arrests

Nov. 6 (UPI) — Opium production has dropped sharply in Afghanistan, but trafficking in the region is on the rise, according to a Thursday report by the United Nations.

The report, by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, said a little over 25,000 acres are being cultivated now, down from almost 31,000 acres in 2024.

The report said production has fallen by a third to 296 tons, and farmers’ income from opium production has dropped almost in half over the same period.

The report stressed the need to continue to eradicate efforts with support for alternative livelihoods and demand-reduction methods.

“While many growers have switched to cereals and other crops, worsening drought and low rainfall have left over 40% of farmland barren,” the report said.

Effects from the climate have been exacerbated by an influx of 4 million Afghans returning from other countries, which has created increased competition for jobs and put pressure on other sectors of the economy.

The report said these factors have made opium production an attractive alternative.

While cultivation has fallen, optimum trafficking is on the rise as the demand for synthetic drugs made from the plant continues to increase.

Seizures in and around Afghanistan are up 50% compared to 2024, driven largely by an uptick in methamphetamine use, the report said.

Synthetic opium-based drugs are relatively easy to produce and harder to detect than pure opium, which has also contributed to the increase in demand.

“The dynamics of supply and trafficking involve both Afghan and international actors,” said Georgette Gagnon, Deputy Special Representative in charge of the UN political mission in the country.

“Addressing this challenge requires collaboration among key stakeholders,” Gangnon added.

The report calls for counternarcotics strategies that extend beyond opium, including synthetic drug manufacturing and transportation, as well as prevention methods.

Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi has reportedly acknowledged that her office released a video of troops abusing a Palestinian detainee.

Israeli police have arrested a former military prosecutor after she leaked a video appearing to show soldiers abusing a Palestinian detainee.

Major General Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi was detained overnight on Monday, according to the country’s national security minister, following a scandal that erupted after she leaked a video, resigned and then disappeared.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called the leaking of the video perhaps the most “severe public relations attack” on Israel since its founding.

Tomer-Yerushalmi disappeared for several hours on Sunday after she announced her resignation, sparking speculation of a possible suicide attempt.

According to a copy of her resignation letter published by Israeli media on Friday, Tomer-Yerushalmi acknowledged that her office had released the video to the media last year. Five reservists were later charged with mistreating prisoners.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said on Monday on Telegram: “It was agreed that in light of last night’s events, the prison service would act with extra vigilance to ensure the detainee’s safety in the detention centre where she has been placed in custody.”

The statement did not indicate what charges she faced.

According to Israeli media, a Tel Aviv court ordered Tomer-Yerushalmi’s remand in custody until noon on Wednesday.

Public broadcaster Kan reported that she was suspected of “fraud and breach of trust, abuse of office, obstruction of justice and disclosure of information by a public servant”.

Former chief military prosecutor Colonel Matan Solomesh was also arrested overnight in connection with the case and was appearing in court Monday, reported Israeli Army Radio.

‘Severe violence’

On Friday, the Israeli military announced that Tomer-Yerushalmi had resigned from her post pending an investigation into leaked footage taken at the Sde Teiman military base in southern Israel last year.

The case began in August 2024 when Israel’s Channel 12 broadcast footage from Sde Teiman, which has been used to hold Palestinians taken during the war in Gaza.

The surveillance camera footage indicated that soldiers had committed illicit acts, without explicitly showing it, as it appeared to take place behind troops holding up shields.

The video was picked up by several media outlets, triggering international outrage and protests within Israel.

The Israeli military said in February that it had filed charges against five reservist soldiers connected with mistreatment at Sde Teiman.

They were charged with “acting against the detainee with severe violence, including stabbing the detainee’s bottom with a sharp object, which had penetrated near the detainee’s rectum”.

It added “the acts of violence have caused severe physical injury to the detainee, including cracked ribs, a punctured lung and an inner rectal tear”.

The indictment said that the abuse took place on July 5, 2024 during a search of the detainee.

Speaking after a cabinet meeting on Sunday, Netanyahu blasted the leak of the video, labelling it as perhaps the most “severe public relations attack” on Israel in the country’s history.

Footage shows FBI and state police vehicles in Dearborn, Michigan, near Fordson High School, conducting an investigation. This comes after FBI Director Kash Patel said in a social media post that multiple people allegedly plotting a violent “terrorist” Halloween weekend attack were arrested.

Oct. 30 (UPI) — Police in France arrested five new suspects over alleged involvement in theft of priceless French crown jewels from the Louvre in the French capital, Paris’ chief prosecutor said.

The office of Paris Prosecutor Laure Beccuau said the men were detained in and around Paris on Wednesday night but that the jewels, which some estimates have valued at more than $100 million, were not recovered.

