Ahead of the summer season, the US State Department has issued a warning for us citizens who travel to Europe due to the threat of terrorist attacks, like reported by balkaneu.com.

This is the fourth warning issued by the US on Europe this year alone.

Although the US is involved in Kosovo and the security of the country is to a great extent in its hands, the State Department warns its citizens that traveling to Kosovo is “very dangerous”.

The destinations that were listed as the most dangerous ones to be visited are Russia, Turkey (near the Syrian border) and Ukraine.

The US State Department’s warning about the travel threats expires on 1 September

Bavarian police are trying to establish the motive behind the murder of an Afghan woman who sought refuge in Germany and has reportedly converted to Christianity, like reported by tolonews.com

According to the news outlet the incident took place on Saturday close to a supermarket in Prien am Chiemsee in Bavaria.

The suspect reportedly stabbed the women in front of her children.

RT reported that the 38-year-old woman, who was attacked by a 29-year-old Afghan man, had been to a church service shortly before the incident.

Police are currently trying to establish the relationship between the perpetrator and the victim, RT stated.

“For us, only facts count. But there is evidence of a religious motive for the deed we are pursuing. But this is only one of the versions we can follow,” a police source was reported as saying.

Germany’s Bild newspaper meanwhile reported, citing family members, that the attack might have been triggered by the fact that the woman had converted to Christianity several years ago.

Five people were arrested in anti-terrorist operation in three French cities, which also seized heavy weapons, the French journal Le Figaro reported.

The arrests took place in Villeneuve-d’Ascq, in the north, Roanne in the Loire, and Rouen, prefecture of Seine-Maritime, the newspaper said.

Heavy weapons were also seized in the operation in Rouen, the report revealed.

The operation took place as part of a preliminary investigation by the Paris public prosecutor’s office opened on March 8 and was conducted by the judicial police, according to the daily.

Dutch prosecutors say police have arrested a Dutch man with a Somali background on suspicion of “involvement with a terror organization” in Somalia, like reported by ap.org.

The National Prosecution Office said in a statement Tuesday that the 22-year-old suspect was detained last Wednesday in the southern town of Sint-Oedenrode based on information from the Netherlands’ General Intelligence and Security Service.

Prosecutors say the man, whose identity was not released, is suspected of playing an active role since last year with extremist group al-Shabab in southern Somalia.

Prosecution spokesman Wim de Bruin says the suspect is scheduled to appear before an investigating judge Wednesday in Rotterdam. Prosecutors want the judge to extend the suspect’s detention while investigations into his activities continue.

State Department issues renewed alert ahead of summer months, saying extremists could carry out attacks ‘with little or no warning’

The US State Department is warning Americans living in and traveling to Europe of the ongoing threat of terrorist attacks on the continent through the summer.

In a new travel alert issued on Monday, the department said the Islamic State group, al-Qaeda and their affiliates retain the “ability and to plan and execute” attacks in Europe. It said US officials remain concerned about the potential for future attacks, following a series of strikes in France, Russia, Sweden and Britain.

The department called on Americans to “be alert to the possibility that terrorist sympathizers or self-radicalized extremists may conduct attacks with little or no warning.”

The alert said US citizens should be especially vigilant at large, high profile events, particularly during the summer travel season.

“Terrorists persist in employing a variety of tactics, including firearms, explosives, using vehicles as ramming devices, and sharp-edged weapons that are difficult to detect prior to an attack,” it said.

The department’s last terror alert for Europe was issued on November 21 last year and expired on February 20. Monday’s alert expires on September 1.

Europe has seen a steady drip of jihadist attacks in recent months. IS jihadists have claimed deadly attacks in London, Berlin, Nice and most recently on Paris’s Champs-Elysees.

Experts have said, though, that under the pressure of the international coalition in Iraq and Syria as well as improved efforts by intelligence services, IS has seen its ability to mount complex, group attacks weaken.

Coalition air strikes in IS territory in Iraq and Syria have killed or forced into hiding many organisers of the attacks.

Turkey’s shutting down the migrant route to Europe has also made it much harder for IS followers to move within striking distance of targets like Paris and London.

The attack that killed five people outside the Houses of Parliament in London in March, and others carried out by individuals, “are above all indications of IS’s disintegration,” radicalization expert Farhad Khosrokhavar wrote in March.

These events serve to terrorise the public, “but they are symbolic last stands, which mark the end of a jihadist state that followers… want to be endless but which is coming to an end,” he said.

Into the void left by the smashing of organized rings, have stepped “rather unstable, even marginal, individuals who police have trouble linking to Daesh,” Olivier Roy, a specialist in political Islam, said, using an acronym for the Islamic State.

Yet those attackers come with another dimension of dangers because they often act alone, making them harder to detect. They also do not need anything more than a vehicle or a knife to kill.

ITALY’s foreign minister has agreed with contentious accusations that non-governmental organisations (NGOs) may be “colluding” with people smugglers to sneak migrants into Europe, like reported by express.co.uk

The unprecedented migrant crisis in the Mediterranean has sparked the invention of several NGOs, who have launched their own rescue ships. Yet critics in Italy have denounced their invention as a racket that must be stopped.

Sicilian prosecutor Carmelo Zuccaro claimed to have “evidence that there are direct contacts between certain NGOs and people traffickers in Libya”.

