World

HIGHLAND PARK, United States — Police arrested a suspect on Monday after a mass shooting left six dead at a US Independence Day parade in a wealthy Chicago suburb, casting a dark shadow over the country's most patriotic holiday.

Robert Crimo, 22, was identified as a "person of interest" and became the target of a massive manhunt across the town of Highland Park in Illinois, where a rooftop gunman with a high-powered rifle turned a family-focused July 4 parade celebration into a scene of death and trauma.

Firing into the holiday crowd, the shooter triggered scenes of total chaos as panicked onlookers ran for their lives, leaving behind a parade route strewn with chairs, abandoned balloons and personal belongings.

Emergency officials said around two dozen people, including children, were treated for gunshot injuries, with some in critical condition.

After a brief car chase, Crimo was taken into custody "without incident", Highland Park police chief Lou Jogmen told reporters.

Earlier, police had warned that he was armed and "very dangerous". A Chicago musician of the same age and with the same name goes by the stage moniker "Awake the Rapper" online.

The shooting is part of a wave of gun violence plaguing the United States, where approximately 40,000 deaths a year are caused by firearms, according to the Gun Violence Archive website.

And it cast a pall over America's Independence Day, in which towns and cities across the country hold similar parades and people — many dressed in variations on the US flag — hold barbecues, attend sports events and gather for firework displays.

"We were getting ready to march down the street and then all the sudden waves of these people started running after, like running towards us. And right before that happened, we heard the pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, and I thought it was fireworks," Emily Prazak, who marched in the parade, told AFP.

Don Johnson, who attended the parade, said he initially thought the gunshots were a car backfiring.

“And finally, I heard the screams from a block down and people running and carrying their kids and everything, and we ran into the gas station, and we were in there for three hours,” he told AFP.

“I’ve seen scenes like this over and over again on the TV and in different communities, and didn’t think it was going to happen here ever,” he said.

Police officials said the shooting began at 10:14am, when the parade was approximately three-quarters of the way through.

“It sounds like spectators were targeted... So, very random, very intentional and very sad,” said Lake County Major Crime Task Force spokesman Christopher Covelli.

Five of the six people killed, all adults, had died at the scene. The sixth was taken to hospital but succumbed to wounds there.

Dr Brigham Temple of Highland Park Hospital, where most of the victims were taken, said that it had received 25 people with gunshot wounds aged eight to 85.

He said “four or five” children were among them, and that 16 people were later discharged.

Police said the shooter used a “high-powered rifle”, and “firearm evidence” had been located on the rooftop of a nearby business.

“All indications is he was discreet, he was very difficult to see,” said Covelli.

A Mexican was among those killed, Mexico’s Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said.

“We stand with the Chicago community in its pain and sadness over this tragedy,” he tweeted.

President Joe Biden voiced his shock and vowed to keep fighting “the epidemic of gun violence” sweeping the country.

“I’m not going to give up,” he said.

Last week, Biden signed the first significant federal bill on gun safety in decades, just days after the Supreme Court ruled that Americans have a fundamental right to carry a handgun in public.

The deeply divisive debate over gun control was reignited by two massacres in May that saw 10 Black supermarket shoppers gunned down in upstate New York and 21 people, mostly young children, slain at an elementary school in Texas.

According to the Gun Violence Archive, there have been 309 mass shootings carried out in the US so far in 2022 — including at least three others on July 4, though without any fatalities.

“It is devastating that a celebration of America was ripped apart by our uniquely American plague,” Illinois Governor JB Pritzker told reporters Monday.

“A day dedicated to freedom has put into stark relief the one freedom we as a nation refuse to uphold — the freedom of our fellow citizens to live without the daily fear of gun violence.”

BRUSSELS — NATO on Tuesday kicked off momentous accession procedures for Sweden and Finland, aiming to expand the military alliance to 32 countries in reaction to Russia's war in Ukraine.

"This is an historic day, for Finland, for Sweden, for NATO, and for Euro-Atlantic security," NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said after protocols were signed launching the required ratification process in all alliance countries.

The foreign ministers of Sweden and Finland, alongside Stoltenberg, also qualified the occasion as "historic".

"The membership of both Finland and Sweden will not only contribute to our own security, but to the collective security of the alliance," said Finland's Pekka Haavisto.

The two Nordic countries had long maintained non-alignment status, even though they have held exercises with NATO and have inter-operable weapons systems.

They announced intentions to join NATO in May, triggered by Russia's February invasion of Ukraine and ongoing war there.