The development came 10 days after four suspects were filmed on CCTV carrying out the heist in broad daylight using a lift-ladder mounted on the back of a stolen truck to break into the museum’s Apollon Gallery, before disappearing into the back streets on the back of getaway motorcycles.

Beccuau said that DNA from one of those arrested could be a match to traces DNA left behind at the scene and that the suspect was throught to be part of the gang that carried out the theft.

“He’s one we had in our sights,” she said, adding that the others “can give us information about how the theft was carried out.”

Police have four days to charge the five before they have to release them.

Two others suspected of using power tools to gain entry — both men in their 30s with police records — were arrested Saturday, one as he was boarding a flight to Algeria, but investigators now believe the gang extends beyond those detained thus far.

Among the riches taken were an emerald and diamond necklace that Napoleon I gave to his second wife, Marie Louise, a diadem set with nearly 2,000 diamonds and more than 200 pearls that belonged to Napoleon III’s wife, Empress Eugenie and six other priceless pieces dating back to the early 1800s.

However, Eugenie’s diamond and emerald-covered crown was left behind after the gang dropped it onto the road in their haste to escape.

The gang, posing as maintenance workers, ascended to a second-floor balcony adjacent to the River Seine, smashed a window and used disc cutters to break into glass display cases housing the jewels.

The Louvre was shut following the robbery, which French Culture Minister Rachida Dati said was an attack on France, and nine of its 28 galleries, including the Apollon, remained closed on Thursday, according to the Louvre website.

The Louvre has since moved some of its most valuable exhibits, including precious jewels, to the Bank of France, a short distance away, to be stored in its main underground vault, 85 feet below rue Croix des Petits Champs.

Oct. 26 (UPI) — French prosecutors on Sunday announced that arrests had been made in connection with the brazen daylight heist of historic jewels worth more than $100 million from the Louvre Museum in Paris.

Laure Beccuau, the Paris public prosecutor, said in a statement that the office’s anti-gang unit had made the arrests Saturday evening, but did not disclose precisely how many arrests had been made. It previously had been reported that at least four people were believed to have been involved in the heist last Sunday.

Beccuau revealed that one of the men was preparing to flee the country from Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport when he was arrested.

The arrests had first been reported by the French newspaper Le Parisien, citing anonymous sources, before the news was confirmed by Beccuau. The prosecutor lamented that the leak that arrests had been made before authorities were ready to disclose the news.

“I deeply regret the hasty disclosure of this information by informed individuals, without consideration for the investigation,” she said in her statement.

“This revelation can only hinder the investigative efforts of the hundred or so investigators mobilized in the search for both the stolen jewelry and the perpetrators. It is too early to provide any further details.”

Beccuau said that she would provide further information to the public at the end of this phase of police custody.

A representative for the Louvre confirmed to UPI last week that several people broke in through a window in the Galerie d’Apollon, which houses many of France’s royal jewels, around 9:30 a.m. local time after the museum had already opened its doors to the public.

The thieves had posed as workers in yellow vests and used a hoist truck to break into a second-floor window of the Galerie d’Apollon and cut through the glass display cases to snatch the jewels before dashing away on motorcycles along the A6 motorway.

The theft set off alarms on the gallery’s exterior window and display cases, and museum workers present in the gallery during the theft quickly notified police, but the thieves escaped with the jewels in less than seven minutes.

Interpol later added the jewels to its Stolen Works of Art database, an international registry of cultural property stolen worldwide to aid in their recovery, the art news publication Urgent Matter reported.

French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez praised investigators for working tirelessly to find the men who stole the jewels.

“The investigations must continue while respecting the confidentiality of the inquiry under the authority of the specialized interregional jurisdiction of Parquet de Paris,” he said.

The heist has heightened scrutiny of security flaws faced by French institutions.

Also last week, thieves stole historic silver and gold coins from the Maison des Lumières Denis Diderot museum in the town of Langres.

And French authorities announced that a Chinese woman had been charged in connection with the September theft of gold nuggets from the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris.

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The military also confiscated 30 Starlink satellites from the sprawling KK Park scam centre on the border with Thailand.

Myanmar’s military says it has arrested more than 2,000 people in a raid on KK Park, an infamous scam centre on the border with Thailand, according to state media.

The sprawling compound was used by international criminal syndicates to carry out illegal gambling, money laundering, and online romance and investment scams, the Myanmar Alin daily reported on Monday.

Operations were spread across more than 250 low-rise buildings, according to the media report. They included warehouses, shophouses, and dozens of one and two-storey buildings.

During the raid, the military also seized 30 Starlink satellites, Myanmar Alin said.

The satellites are built and run by Starlink, a subsidiary of Elon Musk’s SpaceX, and can keep compounds connected to the internet, even during power cuts.

Authorities also arrested 2,198 people, among them 445 women, 1,645 men and 98 male security guards, although the newspaper did not list their nationalities.

