World

SAINT-ETIENNE-DU-ROUVRAY, France — Assailants loyal to the Daesh terror group forced an elderly priest to his knees before slitting his throat and took several worshippers hostage in a French church on Tuesday before police shot the attackers dead.

It was the latest in a wave of attacks in Europe inspired by Daesh based in Iraq and Syria that is on the defensive against a US-led military coalition in which France is a major partner.

The knifemen entered the church during morning mass near the northern city of Rouen, northwest of Paris, killing Father Jacques Hamel, an 85-year-old parish priest, and taking four other people hostage, one of whom was seriously wounded.

“They forced him to his knees and he tried to defend himself and that’s when the drama began,” Sister Danielle, who escaped as the attackers slayed the priest, told RMC radio.

“They filmed themselves. It was like a sermon in Arabic around the altar,” the nun added.

Police shot the attackers dead as they emerged from the church in the Normandy town of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray.

Speaking at the scene of the attack, President Francois Hollande said Daesh had declared war on France, which should “use all its means” within the law to fight the group.

The president called it a “dreadful terrorist attack” and told reporters the attackers had pledged allegiance to Daesh, against which France has launched air strikes in Syria and Iraq. News agency Amaq, which is affiliated with Daesh, said two of its “soldiers” were involved.

“The threat remains very high,” Hollande said.

The White House condemned the attack and commended the French police for their “quick and decisive response”.

The attack was the latest in a string of deadly assaults including the mass killing in Nice, southern France, on Bastille Day 12 days ago and four incidents in Germany, most recently a suicide bombing at a concert in Ansbach on Sunday.

Daesh has called on its supporters to take action with any available weapons targeting countries it has been fighting.

The anti-terrorist unit of the Paris prosecutor’s office is investigating the attack. Police said one person had been arrested.

Several French media reported that one of the knifemen was a local man who had spent a year in jail on his return from Turkey after being intercepted trying to travel to Syria, but had been freed on bail with an electronic tag pending trial for alleged terrorism offences.

The prosecutor’s office said the identification of the two suspects was still under way and it was too early to jump to conclusions about a possible link.

Slain priest

Former president Nicolas Sarkozy, who is expected to enter a conservative primary soon for next year’s presidential election, jumped on the latest incident to accuse the Socialist government of being soft on terrorism.

“We must be merciless,” Sarkozy said in a statement to reporters. “The legal quibbling, precautions and pretexts for insufficient action are not acceptable. I demand that the government implement without delay the proposals we presented months ago. There is no more time to be wasted.” 

The centre-right opposition wants the government to put all militant suspects subject to a confidential security notice under administrative detention to avert potential attacks.

Far-right National Front leader Marine Le Pen, who is also expected to run for the presidency, said both major parties had failed on security. “All those who have governed us for 30 years bear an immense responsibility. It’s revolting to watch them bickering!” she said on Twitter.

Hollande insisted that the government must stick to the rule of law, which he said was the hallmark of a democracy.

Pope Francis condemned what he called a “barbarous killing”.

“The fact that this episode took place in a church, killing a priest, a minister of the Lord and involving the faithful, is something that affects us profoundly,” Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said.

The attack heaped yet more pressure on Hollande to regain control of national security, with France already under a state of emergency 10 months ahead of a presidential election in which he is widely expected to seek a second term.

The Normandy attack came less than two weeks after a 31-year-old Tunisian, Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, ploughed his heavy goods truck into a crowd of revellers in the French Riviera city of Nice, killing 84 people. Daesh claimed that attack.

“Everything is being done to trigger a war of religions,” tweeted Jean-Pierre Raffarin, a former conservative prime minister who now heads the Senate’s foreign affairs committee.

Hollande visited the Normandy town with Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve, meeting survivors of the church attack and members of the emergency services.

Cazeneuve has come under fire from conservative politicians for not doing enough to prevent the Nice attack, which prompted lawmakers to approve a six-month extension of emergency rule.

ANSBACH, Germany — A Syrian man whose asylum bid had been rejected in Germany recorded a cellphone video of himself pledging allegiance to the Daesh terror group before he tried to get into an outdoor concert with a bomb-laden backpack. He was turned away and blew himself up outside a wine bar instead, injuring 15 people, authorities said Monday.

Daesh claimed responsibility.

It was the fourth attack to shake Germany in a week — three of them carried out by recent migrants.

The 27-year-old, whom authorities have not identified, set off a backpack laden with explosives and shrapnel Sunday night after being refused entry to the nearby festival in the Bavarian city of Ansbach because he didn’t have a ticket.

Bavarian authorities said a video found on the Ansbach bomber’s phone showed him pledging allegiance to Daesh. Germany’s top security official, Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere, had said it was too early to rule out terrorism as a motive, but noted that the suspect had twice attempted suicide and had been receiving psychological care.

“Or it could be a combination of both,” de Maiziere said.

The attack was carried out by “one of the soldiers of Daesh”, the extremist group said.

The Daseh-linked Aamaq news agency said the man carried out the attack in response to calls by the group to target countries of the US-led coalition that is fighting Daesh.