In a sudden change of course, Sweden and Finland — the latter of which fought a Soviet invasion in 1939-1940 and shares a 1,340-kilometre border with Russia — asked to come under NATO's mutual-defence umbrella.

Their bids hit a road-bump when Turkey, a NATO member, threatened to block their entry.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had accused Sweden and Finland of being havens for Kurdish militants he has sought to crush, and for promoting "terrorism".

He also demanded they lift arms embargoes imposed for Turkey's 2019 military incursion into Syria.

But Erdogan dropped his objections last week, in time for a NATO summit in Spain, after negotiations resulted in concessions — and a US promise of new warplanes for Turkey.

The summit ended up extending invitations to Sweden and Finland to formally apply, leading to lightning-fast negotiations on Monday then Tuesday's signing.

Erdogan says he could still slam the door shut if Sweden and Finland don’t follow through on their promises, which include possible extradition agreements.

The months-long period during which all NATO countries have to ratify the Nordic countries’ membership is a risky moment, not only because of Turkey’s threat but also because the NATO mutual-defence clause is not yet applicable.

Sweden’s Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson told reporters in her country that Stockholm figured legislative approval from NATO nations “could take a year, and that estimation rests”.

Stoltenberg said: “I count on allies to deliver a quick and swift and smooth ratification process.”

He emphasised that “many allies have already made clear commitments to Finland and Sweden’s security” during the interim period, and pointed out a boosted NATO presence in their region.

Swedish Foreign Minister Ann Linde said security assurances had been made by the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Poland and NATO members in the Nordic and Baltic regions.

Several NATO members flagged expedited ratification for Sweden and Finland.

“Moments after Finland and Sweden’s accession protocols were signed in Brussels, I summoned my government and proposed to Estonian parliament to convene tomorrow for accelerated ratification,” Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas tweeted.

Germany’s parliament was poised to ratify as early as the end of this week. Sources in the ruling coalition said a first reading of the text was likely on Wednesday, with the final two readings on Friday.

“This is the fastest accession process in NATO’s history so far,” Stoltenberg said.

ATHENS — Two dozen water bombers and helicopters backed by more than 100 firefighters on Tuesday battled a fierce fire threatening one of central Greece’s largest olive groves, the fire service said.

The wildfire approaching the Amfissa olive grove has already destroyed 300 hectares of farmland and 900 hectares of brush, fire service spokesman Yannis Artopios told reporters.

Scientists have warned that extreme weather and fierce fires will become increasingly common due to man-made global warming, and Greece’s conservative prime minister has linked blazes in the country to climate change.

Located at the foot of Mount Parnassus and stretching as far as the Gulf of Corinth, the grove in Amfissa, a town 280 kilometres north of Athens, contains hundreds of thousands of olive trees, many of them over 100 years old.

The fire started on Monday afternoon near the village of Sernikaki, 15 kilometres from the ancient archaeological site of Delphi.

An investigation has been launched into the cause of the blaze, which has not reached the 4th-century BC world heritage site, the authorities said.

Fanned by winds of up to 70 kilometres per hour, the flames spread rapidly towards Amfissa.

The Civil Protection authorities warned at the weekend that high winds and temperatures of up to 35ºC meant the fire risk this week was “very high” in some regions.

On Tuesday afternoon, 130 firefighters, five water bombers and six helicopters were deployed to combat flames consuming a pine forest near the seaside resort of Porto Germeno, west of Athens.

In the western Peloponnese, a fire that started in Ilia on Sunday was still burning on Tuesday.

In the east of the same region, a blaze near the village of Kranidi led to the evacuation of a hotel on Monday.

Last summer, heatwaves triggered some of the worst wildfires in Greek history, particularly on Evia, the country’s second-largest island.

A total of 103,000 hectares were destroyed and three people died.

The Greek government has called for firefighters to be deployed under a European civil protection scheme to bolster its capacity to battle wildfires.

A total of 250 firefighters from nations including France, Germany, Bulgaria, Romania, Finland and Norway have been taking part in the scheme since July 1.

PARIS — France repatriated 35 children and 16 mothers from camps in Syria holding family members of suspected Daesh terrorists on Tuesday in the largest such operation by Paris after pressure from campaigners.

The French government had long refused mass repatriations of the hundreds of French children detained in Kurdish-controlled camps, dealing with them on a case-by-case basis that rights groups criticised as deliberately slow.

“France has today undertaken the return to the country of 35 French minors who were in camps in northeast Syria. This operation also includes the return of 16 mothers from these same camps,” a statement from the foreign ministry said.