KK Park is located in Kayin State’s Myawaddy Township, which lies just across the river from the Thai border town of Mae Sot.

The area has seen recent fighting between Myanmar’s military, the People’s Defence Force – the armed wing of Myanmar’s National Unity Government, formed by elected lawmakers, which operates from exile after it was ousted in the 2021 military coup – and armed Karen ethnic groups, according to Myanmar Alin.

Myanmar has been embroiled in a civil war since the coup in 2021, with fighting between the military, armed opposition groups and ethnic armies.

Military spokesperson Major-General Zaw Min Tun said on Monday in a statement that the top leaders of the Karen National Union, one of the groups fighting the military, were involved in the scam projects at KK Park, according to the Associated Press news agency.

Myanmar has been under pressure from Thailand and China to curb scam centre activity, which has drawn in criminal groups, particularly Chinese crime syndicates.

The issue became a cause célèbre in China in January when Chinese actor Wang Xing was trafficked to a scam centre and later rescued by Thai police.

Employees of the scam centres are often themselves victims of human trafficking, lured by the promise of employment but then forced to carry out online scams in slave-like conditions, according to rights groups.

Thai police estimate that as many as 100,000 people are working in scam operations on the Thai-Myanmar border alone, according to Reuters.

Scam centres have spread across Southeast Asia over the past five years, but their epicentre has been in Myanmar and Cambodia. They net international criminal groups billions of dollars each year.

The Department of the Treasury in the United States in September sanctioned more than 20 companies and individuals in Cambodia and Myanmar who were allegedly involved in scam operations.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and congressional Democrats have announced a sweeping investigation into potential misconduct in the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown that has ensnared citizens, made use of racial profiling and terrified communities for months.

Bass and the top Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Robert Garcia (D-Long Beach), announced that Congress will open up “a broad investigation” into arrests of U.S. citizens by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, as well as another investigation into immigration raids overall. The announcement was made Monday at a news conference at L.A. City Hall.

“Donald Trump and [Department of Homeland Security Secretary] Kristi Noem are terrorizing immigrants, working people, the people of Los Angeles and of our state every single day,” Garcia said. “They violate the law and they violate the constitution.”

Garcia said that his House committee would investigate “every single brutal misconduct” that immigration authorities have committed in Los Angeles as well as across the country.

Simultaneously, the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations will conduct an investigation into reports of the detention of at least 170 U.S. citizens by immigration authorities, which was reported by ProPublica last week.

“Troublingly, the pattern of U.S. Citizen arrests coincides with an alarming increase in racial profiling — particularly of Latinos — which has been well documented in Los Angeles,” Garcia and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) wrote in a letter to Noem. “In a pattern symptomatic of a disregard for civil rights by DHS, U.S. citizens have faced extended periods of detention.”

For months, agents have roamed the streets of Los Angeles toting guns and chasing down immigrants. The scenes that have played out on the streets — protesters being arrested, immigrants dragged out of their cars — have been repeated in Chicago and other cities with largely Democratic leadership.

Mayor Bass said the arrests of American citizens means that no one in the country is safe.

“This can happen to anyone, to all of us, at any period of time,” she said.

Garcia said that the first hearing of the House committee will be held in Los Angeles and that Angelenos should attend and be heard on immigration enforcement issues.

The congressman did not give a date for the hearing, but said he hoped it would be soon.

In the letter that Garcia and Blumenthal sent to Noem on Monday, the legislators called on the Department of Homeland Security to report the total number of U.S. citizens who have been detained by immigration authorities, as well as how long each individual was detained. They also asked for information regarding the training that CE and Customs and Border Protection agents receive on use of force, among other things.

The White House and the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The incident is the first alleged defection of a North Korean soldier in more than a year.

South Korea says it has taken a North Korean soldier into custody after he crossed the country’s heavily guarded border.

The soldier crossed the military demarcation line (MDL) that divides the peninsula on Sunday, according to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, which said it “tracked and monitored” the soldier before securing him.

South Korea’s military said it would investigate the circumstances of the soldier’s crossing – a relatively rare incident in the mine-strewn border zone between the two nations still technically at war.

South Korean media described the crossing near the central part of the border as a “defection”, with the Chosun Ilbo daily saying the soldier expressed his wish to defect after being approached by a South Korean soldier.

If confirmed, the soldier would join tens of thousands of North Koreans who have fled poverty and repression in North Korea since the peninsula was split by war in the 1950s. Last year, 236 North Koreans arrived in the South, with women accounting for 88 percent of the total.

The last time a soldier from North Korea, which derides defectors as “human scum”, escaped to the South was in August last year.

Most defectors, however, take a different route – escaping across North Korea’s border with China before eventually making their way to the South. Direct crossings between the two Koreas are relatively rare and extremely risky, as the border area is full of mines and well-monitored on both sides.

