government building in the Somali capital, Mogadishu.

The attacker drove a car packed with explosives outside the busy restaurant, a spokesman from the mayor’s office told the BBC.

Islamist militant group al-Shabab has said it was behind the attack. The group, an al-Qaeda affiliate, is waging an armed insurgency in Somalia.

Who Are al-Shabab?

Al-Shabab frequently carries out attacks in the Somali capital. The government, with the help of African Union forces, is fighting al-Shabab to regain control of the country. The militants pulled out of Mogadishu in 2011.