Why Russia may be in the crosshairs of Daesh extremists

Special Why Russia may be in the crosshairs of Daesh extremists
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Ambulances and vehicles of Russian emergency services are parked at the burning Crocus City Hall concert venue following a shooting incident, outside Moscow ON March 22, 2024. (REUTERS)
Special Why Russia may be in the crosshairs of Daesh extremists
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A view of the burnt Crocus City Hall after an attack on March 23, 2024. (AP)
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An electronic screen installed near the Russian Foreign Ministry headquarters displays a message in memory of the victims of the March 23, 2024 shooting attack at the Crocus City Hall concert venue in Moscow. (REUTERS)
Special Why Russia may be in the crosshairs of Daesh extremists
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People lay flowers and light candles standing next to the Crocus City Hall in Moscow on March 23, 2024. (AP)
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Gunmen opened fire at the Crocus City Hall concert venue in the Moscow suburb of Krasnogorsk on March 22, 2024, killing more than 100 people and wounding scores more before a major fire spread through the building. (AFP)
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Bodybags containing dead victims are inspected by investigators looking into the March 22, 2024, Moscow concert attack. (Investigative Committee of Russia via AP)
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A view shows the Crocus City Hall concert venue following Friday's deadly attack outside Moscow on March 23, 2024. (Moscow News Agency/Handout via REUTERS)
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A still image taken from a handout video shows a gun found at the scene of the deadly shooting attack in Crocus City Hall concert venue, on March 23, 2024. (Reuters)
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Updated 24 March 2024
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Why Russia may be in the crosshairs of Daesh extremists

Why Russia may be in the crosshairs of Daesh extremists
  • Daesh affiliate claims responsibility for Moscow concert venue shooting, which killed at least 115
  • Afghanistan-based IS-K extremists have a ‘track record of attacking Russian targets,’ expert says

LONDON: Just hours after gunmen stormed a popular concert venue on the outskirts of the Russian capital Moscow on Friday night, killing 115, wounding scores and setting the building ablaze, the extremist group Daesh took to Telegram to claim responsibility.




Russian firefighters clear rubble at the Crocus City Hall concert venue after a deadly attack outside Moscow on March 23, 2024. (Russian Emergency Services Handout via REUTERS)

The group said that the attack was executed by its Afghan branch, IS-K, or Islamic State in Khorasan Province — the same group that was behind the twin bombings in Iran in January that killed 94 people at the shrine of former Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani.

“IS-K has a track record of attacking Russian targets,” Luke Coffey, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, told Arab News. “For example, IS-K was behind the attack against the Russian embassy in Kabul in September 2022. Also, IS-K is probably not happy with the deepening relations between Moscow and the Taliban.” 




The bodies of victims killed in Daesh-claimed twin explosions that struck a crowd marking the anniversary of the 2020 killing of Guards general Qasem Soleimani, lie at a hospital in the southern Iranian city of Kerman on January 3, 2024. (ISNA/AFP)

Founded in 2015 by frustrated former members of the Pakistani Taliban who sought more violent methods to spread their extreme interpretation of Islam, IS-K has primarily operated in the ungoverned spaces of rural Afghanistan.

From this initial obscurity, IS-K shot to global attention in August 2021 amid the chaos of the Taliban’s return to power when its members bombed Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, killing more than 170 people, among them 13 US military personnel.




Smoke rises from a deadly explosion outside the airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Aug. 26, 2021. (AP/File)

US operations had reduced IS-K’s numbers significantly, but after the Western withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 the group renewed and grew. The Taliban is now regularly engaged in combat against IS-K, as it threatens its ability to govern.




Taliban fighters stand guard at an entrance gate of the Sardar Mohammad Dawood Khan military hospital in Kabul on November 3, 2021, a day after an attack claimed by the Taliban's hardline rivals the Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K), in which at least 19 people were killed. (AFP/File)

Daesh and its affiliates have previously claimed responsibility for random attacks that they had no direct hand in, leading to some initial skepticism about their role in the Moscow attack. However, US intelligence has since confirmed the authenticity of the claim.

