Death toll in the London Tower fire rises to 30, could go up to 100

A fire engulfed the 24-storey tower in west London and the death toll has risen to 30 and there are fears that it could cross 100 in the worst ever fire tragedy in the country. The Metropolitan police has said that there was nothing that would suggest that the fire at the Grenfell Tower was started deliberately.
However, investigation has been started and it is suspected that survivors may not be there and, in the opinion of Scotland Yard, all the victims may never be identified.
This has been reported in timesofindia.com dated 16 June 2017.

Queen Elizabeth II, accompanied by grandson Prince William, paid a visit and met volunteers, local residents and community representatives. British Prime Minister Theresa May has ordered a judge- led full public inquiry into the incident.


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Carey Mulligan leaves teddy bears outside gates of 10 Downing Street to protest attacks on Aleppo

Actress Carey Mulligan has left teddy bears outside the gates of Downing Street to protest the persistent, deadly attacks on Aleppo. She is the star of films such as Shame and Drive and, also, an ambassador for the charity War Child She has said that one of her one-year-old daughter's toys was among the teddies.
This has been reported in news.sky.com dated 22 October 2016.

Hundreds of protesters had gathered in London's Whitehall to call on the Government to do more to end civilian deaths in the Syrian conflict. The teddy bears they brought represented the thousands of children who were trapped in rebel-held eastern areas of the city.
The Syrian government regime has recently stepped up attacks and civilians were being pulled out dead from the rubble after numerous devastating barrel bombings.
Carey Mulligan hoped that the protesters could send a "real message" that governments must act to stop the fighting in Aleppo because these are examples of breaking humanitarian international laws. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has termed the attacks in Syria and eastern Aleppo as "crimes of historic proportions". Many targets are hospitals and schools and the death toll in the civil war stands at more than 300,000.


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MI5 agent reveals how he tracked down a suspected Islamic terrorist

It was like a mission from the story books - the MI5 agent had dressed up as a tramp in urine-soaked clothes and sat in front of a mosque while tracking a suspect. He was part of an MI5 team that was tracking a suspected Islamist terrorist and he sat outside a London mosque during evening prayers. To make it look realistic, he was dressed as a tramp and pretended to ask for change. His own clothes were soaked in his own urine to compliment that cover.
This has been reported in news.sky.com dated 4 October 2016.

While keeping watch, he observed that the number of woman worshippers who left was more than the number that had gone in. He immediately alerted the team that there was a possibility the suspect had changed his appearance. Actually, he had changed into a burka and was pretending to be a woman. Agents of the MI5 team called in a Special Forces unit to arrest the terrorist and two Range Rovers slammed into the suspect's car. The man was dragged him out of the car and the team found weapons and pipe bombs in the boot.
His planned target was for the very next day. It seems he was waiting for a couple of coach loads of children who were returning from a trip to France and his plan was to kill them, the teachers and the parents.
The MI5 agent had spent 10 years as a surveillance agent for British intelligence.


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Paris and Brussels cancel New Year Eve fireworks due to terror threats

#terrorthreats #London #ScotlandYard #Parisattacks Brussels has cancelled its official fireworks display after two men were arrested by police and accused of plotting to attack the event. Paris has also called off its traditional display in the Champs-Elysees because it continues to remain on high alert following last month's terror attacks. In London, security barriers have been put in place to mark the new year and extra armed officers have been called in to police the New Year's Eve celebrations amid a Europe-wide warning that terrorists could be plotting an attack.
This has been reported in news.sky.com dated 31 December 2015.

In London, tickets have been sold out for the London Mayor’s official fireworks display on the South Bank and, those who do not have tickets have been advised to see the new year in at home or at bars across the capital. The Metropolitan Police have indicated that enhanced patrolling is a precautionary measure and not a result of any specific intelligence.
Incidentally, some officers have had leave cancelled to bolster numbers. As per Scotland Yard, there would be nearly 3,000 officers on duty in central London. The plan includes deputing additional police officers in central London and many of them would be firearms officers.
Paris has also increased the numbers - there will be 11,000 officers patrolling the city as compared with 9,000 last year.

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Scotland Yard launches biggest ever crackdown on guns in London

In view of the increase in incidents of stabbings and firearms offenses, the Met Police have launched joint operations of crackdown on guns involving hundreds of specialist officers, including firearms teams. Ever since January, 15 teenagers have been stabbed to death in London. Hence this operation of Scotland Yard - it is one of its biggest ever operations against gun and knife crime in the capital.
This has been reported in news.sky.com dated 11 December 2015.

Apart from the stabbings of teenagers, there have also been more than 350 firearms-related incidents in London so far this year - this is up 15% on the 2014 figure.
The crackdown follows a guns amnesty that had been announced two weeks after the Paris terror attacks. As a result of the amnesty, dozens of guns were recovered, including an AK47 assault rifle, the same kind of weapon used in the attack on the French capital.
The operation, codenamed Kestrel, is being run by the Trident and Area Crime Command.
The police have seized eight firearms, including two handguns and three sawn-off shotguns, four knives, two swords, 11 kilos of cocaine, three kilos of cannabis, one kilo of MDMA, four kilos of crack cocaine and heroin with a street value of £250,000.
Operation Kestrel is an extension of an earlier initiative that had been launched against knife crime in June in which 6000 arrests were made and 1,000 knives were seized.

