thwarted

Police in Dearborn, Michigan, confirmed FBI operations had been conducted in the area, without offering details.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the United States has announced that it disrupted an alleged “terrorist attack” in the northern state of Michigan.

Few details were released about the operation or the suspects involved. In a social media post on Friday, FBI Director Kash Patel pledged to reveal more information later on.

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“This morning the FBI thwarted a potential terrorist attack and arrested multiple subjects in Michigan who were allegedly plotting a violent attack over Halloween weekend,” he wrote.

“Thanks to the men and women of FBI and law enforcement everywhere standing guard 24/7 and crushing our mission to defend the homeland.”

Patel did not specify which part of Michigan the FBI operation took place in. But in a separate social media post on Friday, the police department for the city of Dearborn noted that FBI agents had been active in its community.

It is unclear whether their presence pertained to the same operation or a different one.

“The Dearborn Police Department has been made aware that the FBI conducted operations in the city of Dearborn earlier this morning,” the department wrote. “We want to assure our residents that there is no threat to the community at this time.”

Located in southeast Michigan, near Detroit, Dearborn is known as the headquarters for the Ford Motor Company, and it is the first city in the US to have an Arab American majority.

The Detroit Free Press, a Michigan newspaper, reported there were also FBI operations in Inkster, another suburb of Detroit.

This is a developing story. More details to come.

French President Emmanuel Macron greeted Belgian premier Bart De Wever, right, at the Elysee Palace in Paris on March 27. On Thursday, Belgian authorities intercepted a plot to attack De Wever and other Belgian leaders. File Photo by Maya Vidon-White/UPI | License Photo

Oct. 10 (UPI) — A plot to attack the Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever and other Belgian leadership was intercepted by police in Antwerp, and three young adult men were arrested.

Prosecutors described it as a “jihadist-inspired terrorist attack.” During a search in the Deurne area of Antwerp, police found a homemade explosive that the suspects were planning to attach to a drone to execute the attack. Deurne is near the prime minister’s residence.

“The news of a planned attack targeting Prime Minister Bart De Wever is extremely shocking,” Deputy Prime Minister Maxime Prevot wrote in a post on X. “I express my full support to the prime minister, his wife and his family, and my thanks go to the security and justice services, whose swift action has prevented the worst. It highlights that we are facing a very real terrorist threat and that we have to remain vigilant.”

Reports said that Antwerp Mayor Els van Doesburg and Dutch anti-Islam leader Geert Wilders may have also been targets. Defense Minister Theo Francken said he couldn’t confirm who else was a target but that he was not.

Francken said on Flemish public broadcaster VRT, “it is terrible for Bart and his family, and of course it’s Islamists again,” BBC reported.

The suspects were arrested on suspicion of attempted terrorist murder and participation in the activities of a terrorist group. They all live in Antwerp, the prosecutor’s office said. The oldest one, who is 24, was released Thursday night due to lack of evidence. The other two are expected to appear Friday before an investigating judge.

At a press conference Friday, Federal Prosecutor Ann Fransen said searches found a “bag of steel balls” and a 3D printer with “indications that they intended to use a drone to attach a payload.”

She said there have been 80 terrorism investigations in Belgium this year, which is more than the number of cases in all of 2024.

Five people were convicted in April of a 2023 plot to attack De Wever while he was mayor of Antwerp. De Wever is conservative and is the first Flemish nationalist to be prime minister.

PM Meloni said she would not vote, and opposition accuses government of dampening interest in immigrant, worker issues.

An Italian referendum on easing citizenship rules and strengthening labour protections has failed after hard-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni encouraged voters to boycott the vote.

As polls closed on Monday, it emerged that many citizens had heeded Meloni’s call as only 30 percent of the electorate cast their ballots over two days of voting, far short of the 50 percent plus one needed to make the result legally binding.

The outcome was a clear defeat for the centre-left opposition, which had proposed to halve the period of residence required to apply for Italian citizenship from 10 to five years and to reverse labour market liberalisations introduced a decade ago.

The prime minister said she was “absolutely against” the citizenship proposals, announcing she would turn up at the polls but not cast a vote.

A stated goal of Meloni’s government is to cut irregular immigration, but it has increased the number of immigrant work visas.

The general secretary of the Italian General Confederation of Labour union, Maurizio Landini, slammed the low turnout as a sign of a “clear democratic crisis” in Italy.

“We knew it wouldn’t be a walk in the park,” he said, stressing that millions of Italians had turned up to fight for change.

Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party posted on social media that the “only real goal” of the referendum was to bring down the Meloni government, and it added, alongside pictures of opposition leaders: “In the end, it was the Italians who brought you down.”

Opinion polls published in mid-May showed that 46 percent of Italians were aware of the issues driving the referendums.

Activists and opposition parties accused the governing coalition of deliberately dampening interest in sensitive issues that directly affect immigrants and workers.

Campaigners for the change in the citizenship law said it would help the children of non-European Union parents better integrate into a culture they already see as theirs.

Changes to the laws would have affected about 2.5 million foreign nationals.

Other questions in the referendum dealt with labour-related issues like better protections against dismissal, higher severance payments and the conversion of fixed-term contracts into permanent ones.

Opposition forces had hoped that promoting these causes would help them woo working class voters and challenge Meloni, something they have struggled to do since she came to power in 2022.

Many of the 78 referendums held in Italy in the past have failed due to low turnout.