In fact, the US issued a warning to its citizens in Russia as early as March 7, highlighting “reports that extremists have imminent plans to target large gatherings in Moscow, to include concerts.”




A screenshot taken from a handout video released March 23, 2024, shows Russian crime investigators working at the scene of the Crocus City Hall attack in Krasnogorsk, Moscow region. (Handout via REUTERS)

On the same day that the US embassy in Moscow issued this warning, Commander of the US Central Command in the Middle East — CENTCOM — Gen. Michael Kurilla, told a briefing that the risk of attacks emanating from Afghanistan was increasing.

“I assess Daesh-Khorasan retains the capability and will to attack US and Western interests abroad in as little as six months and with little to no warning,” he said, according to a statement issued by the US Department of Defense.

He added: “Daesh is now strong not only in Afghanistan but outside of it as well. It now possesses the capabilities to carry out attacks in Europe and Asia, with its fighters positioned along the border with Tajikistan.”




Caption

With Russia’s security apparatus and defense infrastructure focused primarily on its war with Ukraine, extremist groups such as Daesh appear to have sensed an opportunity to stage a comeback and plot audacious attacks while governments were distracted.

“There is no doubt that Daesh is taking advantage of Russia’s distractions in Ukraine,” Coffey said. “More than two years into Russia’s invasion, the war in Ukraine probably now consumes most of the attention and resources of Russia’s intelligence agencies, armed forces, security services and even law enforcement.




Ukrainian servicemen walk next to destroyed Russian tanks and armored personnel carriers in Dmytrivka village, west of Kyiv, on April 2, 2022. Daesh militants seem to have taken advantage as Russia gets distracted with its disastrous war on Ukraine. (AFP/File)

“Daesh probably saw an opportunity to strike while Russia is weakened. In the past, Daesh publications such as Al-Naba have contained articles about the ‘crusader against crusader war’ taking place between Russia and Ukraine, even suggesting that such a war presents opportunities for them.”

MAJOR TERROR STRIKES IN RUSSIA

• October 2002 40 Chechen militants took 912 hostages in Moscow’s Dubrovka Theater.

July 2003 Two Chechen separatists committed suicide attacks at a rock concert in Moscow, killing 15 people.

February 2004 A suicide bomber killed 41 people in a Moscow subway during rush hour.

September 2004 30 Chechen militants seized a school in Beslan, North Ossetia, killing 330 people, half of whom were children.

March 2010 Two suicide bombers from the Caucasus Emirate group killed 40 people in a Moscow subway.

January 2011 A suicide bomber killed 37 people in the arrivals hall of Moscow Domodedovo airport.

October 2015 Daesh claimed responsibility for blowing up a Russian Metrojet flight over Egypt, killing all 224 passengers.

April 2017 A bomb attack on a subway train in St. Petersburg killed 16 people.

March 2024 ISIS-K, the Afghan branch of Daesh, attacked a Moscow concert hall, killing at least 115 people.

Hani Nasira, a political analyst and expert in terrorism and extremist organizations, echoed Coffey’s view that the conflict between Russia and Ukraine has created fertile ground for surprise attacks on a distracted region.

“Since the conflict in Ukraine started, IS-K has increased the flow of its fighters who have joined the war by going from their initial center of operations in Syria toward their countries of origin to relaunch operations in Northern Caucasus and Central Asian countries, such as Uzbekistan and Tajikistan,” Nasira told Arab News.




Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday vowed to punish those behind the Moscow concert hall that killed more than 130, saying four gunmen trying to flee to Ukraine had been arrested. (Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)

“The war in Ukraine constituted the starting point for the recurrence of what happened in Afghanistan, with foreign fighters from around the world joining the war alongside Ukraine against Russia, especially since the war, for the Western camp, has turned into a war of attrition with which it aims to inflict maximum losses on Russia or repeat the phenomenon of ‘returnees’ after the war is over,” he said.