It added that the minors were handed over to child protection services while the mothers would face judicial proceedings that lawyers expect to lead to their prosecution for terror offences.

One of the women was 37-year-old Emilie Konig, a Muslim convert from northwest France who became a notorious recruiter for the group and urged supporters in the West to carry out attacks, a security source told AFP.

Family members of the returnees said that French officials had entered the sprawling and squalid Roj camp on Monday to select orphans and women with medical problems for the flight home.

“It’s a 180 degree turn from the French government to repatriate women as well. It gives us hope, but there are still a lot of children over there,” the aunt of one of the repatriated women told AFP, asking not to be named.

Western countries have faced a dilemma over how to handle their citizens detained in Syria since the end of military operations against the Islamic State group there in 2019.

Thousands of extremists in Europe decided to join the group as fighters, often bringing their wives and children to live in the “caliphate” declared in territory conquered in Iraq and Syria.

Until now, France had prioritised its security over welfare concerns for the detained, pointing to a series of attacks by Daesh extremists, including the November 2015 assaults on Paris that left 130 people dead.

In a 2019 poll by Odoxa-Dentsu Consulting, seven out of 10 people surveyed were opposed to bringing back the children of militants to France.

Before Tuesday’s operation, Paris had repatriated 126 children since 2016.

Security risks 

The decision to return 51 people in a single operation points to a change in policy that came after Germany and Belgium announced that they would bring back all of their minors from Syria.

Around 150 remain in Syria, lawyers and campaigners said on Tuesday.

“Our country has isolated itself more and more by choosing inhumanity and irresponsibility, unlike Germany, Belgium and many other European countries,” the French campaign group Collective for United Families said in a statement on Tuesday.

A UN watchdog also increased the pressure in February when it said that France had violated the rights of children by leaving them for years in inhuman and life-threatening conditions.

The president of the Seine-Saint-Denis region northeast of Paris, where many previous returnees have been housed, said it was important to make a distinction between Daesh fighters and children, many of whom are orphans.

“Whenever this issue becomes a news story, I’m aware of the fantasies that it can create,” Stephane Troussel told AFP recently. “The images of children indoctrinated by IS [Daesh], weapons in their hands, are deeply ingrained.”

But “the children are not guilty. They are above all the victims of the deadly excesses of their parents and what they need more than anything is an opportunity to rebuild themselves if we want them to rejoin society”, he added.

A statement from France’s anti-terror prosecutor’s office said the mothers repatriated on Tuesday were aged between 22 and 39 and had been taken into custody.

In addition to Konig, there is also a mother-of-four with colon cancer whose mother, Pascale Descamps, went on hunger strike to campaign for her return on humanitarian grounds.

She left France in 2015 with her extremist husband and three children. He was killed in combat, leading her to remarry another Daesh extremist, who also died.

One of the minors, who is nearly 18, was also detained because “evidence exists likely to prove his association with a terrorist organisation”, the statement from anti-terror prosecutors added.

Daesh declared a caliphate in 2014 in territory stretching across Iraq and Syria, but was progressively beaten back by a coalition of Western-backed local forces, losing its last territory in March 2019

SLOVIANSK — President Vladimir Putin on Monday ordered Russian troops to press their offensive deeper into the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine after Moscow's forces seized the strategic city of Lysychansk.

Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu told Putin at a meeting that Moscow's forces were now in full control of the Lugansk region.

In a sign there would be no let-up in the fighting and that Russia now had its eyes on the entire Donetsk region, Putin told Shoigu that troops stationed there must continue their operations.

"Military units, including the East group and the West group, must carry out their tasks according to previously approved plans," Putin said.

"I hope that everything will continue in their direction as has happened in Lugansk so far."

The Ukrainian army said on Sunday it was retreating from Lysychansk to preserve the lives of its troops who were outnumbered and outgunned by Russian forces.

With the war now well into its fifth month, Ukraine told a reconstruction conference in Switzerland on Monday that it would already cost $750 billion to rebuild the country.

"The key source of recovery should be the confiscated assets of Russia and Russian oligarchs," Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal told leaders of dozens of countries in Lugano.

In a video address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky described rebuilding Ukraine as the "common task of the whole democratic world" and the "biggest contribution to the support of global peace".

‘Most modern weapons’ 

The loss of Lysychansk over the weekend prompted Zelensky to step up calls for an increased supply of weapons from the West so Kyiv can keep up the resistance and regain lost territories.

After giving up on its initial war aim of capturing Kyiv following tough Ukrainian resistance, Russia has focused its efforts on securing control of the Donetsk and Lugansk areas which make up the Donbas region.

