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French Soccer Icon Karim Benzema Sues Interior Minister Over Muslim Brotherhood Accusation
French soccer star Karim Benzema at the 2023 signing ceremony for hs move to Saudi club Al-Ittihad. Photo: Reuters/Handout
A leading French soccer star is suing the country’s interior minister for accusing him of retaining links to the Muslim Brotherhood — an international Islamist network created nearly a century ago that now includes the Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas.
Karim Benzema, 36, announced on Tuesday that he was bringing a defamation case against French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin over a television interview last October in which the politician charged that the player’s links with the Muslim Brotherhood were common knowledge.
“Benzema is notoriously linked with the Muslim Brotherhood, we all know it,” Darmanin claimed during an interview with the conservative broadcaster C-News. In the same interview, he argued, “We are fighting the hydra that is the Muslim Brotherhood because it creates an atmosphere of jihadism.”
Darmanin’s remarks were triggered by a posting written by Benzema on X/Twitter in which he said, “Our prayers for the people of Gaza, victims once again of unjust bombardments that spare neither women nor children.” The interior minister pointed out that Benzema — a former Real Madrid striker who won the coveted Ballon d’Or in 2022 — had failed to condemn both the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre in southern Israel, in which more than 1,200 people were murdered and over 200 kidnapped amid atrocities including rape and mutilation, and the gruesome decapitation in Oct. 2020 of Samuel Paty, a high school teacher in Paris who was targeted by an Islamist student after he showed his class caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad in the course of a class on freedom of speech.
In a 92-page complaint, Benzema — a practicing Muslim who now plays soccer in Saudi Arabia, where he captains Pro-League side Al-Ittihad — said that he was “aware of the extent to which, because of my notoriety, I am being used in political games, which are all the more scandalous given that the dramatic events since Oct. 7 deserve something quite different from this type of statement.”
The complaint also noted Benzema’s alarm that he is seen as “a symbol of urban youth — immigrant, Muslim, hostile to France, and antisemitic.” It went on to insist that he “never had the slightest link with the Muslim Brotherhood organization, nor knowledge of anyone who claims to be a member of it.”
Benzema’s announcement comes just two weeks after the Algerian international Youcef Atal, who plays at right-back for Nice, was handed an eight-month suspended sentence and a $49,000 fine for posting a video the day after the Oct. 7 massacre that featured a Palestinian cleric calling for “a black day over the Jews.”
No stranger to controversies off the field, Benzema was ejected from the French national team over accusations that he had tried to blackmail a teammate, Mathieu Valbuena, over an amateur sex video. In 2021, he was fined $75,000 and handed a one-year suspended sentence for his part in the scandal. The following year, Benzema failed in a legal attempt to sue the far right activist Damien Rieu over a photo the latter posted on social media showing the soccer star delivering a middle-finger gesture alongside an image of jihadists doing the same.
The post French Soccer Icon Karim Benzema Sues Interior Minister Over Muslim Brotherhood Accusation first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israel Says Missile Launched by Yemen’s Houthis ‘Most Likely’ Intercepted
Houthi leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi addresses followers via a video link at the al-Shaab Mosque, formerly al-Saleh Mosque, in Sanaa, Yemen, Feb. 6, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah
The Israeli army said on Saturday that a missile fired from Yemen towards Israeli territory had been “most likely successfully intercepted,” while Yemen’s Houthi forces claimed responsibility for the launch.
Israel has threatened Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi movement – which has been attacking Israel in what it says is solidarity with Gaza – with a naval and air blockade if its attacks on Israel persist.
The Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree said the group was responsible for Saturday’s attack, adding that it fired a missile towards the southern Israeli city of Beersheba.
Since the start of Israel’s war in Gaza in October 2023, the Houthis, who control most of Yemen, have been firing at Israel and at shipping in the Red Sea, disrupting global trade.
Most of the dozens of missiles and drones they have launched have been intercepted or fallen short. Israel has carried out a series of retaliatory strikes.