The bombing was the latest of the recent attacks that have heightened concerns about how Germany can deal with the estimated 1 million migrants who entered the country last year. Those fears had waned as the numbers of new arrivals had slowed this year dramatically, but already the nationalist Alternative for Germany Party and others have seized on the attacks as evidence that Chancellor Angela Merkel’s migration policies are flawed.

A 17-year-old Afghan asylum-seeker injured five with an ax before being killed by police near Wuerzburg last week in an attack that was claimed by Daesh. On Sunday a Syrian man killed a woman with a knife in the southwestern city of Reutlingen before being captured by police in an incident that authorities say was not likely linked to terrorism.

In between, the 18-year-old son of Iranian asylum seekers went on a rampage Friday night at a Munich mall, killing nine and wounding dozens. Authorities say he was undergoing psychological treatment and had no known links to terrorism.

The attack in Ansbach, a serene city of about 40,000 west of Nuremberg, came near the end of the closing night of a popular open air festival being attended by about 2,000 people.

Following the Munich mall shooting, city officials had ordered extra security and bag checks at the entrance of the venue, but the man never got that far, being turned away for lack of a ticket, Mayor Carda Seidel said.

Roman Fertinger, the deputy police chief in Nuremberg, said there likely would have been more casualties if the man had not been turned away.

Four of the 15 victims suffered serious injuries.

“My personal view is that I unfortunately think it’s very likely this really was an Islamist suicide attack,” Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann told German news agency dpa.

Herrmann said the man’s request for asylum was rejected a year ago, and a spokesman for Germany’s interior ministry said he had received two deportation notices.

Tobias Plate said the man was told on July 13 that he would be deported to Bulgaria, where he submitted his first asylum request.

Plate told reporters that the first deportation notice was issued on December 22, 2014, but it was not clear why he had not been deported then. Asylum-seekers are routinely deported to the first country where they registered if they don’t follow proper procedures, even if they’re considered to have a legitimate claim for asylum.

The unidentified man had repeatedly received psychiatric treatment, including twice for attempted suicide, authorities said, and had been known to police for drug possession.

Authorities on Monday morning raided the asylum shelter where he lived in the suburbs of Ansbach and searched his room.

One resident there said he had occasionally drunk coffee with the attacker and they had discussed religion. Alireza Khodadadi told The Associated Press that the man, whom he would identify only as Mohammed, had told him that the extremist Daesh group was not representative of Islam.

“He always said that, no, I’m not with them, I don’t like them and such stuff. But I think he had some issues because, you know, he told lies so often without any reason, and I understand that he wants to be in the centre of [attention], you know, he needed [attention],” Khodadadi said.

A team of 30 investigators was interviewing the man’s acquaintances and examining evidence collected from his home.

Meantime, in Munich on Sunday evening, 1,500 people gathered at the scene of the shooting there, lighting candles and placing flowers in tribute to the victims of an 18-year-old German-Iranian. Police said that he had planned the attack for a year.

Munich authorities said Monday at a news conference that a 16-year-old Afghan friend of the Munich attacker may have known of the attack in advance.

Police said Monday the teenager was arrested late Sunday and investigators were able to retrieve a deleted chat between him and the attacker on the messaging app WhatsApp.

Police say the chat appears to show that the 16-year-old met with the attacker immediately before the shooting started, and knew the attacker had a pistol.

Investigators say the teenagers met last year as in-patients at a psychiatric ward. Both were being treated for online game addiction, among other things.

VIENTIANE, Laos — China scored an unequivocal diplomatic victory Monday, preventing Southeast Asia's main grouping from criticising it for territorially expanding in the South China Sea, even though some of the bloc's members are victims of Beijing's actions.

After hectic negotiations, the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) issued a watered-down rebuke that amounted to less than a slap on the wrist, and exposed the deep divisions in a regional body that prides itself on unity.

In a joint communique released after their talks, the foreign ministers of ASEAN said only that they "remain seriously concerned over recent and ongoing developments" in the South China Sea. The statement did not mention China by name in referring to the developments.

Most significantly, it failed to mention a recent ruling by an international arbitration panel in a dispute between the Philippines and China that said Beijing's claims in the South China Sea were illegal and that the Philippines was justifiably the aggrieved party. China has dismissed the ruling as bogus, saying The Hague-based tribunal has no authority to rule on what Beijing calls bilateral disputes. China wants direct negotiations with the Philippines instead.

The tribunal's award "amounts to prescribing a dose of wrong medicine... and it seems that certain countries outside the region have got all worked up, keeping the fever high," Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said, referring to the United States. "And if the prescription is wrong it will not help cure any disease. That's why we urge other counties in the region to lower the temperature," he told a news conference after 90 minutes of talks with the ASEAN ministers.

Wang said about 80 per cent of that time was spent on ASEAN-China relations, and only 20 per cent on South China Sea. He joked that reporters had expended more than 80 per cent of the question-and-answer time on South China Sea.

"Both China and ASEAN believe this page should have been turned and temperature lowered," he said.

China was able to push through its stance in ASEAN with the help of Cambodia, and to some extent Laos, both of which are close friends of Beijing. ASEAN's guiding principle is to make all statements by consensus, so a veto by Cambodia would have prevented a more stinging rebuke.

