Romania Expels Alleged Islamist Recruiters

A Romanian court has ruled that the alleged followers of the Islamic State group, ISIS, represented a danger to the security of the country and ordered their expulsion.

They were prohibited from returning to the country for between three to seven years, Romania's internal intelligence agency, SRI, said in a statement on Saturday.

Romanian intelligence agents tracked the suspects from 2013 onwards, when the authorities learned that they were supporters of organisations such as Al-Qaeda or ISIS and were propagating extremist ideas in the Balkan country.

Six of the suspects were involved in "Islamic extremist propaganda" and "recruitment for religious and military training in conflict zones affected by terrorism", the SRI statement said.

The seventh, a Tunisian national, came to Romania as a student in 2011. In 2013, he came into contact with ISIS and went through a rapid process of radicalisation, posting messages online in order to promote the image of ISIS and saying publicly that he was willing to become an Islamic martyr, the SRI said.

In a separate development on Saturday, a Romanian security officer working at a mine in Burkina Faso was kidnapped by unidentified gunmen.

Five assailants attacked a convoy transporting the Romanian while it was out on patrol near the manganese mine run by Pan African Minerals, a company owned by Romanian  businessman Frank Timis, according to media reports.

Romania's foreign ministry said it has set up a crisis cell to deal with the kidnapping and is "analysing the information coming out of Burkina Faso and adopting specific measures", the ministry said on Sunday.

The mining site is located in north-east Burkina Faso near the borders with Mali and Niger.