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Netanyahu urges Jews to move to Israel after Copenhagen attacks

Jerusalem (AFP) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday urged European Jews to move to Israel after a Jewish man was killed in an attack outside Copenhagen's main synagogue.

"Israel is your home. We are preparing and calling for the absorption of mass immigration from Europe," Netanyahu said in a statement, repeating a similar call after attacks by jihadists in Paris last month when four Jews were among the dead.

Two police officers were also wounded in Sunday's attack in Copenhagen, one of two fatal shootings in the normally peaceful Danish capital on the weekend.

In the first attack on Saturday, a 55-year-old man was killed at a panel discussion about Islam and free speech attended by a Swedish cartoonist behind controversial caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed.

"Extremist Islamic terrorism has struck Europe again... Jews have been murdered again on European soil only because they were Jews," Netanyahu said in the statement.

The Israeli prime minister said his government was to adopt a $45 million (39.5 million euro) plan "to encourage the absorption of immigrants from France, Belgium and Ukraine".

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A police investigator works at the scene of Saturday's shooting at a free speech event in Copenh …

"To the Jews of Europe and to the Jews of the world I say that Israel is waiting for you with open arms," Netanyahu said.

He had made a similar call after three days of bloodshed in Paris that started with the January 7 attack on satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo where 12 people were gunned down, followed the next day by the shooting death of a policewoman just outside the city.

On January 9, the gunman who killed the policewoman took hostages at a kosher supermarket in Paris. He killed four Jewish hostages before police shot him dead when they raided the store.

The bodies of the four were later flown to Israel where they were buried.

Officials in Copenhagen described the weekend attacks as an act of terror and said the man believed to be behind the shootings was shot dead after opening fire on police at a rail station.

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman sent condolences to Danish counterpart Martin Lidegaard over the attacks, telling him Israel "appreciates Denmark's cooperation in maintaining the security of Israelis and Jews in Denmark."

The foreign ministry quoted Lieberman as telling Lidegaard that Israel was "ready for any cooperation required on this issue".

The Palestinians also condemned the attack "in the strongest terms," with PLO official Saeb Erakat calling the Copenhagen attacks "absolutely unjustifiable."

"Terrorism knows no religion or nationality, and our opposition to such violence must be firmly united. We stand in solidarity with the Danish people," Erakat said in a statement.

PARIS (AP) — Hundreds of graves have been vandalized at a Jewish cemetery in eastern France, in what the president called an "odious and barbaric" anti-Semitic act against French values.

The vandalism comes at a time of growing insecurity among French Jews and amid general religious tensions in Europe, after Islamic radicals attacked a kosher market and a satirical newspaper in Paris last month and similar attacks hit Denmark this weekend.

French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said in a statement Sunday that a criminal investigation team is at the damaged cemetery in Sarre-Union, near the German border, and authorities will do "everything" to pursue the vandals.

Jewish and Muslim gravesites and places of worship in France see sporadic but frequent vandalism. The incident this weekend was of an unusually large scale, and hit a cemetery that has been vandalized in the past. Local media reported that about 200 grave stones were knocked down, and a monument to Holocaust victims was damaged.

French President Francois Hollande said in a statement that "France is determined to fight relentlessly against anti-Semitism and those who want to attack the nation's values."

Hollande visited the Danish Embassy in Paris on Sunday, and a crowd waving candles gathered to show solidarity with the victims of the Copenhagen attacks.

"We need stand together in Europe and in all the world wherever jihadis try to threaten democracy," said Sacha Reingewirtz, president of the Union of Jewish Students of France.

Many French Jews feel increasingly worried about anti-Semitism, particularly coming from young Muslims who embrace radical ideology propagated online.

France has Europe's largest Jewish population, about half a million. More than 7,000 emigrated to Israel last year.

France's leading Muslim groups denounced the attacks in Paris and Copenhagen, and are frustrated that Islam is often associated with terrorism.

