Australian schoolgirl faces charge of financing IS

SYDNEY, Australia - A 16-year-old schoolgirl was set to be charged Tuesday with raising money to support the Islamic State group, Australian police said, warning of a "trend of teenage children" involved in such activities.

The girl and a 20-year-old man were arrested in the western Sydney suburb of Guildford in the morning and were due to be charged during the day, New South Wales state police Deputy Commissioner Catherine Burn said.

"We will be alleging that they were involved in obtaining money to send offshore to assist the Islamic State in its activities," Burn told reporters in Sydney.

"The 16-year-old girl is not somebody who is well-known to us, however it is disturbing that we are continuing to see a trend of teenage children involved in activities that they should really not be involved in at all."

The pair were to face one charge each of getting funds to, from or for a terrorist organisation. The maximum penalty on conviction is 25 years in prison.

Burn would not say how much they allegedly collected, but added that a "number of people in this country" were raising money to finance terrorism and then send it offshore.

Federal Police Deputy Commissioner for national security, Michael Phelan, said the alleged fundraising was not linked to any plot of an attack in Australia and there was no immediate threat to the community.

Canberra has been increasingly concerned about home-grown extremism and raised the terror threat alert level to high in September 2014.

Authorities have conducted a series of counter-terrorism raids in several cities, while the government has passed new national security laws.

Since September 2014, 14 people have been charged under Appleby, a rolling operation investigating people suspected of being involved in domestic acts of terrorism, Australians fighting in Syria and Iraq and the funding of terrorist organisations, Phelan said.

Burn said police were working to identify "all those things that might have been involved in her getting to this position".

In December, five people including a 15-year-old boy were charged in Sydney over a terror plot targeting a government building.

And in October a civilian police employee was shot dead by a boy, also 15, outside police headquarters in western Sydney. The teenager was killed in an exchange of gunfire.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Attack on Egypt resort wounds 3 European tourists

CAIRO - A hotel on Egypt's Red Sea coast came under attack Friday, leaving three European tourists wounded before the security forces shot dead an assailant and wounded another.

It was the second attack in as many days on holidaymakers in Egypt, where vital tourist revenues have slumped since a Russian passenger jet plane crashed with the Islamic State group claiming to have downed it.

A police official said security forces stopped the attack on the Bella Vista hotel in the Red Sea resort of Hurghada, with one assailant killed and another "seriously wounded".

The assailants were armed with knives when they attacked the hotel, police said.

According to the interior ministry, the assailants entered the hotel from a restaurant on the street front.

"Unknown assailants infiltrated into the hotel through the restaurant that faces the street and threatened clients with knives," an interior ministry statement said.

It said security forces "confronted them as they tried to flee", with one of them killed, a student in his 20s, and the other seriously wounded.

The tourists -- two from Austria and one from Sweden -- were "slightly wounded", police said.

Health ministry spokesman Khaled Megahed told AFP they "have suffered knife wounds but they are in stable condition".

A tourist agent whose works nearby told AFP that police evacuated the hotel while bomb disposal experts entered the building to check for any explosives.

The identity of the assailants was not immediately clear but Egypt has been roiled by mainly jihadist violence since the army ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013.

The attacks have largely focused on security forces in reprisal for a fierce crackdown on Morsi supporters.

Friday's attack was the second in as many days against Egypt hotels.

- Attacks claimed by IS -

On Thursday a gang of youths hurled fireworks and birdshot at a bus and police guarding Cairo's Three Pyramids Hotel near the pyramids of Giza, without hurting anyone, according to officials and witnesses.

A security official said about 40 Arab Israelis were inside waiting to board a bus when the attack occurred.

The Islamic State group on Friday claimed responsibility for that attack.

IS also claimed responsibility for downing a Russian passenger plane on October 31 after it took off from the airport of Sharm el-Sheikh, another Egyptian Red Sea resort, killing all 224 people on board.

But Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has dismissed the claim as "propaganda" and promised a transparent probe into the Russian plane tragedy.

He also promised that the government would support the tourism industry, a cornerstone of Egypt's faltering economy.

After the Russian plane tragedy, major tourist operators suspended packages to Sharm el-Sheikh and Hurghada, while Russia halted all flights to and from Egypt and Britain suspended air links with Sharm el-Sheikh.

The resorts which Egypt promoted as jewels of its tourism industry have attracted millions of holidaymakers, including Russians, Britons and Italians, and are famed for their pristine beaches and scuba diving.

The tourism industry has been dealt several blows in 2015.

In September, eight Mexican tourists were mistakenly killed by Egyptian security forces in the vast Western Desert.

And in June, police foiled an attempted suicide bomb attack near the famed Karnak temple in Luxor -- one of Egypt's most popular heritage attractions -- when 600 tourists were inside.

Nine Egyptians were sentenced in November to life in prison for their involvement in that failed attack, while two others were jailed for seven years.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com