“Uzbekistan is hosting a conference Thursday of foreign ministers of regional
countries, including Russia and China, to review the situation and cooperation
with Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. The event in the Uzbek city of Samarkand comes
as the United Nations reviews its presence in the strife-torn South Asian
nation after the radical Taliban barred female staff from working for the world
body, the latest in a series of curbs placed on Afghan women. Taliban Foreign
Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi is attending Thursday's meeting with counterparts
from Russia and six neighbors of Afghanistan, including China, Pakistan, Iran,
Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan. Muttaqi’s office confirmed his
arrival in Samarkand on Twitter, saying Uzbek officials received him ‘warmly.’”











<[link removed]>
<[link removed]>



Eye on Extremism



April 14, 2023



Voice Of America News: Taliban Foreign Minister Joins Regional Huddle On
Afghanistan
<[link removed]>



“Uzbekistan is hosting a conference Thursday of foreign ministers of regional
countries, including Russia and China, to review the situation and cooperation
with Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. The event in the Uzbek city of Samarkand comes
as the United Nations reviews its presence in the strife-torn South Asian
nation after the radical Taliban barred female staff from working for the world
body, the latest in a series of curbs placed on Afghan women. Taliban Foreign
Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi is attending Thursday's meeting with counterparts
from Russia and six neighbors of Afghanistan, including China, Pakistan, Iran,
Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan. Muttaqi’s office confirmed his
arrival in Samarkand on Twitter, saying Uzbek officials received him ‘warmly.’”



AFP News: Burkina Faso Declares 'General Mobilisation' Over Jihadist Attacks
<[link removed]>



“Burkina Faso's military junta declared Thursday a ‘general mobilisation’ to
give the state ‘all necessary means’ to combat a string of jihadist attacks
since the start of this year. The goal is to create a ‘legal framework for all
the actions to be taken’ against the insurgents, a statement from the
presidency said. Captain Ibrahim Traore, Burkina's transitional president who
staged the most recent coup on September 30, has set a goal of recapturing 40
percent of the country's territory, which is controlled by jihadists affiliated
with Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group. ‘Faced with this security situation,
the health of the nation depends on a surge of national spirit by all its
daughters and sons in order to find a solution,’ Defence Minister Colonel Major
Kassoum Coulibaly said in a statement.”



United States



Anadolu Agency: US Personnel Targeted In Iraq Drone Strike Were On Mission To
Defeat Daesh/ISIS: Pentagon
<[link removed]>



“US personnel in Iraq's Kurdistan region were there as part of the mission to
defeat Daesh/ISIS when the convoy they were traveling in was targeted last
week, Pentagon spokesman Patrick Ryder said Thursday. The convoy of YPG/PKK
ringleader Ferhat Abdi Sahin, codenamed Mazloum Abdi, was targeted on April 7
by a drone strike near Sulaymaniyah International Airport. Three US personnel
were in the convoy. The United States Central Command (CENTCOM) reported no
injuries. ‘On April 7, a convoy, including US personnel, was fired upon while
in transit within the Iraqi Kurdistan region in the area near Sulaymaniyah,’
Ryder confirmed, adding that US forces are in Iraq and Syria in support of the
‘defeat ISIS mission.’”



Turkey



Anadolu Agency: France's Hosting Of PKK Terrorists 'Best Example Of Hypocrisy'
In Counter-Terrorism: Türkiye
<[link removed]>



“Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu on Thursday condemned France for
hosting ringleaders of the YPG/PKK terror group, saying it is ‘best example of
hypocrisy’ in the fight against terrorism. ‘The PKK is on the EU terror list.
It has been recognized as a terrorist organization. It is also a terrorist
organization in France. Unfortunately, in France, senators and deputies come
together with these terrorists, the representatives of the bloody terrorist
organization. They give rewards. ‘This is the best example of hypocrisy in the
fight against terrorism,’ Cavusoglu said at a news conference with his Egyptian
counterpart Sameh Shoukry in the capital Ankara.”