"We reaffirmed the importance of maintaining and promoting peace, security, stability, safety and freedom of navigation in and over-flight above the South China Sea," the joint statement said.

"We further reaffirmed the need to enhance mutual trust and confidence, exercise self-restraint in the conduct of activities and avoid actions that may further complicate the situation," it said.

Such statements have previously been issued, notably after an ASEAN-US summit in California in February, and have led to criticism that ASEAN is becoming a toothless organisation.

Analysts say this amounted to another capitulation by ASEAN in face of China's power.

"ASEAN's failure to mention the tribunal's decision will not affect the implementation of the ruling per se, as China has already indicated that it won't recognise or accept it. But failure to even mention the landmark legal ruling once again highlights ASEAN's inability to present a united front and China's skill at using Cambodia as a proxy to further its own interests," said Ian Storey, a senior fellow at Singapore's Institute of Southeast Asian Studies think tank.

The South China Sea is dotted with reefs and rocky outcroppings that several governments claim, including China and the Philippines. The arbitration panel didn't take a position on who owns the disputed territories. It did conclude that many of them are legally rocks, even if they've been built into islands, and, therefore, do not include the international rights to develop the surrounding waters. That and other findings invalidated much of what China has called its historic claims to the resource-rich sea.

In order to ease tensions, China, the Philippines and possibly other claimants must define what the ruling means for fishing, offshore oil and gas exploration, and military and other activities in the vast body of water that lies between the southern Chinese coast and the Philippine archipelago.

In recent days, China's military has staged live-firing exercises in the area and said it would begin regular aerial patrols over the sea. It also has asserted that it will not be deterred from continuing construction of its man-made islands.

ISTANBUL —Tens of thousands of supporters of Turkey's ruling and main opposition parties, usually bitter foes, rallied together on Sunday in support of democracy following a failed military coup as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan tightens his grip on the country.

Demonstrators held a cross-party "Republic and Democracy" rally in Istanbul's central Taksim Square in a spirit of unity following the failed coup, in which at least 246 people were killed and more than 2,000 injured.

In a rare move, pro-government channels broadcast live comments live by main opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu.

"This is a day to unite, a day to stand up against coups and dictatorial regimes, a day to let the voice of the people be heard," he said from a podium at the rally, organised by his secularist opposition CHP but also backed by the ruling Islamist-rooted AK Party and by other opposition groups.

"We are all together in Taksim today. Today is a day we made history all together."

Erdogan will probably try to capitalise on the large size of the crowd of all political persuasions gathered in a sea of Turkish flags to try and re-assert full control over the country.

In another demonstration of unity after the coup, which was staged by a faction within the armed forces, the head of Turkey's air force issued a rare statement stressing "absolute obedience" to the chief of the military General Staff. Some members of the air force were involved in the coup.

The chief of the military General Staff Hulusi Akar, who was held hostage by the plotters on the night of July 15, condemned the plotters on Sunday as "cowards in uniform" who had greatly harmed the nation and the army.

Erdogan, who narrowly escaped capture and possible death during the attempted coup, has declared a state of emergency, allowing him to sign laws without prior parliamentary approval in a drive to root out supporters of the coup.

Critics of Erdogan fear he is using the abortive coup to wage an indiscriminate crackdown on dissent. Turkish authorities have suspended, detained or placed under investigation more than 60,000 soldiers, police officers, judges, teachers, civil servants and others in the past week.

Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said on Saturday authorities had taken around 13,000 people into custody over the coup attempt, including 8,831 soldiers. He pledged they would have a fair trial.

Rights group Amnesty International said it had received credible evidence of detainees being subjected to beatings and torture, including rape, since the coup attempt.

“It is absolutely imperative that the Turkish authorities halt these abhorrent practices and allow international monitors to visit all these detainees in the places they are being held,” said Amnesty’s Europe Director John Dalhuisen in a statement.

Erdogan has extended the maximum period of detention for suspects from four days to 30, a move Amnesty said increased the risk of torture or other maltreatment of detainees.

Show of unit

Erdogan has accused US-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, who has many followers in Turkey, of masterminding the abortive coup. In his first decree Erdogan ordered the closure of thousands of private schools, charities and foundations with suspected links to Gulen, who denies involvement in the coup.

The CHP and other political parties swiftly joined the ruling Islamist-rooted AKP in condemning the coup attempt, mindful of four other military interventions in Turkey in the past 60 years. The last full-scale coup in 1980 led to mass arrests of politicians and others, torture and executions.

“This coup attempt has shown once again how precious democracy and are freedoms for us all,” said Engin Altay, deputy head of CHP.

“All 133 CHP members of parliament will be at Taksim. But we are not the only owners of democracy, everybody must come to the meeting and show the world how much democracy has been internalised [by Turks],” he told reporters.

Taksim Square, like much of Istanbul and other cities, is awash with Turkish flags and CHP supporters were also carrying pictures of their hero Kemal Ataturk, the soldier who founded the secular republic on the ashes of the Ottoman Empire in 1923.

Supporters of Erdogan’s AKP, which has ruled Turkey since 2002, have generally tended to use religious symbols and rhetoric. But the coup has united both sides in a blaze of nationalist fervour. Istanbul’s AKP mayor, Kadir Toptas, has provided free public transport for the rally.

