'I want to execute. I want to behead,' says US man arrested at airport on way to join LeT

Agencies
February 9, 2019

Washington, Feb 9: A 29-year-old New York City man has been arrested while he was about to catch a flight to Pakistan to join the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), in a dangerous sign that the Pakistan-based terror group, which carried out the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack, has expanded its tentacles in the US.

In another instance of growing influence of the LeT in the US and radicalisation of American youths, a teenager in Texas was charged by the FBI with using social media to recruit people on behalf of the terror group and send them to Pakistan for terrorist training.

Federal prosecutors on Friday announced that they arrested the Manhattan man, Jesus Wilfredo Encarnacion, on Thursday night at John F Kennedy International Airport as he was about to board an international flight with Pakistan being his final destination.

Prosecutors say Encarnacion went online to try to join the terrorist organisation. Encarnacion allegedly told an unnamed co-conspirator in November that he wanted to hook up with Pakistani terror group which carried out the 2008 Mumbai attacks that killed 166 people.

"I want to execute. I want to behead. Shoot," Encarnacion told an undercover agent, the complaint alleges.

"Encarnacion allegedly attempted to travel to Pakistan to join a foreign terrorist organisation and conspired with another individual to provide that organisation with material support," said Assistant Attorney General John Demers.

Encarnacion aka "Jihadistsoldgier", "Jihadinhear", "Jihadinheart" and "Lionofthegood," plotted to travel to Pakistan to join and train with LeT, said US Attorney Geoffrey Berman.

"Encarnacion not only expressed a desire to "execute and behead people," he scheduled travel and almost boarded a plane so he could go learn how to become a terrorist," said FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge William Sweeney Jr.

In the southern state of Texas, 18-year-old Michael Kyle Sewell was charged by the FBI with using social media to recruit people on behalf of the LeT and send them to Pakistan for terrorist training.

The arrest of the New Yorker and the charges against the Texas teenager - who do not appear to be of South Asian origin as has been the case in previous such arrests - has set the alarm bells ringing among the law enforcement agencies in the US.

The arrests have thrown the spotlight on issues of homegrown terrorism and radicalisation of American youths, a situation that authorities have dreaded post Mumbai-terrorist attack.

Based out of Pakistan, the LeT is a UN and US designated global terrorist organisation and has carried out several terrorist attacks inside India, including the Mumbai terrorist attack in 2008 that took the lives of 166 people including several Americans.

"These organisations are using the internet and social media to appeal to the most barbaric impulses in people, and train them to kill," Sweeney Jr added.

According to NYPD Police Commissioner James O'Neill, one of Encarnacion's stated motives for travelling overseas was to get the training and experience he believed he needed to someday return to the United States and carry out attacks.

Meanwhile, Sewell, who encouraged and recruited an individual to join the LeT hails from Fort Worth city and met the man.

"Sewell allegedly used social media to recruit and encourage an individual to travel overseas to join a foreign terrorist organization and conspired with that person to provide material support to that organisation," Demers said.

According to the criminal complaint, Sewell provided the co-conspirator with contact information of an individual he believed could facilitate the travel to Pakistan.

Unbeknownst to Sewell and his partner, the facilitator was an undercover FBI agent, the federal prosecutors said.

Sewell had even coached the co-conspirator on how to convince the facilitator that he was sincere in his desire to fight for the LeT, they added.

The teen also contacted the facilitator to vouch for the co-conspirator's authenticity and told both of them that he would kill the coconspirator if he turned out to be a spy.

The co-conspirator then contacted the facilitator and made arrangements to travel to Pakistan, the criminal complaint said.

Comments

Abdullah
 - 
Sunday, 10 Feb 2019

This is total bias.  US is trying to defame islam and muslims.  the man arested seems to be a jew or christian.  How come he is joining LeT which is no more existing now.  US is trying to fool to divert attention of people from failure of Trump Govt.   

Rashid
 - 
Saturday, 9 Feb 2019

Probabaly marketing for ISIS is finished.. now i think it is the plan either to target islam thru LET or to destroy Pakistani economy which is trying recover under Imran khan.

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News Network
February 27,2020

New Delhi, Feb 27: Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Thursday attacked the government over the transfer of Delhi High Court Judge S Muralidhar, saying the Centre's attempts to "muzzle" justice and "break people's faith in an upright judiciary are deplorable".

Delhi HC Judge S Muralidhar was transferred to the Punjab and Haryana High Court, days after the Supreme Court collegium made the recommendation.

