18 held over attack near Turkish court
IZMIR, Turkey — Police detained 18 people on Friday in connection with an attack near a courthouse in the western city of Izmir that killed a policeman and a courthouse employee. Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag said Friday that Turkish authorities had no doubt that the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party “gave the orders” for the attack.
The two assailants were killed in a shootout with police in Thursday’s attack in Izmir, Turkey’s third-largest city, after they detonated an explosives-laden vehicle at a roadblock. The attackers were armed with automatic rifles, rocket launchers and hand grenades, officials said.
Bozdag spoke before thousands of people at a memorial service for the slain police officer, Fethi Sekin, who authorities say thwarted a larger attack.
He said 18 suspects were rounded up, but did not provide details. There was no immediate responsibility claim.
The attack came just days after 39 people were killed in a nightclub in Istanbul during New Year’s celebrations. The Islamic State claimed that attack, saying it was a reprisal for Turkey’s military operations in Syria.
Bangladesh police kill key cafe-attacker
NEW DELHI — Bangladesh police say a militant suspected of being one of the leaders of an attack on a popular cafe in Bangladesh’s capital that left 20 people dead last year has been killed in a shootout with security officials.
Counterterrorism unit head Monirul Islam said Nurul Islam Marzan was one of two people killed in a shootout early Friday in Dhaka. He did not provide details. Also killed was Saddam Hossain, an accomplice of Marzan, said Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal.
Police had said earlier that Marzan was one of the leaders of the July 1 attack on a Dhaka restaurant where 20 people, including 17 foreigners, were killed.
Khan said Saddam was involved in many killings, including the slaying of a Japanese citizen in the hands of the suspected militants in northern Bangladesh in recent years.
Marzan was identified by police as a leader of the Jumatul Mujahedeen Bangladesh group.
Since the July attack on the cafe, security officials have killed about 40 alleged Islamist militants in raids.
U.N. to Greece: Get migrants off islands
ATHENS, Greece — The United Nations refugee agency urged Greek authorities Friday to quickly move asylum seekers to the mainland from overcrowded facilities on Greek islands, saying conditions remain bad and expressing concern over a predicted cold weather snap.
Refugee agency spokesman Adrian Edwards said in Geneva that conditions at many sites “remain very poor” despite improvement efforts.
“The need for better protection will become all the more acute this weekend when temperatures on the islands are expected to drop. We are worried,” Edwards said, according to a summary of his statements.
More than 15,500 migrants or refugees are stuck on Greek islands. On Lesbos, 5,537 people were crammed into facilities designed for 3,500, while in Samos 1,944 people were in facilities built for 850, according to Greek government figures.
Under a European Union-Turkey deal to reduce migration into Europe, those arriving on islands after March are held and face being returned to Turkey unless they successfully apply for asylum in Greece.
Kosovo urges France to free ex-premier
PRISTINA, Kosovo — Kosovo’s government is calling on French authorities to release a former prime minister who has been detained facing possible extradition to Serbia to face war-crimes charges.
A French court Thursday ruled that Ramush Haradinaj, detained a day earlier, should stay in custody until it decides whether to turn him over to Serbian officials.
Kosovo Prime Minister Isa Mustafa on Friday urged “the French government to take into consideration that such warrants are fully political and have no legal or juridical base.”
France’s Foreign Ministry declined to comment on Kosovo’s call for Haradinaj’s release.
The French court says it is awaiting the formal extradition request from Serbia before it sets a date for a hearing.
Haradinaj, 48, a guerrilla fighter in Kosovo’s 1998-99 war for independence from Serbia and now an opposition political leader, is accused by Serbia of committing kidnappings, torture and killings against Serb civilians when he was a senior rebel commander in western Kosovo. He was cleared of war-crimes charges in two lengthy trials by a U.N. war-crimes tribunal.
In a message Friday on Facebook, Haradinaj deplored that France would “still respect decisions of [the late Slobodan] Milosevic’s former regime” in Serbia.