The chief of Turkey’s air force, Abidin Unal, issued a statement saying efforts were continuing “day and night to cleanse the Turkish armed forces of Gulenist terrorists and traitors who have became a tumour within our army.”

Turkey’s Supreme Military Council will meet under Erdogan’s supervision on July 28. Erdogan told Reuters in an interview on Thursday that he would restructure the armed forces and bring in “fresh blood”.

After the coup, Western countries pledged support for democracy in Turkey, a NATO ally and an important partner in the fight against Daesh, but have also expressed concern over the scale of subsequent purges of state institutions.

MUNICH — The teenager behind Friday’s deadly shooting rampage at a Munich mall had planned his attack for a year and chose his victims at random, investigators said on Sunday.

Bavarian investigator Robert Heimberger said the shooter, an 18-year-old German-Iranian identified only as David S., visited the site of a previous school shooting in the German town of Winnenden and took photographs last year, then set about planning the attack in which he killed nine and wounded some three dozen others before taking his own life.

“He had been planning this crime since last summer,” Heimberger told reporters.

He said there were “many more terabytes” of information to evaluate, and that the teenager’s brother and parents were still not emotionally up to being interrogated by police.

There is so far no evidence that he knew any of his victims, or that there was any political motivation behind the attack, said Thomas Steinkraus-Koch, a spokesman for the Munich prosecutors’ office.

The suspect received both inpatient and outpatient psychiatric treatment last year to help him deal with “fears of contact with others”, Steinkraus-Koch added. He said medication had been found at his home but that investigators needed to talk with his family to determine whether he had been taking it.

In the aftermath of the attack, Bavaria’s top security official urged a constitutional change to allow the country’s military to be able to be deployed in support of police during attacks.

Because of the excesses of the Nazi era, Germany’s post-war constitution only allows the military, known as the Bundeswehr, to be deployed domestically in cases of national emergency.

But state Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann told Welt am Sonntag newspaper that the regulations are now obsolete and that Germans have a “right to safety”. 

“We have an absolutely stable democracy in our country,” he said. “It would be completely incomprehensible ... if we had a terrorist situation like Brussels in Frankfurt, Stuttgart or Munich and we were not permitted to call in the well-trained forces of the Bundeswehr, even though they stand ready.” 

Munich deployed some 2,300 police officers to lock down the city Friday night, calling in elite SWAT teams from around the country and neighboring Austria, during the shooting at the mall and a nearby McDonald’s restaurant.

It was the second attack targeting victims apparently at random in less than a week in Bavaria. On Monday, a 17-year-old Afghan asylum-seeker wounded five people in an ax-and-knife rampage near Wuerzburg, for which the Daesh group has claimed responsibility.

In the fog of the Friday attack, witnesses had reported as many as three shooters, and the city’s public transit was completely shut down for hours as authorities searched the streets.

Herrmann said that in other European nations it goes without saying that the military is brought in to aid during “extreme domestic threats” and he said Bavaria would urge changes so that it is allowed in Germany as well.

Weapons are strictly controlled in Germany and police are still trying to determine exactly how the shooter obtained the Glock 17 used in the attack.

Heimberger said it appears “very likely” that the suspect purchased the weapon online through the so-called “darknet”. It was a pistol that had been rendered unusable and sold as a prop, then was restored to a fully functioning state.

Its serial numbers were filed off and David S. had no permit to purchase weapons, authorities have said.

Even though it was an illegal weapon, Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel suggested Sunday that even stricter controls on legal access are needed, telling the Funke Media Group that “we need to do everything further possible to curb the access to deadly weapons and strictly control them”. 

“How can it be that an unstable, or possibly even mentally ill 18-year-old comes into possession of a firearm?” he asked.

Germany’s top security official, Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere, said, however, that Germany’s weapons regulations are already “very strict” and appropriate.

He said authorities first need to determine where the shooter got the weapon from.

“We’ll then have to look very carefully at whether there then needs to be a possibility for additional legal action,” he said.

VIENTIANE — Southeast Asian nations failed to agree on maritime disputes in the South China Sea on Sunday after Cambodia blocked any mention to an international court ruling against Beijing in their statement, diplomats said.

Foreign ministers from the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) met for the first time since the UN-backed Permanent Court of Arbitration handed an emphatic legal victory to the Philippines in the dispute this month.

The ruling by the court in The Hague denied China's sweeping claims in the strategic seaway, through which more than $5 trillion in global trade passes each year.

China claims most of the sea, but ASEAN members the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei all have rival claims. Beijing says the ruling has no bearing on its rights in the sea, and described the case as a farce.

The Philippines and Vietnam both wanted the communique issued by ASEAN foreign ministers after their meeting to refer to the ruling and the need to respect international law, ASEAN diplomats said. Their foreign ministers both discussed the ruling with ASEAN counterparts in the Laotian capital.

But before the meeting, China's closest ASEAN ally Cambodia opposed the proposed wording, throwing the group into disarray. Phnom Penh supports Beijing's opposition to any ASEAN stand on the South China Sea, and its preference for dealing with the disputed claims on a bilateral basis.