“Some of the extremists of Chechen descent are fighting Russia in Ukraine to remove the humiliating stain left by the men of Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, who support Russia and were described by Daesh’s members as ‘traitors and a disgrace to the Chechen nation’ because no true Chechen would fight in the ranks of Russian President Vladimir Putin.”




In this photo taken on January 09, 1995, Chechen fighters rest beside a fire during a break in the fighting in central Grozny, capital of Chechnya. After years of war, Russian government forces eventually overcame resistance. (AFP/File)

Russia also seems to be of particular interest to IS-K because, as it claims, the Russian military has a record of killing Muslims in Chechnya, Syria and Afghanistan. 

Russia has been targeted by extremist groups numerous times over the past two decades — the Nord Ost theater siege in 2002 and the Beslan massacre in 2004 being the most notorious attacks.

For as long as the focus of its defense apparatus is dominated by the war in Ukraine, Russia may struggle to fend off further attacks by increasingly audacious extremist groups emerging from its restive south.

 


Afghanistan says to attend UN climate talks, first since Taliban takeover

Afghanistan says to attend UN climate talks, first since Taliban takeover
Updated 59 min 30 sec ago
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Afghanistan says to attend UN climate talks, first since Taliban takeover

Afghanistan says to attend UN climate talks, first since Taliban takeover
  • “Climate change is a humanitarian subject,” deputy NEPA head Zainulabedin Abid told AFP in a recent interview. “We have called on the international community not to relate climate change matters with politics”

KABUL: An Afghan delegation will attend the upcoming UN climate change summit in Azerbaijan, the foreign ministry spokesman told AFP on Saturday, marking a first since the Taliban government came to power.
Afghanistan is ranked as the country sixth most vulnerable to climate change and Taliban authorities have pushed to participate in COP summits, saying their political isolation shouldn’t bar them from international climate talks.
Having tried and failed to attend UN climate change summits in Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, this year an invitation from COP29 hosts Azerbaijan came through.
“A delegation of the Afghan government will be in Baku” for the summit, which opens on Monday in the Azerbaijani capital, said foreign ministry spokesman, Abdul Qahar Balkhi.
It was not immediately clear in what capacity the delegation would participate at COP29, but sources indicated it would have observer status.
No state has recognized the Taliban authorities since they swept to power in 2021, ousting the Western-backed administration.
Officials from the country’s National Environmental Protection Agency (NEPA) have repeatedly said climate change should not be politicized and called for environment-related projects put on hold due to the Taliban takeover to be reinstated.
“Climate change is a humanitarian subject,” deputy NEPA head Zainulabedin Abid told AFP in a recent interview.
“We have called on the international community not to relate climate change matters with politics.”
Azerbaijan will host the COP29 from November 11-22.
Baku reopened its embassy in Kabul in February this year, though it has not officially recognized the Taliban government.
NEPA had been invited to other environmental summits in the past but did not receive visas, the agency’s climate change director, Ruhollah Amin, told AFP in a recent interview.
The agency has received an invitation and is working on securing visas to attend the UN summit on desertification in Saudi Arabia, Amin added.
Afghanistan was a signatory to the 2015 landmark Paris Agreement, under which almost every country in the world agreed to slash emissions to limit soaring global temperatures.
NEPA was preparing its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) — expected to be updated and strengthened every five years — before the Taliban came to power.
NEPA has since been working to complete the NDC, despite uncertainty that it would be acknowledged by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) secretariat.
“In 2023, we decided that at least we have to finalize this document, even if the secretariat accepts this or not,” said Amin.
“But as a national issue... we have to complete this document.”
NEPA director-general Mawlawi Matiul Haq Khalis — a former Taliban negotiator and son of prominent jihadist figure Mawlawi Yunus Khalis — had criticized Afghanistan’s exclusion from last year’s COP in Dubai and urged other nations to facilitate the country’s participation in Baku, local media have reported.
He also called for Afghanistan to be compensated for damages caused by climate change.
Afghanistan’s total greenhouse gas emissions were only 0.08 percent as of a 2019 national report, according to Amin.
“It’s very little,” he said. Nevertheless, Afghanistan is one of “the most affected (countries) from the impact of climate change,” he added.
“It affects all aspects of our life.”
The United Nations has also called for action to help Afghanistan build resilience and for the country’s participation in international talks.
Among the poorest countries in the world after decades of war, Afghanistan is particularly exposed to the effects of climate change, which scientists say is spurring extreme weather.
Drought, floods, land degradation and declining agricultural productivity are key threats, the UN development agency’s representative in Afghanistan, Stephen Rodriques, said in 2023.
Flash floods in May killed hundreds and swamped swaths of agricultural land in Afghanistan, where 80 percent of people depend on farming to survive.

