Islamism

On June 31, Mehmet Gormez, a Turkish cleric who headed the Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet), a government department that runs more than 85,000 mosques, bid farewell to his post he had occupied since 2010. Gormez’s term didn’t end until 2020, which is why his early departure triggered a heated discussion in the media and on social media.

Opposition circles, or the "other half of Turkey," are suffering from post-system change trauma. It is not just the end of the parliamentary system and the authoritarian sway that has been sealed after the July 2016 coup attempt and the April 2017 referendum, everybody feels a deeper transformation of the political regime underway.

The man who killed one person and injured six in a supermarket knife attack in Hamburg was a "known Islamist", police say, quoted by BBC.

"He was known as an Islamist but not a jihadist," police spokesman Andy Grote said, noting that the suspect also suffered from "psychological" issues.

The EU's highest court has maintained a ruling that Palestinian Islamist group Hamas is a terrorist organisation, in a blow to campaigners who have called for the militant organisation to be removed from Europe's blacklist, reported the Financial Times.

Photo: AP

The threat of violent Islamist extremism has been growing in Kosovo, the US State Department said in its latest annual report on global terrorism.

The threat of violent Islamist extremism has been growing in Kosovo, the US State Department said in its latest annual report on global terrorism.

This development in Kosovo is assisted in part by funding from foreign organizations that preach extremist ideologies and violent extremist groups actively using social media to spread propaganda and recruit followers, the report said.

The Bosniak member of Bosnia's presidency, Bakir Izetbegovic, has called on the country's institutions to protect imams [Muslim clerics] after so-called Islamic State recently its supporters to kill Bosnian Muslim religious leaders by shooting them or cutting their throats. 

Photo: AP

Germany is likely to see more terrorist attacks conducted by Islamist jihadists, the country's domestic intelligence chief has said while presenting an annual report which analyses threats to the state from all forms of extremism.

Germany should brace for further attacks given growing numbers of potential Islamist militants, top security officials warned on Tuesday, vowing to step up efforts to prosecute, convict and deport suspects.

The fear of being targeted by terrorists has forced some foreign embassy staff in Greece to change the traditional blue license plates on their vehicles that mark them out as belonging to diplomats in favor of regular ones used by the local population.