First deadlock
since 2012

"We are still working on it," Indonesia's Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi told Reuters after the meeting on Sunday, adding that she hoped the ASEAN members would reach an agreement.

Cambodia's Foreign Minister Prak Sokhon declined to comment on his country's position on Sunday.

Even after a late-night meeting of foreign ministers called to thrash out the issue late on Saturday, the region's top diplomats were unable to find a compromise.

The group has given itself until Tuesday to come to issue a statement, said one ASEAN diplomat.

ASEAN is facing the prospect of being unable to issue a statement after a meeting for only the second time in its 49-year history. The first time, in 2012, was also due to Cambodia's resistance to language about the South China Sea.

"We have been here before and I hope they can solve it," said one official from the ASEAN Secretariat in Indonesia. "It is the same story again, a repeat of the meeting in 2012." 

Over the next two days, Southeast Asian nations will meet with China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi and US Secretary of State John Kerry. Kerry and Wang are also expected to meet and discuss the maritime issues.

Wang, who started bilateral meetings with ASEAN members on Sunday, said he thought the media focus on the South China Sea issue was "very strange".

It was "not a China-ASEAN issue", he said, adding that disputes should be resolved among the parties involved.

Japan's Foreign Minister Fumiko Kishida will also be in Laos for the ASEAN regional forum meeting. It is unclear if he will meet Wang, but China reacted angrily to Kishida saying he would discuss the sea issue if they do meet.

China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang, in a statement posted on the ministry's website, said the sea is not Japan's concern.

"We urge Japan not to hype up and meddle in the South China Sea issue," he said. "Japan is not a concerned party in the South China Sea, and because of its disgraceful history is in no place to make irresponsible comments about China." 

US role

The United States, allied with the Philippines and cultivating closer relations with Vietnam, has called on China to respect the court's ruling.

It has criticised China's building of artificial islands and facilities in the sea and has sailed warships close to the disputed territory to assert freedom of navigation rights.

But Kerry will urge ASEAN nations to explore diplomatic ways to ease tension over Asia's biggest potential military flashpoint, a senior US official said ahead of his trip.

Chinese state media called for "damage control" at the meetings. A commentary published by the official Xinhua news agency on Sunday said the court ruling was a "blow to peace and stability in the region... and only serves to increase the likelihood of confrontation and turbulence”.

Barack Obama is set in September to become the first US president to visit Laos, attending an annual summit hosted by the country that holds the ASEAN chairmanship.

Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi is also in Laos, making her debut at ASEAN meetings as the foreign minister for Myanmar.

ISTANBUL/ANKARA — President Recep Tayyip Erdogan tightened his grip on Turkey on Saturday, ordering the closure of thousands of private schools, charities and other institutions in his first decree since imposing a state of emergency after the failed military coup.

Turkish authorities also detained a nephew of Fethullah Gulen, the US-based Muslim cleric accused by Ankara of orchestrating the July 15 coup attempt, the Anadolu state news agency reported.

A restructuring of Turkey's once untouchable military also drew closer, with a planned meeting between Erdogan and the already purged top brass brought forward by several days.

The schools and other institutions are suspected by Turkish authorities of having links to Gulen, who has many followers in Turkey. Gulen denies any involvement in the coup attempt in which at least 246 people were killed.

His nephew, Muhammed Sait Gulen, was detained in the northeastern Turkish city of Erzurum and will be brought to the capital Ankara for questioning, Anadolu reported. Among possible charges that could be brought against him is membership of a terrorist organisation, the agency said.

It is the first time a relative of Gulen has been reported detained since the failed coup.

Critics of Erdogan fear he is using the abortive coup to wage an indiscriminate crackdown on dissent. The foundations targeted include, for example, the Association of Judges and Prosecutors, a secular group that criticised a recent judicial law drafted by Erdogan’s Islamist-rooted AK Party.

In his decree, published by the Anadolu state news agency, Erdogan also extended to a maximum of 30 days from four days the period in which some suspects can be detained. It said this would facilitate a full investigation into the coup attempt.

Erdogan, who narrowly escaped capture and possible death during the coup attempt, told Reuters in an interview on Thursday that he would restructure the armed forces and bring in “fresh blood”.

Turkey’s Supreme Military Council (YAS) will meet under Erdogan’s supervision on July 28, a few days earlier than originally planned, private broadcaster NTV reported, a sign that the president wants to act fast to ensure the armed forces are fully under the government’s control.

Reinforcing that message, the YAS meeting — which usually takes place every August — will be held this time in the presidential palace, not as is customary at the headquarters of the military general staff.

Erdogan, a popular but polarising figure who has dominated Turkish politics since 2003, declared the state of emergency late on Wednesday, saying it would enable authorities to swiftly and effectively root out supporters of the coup.

The emergency allows Erdogan and the AK Party government, who are mildly Islamist, to pass laws without first having to win parliamentary support and also to curb or suspend rights and freedoms as they deem necessary.

Purges

Turkish authorities have already launched a series of mass purges of the armed forces, police, judiciary and education system, targeting followers of Gulen, who operates an extensive network of schools and charitable foundations.
The first decree signed by Erdogan authorises the closure of 1,043 private schools, 1,229 charities and foundations, 19 trade unions, 15 universities and 35 medical institutions over suspected links to the Gulen movement, the Anadolu agency said.