The post Israel Says Missile Launched by Yemen’s Houthis ‘Most Likely’ Intercepted first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Iran Holds Funeral for Commanders and Scientists Killed in War with Israel
People attend the funeral procession of Iranian military commanders, nuclear scientists and others killed in Israeli strikes, in Tehran, Iran, June 28, 2025. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
Large crowds of mourners dressed in black lined streets in Iran’s capital Tehran as the country held a funeral on Saturday for top military commanders, nuclear scientists and some of the civilians killed during this month’s aerial war with Israel.
At least 16 scientists and 10 senior commanders were among those mourned at the funeral, according to state media, including armed forces chief Major General Mohammad Bagheri, Revolutionary Guards commander General Hossein Salami, and Guards Aerospace Force chief General Amir Ali Hajizadeh.
Their coffins were driven into Tehran’s Azadi Square adorned with their photos and national flags, as crowds waved flags and some reached out to touch the caskets and throw rose petals onto them. State-run Press TV showed an image of ballistic missiles on display.
Mass prayers were later held in the square.
State TV said the funeral, dubbed the “procession of the Martyrs of Power,” was held for a total of 60 people killed in the war, including four women and four children.
In attendance were President Masoud Pezeshkian and other senior figures including Ali Shamkhani, who was seriously wounded during the conflict and is an adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as well as Khamenei’s son Mojtaba.
“Today, Iranians, through heroic resistance against two regimes armed with nuclear weapons, protected their honor and dignity, and look to the future prouder, more dignified, and more resolute than ever,” Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi, who also attended the funeral, said in a Telegram post.
There was no immediate statement from Khamenei, who has not appeared publicly since the conflict began. In past funerals, he led prayers over the coffins of senior commanders ahead of public ceremonies broadcast on state television.
Israel launched the air war on June 13, attacking Iranian nuclear facilities and killing top military commanders as well as civilians in the worst blow to the Islamic Republic since the 1980s war with Iraq.
Iran retaliated with barrages of missiles on Israeli military sites, infrastructure and cities. The United States entered the war on June 22 with strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.
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Israel, the only Middle Eastern country widely believed to have nuclear weapons, said it aimed to prevent Tehran from developing its own nuclear weapons.
Iran denies having a nuclear weapons program. The U.N. nuclear watchdog has said it has “no credible indication” of an active, coordinated weapons program in Iran.
Bagheri, Salami and Hajizadeh were killed on June 13, the first day of the war. Bagheri was being buried at the Behesht Zahra cemetery outside Tehran mid-afternoon on Saturday. Salami and Hajizadeh were due to be buried on Sunday.
US President Donald Trump said on Friday that he would consider bombing Iran again, while Khamenei, who has appeared in two pre-recorded video messages since the start of the war, has said Iran would respond to any future US attack by striking US military bases in the Middle East.
A senior Israeli military official said on Friday that Israel had delivered a “major blow” to Iran’s nuclear project. On Saturday, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said in a statement that Israel and the US “failed to achieve their stated objectives” in the war.
According to Iranian health ministry figures, 610 people were killed on the Iranian side in the war before a ceasefire went into effect on Tuesday. More than 4,700 were injured.
Activist news agency HRANA put the number of killed at 974, including 387 civilians.
Israel’s health ministry said 28 were killed in Israel and 3,238 injured.
The post Iran Holds Funeral for Commanders and Scientists Killed in War with Israel first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Pro-Palestinian Rapper Leads ‘Death to the IDF’ Chant at English Music festival
Revellers dance as Avril Lavigne performs on the Other Stage during the Glastonbury Festival at Worthy Farm, in Pilton, Somerset, Britain, June 30, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Dylan Martinez
i24 News – Chants of “death to the IDF” were heard during the English Glastonbury music festival on Saturday ahead of the appearance of the pro-Palestinian Irish rappers Kneecap.
One half of punk duo based Bob Vylan (who both use aliases to protect their privacy) shouted out during a section of their show “Death to the IDF” – the Israeli military. Videos posted on X (formerly Twitter) show the crowd responding to and repeating the cheer.
This comes after officials had petitioned the music festival to drop the band. The rap duo also expressed support for the following act, Kneecap, who the BCC refused to show live after one of its members, Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh – better known by stage name Mo Chara – was charged with a terror offense.
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