The Iranian Intelligence Ministry has released the names of and other information about the five Takfiri Daesh terrorists who carried out twin attacks in the Iranian capital city of Tehran on Wednesday. The Intelligence Ministry on Thursday released a statement detailing information on the five terrorists and “affiliated nuclei,” whose full identities it said had been determined after intelligence work by the Ministry.

The statement only released the first names of the terrorists and said that their last names were being withheld due to “certain social and security considerations.”

On Wednesday, gunmen stormed Iran’s Parliament (Majlis) and the Mausoleum of the late founder of the Islamic Republic, Imam Khomeini, in two coordinated attacks. At least 17 people lost their lives and nearly 50 others were wounded in the assaults, which involved shootings and blasts. Daesh claimed responsibility for the attacks. According to the Intelligence Ministry’s Thursday statement, the individuals involved in carrying out the attacks were five elements with a history of past terrorist activities and linked to Wahhabi and Takfiri groups.

They were identified as Seriyas, Fereydoun, Qayyoum, Abu Jahad, and Ramin. The statement said that the five had left Iran after being recruited by the Takfiri Daesh terrorist group and had participated in the group’s atrocities in the Iraqi city of Mosul and the Syrian city of Raqqah.

It said they had entered Iran in July-August 2016 under the command of “Abu Ayesheh” — a high-ranking commander with the Daesh terrorist group — and planned to carry out terror attacks in religious cities in Iran, but “had fled the country following the full obliteration of the network and blows [dealt] to the case’s main elements, including the killing of Abu Ayesheh.”

Wahhabi terrorist groups are closely associated with Saudi Arabia, where government-sanctioned clerics preach the strongly intolerant pseudo-ideology of Wahhabism.

Earlier on Thursday, Iranian Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi said that it was still soon to judge whether Saudi Arabia had had a role in the attacks in Tehran.

He did say however that in the current month and in recent days, “we witnessed heavy pressure from terrorists, to the extent that we have been identifying and arresting two-member and three-member teams or single individuals every week.”

Earlier in May, the Saudi defense minister, Mohammed bin Salman, had threatened in opaque remarks to move “the battle” to Iran. While Iranian people have been mourning the victims of the terrorist attacks, there has also been a strengthened sense of unity among them.

Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei said on Wednesday that the terror attacks in Tehran could not undermine the Iranian nation’s resolve in the face of threats. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani also condemned the attacks as “cowardly,” stressing that the country would crush enemy plots through unity and solidarity.

The attacks also drew strong international condemnation, with many heads of states extending condolences to the Iranian nation and government. Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) blamed the sponsors of the Takfiri Daesh for the attacks and pledged to retaliate.

The IRGC said the fact that the terrorist attacks had been carried out by Daesh just days after US President Donald Trump met with “the rulers of a regional reactionary regime,” which has been supporting Takfiri terrorists — a thinly-veiled reference to Saudi Arabia — indicated that “they have a hand in the bestial attacks.”

Source: Presstv

German officials say growing numbers of pregnant immigrant women are paying German men to pose as fathers so that they can qualify for residency. German broadcaster RBB found up to 700 cases in Berlin alone. “There are many unreported cases,” said Ole Schröder, a top interior ministry official.

There has been a rise in asylum requests from pregnant women from Vietnam, Africa and Eastern Europe. A new law is being drafted to tackle the fake paternity racket, RBB reports. Some pregnant immigrant women are reported to have paid fake fathers and solicitors as much as €5,000 (£4,356; $5,628) to get paternity registered. Once that is done, the baby automatically becomes a German citizen and the mother has the right to stay.

However, in 2013 a German Constitutional Court ruling said that even in suspicious cases it might not be worth contesting paternity, because the child could end up stateless and left in legal limbo. It is generally easier for refugees fleeing conflict to get residency in Germany than for economic migrants who have escaped poverty in Africa, Asia or Eastern Europe.

Germany has moved to tighten asylum rules since the 2015 influx of more than 800,000 migrants, most of them refugees from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. Immigration is a major issue ahead of parliamentary elections in September. The influx hit some local authorities especially hard, as they struggled to house and integrate the newcomers.

However, there was a sharp drop in the numbers claiming asylum in 2016, after barriers were erected on the Balkan migration route. Polls suggest that the nationalist Alternative for Germany (AfD), opposed to mass immigration, has gained support and is on course to enter the federal parliament (Bundestag) for the first time.

Mr Schröder, a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s centre-right Christian Democrats (CDU), said “we have a lot of evidence from the immigration authorities – fake fathers are making money out of this… in other words, this involves a considerable amount of criminality”. In one case reported by RBB, a far-right sympathiser, convicted for sporting neo-Nazi symbols, claimed to be the father of a Vietnamese child.

Martin Steltner, a state prosecutor in Berlin, told ARD television there were signs of widespread abuse involving paternity, for example one man claiming to be the father of 10 children. The fake fathers rarely pay any child support, as many are living off social welfare, ARD reports.

Source: BBC

The European Union says it plans to spend 50 million euros to finance the establishment of a joint African military force in the Sahel region with the declared aim of fighting terrorism, among other threats.

Announcing the bid in Mali’s capital of Bamako on Monday, the European Union’s foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini says the bloc asserted that the funding will help pay for the troops battle illegal immigration, cross-border crime and militant activity.

“Stability and development of the Sahel region are crucial not only for Africa but also for Europe,” said the EU’s top diplomat, noting that “this contribution will arrive very quickly and I hope (it) will set out the right path to other partners of the Sahel G5.”

The military force will be made up of troops from Mauritania, Mali, Chad, Burkina Faso and Niger, known as the Sahel G-5. The group approved plans in March to build a contingent of 5,000 members made up of soldiers, police officers as well as civilians.

However, Mali’s Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Diop stated on Monday that leaders of the five nations had decided the new force would consist of up to 10,000 soldiers and police officers and become operational by the end of the year.

“The heads of state of the Sahel G5 who met in Riyadh, [Saudi Arabia] just a few weeks ago decided to bring the number from 5,000 men to 10,000 men. This really shows their engagement because this is a vast area,” Diop declared.

Neither Mogherini nor Diop, however, elaborated on the role of the Saudi kingdom in the establishment of the African military force.

The initial decision to establish the G5 Sahel force in the semi-arid region south of the Sahara was made in November 2015, during a summit in Chad’s capital of N’Djamena.

More than 3,000 French military forces as well as 12,000 UN troops have been engaged in Mali – a former French colony — since 2013, when al-Qaeda-linked elements and Tuareg militants waged an insurgency in the north of the country.

Although the militants were largely driven out by a French-led military operation in January 2013, they continue to wage attacks on the country’s military forces in the arid remote north.

Since 2015, the attacks have spread to the center and south of the impoverished nation, often spilling over into neighboring countries, including Burkina Faso and Niger.

Source: Presstv