Hong Min, a senior analyst at the Korea Institute for National Unification, said the latest soldier who crossed the border may have been able to navigate the dangerous terrain due to his “likely familiarity with the area”.

“The latest crossing will not be received positively by Pyongyang, as he could provide the South with information on its troop movements and operations in the border area,” the analyst told the AFP news agency.

In July, a North Korean civilian crossed the border by foot in a 20-hour operation aided by the South’s military.

The latest crossing came four months after liberal politician Lee Jae-myung took office as South Korean president, following months of political chaos, which began with the conservative President Yoon Suk-yeol’s short-lived attempt to impose martial law in December.

Lee has taken a different stance from his predecessor on North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, promising to “open a communication channel with North Korea and establish peace on the Korean Peninsula through talks and cooperation”.

Diplomatic efforts have stalled on the Korean Peninsula since the collapse of denuclearisation talks between Washington and Pyongyang in 2019 during the first United States President Donald Trump administration, after a series of Trump-Kim summits, globally watched spectacles that bore little concrete progress.

Oct. 17 (UPI) — At least 11 protesters were arrested amid clashes with local police outside the Broadview, Ill., Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility on Friday morning.

Protesters arrived earlier than normal on Friday at the Chicago-area ICE facility and clashed with local law enforcement when the protesters blocked a local street and refused to go to a designated protest zone, WLS-TV reported.

“We are all Latino,” a protester told WLS-TV. “We all got to be united. What they are doing is not fair.”

The protester said ICE should focus its efforts on criminals and “leave the good people that are working” so that they can continue to work and improve their lives.

A report by WGN-TV said “things appeared to get out of hand rather quickly” when the protesters arrived during the morning hours.

The protest began near 8 a.m. CDT, which is an hour earlier than allowed by local regulations, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

Those regulations allow protests from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. and within a designated protest area.

The protest was the first since a protective fence around the ICE building was removed on Tuesday, as ordered by a federal judge.

Although the fencing is gone, the protesters are required to stay off the street and within an area lined by concrete barriers.

Those who did not clash with Illinois State Police officers, resulting in 11 being arrested for blocking the street and refusing to move to the designated protest area, local authorities told WLS-TV.

Protester Akeisha Lee was charged with disobeying a police officer or arresting and obstructing, and several others were being processed for violations during the morning hours, the Sun-Times reported.

Among those being processed following her arrest was United Church of Rogers Park Pastor Hannah Kardon.

While the protesters are restricted in their activities, federal law enforcement also is restricted in how it can operate in northern Illinois.

U.S. District Court of Northern Illinois Judge Sara Ellis earlier restricted when and where federal law enforcement officers and agents can use tear gas and on Thursday expressed concern that her restrictions were not being followed.

Ellis also amended a restraining order on federal law enforcement to require those equipped with body cameras to wear them and keep them on during enforcement operations.

Oct. 13 (UPI) — Four people were arrested Monday in connection to a mass shooting over the weekend in Mississippi that killed six people and left 10 others wounded.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation announced the arrests following Friday night’s deadly gunfire at a football homecoming celebration in the downtown area of Leland, a small town about 200 miles from the Arkansas-Mississippi border.

According to the FBI, Morgan Lattimore, 25, Teviyon Powell, 29, and William Bryant, 29, were charged with capital murder. A fourth suspect, Latoya Powell, 44, has been charged with attempted murder.

The FBI in Jackson said the investigation will continue with other arrests pending. A motive was not revealed.

“The FBI currently has brought agents in to assist in the canvassing, the interviewing, the evidence review, both video and physical evidence review,” Special Agent in Charge Robert Eikhoff told reporters over the weekend. “We’ve had resources available, so as we identify video evidence that we will bring to bear the resources to evaluate that video evidence.”

On Sunday, the FBI established a digital media tips website to gather information, cellphone video or photos from the public to help them investigate Friday’s shooting. That website will remain active, despite the arrests, as agents continue to request more tips.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms is using DNA analysis to run shell casings through national databases. FBI Jackson is also requesting witnesses submit tips at tips.fbi.gov.

The Washington County Coroner’s Office has identified the victims as Kaslyn Johnson, 18, Calvin Plant, 19, Oreshama Johnson, 41, Shelbyona Powell, 25, Amos Brantley Jr, 18, and JaMichael Jones, 34.

“We also have victim specialists that are available and they’re working with those from the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation to ensure that the victims and their families are cared for and understand what resources are available to them,” Eikhoff added, “and help them in their pursuit and their journey as they try to recover from this horrific incident.”

Dutch humanitarian organisation INSO rejected the allegations and called for the release of its eight staff members.

Burkina Faso’s military government says it has arrested eight people working for a humanitarian organisation, accusing them of “spying and treason”, allegations the Dutch nonprofit “categorically” rejected.

