HELSINKI, Finland (AP) — Finnish investigators probing the damage to a Baltic Sea power cable and several data cables said they found an anchor drag mark on the seabed, apparently from a Russia-linked vessel that has already been seized.
The discovery heightened concerns about suspected sabotage by Russia's “shadow fleet” of fuel tankers — aging vessels with obscure ownership acquired to evade Western sanctions amid the war in Ukraine and operating without Western-regulated insurance.
The Estlink-2 power cable, which transmits energy from Finland to Estonia across the Baltic Sea, went down on Dec. 25 after a rupture. It had little impact on services but followed damage to two data cables and the Nord Stream gas pipelines, both of which have been termed sabotage.
Finnish police chief investigator, Sami Paila, said late Sunday the anchor drag trail continued for “dozens of kilometers (miles) ... if not almost 100 kilometers (62 miles).”
Paila added to Finnish national TV broadcaster Yle: “Our current understanding is that the drag mark in question is that of the anchor of the (seized) Eagle S vessel. We have been able to clarify this matter through underwater research."
Without giving further details, Paila said authorities have “a preliminary understanding of what happened at sea, how the anchor mark was created there,” and stressed that the “question of intent is a completely essential issue to be clarified in the preliminary investigation."
On Saturday, the seized vessel was escorted to anchorage in the vicinity of the port of Porvoo to facilitate the investigation, officials said. It is being probed under criminal charges of aggravated interference with telecommunications, aggravated vandalism and aggravated regulatory offense.
The Eagle S is flagged in the Cook Islands but was described by Finnish customs officials and the European Union executive commission as part of Russia’s shadow fleet of fuel tankers. Russia’s use of the vessels has raised environmental concerns about accidents given their age and uncertain insurance coverage.
In the wake of the cable rupture, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said last week that the military alliance, which Finland joined last year, will step up patrols in the Baltic Sea region.
The Finnish Coast Guard said Monday that another tanker ship headed for a Russian port has engine failure and drifted, then anchored in the Gulf of Finland south of the Hanko Paninsula. The guard said it was notified Sunday night.
Registered in Panama, the M/T Jazz was en route to Primorsk, Russia, from Sudan, with apparently no oil cargo. Finnish authorities have dispatched a tugboat and a patrol ship to ensure that the vessel does not drift and to prevent any damage to the environment.
Regional director of the Coast Guard, Janne Ryönänkoski, said there was no immediate risk to the seabed infrastructure.
Earlier Monday, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said that “sabotage in Europe has increased" since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Kallas told the German newspaper Welt that the recent “sabotage attempts in the Baltic Sea are not isolated incidents" but "part of a pattern of deliberate and coordinated actions to damage our digital and energy infrastructure.”
She vowed that the EU would “take stronger measures to counter the risks posed" by vessels of Russia's shadow fleet.
Finland, which shares a 1,340-kilometer (832-mile) border with Russia, abandoned its decades-long policy of neutrality and joined NATO in 2023, amid Russia's war against Ukraine.
Finnish Coast Guard stopped a small boat which tried to reach the Cook Islands-registered oil tanker Eagle S anchored near the Kilpilahti port in Porvoo, on the Gulf of Finland, Monday, Dec. 30, 2024. (Jussi Nukari/Lehtikuva via AP)
This photo provided by Rajavartiosto (Finnish Border Guard) on Thursday, Dec. 26, 2024, shows the oil tanker Eagle S at sea outside Porkkalanniemi, Finland. The Eagle S was sailing at the same time in the area where the Finland-Estonia electrical link was disrupted on Wednesday. (Rajavartiosto via AP)
This photo provided by Rajavartiosto (Finnish Border Guard) on Thursday, Dec. 26, 2024, shows the oil tanker Eagle S, background, and the Finnish Border Guard ship Turva at sea outside Porkkalanniemi, Finland. The Eagle S was sailing at the same time in the area where the Finland-Estonia electrical link was disrupted on Wednesday. (Rajavartiosto via AP)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The FBI says recovered the stark black banner of the Islamic State extremist group from the truck that an American man from Texas smashed into New Year's partygoers in New Orleans' French Quarter Wednesday, killing 15 people.