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ISIS planned to carry out ‘lone wolf’ terror attacks, target the Queen and the Royal family

#ISIS #Syria #London #Raqqa #lonewolfattack The new war cry of British jihadists in Syria is for establishing ‘lone wolf’ attack on the streets of Britain – some details of these plots have come to surface through messages from former computer hacker and his wife who had joined ISIS in 2013.
This has been reported in dailymail.co.uk dated 11 August 2015.

The pair - dubbed as Mr and Mrs Terror – had been caught trying to incite carnage. It seems they have confided to undercover reporters, who had posed as wannabe jihadis, to carry out so-called 'Lone Wolf' attacks in Britain. The duo had even sent them guidebooks on how to make bombs.
Moreover, the militants have also revealed plans to target the Queen and the Royal Family with pressure cooker bombs. And, another terror chief has apparently claimed that four or five British recruits, trained in Syria, have now returned to Britain to launch strikes.
The plot was unearthed by two reporters posing as male and female jihadis on Twitter and in chatrooms. They made contact with the two British ISIS militants. One of them, the man, is from Birmingham and runs the ISIS recruitment arm in the terror group's de facto capital of Raqqa in Syria. He is a top-five target for the U.S. Secret Service.
The interactions between the reporters and this man went on for nearly four months and, they convinced the terrorists that they wanted to make a bomb. The woman then supplied them with detailed instructions on how to construct a pressure cooker explosive – she also insisted on seeing receipts to prove they had actually bought the materials.
Anyway, the information of an impending attack on the Queen and the Royal family was forwarded to the police and necessary measures have been taken.
(Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org)

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#ISIS #Syria #Hyderabad This is the case of a person of Indian origin who had gone to Syria, joined up with the ISIS and has, now, died in Syria. He was an engineering graduate aged 27-years from Hyderabad from where he completed his engineering degree four years back. Later, he moved out to London where he completed his master’s course and, then, in February this year, he left for Syria from London.
As per reports in timesofindia.indiatimes.com dated 5 May 2015, he seems to have joined the Islamic State in Syria where he died.

It is not known of how he met his death – it could have been while fighting or in landmine blast or accidental death but, he died in March. This was conveyed to his family around 10 days back. They reside in Rajendra Nagar and they got the news through an SMS send in Arabic language.
It may be recalled that last year, Hyderabad Police had foiled "attempts" by six youths from the city from joining the ISIS. These six included two engineers and a former Google employee. They had been swayed by the propaganda of the ISIS on social networking sites.

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Three British jihadi schoolgirls give everyone the slip and arrive in Raqqa

#BritishSchoolgirls #ISIS #Raqqa #Syria #London #ScotlandYard The three British schoolgirls who gave everyone the slip and fled to Syria to join Islamic State are believed to now be in a house in the city of Raqqa. The three of them had gone missing two weeks ago after they had boarded a flight from Gatwick to Istanbul. This has been reported in dailymail.co.uk dated 9 March 2015.
Their journey to Syria has led to plenty of accusations and counter accusations among the authorities because it was an action that could have been prevented if the policing authorities had been more vigilant. From reports, the girls are believed to have crossed from Turkey to Syria through the town of Arai.
Moreover, the girls were reportedly staying with a British girl who is thought to be a pupil from the same school in east London and who had gone missing in December. She is believed to have joined IS.
From their actions it is evident that these girls view such escapades as a sort of picnic not knowing what actually is in store for them. They get carried away by the stories they read on various social websites that glorify the IS and paint a glowing picture of the goodies that are in store fir them once they break out of the shackles and join up.
When realization would dawn, it would be too late for them and others like them and they would be stranded in the point of no return.
As per Scotland Yard, at least 22 young women are feared to have travelled to Syria from the UK over the past 12 months. Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe has warned that the girls have been lured to Syria by IS and would face sexual abuse at the hands of ‘deeply misogynistic’ militants.

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Jihadi John identified as belonging to a respectable London family

#JihadiJohn #Kuwait #London #ISIS #JamesFoley #StevenSotloff ‘Jihadi John’ was the name given to The Islamic State executioner who has been seen in videos of beheading of American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, aid worker David Haines, 22 Syrian soldiers and Japanese journalist Kenji Goto.
He has now been identified as a man from London as reported in dailymail.co.uk dated 26 February 2015. His actual name is Mohammed Emwazi, was born in Kuwait. He is 27-years-old and resident of Queen’s Park, west London. Moreover, he is a computer programming graduate from the University of Westminster and it is believed that he had travelled to Syria in 2012 and later joined ISIS.
The identification has been apparently done by one of his close friends who said Mohammed Emwazi was like a brother to him.
Another person named Asim Qureshi, research director a British human rights group Cage, also believed the man was Jihadi John. Qureshi had been in contact with Mohammed Emwazi before he left for Syria.
The FBI had been trying to identify Jihadi John by using various investigative techniques like voice analysis and interviews with former hostages. British Prime Minister David Cameron has reiterated that Jihadi John has to face justice for the inhuman and appalling acts that have been committed in Syria.

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