British police have released another man who was detained in connection with the failed July 21 bomb attacks on London's transit system.
London's Metropolitan Police said yesterday that officers were continuing to question 16 suspects. Of the 37 people detained over the attempt to set off bombs on three subway trains and a double-decker bus, 21 are no longer being held in connection with the investigation.
The man police released on Tuesday was let go without charge.
British authorities say those still in custody include three of the failed bombers. They are trying to extradite the fourth suspected attacker, Hamdi Issac, from Italy, but his lawyer said Italian investigations could delay any extradition to Britain.
Police say all four bombers who carried out the first series of attacks on July 7 in London died in the blasts that killed 52 other people on three subway trains and a bus. Officers are not holding any suspects in connection with those bombings.
Britons were stunned to learn that three of the alleged July 7 suicide attackers were young Pakistani Britons; the third moved from Jamaica as a child. Most of the men alleged to have carried out failed attacks two weeks later, taking no lives, were immigrants from East Africa.
The apparent willingness of men born and raised in Britain to turn to militancy has prompted soul-searching in a nation proud of its diversity and tolerance.
There are some 1.8 million Muslims in Britain and the overwhelming majority are moderate in their views.
Nevertheless, police figures released on Tuesday showed that crimes motivated by religious hatred had increased by nearly 600 percent since the July 7 bombings.
Many Muslims fear officers are using racial profiling in their search for terror suspects. The Mail on Sunday newspaper quoted Ian Johnston, chief constable of the British Transport Police, as suggesting race would be a factor in police searches. "We should not waste time searching old white ladies," he reportedly said.
Police in China detained dozens of pastors of one of its largest underground churches over the weekend, a church spokesperson and relatives said, in the biggest crackdown on Christians since 2018. The detentions, which come amid renewed China-US tensions after Beijing dramatically expanded rare earth export controls last week, drew condemnation from US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who on Sunday called for the immediate release of the pastors. Pastor Jin Mingri (金明日), founder of Zion Church, an unofficial “house church” not sanctioned by the Chinese government, was detained at his home in the southern city of Beihai on Friday evening, said
Floods on Sunday trapped people in vehicles and homes in Spain as torrential rain drenched the northeastern Catalonia region, a day after downpours unleashed travel chaos on the Mediterranean island of Ibiza. Local media shared videos of roaring torrents of brown water tearing through streets and submerging vehicles. National weather agency AEMET decreed the highest red alert in the province of Tarragona, warning of 180mm of rain in 12 hours in the Ebro River delta. Catalan fire service spokesman Oriol Corbella told reporters people had been caught by surprise, with people trapped “inside vehicles, in buildings, on ground floors.” Santa Barbara Mayor Josep Lluis
The Venezuelan government on Monday said that it would close its embassies in Norway and Australia, and open new ones in Burkina Faso and Zimbabwe in a restructuring of its foreign service, after weeks of growing tensions with the US. The closures are part of the “strategic reassignation of resources,” Venezueland President Nicolas Maduro’s government said in a statement, adding that consular services to Venezuelans in Norway and Australia would be provided by diplomatic missions, with details to be shared in the coming days. The Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that it had received notice of the embassy closure, but no
A missing fingertip offers a clue to Mako Nishimura’s criminal past as one of Japan’s few female yakuza, but after clawing her way out of the underworld, she now spends her days helping other retired gangsters reintegrate into society. The multibillion-dollar yakuza organized crime network has long ruled over Japan’s drug rings, illicit gambling dens and sex trade. In the past few years, the empire has started to crumble as members have dwindled and laws targeting mafia are tightened. An intensifying police crackdown has shrunk yakuza forces nationwide, with their numbers dipping below 20,000 last year for the first time since records