By JASON DEAREN, MICHELLE R. SMITH and AARON KESSLER Associated Press
Updated
Much remains unknown about the man who carried out an attack in New Orleans and another who died in an explosion in Las Vegas on New Year's. One was an Army veteran and the other an active duty member of the U.S. Army Special Forces, Service members and veterans who radicalize make up a tiny fraction of a percentage point of the millions and millions who have honorably served their country. But the recent violence highlights the increased role of people with military experience in ideologically driven attacks. An Associated Press investigation published last year found that radicalization among both veterans and active duty service members was on the rise, and that hundreds of people with military backgrounds had been arrested for extremist crimes since 2017.
The Justice Department says a Pakistani man alleged to have ties to Iran has been charged in a plot to carry out political assassinations on U.S. soil. Prosecutors in Brooklyn announced criminal charges Tuesday against Asif Merchant, accusing him of traveling to New York to try to hire a hit man. The plot was disrupted before it could be carried out. Court documents don't identify any of the potential targets. But the case was unsealed just weeks after U.S. officials disclosed that a threat on Donald Trump's life from Iran prompted additional security in the days before a Pennsylvania rally last month in which Trump was injured by a gunman's bullet.
By THOMAS ADAMSON and JEFFREY SCHAEFFER Associated Press
Arsonists have attacked France's high-speed rail network, paralyzing train travel to Paris for some 800,000 people across Europe, including athletes heading to the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games. The saboteurs targeted remote locations far from the capital with apparently coordinated attacks that sought to cut off rail routes into the city from all directions. The fires were predominantly set in pipes containing critical signaling cables for the system known as the TGV. Blazes were reported before dawn near the tracks on three separate lines, causing widespread disruptions. Another arson attempt, in the south in Vergigny, was thwarted by rail agents who scared off several suspects.