Burkina Faso’s Security Minister Mahamadou Sana said the eight people arrested worked for the International NGO Safety Organisation (INSO), a Netherlands-based group specialising in humanitarian safety.

Those detained included a French man, a French-Senegalese woman, a Czech man, a Malian and four Burkinabe nationals, Sana said, alleging the staff members had continued working for the organisation after it was banned for three months, for allegedly “collecting sensitive data without authorisation”.

The security minister claimed some of INSO’s staff had “continued to clandestinely or covertly conduct activities such as information collection and meetings in person or online” following the ban, including its country director, who had also previously been arrested when the suspension came into effect at the end of July.

Sana said the INSO staff members had “collected and passed on sensitive security information that could be detrimental to national security and the interests of Burkina Faso, to foreign powers”.

The Hague-based humanitarian organisation issued a statement on Tuesday saying it “categorically” rejected the allegations about its activities in Burkina Faso.

“[We] remain committed to doing everything in our power to secure the safe release of all our colleagues,” INSO said in the statement.

INSO also said it collects information “exclusively for the purpose of keeping humanitarians safe,” and that the information it gathers “is not confidential and is largely already known to the public.”

Burkina Faso’s military government has turned away from the West and, in particular, its former colonial ruler, France, since seizing power in a September 2022 coup.

Together with neighbouring Mali and Niger, which are also ruled by military governments, it has also withdrawn from regional and international organisations in recent months, with the three countries forming their own bloc known as the Alliance of Sahel States.

The three West African countries have also wound back defence cooperation with Western powers, most notably their former colonial ruler, France, in favour of closer ties with Russia, including Niger nationalising a uranium mine operated by French nuclear firm Orano.

Within the three countries, the military governments are fighting armed groups linked to al-Qaeda that control territory and have staged attacks on army posts.

Human Rights Watch and other advocacy groups have accused the fighters, the military and partner forces of Burkina Faso and Mali of possible atrocities.

Protests take place in Barcelona, Rome, Lisbon and London, where police made more than 100 arrests.

Tens of thousands of people are marching in major cities across Europe to protest against Israel’s war on Gaza, with mass rallies taking place in urban centres across the United Kingdom, Italy, Spain and Portugal.

Protests in Spain’s second-largest city, Barcelona, as well as in Madrid, were planned weeks ago, while calls for demonstrations in Rome and Lisbon followed widespread anger after Israeli forces intercepted a humanitarian aid flotilla – the Global Sumud Flotilla – that had set sail from Barcelona for Gaza, trying to break Israel’s blockade of the famine-struck Palestinian territory.

More than 40 Spaniards, including a former Barcelona mayor, are among the 450 activists that Israel detained from the flotilla’s boats this week.

Italy already saw more than two million people rally on Friday across the country in a one-day general strike to support the people of Gaza.

Spain has seen a surge of support for Palestinians in recent weeks while its government intensifies diplomatic efforts against the far-right government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Protests against the presence of an Israeli-owned cycling team repeatedly disrupted the Spanish Vuelta cycling event last month, while Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez called the war on Gaza a “genocide” and asked for the ban of all Israeli teams from international sporting events.

The calls for protests in Europe come as Hamas said it has accepted some elements of the plan laid out by United States President Donald Trump to end the two-year assault, which has killed more than 66,000 people and left Gaza in ruins.

Barcelona’s town hall said police estimated that 70,000 turned out for Saturday’s demonstration.

People packed Barcelona’s wide Passeig de Gracia, the city’s central boulevard. Many families turned out, along with people of all ages. Protesters carried Palestinian flags or wore T-shirts supporting Palestine.

Hand-held signs bore messages like “Gaza hurts me,” “Stop the Genocide,” and “Hands off the flotilla”.

Maria Jesus Parra, 63, carried a Palestinian flag high after making an hourlong trip from her home in another town to Barcelona. She wants the European Union to act against what she described as the horrors she watches on televised news on a daily basis.

“How is it possible that we are witnessing a genocide happening live after what we [as Europe] experienced in the 1940s?” Parra said. “Now nobody can say they didn’t know what was happening.”

Arrests in London

A protest in Rome is also under way, organised by three Palestinian organisations along with local unions and students. The protesters will march from Porta San Paolo and end at San Giovanni. Police expect tens of thousands to attend, state broadcaster Rai reported.

A protest in London in support of the prosribed group Palestine Action is also under way, despite police requesting a postponement following a deadly attack at a synagogue in Manchester earlier this week.

Two people were killed in the attack in the northwestern city on Thursday, and police shot dead the attacker, a British man of Syrian descent.

Police have arrested at least 175 people at the scene of Saturday’s main protest event in Trafalgar Square in central London.

