Israeli police arrest second suspect in mosque arson

(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - Israeli police said they have arrested a second suspect following an arson attack on a mosque blamed on a pro-settler militant group, known by its slogan “price tag.” Israel named a special task force to investigate last week’s mosque blaze in the Israeli Arab village of Tuba-Zangariya, amid fears it may exacerbate tensions with Palestinians.The “Price-Taggers,” also blamed for other assaults on mosques, have said they want to avenge the killing of settlers, and protest against Israeli efforts to remove unauthorized settlement outposts built on land Palestinians want for a state.The violence has coincided with rising tensions over a Palestinian application for statehood on West Bank land Israel captured in a 1967 war, filed at the United Nations Security Council last month, despite Israeli and US objections. The suspect, an Israeli male, would be remanded in a court in the Tel Aviv area on Monday morning, said police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld. Another Israeli, a West Bank settler, 18, was due in court again after his arrest late last week, Rosenfeld said.Both “are suspected of direct involvement in the incident,” Rosenfeld said.Israeli leaders have condemned the arson and President Shimon Peres denounced the attacks as “un-Jewish.”Also over the weekend, dozens of gravestones were desecrated at adjacent Muslim and Christian cemeteries overlooking the sea at Jaffa and a fire-bomb was thrown at a nearby synagogue, on Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement.At least five tombs were smashed and some 20 others sprayed with Hebrew graffiti, including “Death to Arabs” and “Price Tag,” a slogan used by militant Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank and their supporters./129