The investigation is expected to look in part at any support or inspiration that driver Shamsud-Din Jabbar may have drawn from that violent Middle East-based group, or from any of at least 19 affiliated groups around the world.
President Joe Biden said Wednesday evening that the FBI had told him that “mere hours before the attack, (Jabbar) posted videos on social media indicating that he was inspired” by the Islamic State.
Routed from its self-proclaimed caliphate in Syria and Iraq by a U.S. military-led coalition more than five years ago, the Islamic State has focused on seizing territory in the Middle East more than on staging massive al-Qaida-style attacks on the West.
But in its home territory the Islamic State has welcomed any chance to behead Americans and other foreigners who come within its reach. And it has had success, although abated in recent years, in inspiring people around the world who are drawn to its ideology to carry out ghastly attacks on innocent civilians.
Here's a look at the Islamic State, its current status, and some of the offshoot armed groups and so-called lone wolves that have killed under the Islamic State flag.
The Islamic State also is known as both IS and ISIS, or the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
It began as a breakaway group from al-Qaida.
Under leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, IS had seized stunning amounts of territory in Iraq and Syria by 2014. Within territory under its control, it killed and otherwise abused members of other faiths and targeted fellow Sunni Muslims who strayed from its harsh interpretation of Islam.
By 2019, a U.S.-led military intervention had driven Islamic State from the last inch of its territory. Al-Baghdadi killed himself, and two children near him, that same year, detonating an explosive vest as U.S. forces closed in on him.
Currently, the central Islamic State group is a scattered and much weakened organization working to regain fighting strength and territory in Syria and Iraq. Experts warn that the group is reconstituting itself there.
And that ISIS flag? Typically, it's a stark black banner with white Arabic letters expressing a central creed of the Islamic faith. Countless Muslims around the world see the coercive violence of the group as a perversion of their religion.
Some experts argue the Islamic State is powerful today partly as a brand, inspiring both militant groups and individuals in attacks that the group itself may have no real role in.
The Islamic State's ruthless credo and military successes have helped spur affiliated groups in Africa, Asia and Europe. It's a greatly decentralized alliance.
Many offshoots have carried out lethal attacks, such as a March 2024 attack blamed on an Afghanistan-based affiliate of the Islamic State that killed some 130 people at a Moscow theater.
The New Orleans rampage reflects the deadliest Islamic State-inspired attack on U.S. soil in several years.
Other attacks over the last decade include a 2014 shooting rampage by a husband-and-wife team who killed 14 people in San Bernardino, California, and a 2016 massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, by a gunman who fatally shot 49 people, pledged his allegiance on a 911 call to al-Baghdadi and raged against the “filthy ways of the West.”
Those attacks coincided with an influx of thousands of Westerners — some of them Americans — who traveled to Syria in hopes of joining the so-called caliphate.
In the aftermath of those killings, the threat from radicalized followers of the group had appeared to wane in the U.S. Al-Baghdadi was killed in a 2019 U.S. raid in Syria after he was chased into a tunnel with three of his children and set off a vest of explosives, Defense Department strikes have taken out other Islamic State members and the FBI has had significant success in disrupting plots before they come to fruition.
But over the last year, FBI officials have warned about a significantly elevated threat of international terrorism following Hamas’ rampage in Israel in October 2023 and the resulting Israeli strikes in Gaza.
The SITE intelligence group reported IS supporters celebrating in online chat groups Wednesday.
“If it’s a brother, he’s a legend. Allahu Akbar,” or “God is great,” it quoted one as saying.
President Joe Biden makes a statement on the latest developments in New Orleans from Camp David, Md., Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
Emergency services attend the scene on Bourbon Street after a vehicle drove into a crowd on New Orleans' Canal and Bourbon Street, Wednesday Jan. 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
This undated passport photo provided by the FBI on Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2025, shows Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar. (FBI via AP)
A black flag with white lettering lies on the ground rolled up behind a pickup truck that a man drove into a crowd on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, killing and injuring a number of people, early Wednesday morning, Jan. 1, 2025. The FBI said they recovered an Islamic State group flag, which is black with white lettering, from the vehicle. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
