Breaking - ArchivesPosts of 04/2017

Police in France have searched a property believed to be the home of a known terror suspect who shot dead one police officer and seriously wounded two more in an attack two days before voting begins in an already tense presidential election.

The gunman stepped from a car and opened fire on a police van with an automatic rifle outside a Marks & Spencer store on the Champs Élysées in central Paris at about 9pm on Thursday. Read more HERE

Voting is under way in the first round of an unpredictable French presidential election whose outcome could prove crucial for the future of a deeply divided country and a nervous European Union.

Less than two days after a gunman shot dead a policeman on the Champs-Elysées in an attack for which Islamic State claimed responsibility, France’s 47 million registered voters – nearly a quarter of whom are still undecided – go to the polls amid heightened security.

Read more HERE

The United States has announced that a secret military ground operation killed an Islamic State operative seen as a close associate of leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and linked to an attack on a Turkish nightclub that left 39 people dead.

Abdurakhmon Uzbeki, who was believed to be from Uzbekistan, was killed during the ground assault near Mayadin, Syria, on 6 April, said Colonel John Thomas, a spokesman for the US military’s central command. Read more HERE.

Speaking at a joint press conference on Thursday, the US president rejected a plea from the Italian prime minister, Paolo Gentiloni, for the US to maintain its “very critical” role in the country and help build political consensus around the struggling UN-backed government in Tripoli, which Italy has said represents the best long-term hope for stability.

“I do not see a role in Libya. I think the United States has right now enough roles. We are in a role everywhere,” Trump said. Read more HERE.