 


Attacks on Israeli soccer fans in the Netherlands prompts prime minister to cancel climate trip

Attacks on Israeli soccer fans in the Netherlands prompts prime minister to cancel climate trip
Updated 10 November 2024
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Attacks on Israeli soccer fans in the Netherlands prompts prime minister to cancel climate trip

Attacks on Israeli soccer fans in the Netherlands prompts prime minister to cancel climate trip
  • “Among them were over 170 witnesses and more than 230 victims, and forensic evidence has been collected from dozens of them,” the statement said, adding that they also had gathered videos of violent incidents in the Dutch capital

THE HAGUE, Netherlands: Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof on Saturday canceled a trip to United Nations climate talks in Azerbaijan so that he can stay in the Netherlands to deal with the fallout from assaults on fans of Maccabi Tel Aviv soccer team in Amsterdam that authorities condemned as antisemitic.
The government will discuss the Thursday night violence at a Cabinet meeting on Monday, Schoof posted on X, saying that he would hold talks on tackling antisemitism on Tuesday.
Police launched a large-scale investigation after gangs of youths conducted what Amsterdam’s mayor called “hit and run” attacks on fans that were apparently inspired by calls on social media to target Jewish people. Five people were treated at hospitals and more than 60 suspects were arrested.

Netherlands' Prime Minister Dick Schoof delivers a press statement at the end of an Informal Meeting of Heads of State or Government of the European Union in Budapest, Hungary, on November 8, 2024. (AFP)

Amsterdam prosecutors said that four of the suspects, including two minors, remained jailed Saturday and would be arraigned next week. The prosecutors said in a statement that they expect more arrests as investigators comb through video images of the violence.
None of the arrests made so far were for violence after the match, prosecutors said.
Israeli police assisting the Dutch investigation said in a statement that officers and forensic identification experts met fans returning on nine flights from Amsterdam.
“Among them were over 170 witnesses and more than 230 victims, and forensic evidence has been collected from dozens of them,” the statement said, adding that they also had gathered videos of violent incidents in the Dutch capital.
In addition to the police investigation and an independent inquiry announced by Amsterdam’s mayor, Dutch Justice and Security Minister David van Weel said in a letter to lawmakers that the government is investigating whether warnings of possible violence from Israel were overlooked in the lead up to the Europa League match between Ajax and Maccabi.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar rushed to the Netherlands on Friday and offered Israel’s help in the police investigation. He met Saturday with Dutch counterpart Caspar Veldkamp and with Schoof.
Schoof said on X that he told Saar, “that the Dutch government is doing everything it can to ensure that the Jewish community in our country feels safe.”
In a statement released after meeting, Saar said that he told Schoof that the attacks on Jews and Israelis “and the demand by their attackers they present passports to prove their identity, were reminiscent of dark periods in history. He stressed that Israel could not accept the persecution of Jews and Israelis on European soil.”
Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema said that the Netherlands’ counterterror watchdog had reported before the match there was no “concrete threat” to Israeli fans, and the match wasn’t considered a high risk.
Even so, Amsterdam authorities banned a pro-Palestinian demonstration outside the Johan Cruyff Arena where Thursday night’s match was played. Video also showed a large crowd of Israeli fans chanting anti-Arab slogans on their way to the game. Afterward, youths on scooters and on foot went in search of Israeli fans, punching and kicking them and then fleeing quickly to evade hundreds of police officers deployed around the city, Halsema said.
Schoof returned early from a European Union summit in Hungary and met Friday night with representatives of the Jewish community in the Netherlands.
“It was a compelling conversation about the sadness and uncertainty experienced in the Jewish community. Every day they experience the consequences of growing antisemitism in the Netherlands,” Schoof said on X.
A ban on demonstrations was in place throughout Amsterdam over the weekend, and security was beefed up at Jewish sites in the city, which has a large Jewish community and was home to Jewish World War II diarist Anne Frank and her family as they hid from Nazi occupiers.
 