Parliament must still approve the decree but requires only a simply majority, which the government has.

In an address to parliament late on Friday, Erdogan vowed to bring to justice supporters of the Gulenist “terrorist” movement and he urged Turks to continue attending rallies in major cities in support of democracy and against the coup plotters.

More rallies were planned over the weekend in many towns and cities. In Istanbul, Turkey’s commercial capital, authorities have allowed people to travel for free on the metro system so they can more easily attend the rallies. Video screens on trains show pictures of citizens, or “martyrs”, killed in the violence.

Cars and mini-buses honking their horns drive around the streets until late in the night carrying flag-waving supporters of Erdogan shouting patriotic or religious slogans.

On Friday evening Erdogan held his first meeting since the coup with the head of the national intelligence agency, Hakan Fidan, after complaining of significant intelligence shortcomings ahead of the coup attempt. Despite media speculation, however, he did not sack Fidan.

Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told private broadcaster NTV that Turkey expected to complete within 10 days a dossier requesting Gulen’s extradition from the United States.

Cavusoglu said the link between soldiers involved in the failed coup and Gulen’s extensive network of followers was “very clear”, adding that Turkey would do all it could “politically and legally” to secure his extradition.

The United States has said Ankara needs to provide clear evidence of Gulen’s involvement before it can agree to extradite him. Lawyers say that process could take many years.

After the coup, Western countries pledged support for democracy in Turkey, a NATO ally and an important partner in the fight against the Daesh terror group, but have also expressed concern over the scale of the subsequent purges of state institutions.

Turkish authorities have suspended, detained or placed under investigation more than 60,000 soldiers, police, judges, teachers, civil servants and others in the past week.

Critics of Erdogan in Turkey and abroad fear he is using the failed coup to wage an indiscriminate crackdown on his opponents. They say the purges risk sweeping up innocent people too and that some institutions being shut down may have little or no connection to Gulen’s movement.

Speaking at a meeting of G20 finance ministers and central bankers in China on Saturday, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Simsek said Turkey would strongly adhere to democratic principles and the rule of law.

In Ankara, the minister for European Union affairs chided Western countries for not sending any representatives to demonstrate their solidarity with Turks since the coup attempt.

“We are very surprised that our allies have not come to Turkey to visit even after one week has passed,” Omer Celik told reporters. 

KABUL — The Daesh terror group militants claimed responsibility for twin explosions Saturday that ripped through crowds of Shiite Hazaras in Kabul, killing at least 80 people and wounding 231 others in the deadliest attack in the Afghan capital since 2001. 

The bombings during a huge protest over a power line mark the first major Daesh assault on the Afghan capital, apparently aimed at sowing sectarian discord in a country well known for Shia-Sunni harmony. 

Charred bodies and dismembered limbs littered the scene of the attack, with ambulances struggling to reach the site as authorities had overnight blocked key intersections with stacked shipping containers to control movement of the protesters. 

"As a result of the attack 80 people were martyred and 231 others were wounded," the interior ministry said. 

"Based on initial information, the attack was carried out by three suicide bombers... The third attacker was gunned down by security forces." 

The wounded overwhelmed city hospitals, officials said, with reports emerging of blood shortages and urgent appeals for donors circulating on social media. 

The Taliban, who are in the middle of their annual summer offensive and are more powerful than Daesh, strongly denied any involvement in the attack. 

Daesh claimed the bombings in a statement carried by its affiliated Amaq news agency, calling it an attack on Shiites. 

"Two fighters of the Islamic State [Daesh] detonated their explosive belts in a gathering of Shiites in... Kabul," Amaq said. 

The attack represents a major escalation for Daesh, which so has largely been confined to the eastern province of Nangarhar. 

"It's long been a fear about Afghanistan that Daesh-aligned forces will try to inject a sectarian dimension into a largely non-sectarian conflict," Michael Kugelman, an analyst at the Woodrow Wilson Centre in Washington, told AFP. 

The National Directorate of Security, Afghanistan's main intelligence agency, said the attack was masterminded by Abu Ali, a Daesh commander in Nangarhar's volatile Achin district. 

Horrific attack

The bombings mark the deadliest single attack in the Afghan capital since the Taliban were toppled from power in a 2001 US-led invasion, the interior ministry said.

President Ashraf Ghani vowed "revenge" against the perpetrators of the attack and announced Sunday as a national day of mourning.

The assault came as thousands of demonstrators gathered to demand that a multi-million-dollar power line pass through their electricity-starved province of Bamiyan, one of the most deprived areas of Afghanistan with a large Hazara population.

"The horrific attack on a group of peaceful protesters in Kabul demonstrates the utter disregard that armed groups have for human life," Amnesty International said in a statement. 

"Such attacks are a reminder that the conflict in Afghanistan is not winding down, as some believe, but escalating, with consequences for the human rights situation in the country that should alarm us all." 

The protest march was largely peaceful before the explosions struck as the demonstrators sought to march on the presidential palace, waving flags and chanting slogans such as "death to discrimination".