Moscow’s capture of Lysychansk — one week after the Ukrainian army also retreated from the neighbouring city of Severodonetsk — frees up Russian forces to advance on Kramatorsk and Sloviansk in Donetsk.

Lugansk Region Governor Sergiy Gayday said on Telegram that there was still fighting in the town of Bilogorivka outside Lysychansk.

“We keep defending a small part of the Lugansk region so that our army could build protective redoubts,” he added.

In his address late Sunday, Zelensky vowed Kyiv would fight on and ensure the military had “the most modern weapons”.

“Ukraine will reach the level when the fire superiority of the occupiers will be levelled.”

In a symbolic boost, the Ukrainian flag was raised on Snake Island, an rocky outcrop in the Black Sea, after Russia withdrew from the strategically important Ukrainian territory last week.

In Sloviansk, about 75 kilometres west of Lysychansk, there were few people on the streets on Monday, the day after Russian strikes that left at least six dead, among them a nine-year-old girl, and 19 injured.

In the large downtown market largely ravaged by a fire caused by a Russian strike, a few vendors offered basic goods while others cleared charred debris.

Vendors and residents who spoke to AFP, some still in shock, expressed concern for the days and weeks to come, as sounds of shelling were heard again.

The city of Siversk, 30 kilometres west of Lysychansk, also saw overnight shelling, residents and an official told AFP.

Reconstruction 

But Zelensky’s address Sunday evening was defiant, predicting Ukrainian troops would “win back” territory in the Donbas just has they had in other regions earlier in the war.

On Monday, leaders from dozens of countries and international organisations met in the Swiss city of Lugano with the aim of hashing out a roadmap for Ukraine’s reconstruction.

Lugano is not a pledging conference but will instead attempt to lay out the principles and priorities for a rebuilding process aimed to begin even as the war rages.

“Ukraine can emerge from this on a path towards a stronger and more modern country,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said.

But for residents in Bucha — a Ukrainian town synonymous with war crimes blamed on Moscow’s forces after their retreat in April — fear remains even as talk begins of reconstruction.

“We’re going to bed without knowing if we’ll wake up tomorrow,” said Vera Semeniouk, 65.

“Everyone has come back, is starting to repair houses, many are putting in new windows. It would be terrible if it started again, and we had to leave everything again.”

Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson, making her first visit to Ukraine, visited Bucha on Monday.

HIGHLAND PARK, United States — A shooter opened fire during a parade to mark US Independence Day in the state of Illinois, killing at least six people, officials said.

"At this time, two dozen people have been transported to Highland Park hospital. Six are confirmed deceased," Commander Chris O'Neil of the city's police told journalists.

The suspected shooter, who is still at large, has been described as a white male aged 18-20 with longer black hair, O'Neil said.

"All individuals are still urged to shelter in place at this time," he added.

Nancy Rotering — the mayor of Highland Park, which is located near Chicago — gave the same toll and condemned the holiday violence.

"On a day that we came together to celebrate community and freedom, we're instead mourning the tragic loss of life and struggling with the terror that was brought upon us," she said.

Both officials said the shooting began at around 10:14 am (15:14 GMT).

Multiple law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, the state police and the local sheriff’s office, are assisting with the response.

Highland Park announced that all July 4 festivities had been canceled as a result of the violence, as did nearby Evanston.

“While there is no known threat to Evanston residents, the shooter is still at large; therefore, cancelations are taking place in an abundance of caution,” the city said.

‘Enough is enough’ 

US Representative Brad Schneider, who was at the parade, said on Twitter that “a shooter struck in Highland Park during the Independence Day parade”.

“Hearing of loss of life and others injured. My condolences to the family and loved ones; my prayers for the injured and for my community,” he wrote, adding: “Enough is enough!”

The shooting is part of a wave of gun violence plaguing the United States, where approximately 40,000 deaths a year are caused by firearms, including suicides, according to the Gun Violence Archive website.

The debate over gun control — a deeply divisive issue in the country — was reignited by two massacres in May that saw 10 Black supermarket shoppers gunned down in upstate New York and 21 people, mostly young children, slain at an elementary school in Texas.

Congress passed the first significant bill on gun safety in decades in the wake of those killings. President Joe Biden signed it into law in late June, saying that while it falls short of what is really needed, it will still save lives.

But a day earlier, proponents of tougher firearms laws suffered a setback when the US Supreme Court ruled that Americans have a fundamental right to carry a handgun in public, a landmark decision with far-reaching implications for states and cities across the country trying to rein in gun violence.