Officers began carrying away protesters as seated activists wrote out slogans on placards declaring their support for Palestine Action. Onlookers chanted “shame on you” at the police.

Organisers refused requests by the police and the government to call off the demonstration, which had been announced before the attack, to protest against the banning of pro-Palestinian group Palestine Action under anti-terrorism laws.

Police claimed Saturday’s protests would draw resources away from security they have tightened around synagogues and mosques following Thursday’s attack.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer called for calm in a post on X on Saturday morning, saying: “I urge anyone thinking about protesting this weekend to recognise and respect the grief of British Jews.

“This is a moment of mourning. It is not a time to stoke tension and cause further pain. It is a time to stand together,” he said.

Thousands have also taken to the streets in Dublin, Ireland, to mark two years since Israel launched its war on Gaza and to urge the Irish government to sanction Israel, local media reported.

The protest came after 16 Irish citizens were among the hundreds detained by Israel after it intercepted the Global Sumud Flotilla, the report said.

A protest is also being staged in Athens on Saturday afternoon, although police believe a bigger one will take place on Sunday, to coincide with a pro-Israeli one.

Moroccan authorities have arrested more than 400 people during violent protests demanding reforms in the public health and education sectors, the Ministry of Interior says.

A fifth night of youth protests was under way on Wednesday in cities across the North African country, but authorities said the fourth night had turned more violent than before. They reported 263 members of the security forces and 23 civilians were injured as demonstrators torched cars and ransacked shops.

The demonstrations have been organised online by a loosely formed, anonymous youth group calling itself GenZ 212, using platforms including TikTok, Instagram and the gaming application Discord.

On Tuesday night, young men brandished knives and threw Molotov cocktails and stones, an Interior Ministry spokesperson said in a statement. He said 409 people were taken into police custody.

Administrative buildings, banks and shops were looted or vandalised in the Souss region cities of Ait Amira, Inezgane, Agadir and Tiznit as well as the eastern city of Oujda, he said.

Videos circulating on social media and verified by Al Jazeera showed damaged ATM machines and a bank building that appeared to have been looted with broken glass scattered across the ground.

In posts discussing the protests, the GenZ 212 group said it rejected violence and was committed to continuing peaceful protests. It said it had no argument with security forces, only with the government.

The Interior Ministry statement said 142 vehicles belonging to the security forces and 20 private cars had been set on fire.

Peaceful protests over economic and social conditions have been recurrent in Morocco, but this week’s demonstrations are the most violent since at least 2016 and 2017 when protesters clashed with security forces in the Rif region in the north.

The Interior Ministry will uphold the right to protest in accordance with legal procedures and will respond with “restraint and self-control, avoiding provocation”, the spokesperson said.

The men are suspected of of being ‘foreign operatives’ for Hamas and will appear in court Thursday, prosecutors say.

German authorities have arrested three men suspected of preparing a serious act of violence against Jewish targets in Germany, allegedly on behalf of the Palestinian group Hamas.

Prosecutors say they suspect the three men of being “foreign operatives” for Hamas and of being involved in procuring firearms and ammunition for attacks targeting Israeli or Jewish institutions in Germany.

“In the course of today’s arrests, various weapons, including an AK-47 assault rifle and several pistols, as well as a considerable amount of ammunition, were found,” the federal prosecutors said in a statement.

The three men, identified under German privacy laws only as German citizen Abed Al G, Wael FM, born in Lebanon, and German citizen Ahmad I, were arrested in Berlin on Wednesday. A security source said the three were in their 30s or 40s.

The suspects are set to appear in court on Thursday, when a judge will determine whether the trio will be held in custody before trial.

Hamas is designated as a “terrorist” organisation by Germany, as well as the European Union (EU) as a whole.

In February, four Hamas members suspected of plotting attacks on Jewish institutions in Europe went on trial in Berlin in what prosecutors described as the first court case against members of the Palestinian group in Germany.

“Anti-terrorism” investigators observed the suspects meeting in Berlin for a weapon handover before operational forces intervened and discovered functional weapons, including a Glock pistol, a spokesperson for the prosecutor’s office said.

Forensic technicians are examining the arsenal, and searches have also taken place in the eastern city of Leipzig, where one of the suspects lives. Authorities also conducted a search in Oberhausen in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia, the spokesperson added.

Germany is one of Israel’s strongest allies due to the legacy of the Holocaust, and security is tight at synagogues and other Jewish institutions. It did not join France, the United Kingdom and several other countries last month in recognising Palestinian statehood.

Hamas has carried out hundreds of attacks against Israeli civilians over the years, but it has rarely operated outside Israel and the Palestinian territories. Questions will likely be raised over whether the suspects were acting on orders from Hamas’s leadership or if they were merely sympathisers with Hamas or the Palestinian cause.