The 500-kilovolt TUTAP power line, which would connect the Central Asian nations of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan with electricity-hungry Afghanistan and Pakistan, was originally set to pass through the central province.

But the government re-routed it through the mountainous Salang pass north of Kabul, saying the shorter route would speed up the project and save millions of dollars.

Hazara leaders in the ethnically divided nation lashed out at the Pashtun president, calling the decision prejudiced against the Hazaras, a community that has suffered a long history of oppression.

The 3 million-strong Hazara community has been persecuted for decades, with thousands killed in the late 1990s by Al Qaeda and the mainly Pashtun Sunni Taliban.

MUNICH, Germany — The teenager who shot dead nine people in a gun rampage in Munich was "obsessed" with mass killers like Norwegian rightwing fanatic Anders Behring Breivik and had no links to the Daesh terror group, police said Saturday. 

Europe reacted in shock to the third attack on the continent in just over a week, after 18-year-old David Ali Sonboly went on a shooting spree at a shopping centre on Friday evening before turning the gun on himself. 

Officials said Sonboly, a German-Iranian student, had a history of mental illness. 

Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said the teenager had likely hacked a girl's Facebook account and used it to lure victims to the McDonald's outlet where he began his rampage. 

"There is absolutely no link to the Islamic State [Daesh]," Munich police chief Hubertus Andrae said, describing the assault as a "classic act by a deranged person".

Investigators see an "obvious link" between Friday's killings and Breivik's massacre of 77 people in Norway exactly five years earlier, Andrae added. 

Chancellor Angela Merkel, in her first reaction to the carnage, said Munich had suffered a "night of horror".

Most of the victims in Friday's attack were young people, with three aged just 14, police said. 

Prosecutor Thomas Steinkraus-Koch said Sonboly had suffered depression, while media reports said he had undergone psychiatric treatment. 

The teenager had 300 rounds of ammunition in a rucksack when he targeted the busy Olympia shopping mall, just minutes away from the flat he shared with his family, according to authorities. 

Tributes for victims 

Grieving Munich residents laid roses and lit candles in memory of the victims, with one placard bearing the simple plea: "Why?" 

"Bloodbath in Munich," was the headline on the best-selling Bild newspaper. 

Sixteen people were wounded in the attack, three of them critically. 

An amateur video posted on social media appeared to show a man in black walking away from the McDonald's restaurant while firing repeatedly with a handgun as people fled screaming. 

A police patrol shot and wounded Sonboly but he escaped before police found his body, after an operation to track down what had initially been thought to be up to three attackers. 

Terrifying scenes 

Neighbours said Sonboly was born to Iranian parents, a taxi driver father and a mother who worked at a department store. 

They lived in the well-heeled Maxvorstadt neighbourhood in a tidy social housing block popular with immigrant families. 

Neighbour Delfye Dalbi, 40, described him as a helpful young man who was "never bitter or angry", though others remembered a quiet loner. 

"All his body language said 'I don't want to talk to you,'" said Stephan, a waiter at the cafe on the ground floor of the housing block. 

A police source cited by DPA news agency said Sonboly loved playing violent video games and was an admirer of the 17-year-old German who shot dead 15 people at his school near Stuttgart in 2009. 

Survivors described terrifying scenes as shoppers rushed from the area, some carrying children in their arms. 

"We entered McDonald's to eat... then there was panic, and people ran out," one woman told Bavarian television. 

Another video appeared to show the gunman on a car park roof in a heated exchange with a man on a nearby balcony. 

"I'm German, I was born here," the assailant replied after the man fired off a volley of swear words, including an insulting term for foreigners. 

Victims lured 

De Maiziere told reporters that Sonboly had likely used a hacked Facebook account to lure people to the McDonalds branch, "offering them special reductions".

"I will give you whatever you want, for not a lot of money," the online invite read, according to German media reports. 

The casualties were mostly young, with three aged just 14 and two aged 15. 

Most of the victims in Friday's attack were foreigners, including three Turkish nationals, three people from Kosovo and a Greek. 

Europe stands united

US President Barack Obama voiced staunch support for Washington's close ally Germany, while EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said: "Europe stands united." 

Europe has been on high alert for terrorism after a string of attacks in neighbouring France and Belgium claimed by Daesh.

 The attack came just four days after a 17-year-old asylum seeker went on a rampage with an axe and a knife on a train in Bavaria, injuring five people. 

In France, a Tunisian used a truck on July 14 to mow down 84 people after a Bastille Day fireworks display in Nice, the third major attack on French soil in the past 18 months. 

Friday's massacre spurred many in Munich to think the unthinkable. 

"It has reached us. People in Munich have long had a queasy feeling. Fears grew with every attack in Paris, Istanbul or Brussels," said the Abendzeitung newspaper's editor-in-chief Michael Schilling. 

"Since Friday it is clear that there can be no security anywhere, not even in the safest German city."

ISTANBUL/ANKARA — Turkey sought to assure its citizens and the outside world on Thursday that there would be no return to the deep repression of the past, even as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan imposed the first nationwide state of emergency since the 1980s.

With authorities cracking down on tens of thousands of people in the judiciary, education, military and civil service after last weekend's failed military coup, a lawmaker from the main opposition party said the state of emergency created "a way of ruling that paves the way for abuse".

