7 terrorists sent to prison, Serbs say
BELGRADE, Serbia -- A Serbian court has sentenced seven people to up to 11 years in prison on charges that they have sent fighters and money to extremist groups in Syria.
They were convicted and sentenced Wednesday by the Belgrade High Court over accusations that they have cooperated with the Islamic State and the Al-Nusra Front.
Three of them were convicted in absentia, one of whom is believed to have been killed in the fighting in Syria.
Hundreds of Muslims from the Balkans, including Serbia, Bosnia and Kosovo, have traveled to Syria to fight in Syria or Iraq.
During the trial, the defendants, mostly from the southern Serbian region of Sandzak, denied the terrorism charges.
U.S. tells Yemeni rebels to stop attacks
WASHINGTON -- The White House on Wednesday called on Yemen's Houthi rebels to "cease further escalation," after a Saudi-led coalition battling the rebels said they attacked a Saudi oil tanker.
Press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement that the United States is "very concerned about the Houthis' latest attempt to escalate the war in Yemen."
Yemen's Houthi rebels attacked a Saudi oil tanker in the Red Sea on Tuesday, causing "minor damage" to the ship, the Saudi-led coalition battling the rebels said. The attack occurred in international waters west of the port of Hodeida in Yemen, which is under Houthi control.
"We call on the Houthis to cease further escalation and demonstrate their commitment to a peace process by engaging in constructive dialogue," Sanders said in the statement.
Pakistani party now on U.S. terror list
ISLAMABAD -- The United States has placed a small Pakistani political party on its list of foreign terrorist groups, calling it a front for the militants behind the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
The U.S. State Department said Tuesday that the Milli Muslim League is a front for Lashkar-e-Taiba, a militant group founded by Hafiz Saeed, a Muslim cleric who lives freely in Pakistan and often addresses anti-India rallies. The U.S. has offered a $10 million reward for his capture, and the U.S. and United Nations consider Lashkar-e-Taiba a terrorist group.
Saeed has denied responsibility for the Mumbai attacks, which killed 168 people, and Pakistan says there is not enough evidence to arrest him.
Saeed's spokesman, Yahya Mujahid, said Wednesday that the cleric is not part of the Milli Muslim League or Lashkar-e-Taiba.
Tabish Qayyum, a spokesman for the party, said the U.S. has no right to intervene in Pakistan's "internal political matters." He said the party "condemns all kinds of violence, extremism and terrorism and aims to make Pakistani society more tolerant and progressive." He denied the allegations that the party was a front.
India's Ministry of External affairs welcomed the decision to add the party to the U.S. terror list.
There was no immediate comment from Pakistan's government, which recently began seizing assets from two charities run by Saeed. The Jamaat-ud-Dawa organization and Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation are also alleged fronts for Lashkar-e-Taiba.
Egypt shuts website, arrests its editor
CAIRO -- Egyptian authorities have arrested the editor of an independent news website for operating without a license, the latest episode in a widening crackdown on independent media, officials said Wednesday.
They said Adel Sabri was arrested late Tuesday and taken to a Cairo police station, while the offices of the Masr al-Arabia website were shuttered. Prosecutors were questioning Sabri on Wednesday, they said.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
The arrest came a day after President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi won a second, four-year term in office, with 97 percent of the vote in last week's election. He faced no serious competition, after a string of potentially strong candidates were arrested or withdrew under pressure, leaving a single opponent who made no effort to challenge him.
The officials said the Masr al-Arabia site was fined nearly $3,000 by the media regulatory body earlier this week for publishing an Arabic translation of a New York Times report, which said voters were offered cash, food and promises of better services in exchange for their participation.
El-Sissi, who overthrew Egypt's first freely elected president in 2013 amid mass protests against his rule, has waged the heaviest crackdown on dissent in Egypt's modern history. Authorities have outlawed unauthorized protests, jailed thousands of Islamists as well as several prominent secular activists, and blocked hundreds of independent websites.
A Section on 04/05/2018