 


Thousands of Spaniards demand the resignation of Valencia leader for bungling flood response

Thousands of Spaniards demand the resignation of Valencia leader for bungling flood response
Updated 09 November 2024
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Thousands of Spaniards demand the resignation of Valencia leader for bungling flood response

Thousands of Spaniards demand the resignation of Valencia leader for bungling flood response
  • Regional leader Carlos Mazón is under immense pressure after his administration failed to issue flood alerts to citizens’ cellphones until hours after the flooding started
  • Many marchers held up homemade signs or chanted “Mazón Resign!” Others carried signs with messages like “You Killed Us!”

VALENCIA, Spain: Thousands of Spaniards marched in the eastern city of Valencia on Saturday to demand the resignation of the regional president in charge of the emergency response to last week’s catastrophic floods that left more than 200 dead and others missing.
Some protesters clashed with riot police in front of Valencia’s city hall, where the protesters started their march to the seat of the regional government. Police used batons to beat them back.
Regional leader Carlos Mazón is under immense pressure after his administration failed to issue flood alerts to citizens’ cellphones until hours after the flooding started on the night of Oct. 29.
Many marchers held up homemade signs or chanted “Mazón Resign!” Others carried signs with messages like “You Killed Us!”
Mazón, of the conservative Popular Party, is also being criticized for what people perceive as the slow and chaotic response to the natural disaster. Thousands of volunteers were the first boots on the ground in many of the hardest hit areas on Valencia’s southern outskirts. It took days for officials to mobilize the thousands of police reinforcements and soldiers that the regional government asked central authorities to send in.
In Spain, regional governments are charged with handling civil protection and can ask the national government in Madrid, led by the Socialists, for extra resources.
Mazón has defended his handling of the crisis saying that its magnitude was unforeseeable and that his administration didn’t receive sufficient warnings from central authorities.
But Spain’s weather agency issued a red alert, the highest level of warning, for bad weather as early as 7:30 a.m. on Tuesday morning as the disaster loomed.
Some communities were flooded by 6 p.m. It took until after 8 p.m. for Mazón’s administration to send out alerts to people’s cellphones.
The death toll stood at 220 victims on Saturday, with 212 coming in the eastern Valencia region, as the search for bodies goes on.
Thousands more lost their homes and streets are still covered in mud and debris 11 days since the arrival of a tsunami-like wave following a record deluge.


Russia open to hearing Trump’s proposals for ending the war, an official says

Russia open to hearing Trump’s proposals for ending the war, an official says
Updated 09 November 2024
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Russia open to hearing Trump’s proposals for ending the war, an official says

Russia open to hearing Trump’s proposals for ending the war, an official says
  • Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Moscow and Washington were “exchanging signals” on Ukraine via “closed channels”
  • Russia is ready to listen to Trump’s proposals on Ukraine provided these were “ideas on how to move forward in the area of settlement”