"The midnight transfer of Justice Muralidhar isn't shocking given the current dispensation, but it is certainly sad & shameful," Priyanka Gandhi tweeted. "Millions of Indians have faith in a resilient & upright judiciary, the government’s attempts to muzzle justice & break their faith are deplorable," she said.

The judge was hearing the Delhi violence case and the late evening notification came on the day when a bench headed by him expressed "anguish" over the Delhi Police's failure to register FIRs against alleged hate speeches by three BJP leaders.

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News Network
May 11,2020

New Delhi, May 11: Shares of Indian Railway Catering And Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) jumped 5 per cent in early trade on Monday after the Indian Railways said it will gradually resume passenger train services from May 12.

The company's shares gained 5 per cent to Rs 1,302.85 -- its highest trading permissible limit for the day -- on the BSE. At the National Stock Exchange (NSE), it rose 5 per cent to Rs 1,303.55 -- its upper circuit limit.

Booking for reservation in these trains will start at 4pm on May 11 and will be available only on the IRCTC website.

The Indian Railways will gradually resume passenger train services from May 12 and will ask passengers to arrive at the station at least an hour before departure, the national transporter said on Sunday.

Initially, the all air-conditioned services will begin on 15 Rajdhani routes and the fare would be equivalent to that of the super-fast train, it said.

The special trains will run from New Delhi to Dibrugarh, Agartala, Howrah, Patna, Bilaspur, Ranchi, Bhubaneswar, Secunderabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Thiruvananthapuram, Madgaon, Mumbai Central, Ahmedabad and Jammu Tawi.

All passenger services were suspended due to a lockdown announced on March 25 and the railways later started the on-demand Shramik Specials to ferry migrants stranded across the country. It, however, has been running freight and parcel services.

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Agencies
April 20,2020

Hong Kong, Apr 20: Oil prices collapsed to more than two-decade lows Monday as traders grow concerned that storage facilities are reaching their limits, while equities were mixed, with some support coming from signs that the coronavirus may have peaked in Europe and the United States.

US crude benchmark West Texas Intermediate briefly plunged almost 20 percent to below 15 -- its lowest since 1999 -- as stockpiles continue to build owing to a crash in demand caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Analysts said this month's agreement between top producers to slash output by 10 million barrels a day was having little impact on the oil crisis because of lockdowns and travel restrictions that are keeping billions of people at home.

WTI was hit particularly hard as its main US storage facilities in Cushing, Oklahoma, were filling up.

ANZ said "crude oil prices remained under pressure, as projections of weaker demand weigh on sentiment".

"Despite the OPEC+ alliance agreeing to an unprecedented cut in output, the physical market is awash with oil," it said, referring to the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and non-OPEC partners.

And AxiCorp's Stephen Innes added: "It's a dump at all cost as no one... wants delivery of oil, with Cushing storage facilities filling by the minute.

"It hasn't taken long for the market to recognise that the OPEC+ deal will not, in its present form, be enough to balance oil markets." Stock traders were in slightly more buoyant mood as governments start to consider how and when to ease lockdowns that have crippled the global economy.

Italy, Spain, France and Britain reported drops in daily death tolls and slowing infection rates.

"We are scoring points against the epidemic," said Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, while insisting "we are not out of the health crisis yet".

Meanwhile, in the US, Andrew Cuomo, governor of badly hit New York state, said the disease was "on the descent", though he cautioned it was "no time to get cocky".

Mounting evidence suggests that the lockdowns and social distancing are slowing the spread of the virus.

That has intensified planning in many countries to begin loosening curbs on movement and easing the crushing pressure on national economies.

Adding to the sense of hope was a report indicating promising research on a drug to treat coronavirus.

Hong Kong, Shanghai and Seoul were each up 0.1 percent, while Wellington added 0.4 percent.

However, Tokyo went into the break 0.9 percent lower, while Sydney and Manila dropped one percent apiece. There were also losses in Taipei, Singapore and Jakarta.

"The longer investors have to contemplate future economic issues while they wait for more countries to be on the downward slope of the pandemic curve, the more scope there is of risk assets pricing in a difficult future," Chris Iggo, of AXA Investment Managers UK, said.

Investors are keeping an eye on Washington, where Congress and the White House are working towards a 450 billion economic relief plan for small business to add to the trillions already pledged to support the economy.

Big-name companies including IBM, Netflix and Coca-Cola are due to deliver their earnings reports.

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