The arrests come as Israel continues its genocidal war on Gaza despite mounting global outcry and repeated appeals for a ceasefire. At the same time, Israel has enforced a crippling aid blockade on the enclave, where most of its two million residents have been displaced multiple times and are now facing famine and extreme hunger.

Israeli forces have killed at least 66,148 Palestinians since the assault began nearly two years ago, according to local health officials, though experts warn the true toll could be three times higher.

The arrests also took place as Hamas said it would study US President Donald Trump’s peace proposal to end the war.

Tens of thousands of people have also recently rallied in Berlin, protesting German support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Demonstrators marched over the weekend following a call from a broad coalition of some 50 groups, including pro-Palestinian organisations, Medico International, Amnesty International, and the opposition Left Party, for a large demonstration.

They demanded “an end to German complicity” in Israel’s war and called for “an end to all military cooperation with Israel,” including “the import, export, and transit of weapons, ammunition, and other military equipment”.

PARK RIDGE, Ill. — It was 3:30 a.m. when 10 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers gathered in a parking lot in the Chicago suburbs for a briefing about a suspect they were hoping to arrest. They went over a description of the person, made sure their radios were on the same channel and discussed where the closest hospital was in case something went wrong.

“Let’s plan on not being there,” said one of the officers, before they climbed into their vehicles and headed out.

Across the city and surrounding suburbs, other teams were fanning out in support of “Operation Midway Blitz.” It has unleashed President Trump’s mass deportations agenda on a city and state that has had some of the strongest laws preventing local officials from cooperating with federal immigration enforcement.

ICE launched the operation Sept. 8, drawing concern from activists and immigrant communities fearful of the large-scale arrests or aggressive tactics used in other cities targeted by the Republican president. They say there has been a noticeable increase in immigration enforcement agents, although a military deployment to Chicago has yet to materialize.

The Associated Press went on a ride-along with ICE in a Chicago suburb — much of the recent focus — to see how that operation is unfolding.

A predawn wait, then two arrests

A voice came over the radio: “He got into the car. I’m not sure if that’s the target.”

Someone matching the description of the man whom ICE was searching for walked out of the house, got into a car and drove away from the tree-lined street. Unsure whether this was their target, the officers followed. A few minutes later, with the car approaching the freeway, the voice over the radio said: “He’s got the physical description. We just can’t see the face good.”

“Do it,” said Marcos Charles, the acting head of ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations.

Agents in multiple vehicles soon overtook the car and boxed it in. After talking to the man, they realized he was not the person being sought but concluded that he was in the United States illegally, so they took him into custody.

Eventually, a little after dawn broke on the one- and two-story brick houses, the man they were looking for came out of the house and got into a car. ICE officers closed in. The man got out of the vehicle and was arrested. ICE said both men were in the country illegally and had criminal records.

Charles called it a “successful operation.”

“There was no safety issues on the part of our officers, nor the individuals that we arrested. And it went smoothly,” he said.

‘ICE does not belong here’

Activists and critics of ICE say that’s increasingly not the norm in immigration operations.

They point to videos showing ICE agents smashing windows to apprehend suspects, a chaotic showdown outside a popular Italian restaurant in San Diego, and arrests like that of a Tufts University student in March by masked agents outside her apartment in Somerville, Mass., as neighbors watched.

Charles said that ICE is using an “appropriate” amount of force and that agents are responding to suspects who increasingly are not following commands.

There has been “an uptick in people that are not compliant,” he said, blaming what he characterized as inflammatory rhetoric from activists encouraging people to resist.

Alderman Andre Vasquez, who chairs the Chicago City Council’s committee on immigrant and refugee rights, strenuously objected to that description, faulting ICE for any escalation.

“We’re not here to cause chaos. The president is,” Vasquez said. He accused immigration enforcement agents of trying to provoke activists into overreacting to justify calling in a greater use of force such as National Guard troops.

“ICE does not belong here,” he said.

Shooting by ICE agent raises tensions

Chicago was already on edge when a shooting Sept. 12 heightened tensions even more.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said an ICE officer fatally shot Silverio Villegas González, whom it described as a Mexican immigrant who tried to evade arrest in a Chicago suburb by driving his car at officers and dragging one of them. The department said the officer believed his life was threatened and therefore opened fire, killing the man.

Charles said he could not comment because there is an open investigation. But he said he met with the officer in the hospital, saw his injuries and thought that the force used was appropriate.

The officer was not wearing a body camera, Charles said.

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, a Democrat, has demanded “a full, factual accounting” of the shooting. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum condemned the death and said Mexico is demanding a thorough investigation.

“These tactics have led to the loss of life of one of our community members,” said Democratic Illinois state Rep. Norma Hernandez.

In another use-of-force incident under Midway Blitz that has drawn criticism, a U.S. citizen was detained by immigration agents alongside his father and hit by a stun gun three times Tuesday in suburban Des Plaines, the man’s lawyer said.