KYIV: Russia is open to hearing President-elect Donald Trump’s proposals on ending the war, an official said, as a Russian drone killed one person and wounded 13 in the Ukrainian port city of Odesa and the European Union foreign policy chief held talks in Kyiv after the change in US leadership.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Moscow and Washington were “exchanging signals” on Ukraine via “closed channels.” He did not specify whether the communication was with the current administration or Trump and members of his incoming administration.
Russia is ready to listen to Trump’s proposals on Ukraine provided these were “ideas on how to move forward in the area of settlement, and not in the area of further pumping the Kyiv regime with all kinds of aid,” Ryabkov said Saturday in an interview with Russian state news agency Interfax.
In Kyiv, Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha told reporters that Ukraine is ready to work with the Trump administration.
“Remember that President (Volodymyr) Zelensky was one of the first world leaders ... to greet President Trump,” he said. “It was a sincere conversation (and) an exchange of thoughts regarding further cooperation.”
“Also during the telephone conversation, further steps to establish communication between teams were discussed and this work has also begun. Therefore, we are open for further cooperation and I’m sure that a unified goal of reaching just peace unites all of us,” Sybiha said.
Sybiha appeared alongside EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, who said his visit is meant to stress the European Union’s support to Ukraine.
“This support remains unwavering. This support is absolutely needed, for you to continue defending yourself against Russian aggression,” he said.
Borrell urged “faster deliveries and fewer self imposed red lines” in getting Western weapons to Ukraine. He had appealed to allies in August to lift restrictions on Ukraine’s use of Western-supplied long-range weapons to strike Russian military targets.
In Odesa, regional Gov. Oleh Kiper said high-rise residential buildings, private houses and warehouses in the Black Sea port city were damaged overnight by the “fall” of a drone. He did not specify whether the drone had been shot down by air defenses.
A further 32 Russian drones were shot down over 10 Ukrainian regions, while 18 were “lost,” according to Ukraine’s air force, likely having been electronically jammed.
A Russian aerial bomb struck a busy highway overnight in the northeastern Kharkiv province, Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekohov said. No casualties were reported.
Russia is mounting an intensified aerial campaign that Ukrainian officials say they need more Western help to counter. However, doubts are deepening over what Kyiv can expect from a new US administration. Trump has repeatedly taken issue with US aid to Ukraine, made vague vows to end the war and has praised Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In Russia, the Defense Ministry said 50 Ukrainian drones were destroyed over seven Russian regions — more than half over the Bryansk region, bordering Ukraine.


Dutch PM to skip climate summit during probe into soccer violence

Dutch PM to skip climate summit during probe into soccer violence
Updated 09 November 2024
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Dutch PM to skip climate summit during probe into soccer violence

Dutch PM to skip climate summit during probe into soccer violence
  • “Due to the major social impact of the events of last Thursday night in Amsterdam, I will remain in the Netherlands,” he said on X
  • “Violence and hate in all their manifestations have no place in sports,” the Palestine Football Association said

AMSTERDAM: Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof will miss the COP29 climate summit after clashes in Amsterdam this week between Israeli soccer fans and pro-Palestinian protesters as his government investigates if warning signs from Israel were missed.
“I will not be going to Azerbaijan next week for the UN Climate Conference COP29. Due to the major social impact of the events of last Thursday night in Amsterdam, I will remain in the Netherlands,” he said on social media platform X.
Dutch Climate Minister Sophie Hermans will still attend the Nov. 11-22 environment meeting while a climate envoy will replace Schoof, the premier added, saying Thursday night’s violence in Amsterdam would be discussed at Monday’s cabinet meeting.
At least five people were injured during the unrest involving fans of the visiting Maccabi Tel Aviv soccer team who lost 5-0 to Ajax in the Europa League.
Justice Minister David van Weel said in a letter to parliament that information was still being gathered, including on possible warning signs from Israel, and whether the assaults were organized and had an antisemitic motive.
Fast-track justice would be applied with maximum efforts to find every suspect, he vowed.
Four people remain in custody over the unrest, police said.
Political leaders from Schoof down have denounced the attacks as antisemitic and urged swift justice.
Videos of the unrest on social media showed riot police in action, with some attackers shouting anti-Israeli slurs.
Footage also showed Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters chanting anti-Arab slogans before the match.
Israel sent planes to The Netherlands to bring fans home.
“Violence and hate in all their manifestations have no place in sports,” the Palestine Football Association (PFA) said.
Amsterdam banned demonstrations at the weekend and gave police emergency stop-and-search powers.
Antisemitic incidents have surged in the Netherlands during the Gaza war, with many Jewish organizations and schools reporting threats and hate mail.