Germany called for the measure to be ended as quickly as possible, while an international lawyers' group warned Turkey against using it to subvert the rule of law and human rights, pointing to allegations of torture and ill-treatment of people held in the mass roundup.

Announcing the state of emergency late on Wednesday, Erdogan said it would last at least three months and allow his government to take swift measures against supporters of the coup, in which 246 people were killed and hundreds wounded.

It will permit the president and Cabinet to bypass parliament in enacting new laws and to limit or suspend rights and freedoms as they deem necessary.

For some Turks, the move raised fears of a return to the days of martial law after a 1980 military coup, or the height of a Kurdish insurgency in the 1990s when much of the largely Kurdish southeast was under a state of emergency declared by the previous government.

About 60,000 soldiers, police, judges, civil servants and teachers have been suspended, detained or have been placed under investigation since the coup was put down.

Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Simsek, who previously worked on Wall Street and is seen as one of the most investor-friendly politicians in the ruling AK Party, took to television, Twitter and news conferences in a bid to calm nervous financial markets and dispel comparisons with the past.

“The state of emergency in Turkey won’t include restrictions on movement, gatherings and free press etc. It isn’t martial law of 1990s,” he wrote on Twitter. “I’m confident Turkey will come out of this with much stronger democracy, better functioning market economy and enhanced investment climate.”

Survive the shock

Markets were less than confident. The lira currency was near a new record low on Thursday, while the main stock index tumbled 4.4 per cent. The cost of insuring Turkish debt against default also surged.

Simsek tried to play down the losses. “In circumstances like this, there is a knee-jerk reaction, it’s typical. I know that because I come from that business,” he told reporters. “I need markets to understand that we are going to survive this shock.”

Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag said the state of emergency was aimed at averting a possible second military coup. Another deputy prime minister, Numan Kurtulmus, was quoted by broadcaster NTV as saying Turkey would invoke its right to suspend its obligations temporarily under the European Convention on Human Rights.

Turkey’s Western allies have expressed solidarity with the government over the coup attempt but have also voiced alarm at the scale and swiftness of the response, which includes a purge in universities and travel ban on academics.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier warned the government against extending the state of emergency beyond three months, saying this “would exacerbate tensions inside Turkey”. Speaking in Washington, he also expressed doubt about the legality of banning university professors from teaching and preventing researchers from leaving the country.

The Geneva-based jurists group ICJ weighed in, with its secretary general, Wilder Tayler, saying in a statement: “There are human rights that can never be restricted even in a state of emergency.”

“The current allegations of torture and ill-treatment of detainees and arbitrary arrests already point to serious violations of human rights,” he said.

Tayler gave no details of the allegations but noted that Erdogan has raised the possibility of reinstating the death penalty, responding to supporters’ demands for the coup leaders to be executed.

The European Convention on Human Rights allows signatory states, which include Turkey, to suspend some of its stipulations temporarily in times of emergency but abolition of the death penalty cannot be repealed.

Simsek ruled out the use of torture or curfews, but added that the government would need to “double and triple check” the central bank and Treasury for coup plotters.

Officials in Ankara say former air force chief Akin Ozturk, who has appeared in detention with his face and arms bruised and one ear bandaged, was a co-leader of the coup. Turkish media have reported that he denied this to prosecutors and that he said he tried to prevent the attempted putsch.

Some detained soldiers have been shown in photographs stripped to their underpants and handcuffed on the floors of police buses and a sports hall.

Eight Turkish soldiers who fled to Greece in a military helicopter after the failed coup fear they will be killed if they are sent back home, one of their lawyers said on Thursday.

Network of followers

Erdogan has said the sweep is not yet over and that he believes foreign countries might have been involved in the attempt to overthrow him.

A nationalist opposition party supported the state of emergency but other opposition politicians were uneasy. “Once you obtain this mandate, you create a way of ruling that paves the way for abuse,” Sezgin Tanrikulu, a lawmaker with the secular Republican People’s Party (CHP) told Reuters.

“The coup attempt was rebuffed with parliament and opposition support, and the government could have fought this with more measured methods.”

Erdogan, an Islamist who has led Turkey as prime minister or president since 2003, has vowed to clean the “virus” responsible for the plot from all state institutions.

He blames a network of followers of an exiled US-based cleric, Fethullah Gulen, for the attempted coup in which soldiers commandeered fighter jets, military helicopters and tanks in a failed effort to overthrow the government.

Ankara has said it will seek the extradition of Gulen, who has denounced the coup attempt and denied any involvement.

The putsch and the purge that has followed have unsettled the country of 80 million, a NATO member bordering Syria, Iraq and Iran, and a Western ally in the fight against the Daesh terror group.

The state of emergency went into effect after it was published in the government’s official gazette early on Thursday. Parliament formally approved the measure on Thursday.

Erdogan announced the state of emergency in a live broadcast in front of his government ministers after a nearly five-hour meeting of the National Security Council.

“The aim of the declaration of the state of emergency is to be able to take fast and effective steps against this threat against democracy, the rule of law and rights and freedoms of our citizens,” he said.