Sky video
Attack Comes After Shootings At Nearby Cafe

By Sabina Zawadzki and Ole Mikkelsen

COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Police shot dead a 22-year-old Danish-born gunman on Sunday after he killed two people at a Copenhagen synagogue and an event promoting free speech in actions possibly inspired by an attack on the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, authorities said.

Spy chief Jens Madsen said the gunman was known to intelligence services prior to the shooting and had probably acted alone. Police said he had a record of violence, gang-related activities and weapons possession.

Two civilians - a synagogue guard and a film-maker - were killed and five police were wounded in the two separate attacks in the Danish capital on Saturday and Sunday.

Witnesses said the gunman had fired up to 40 shots at a cafe hosting a free speech event with Swedish artist Lars Vilks, who has received death threats for depicting the head of the Prophet Mohammad on a dog.

The gunman then moved on to a nearby synagogue where the guard, protecting a young girl's confirmation, was gunned down.

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Forensic investigators are seen at the site of a shooting in Copenhagen February 14, 2015. REUTERS/M …

On Sunday, thousands of Danes left a sea of flowers by the city's ornate 180-year-old synagogue.

"We are a small nation and such things don't happen here," 28-year-old student Frederikke Baastrup said, reflecting a widespread sense of shock in a country that prides itself on its reputation for safety and social tolerance.

Police cordoned off several sections of a predominantly immigrant neighborhood and took away several people for questioning, witnesses said.

Danish media widely reported the gunman to be Omar Abdel Hamid El-Hussein. Reuters could not confirm his identity and police declined to comment.

ON ALERT SINCE PARIS ATTACKS

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A man who passed a camera in the area shortly after two suspects had fled in a car following a shoot …

Danish media said El-Hussein had been jailed for stabbing a 19-year-old man in the leg on a Copenhagen train in 2013, and was freed a few weeks ago.

Danish authorities have been on alert since Islamist gunmen killed 17 people in three days of violence in Paris in January that began with an attack on weekly Charlie Hebdo, long known for its acerbic cartoons on Islam, other religions and politicians.

"Denmark and France are the same nations, feeling the same sadness but also the same will to resist, fight and defeat terrorism," French President Francois Hollande said.

"They hit the same targets, they hit what we are, what we represent, the values of freedom, the rule of law, that all citizens, whatever their religion, should be able to enjoy."

Madsen said the attacks appeared to have been inspired by the Paris attacks.

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Forensic investigators are seen at the site of a shooting in Copenhagen February 14, 2015. REUTERS/M …

But police said they did not believe the suspect had received training in jihadist camps in the Middle East.

The man had two handguns on him when he was killed and the police search later found an automatic weapon that may have been used in Saturday's attacks.

The gunman's primary target was likely to have been the free speech event with Vilks.

Dozens of bullets were fired in quick succession, probably from an automatic weapon, according to a recording of the event obtained by Danish TV2.

Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt said the attacks were terrorism but said this was not the start of a war between the West and Islam.

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Forensic investigators are seen at the site of a shooting in Copenhagen February 14, 2015. REUTERS/M …

"When you mercilessly fire deadly bullets at innocent people taking part in a debate, when you attack the Jewish community, you attack our democracy," Thorning-Schmidt said outside the synagogue. "We will do everything possible to protect our Jewish community."

CARTOONS

Denmark became a target of violent Islamists 10 years ago after the publication of cartoons lampooning the Prophet Mohammad, images that led to sometimes fatal protests in the Muslim world. Many Muslims consider any representation of the Prophet blasphemous.

Vilks stirred controversy himself in 2007 with drawings depicting Mohammad's head on a dog, triggering death threats.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said such attacks were likely to continue, and that Israel would welcome European Jews who chose to move to there.

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Police presence is seen at the site of a shooting in Copenhagen February 14, 2015. REUTERS/Mathias …

Witnesses said French ambassador Francois Zimeray had just finished introducing the cafe event, entitled "Art, Blasphemy and Freedom of Expression", when the assailant opened fire.

The venue was heavily guarded by police, who fired back, but the attacker nevertheless escaped.