Local advocates have also condemned ICE agents for wearing masks, failing to identify themselves, and not using body cameras — actions that contrast with Chicago Police Department policy.

‘It was time to hit Chicago’

Charles said there is no timeline for the ICE-led operation in the Chicago area to end. As of Thursday, immigration enforcement officials had arrested nearly 550 people. Charles said 50% to 60% of those are targeted arrests, meaning they are people whom immigration enforcers are specifically trying to find.

He rejected criticism that ICE randomly targets people, saying agents weren’t “going out to Home Depot parking lots” to make indiscriminate arrests. Such arrests have been widely seen in recent months at Home Depots and other places of business in the Los Angeles area.

Charles said ICE has brought in more than 200 officers from around the country for the operation.

He said that for too long, cities such as Chicago that limited cooperation with ICE had allowed immigrants, especially those with criminal records, to remain in the country illegally. It was time to act, he said.

“It was time to hit Chicago.”

Santana writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Christine Fernando in Chicago contributed to this report.

France says arrest of Hicham Harb, 42 years after attack, made possible by upcoming recognition of Palestinian state.

The Palestinian Authority (PA) has arrested a key suspect in a deadly 1982 attack on a Jewish restaurant in Paris in a move that comes amid France’s preparations to recognise a Palestinian state.

The terror attack on the Jo Goldenberg restaurant in the Jewish quarter of Le Marais on August 9, 1982, killed six and left 22 others injured.

France’s National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office said in a statement on Friday that Interpol had informed it of the arrest of Hicham Harb by Palestinian authorities under a 2015 international warrant.

President Emmanuel Macron said that the suspect had been arrested in the occupied West Bank and that his country was now working with the PA to ensure his “swift extradition” to France.

Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot posted on X that the arrest had been made possible by Macron’s decision to recognise an independent Palestinian state, “enabling us to request extradition”.

Macron is expected to make the landmark announcement at the United Nations General Assembly in New York next week, with about 10 other countries, including Australia, Belgium, the United Kingdom and Canada.

Wanted man

Harb, whose real name is Mahmoud Khader Abed Adra, was one of France’s most-wanted men and had been the subject of an international arrest warrant for the past 10 years.

The 70-year-old is suspected of leading five other attackers in the gun assault on the restaurant, which was considered the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in France since the second world war.

The assault, blamed on the Palestinian Abu Nidal Organisation, began around midday when a grenade was tossed into the dining room by attackers who then entered the restaurant and opened fire with Polish-made machineguns.

Harb is suspected of having supervised the assault and also of being one of the gunmen who opened fire on diners and passersby.

He was formally indicted by French judges in July on charges of murder and attempted murder in connection with the attack. Harb and five other men in the case were referred to trial.

Another suspect, Abou Zayed, a 66-year-old Norwegian of Palestinian origin, has been in French custody since his 2020 extradition from Norway. He has denied the charges.

Bruno Gendrin and Romain Ruiz, lawyers for Zayed, see the arrest of his alleged accomplice as proof that “the investigation was not complete”.

“As usual, the anti-terrorism courts wanted to rush things, and we are now seeing the consequences,” they told the news agency AFP in a statement.

The Abu Nidal Organisation is categorised as a terror group by the US and Europe.

Palestinian activist Saeed Taji Farouky, of Defend Our Juries, says UK free speech is under threat after dawn raids on activist Paddy Friend and others. He warns that peaceful campaigners face terror charges over holding Zoom calls.

Sept. 6 (UPI) — South Korea might send a government official to Washington to resolve issues after hundreds of South Koreans were arrested at an under-construction Hyundai battery plant in Georgia.

South Korean officials convened an emergency meeting following the Thursday raid by federal agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and other law enforcement, who arrested 457 “unlawful aliens” working at the electric vehicle battery plant in Bryan County, Ga.

About 300 are South Koreans, who were working at the plant run by the HL-GA Battery Co., which is jointly owned by South Korean firms Hyundai Motor Co. and LG Energy Solution Ltd.

“We are deeply concerned and feel a heavy sense of responsibility over the arrests of our nationals,” South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun said during the meeting.

“If necessary, I will personally travel to Washington to hold consultations with the U.S. administration,” Cho said.

Homeland Security Investigations said the raid was the largest in its history and occurred after investigating the plant for several months, NPR reported.

Most of those who were arrested are being held at a Folkston, Ga., detention center, many of whom have expired visas or entered the United States via a waiver program that does not allow them to work.

Officials with LG Energy Solution have suspended all the company’s business-related trips to the United States and have encouraged employees in the United States to either stay at their places of residence or return to South Korea.

Construction on the battery plant has stopped, and HL-GA Battery officials are cooperating with U.S. investigators.