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Suicide Bomb Attack In Egypt Kills Eight

At least eight people have been killed in a suicide bomb attack on a police station in North Sinai, Egypt.

Reports say the bomber rammed the building in el-Arish with a lorry filled with explosives. Militants then opened fire on the station.

No group has yet taken responsibility for the attack, but the area is often targeted by Islamists that have links with the so-called Islamic State (IS) group.

Islamist groups are thought to have carried out more than 400 attacks in the North Sinai region between 2012 and 2015. The Sinai Province jihadist group, the most active insurgents, swore an oath of loyalty to IS in November 2014.

The group was initially called Ansar Beit al-Maqdis (Supporters of Jerusalem), and has been active in the Sinai Peninsula since 2011.
It has an estimated 1,000 to 1,500 active members.

Israel’s Prime Minister Claims Lorry Attacker Supported IS

Israel’s prime minister has said « all the signs » are that a man who killed four soldiers in Jerusalem supported so-called Islamic State (IS).

Although Benjamin Netanyahu did not give evidence for the claim, IS has previously threatened to attack Israel. The Palestinian, who was shot dead, drove a lorry into a group of soldiers in the district of Armon Hanatziv.

An emergency meeting of the Israeli security cabinet approved detention without trial for IS sympathisers.

Three women and a man, all in their 20s, were killed in the attack and 17 others were wounded, police said. The attacker, identified as 28-year-old Fadi Qunbar, came from the district of Jabel Mukaber in east Jerusalem, near to the attack site. CCTV footage showed the truck ploughing at high speed into the soldiers, before reversing over the victims. « He drove backward to crush more people, » eyewitness Leah Schreiber told reporters. « That was really clear. »

The Israel Defense Forces tweeted that the dead soldiers were Lt Yael Yekutiel, 20; Lt Shir Hajaj, 22; 2nd Lt Erez Orbach, 20 and 2nd Lt Shira Tzur, 20. Other soldiers shot the driver dead. Nine people were arrested in a raid on his neighbourhood, including five members of his family.

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Arrests Made In Paris Over Kardashian Robbery

Seventeen people have been arrested by police hunting an armed gang who robbed Kim Kardashian West in Paris in October, reports say.

The suspects, said to be mainly in their fifties and known to police, were detained in co-ordinated raids in the Paris region and elsewhere.

The American reality TV star was held at gunpoint by men dressed as police officers. They escaped with an estimated €10m (£8.7m; $10.5m) in jewellery.

Police said at the time a €4m ring and a jewellery box with pieces worth some €6m were taken. A diamond cross pendant was found the next day in a nearby street, apparently dropped by the gang as they made their getaway by bicycle and on foot.

Five men took part in the attack. Three held up the night porter while the other two entered Kardashian West’s luxury apartment, tied her up and locked her in the bathroom. French police said that traces of DNA had led to the arrests which had been left at the scene on the material used to tie up the TV star as well as the pendant dropped by the gang.

The police organised crime brigade (BRB) carried out dawn raids on Monday in the Paris area, in Rouen in the north and in Nice in the south. Those detained ranged in age from 23 to 73, French media said, and investigators now have 96 hours to question them.

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Ivory Coast Mutiny

Gunfire has been heard in two cities in Ivory Coast in a suspected mutiny by soldiers, military sources and local residents say.

The mutineers seized weapons from two police stations in the country’s second city, Bouake, and took up positions at its entry points, according to reports. Gunfire has also reportedly been heard in western Daloa town.

Ivory Coast’s President Alassane Ouattara took power in 2011 at the end of a civil war.

Bouake was at the centre of the rebellion to oust his predecessor, Laurent Gbagbo, who is on trial at the International Criminal Court on charges of war crimes.

A teacher in Bouake, Ami Soro, told Reuters news agency the city was deserted. « Men in balaclavas are patrolling the city on motorcycles or in cars. They aren’t attacking residents… They told us to stay at home, » she is quoted as saying.

The reason for the unrest is unclear, but the soldiers appear to be protesting over pay, AFP news agency reports. « It’s a mutiny by former fighters integrated into the army who are demanding bonuses of 5 million CFA francs ($8,000; £6,500) each plus a house, » a soldier who asked to remain anonymous told AFP.

An MP for Bouake, Bema Fofana, told the BBC that the soldiers did not appear to have a leader or spokesman, making it difficult to negotiate with them. Most of the soldiers were former rebels who were integrated into the army after the civil war, he added. The rebels swept into the main city Abidjan from their stronghold of Bouake in 2011, helping Mr Ouattara take power.

Russians Behind Alleged Hacking In Presidential Election Reports US

The US has identified the Russian agents behind alleged hacking ahead of the presidential election won by Donald Trump in November, reports say.

The agents, whose names have not been released, are alleged to have sent stolen Democratic emails to WikiLeaks to try to swing the vote for Mr Trump.

Russia denies any involvement and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange says Moscow was not the source.

Intelligence officials are due to brief Mr Trump, who doubts the claims, later. Vice-President Joe Biden lambasted the president-elect on Thursday for attacking the intelligence community over the claims, saying it was « absolutely mindless » not to have faith in the agencies.

At about the same time, President-elect Trump appeared to question in a tweet the intelligence agencies’ findings, asking why they decided not to request to examine computers belonging to the Democratic National Committee (DNC).

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