Vilks sheltered on the floor of a cold room at the back of the cafe with one of the event's organizers.

He has lived under Swedish police protection since 2010 and two years ago an American woman was jailed for 10 years in the United States for plotting to kill him.

Like other European governments, Scandinavian leaders have been increasingly concerned about the radicalization of young Muslims traveling to Syria and Iraq to fight alongside violent jihadist groups such as Islamic State.

Authorities have also been worried about possible lone gunmen like Anders Behring Breivik, the anti-immigrant Norwegian who killed 77 people in 2011, most of them at a youth camp run by Norway's ruling center-left Labour Party.

(Additional reporting by the Copenhagen bureau, Niklas Pollard in Stockholm and Michel Rose in Paris; Writing by Alistair Scrutton and Balazs Koranyi; Editing by Jon Boyle and Stephen Powell)

By Ahmed Tolba and Michael Georgy

CAIRO (Reuters) - Islamic State released a video on Sunday that appeared to show the beheadings of 21 Egyptian Christians in Libya and President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi warned that his country would respond to the deaths as it saw fit.

Speaking on national television hours after the release of the video, Sisi said Cairo would choose the "necessary means and timing to avenge the criminal killings".

Egypt's state news agency MENA quoted the spokesman for the Coptic Church as confirming that 21 Egyptian Christians believed to be held by Islamic State were dead.

The beheadings could stiffen Sisi's resolve in dealing with security threats from militants thriving in neighboring Libya's chaos who want to topple his U.S.-backed government.

Egypt has denied reports in the past that it had taken part, along with its close ally the United Arab Emirates, in air strikes against militants based in Libya.

The footage showing the deaths of the Egyptians appeared on the Twitter feed of a website that supports Islamic State, which has seized parts of Iraq and Syria and has also beheaded Western hostages.

In the video, militants in black marched the captives, dressed in orange jump suits, to a beach the group said was near Tripoli. They were forced down onto their knees, then beheaded.

A caption on the five-minute video read: "The people of the cross, followers of the hostile Egyptian church." Before the killings, one of the militants stood with a knife in his hand and said: "Safety for you crusaders is something you can only wish for."

Thousands of Egyptians desperate for work have traveled to Libya since an uprising at home in 2011, despite advice from their government not to go to a country sliding into lawlessness.

Sisi, who met with the country's top military commanders to discuss the killings, called for a seven-day mourning period, state television reported.

The Coptic Church said it was confident the government would seek justice. Al Azhar, the center of Islamic learning in Egypt, said no religion would accept such "barbaric" acts.

The families of the kidnapped workers had urged Cairo to help secure their release. In the mostly impoverished southerly Minya Governorate, relatives screamed and fainted upon hearing news of the deaths.

CONCERNS ABOUT LIBYA

Egypt, the most populous Arab state, has not taken part directly in the U.S.-led air strikes against Islamic State targets in Iraq and Syria, focusing instead on the increasingly complex insurgency within its own borders.

Militants based in Libya have made contact with Sinai Province, a group operating from Egypt's Sinai Peninsula that has changed its name from Ansar Beyt al-Maqdis and pledged allegiance to Islamic State.

The group has killed hundreds of Egyptian soldiers and police since the army toppled Islamist president Mohamed Mursi in 2013 after mass protests against his rule.

With Libya caught in a chaotic power struggle between two rival factions operating their own governments, Western officials worry that Islamist militants are taking advantage of the turmoil to strengthen their presence.

A number of Islamist militant groups have been active since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 left Libya without a strong central government. A few have declared ties to the radical Islamic State and claimed high-profile attacks over recent weeks in what appears to be an intensifying campaign.

Fears that the crisis in neighboring Libya could spill across the border have prompted Egypt to upgrade its military hardware. French President Francois Hollande has said Egypt will order 24 Rafale fighter jets, a naval frigate and related military equipment in a deal to be signed in Cairo on Monday worth more than 5 billion euros ($5.7 billion).

(Editing by Kevin Liffey and Frances Kerry)