Mr Zuccaro’s remarks come just days after Italy’s parliament approved a measure to speed up asylum proceedings for migrants processed in Italy.

Minister of Justice Andrea Orlando, refuted the debate and said: “It is not appropriate to make up a story saying (aid organisations) working in the Mediterranean are colluding with people smugglers because that is a lie.

“I hope the Catania prosecutor’s office will let its investigations speak for it because I think it’s the best way to clarify things quickly.”

But not long afterwards, the Italian Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano contradicted Orlando, and said that he “agreed 100 per cent” with the allegations Zuccaro made.

Mr Alfano continued: “I am 100 percent in agreement with prosecutor Zuccaro, as he asked a real question.

“Those who become indignant at the drop of a hat are hypocrites.”

Médecins Sans Frontières, whose staff work on two rescue ships, dismissed the claims as “baseless”.

The United Nations Refugee Agency reported more than 37,000 people have been rescued making the crossing between Africa and Italy this year alone, which constitutes a 40 per cent increase compared to the same period in 2016.

The UN also reported that at least 1,000 have died trying to make the trip.

Smugglers have been accused of launching boats packed with migrants from Libyan beaches with little fuel and cheap outboard engines, knowing full well that they are likely to be rescued once they reach international waters.

Matteo Salvini, the leader of the right-wing Northern League political party, claims he intends to sue the Italian government.

He said: “When 8,500 illegal immigrants arrive in three days, it’s clear that it is all organised.

“It is quite clear that clandestine immigration is being organised. So we’ve decided to sue the government and the commanders of the navy and coast guard.”

It has come to light that an ISIS member who was captured in Bremen, Germany last March was planning to carry out an attack during a march by the Kurds. German judiciary bodies are considering deporting the 18 year old ISIS member from Daghestan, like reported by anfenglish.com

The Senior National Co-ordinator for Counter Terrorism has confirmed that police are now making terror-related arrests “on a near daily basis”. Meanwhile, a noted security expert has estimated the number of “committed Islamists” in the country is “between 6,000 and 10,000”, like reported by breitbart.com.

Metropolitan Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu revealed the astonishing scale of the struggle to contain terrorism in a statement outside New Scotland Yard on Friday.

“I wanted to reassure the public that our increased activity to combat terrorism over the last two years continues,” he said. The statement came following an “extraordinary day” in which police apprehended a migrant carrying a rucksack filled with knives in Whitehall and, in a separate incident, shot a woman in a niqab in a raid to foil an “active plot” in Willesden.

“Activity continues around the clock to identify and stop these threats,” said Basu, before his shocking admission that “we are making arrests on a near daily basis”.

Mr. Basu added a tribute “to the bravery of my uniform and detective colleagues”, having previously alluded to the “horrors in London” on 22 March, when a radicalised Muslim ran down several people in Westminster before stabbing Police Constable Keith Palmer to death.

“There are constant acts of immense bravery by officers – armed and unarmed – those that the public see when our officers run towards danger, just like yesterday, but a huge amount of unseen work that the public will never know about from us and our brilliant security services.”

Meanwhile, the director of the Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies at the University of Buckingham, Anthony Glees, has estimated there may be “between 6,000 and 10,000” extremists in Britain.

“About 1,000 young British Muslims have left the freedom of the UK to travel to the Middle East and become murderous foot soldiers of Islamic State,” Gleeson wrote in the Daily Mail.

“Of that large group, 400 are believed to have returned. Only a tiny fraction – fewer than ten – have ever been brought to justice for their treachery.”

To tackle the threat, Gleeson recommended the number of officers in the security services be expanded from 3,800 to 10,000, and that the “useless” Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures (TPIMs), which Theresa May introduced as home secretary, be dropped to make way for the return of Control Orders “in even tougher form”.

A female terrorism is in the hospital in Britain after being shot during a police raid Thursday, and officials say they believe they’ve “contained the threats” posed by the woman and others. The raid came on the same day a man was arrested for carrying weapons near the U.K. Parliament, like reported by npr.org .

The two developments are unrelated, Scotland Yard’s senior national counterterrorism coordinator Neil Basu said in a briefing Friday morning, one day after what he called it “an extraordinary day in London.” Police had stopped an active terrorism plot, he told reporters.

“Witnesses reported several shots were fired Thursday evening as London’s Metropolitan police surrounded a property in northwest London,” reporter Willem Marx tells NPR. “They made a total of five arrests there, and say the woman they shot was at the center of a continuing investigation. She is not yet under formal arrest but remains in a stable condition under armed guard at a hospital.”

Police had been monitoring that location on Harlesden Road, Basu said, adding that intelligence they’d gathered led officers to fire tear gas and carry out an armed “specialist entry.”

Earlier Thursday, armed officers arrested a 27-year-old man in Whitehall after stopping and searching him — and finding what Basu called “offensive weapons” and what photos from the scene show were at least three large knives that had been hidden in a backpack.

“He remains in our custody having been arrested for Terrorism Act Offences and possession of offensive weapons,” Basu said, “and there are two ongoing searches at addresses in London as part of that investigation.”

The arrests come just over a month after an assailant carried out an attack in London that began on Westminster Bridge, using a vehicle and a knife to kill four people and injure dozens more, before being shot and killed by police.