Afghanistan



Associated Press: Taliban Share Rare, Months-Old Audio From Reclusive Leader
<[link removed](AP)%20%E2%80%94,by%20the%20country's%20new%20rulers.>



“The Taliban have shared a rare, months-old audio message from their
reclusive supreme leader in which he purportedly says that Afghanistan would be
‘ruined’ without justice handed out by the country’s new rulers. The Taliban
leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, an Islamic scholar, almost never appears in
public and hardly ever leaves the Taliban heartland in southern Kandahar
province. He surrounds himself with other religious scholars and allies who
oppose education and work for women. Only one known photo of him, years old,
exists. He was named the Taliban leader in 2016, after a U.S. airstrike in
Pakistan killed his predecessor, Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour.”



Dawn: Asif Warns Of Strikes At Terrorist Hideouts In Afghanistan
<[link removed]>



“Defence Minister Khawaja Asif has warned Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers that
Islamabad will strike terrorist hideouts inside the neighbouring country if the
latter were unable to rein in anti-Pakistan militants, Dawn.com reported. The
minister’s remarks in an interview with Voice of America, published on
Wednesday. He said that during his visit to Afghanistan in February, he
reminded the Afghan Taliban administration of their commitments to prevent
terrorists from using Afghan soil to plan and conduct attacks on Pakistan. ‘If
that is not done, at some point we’ll have to […] resort to some measures,
which will definitely — wherever [terrorists] are, their sanctuaries on Afghan
soil — we’ll have to hit them,’ he said. ‘We’ll have to hit them because we
cannot tolerate this situation for long.’”



Pakistan



Dunya News: CTD Arrests Six Terrorists Involved In Takhta Baig Check Post
Suicide Attack
<[link removed]>



“The Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD), Peshawar Region, on Thursday
arrested six terrorists involved in suicide attack at Takhta Baig police check
post in Khyber District of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Dunya News reported. According
to the CTD spokesperson, the mastermind of the suicide attack had already been
killed in an encounter with security forces last week. Arms and explosive
material was also recovered from him. The spokesperson also informed that
operation to arrest two more terrorists involved in the attack is underway in
the area. It is pertinent to mention here that terrorists had carried out a
suicide attack at Takhta Baig police check post on January 19 in which two
policemen and a civilian were martyred.”



Dawn: Two TTP Militants Shot Dead In Lower Dir
<[link removed]>



“Briefing the local journalists at his office, Lower Dir district police
officer Tariq Iqbal said that both the terrorists identified as Burhanuddin and
Hafeezullah alias Umar, residents of Alladand, Malakand, were involved in the
murder of a traffic police officer, Bakht Zamin, who was martyred in Talash
Bazaar on April 4. The DPO said that police were informed about the presence of
the two suspects at Khat Kalay in Talash Wednesday night. He said when the
police team reached the place, the accused hurled a hand grenade on a police
van which did not explode. The militants also fired at the police personnel but
they remained unhurt. In retaliation both the terrorists were killed on the
spot. The DPO said the bodies were brought to the THQ hospital Talash and later
dispatched to Malakand district.”



Lebanon



Jewish News Syndicate: IDF Detains Infiltrator From Lebanon
<[link removed]>



“The Israel Defense Forces on Wednesday night detained a suspect who crossed
over the Lebanese border near Rosh Hanikra. The unarmed suspect was placed
under surveillance and apprehended before being taken for interrogation, the
military said. ‘The IDF will continue to act to prevent any attempt to cross
the border and violate Israeli sovereignty,’ it added. The IDF last week struck
Hamas assets in Southern Lebanon after the Palestinian terrorist group fired 34
rockets towards northern Israel. On Sunday, the military struck targets in
Syria in response to six rockets fired towards the Golan Heights.”



Middle East



Iran International: Iran Military Say Israel On Verge Of Collapse As Rhetoric
Continues <[link removed]>



“Iran’s Armed Forces issued a statement on Thursday claiming that the
countdown to the collapse of Israel has begun. It is the latest in a stream of
anti-Israel propaganda released by the regime which is at fever pitch in
rallying the Muslim world against its archenemy. ‘Experience has shown that any
compromise plan, including the normalization of ties between the Zionist regime
and some Islamic countries, has failed, and the Islamic resistance is the only
solution to the Palestinian issue,’ reads the statement. It was likely
referring to the internal political division in Israel, with protests against
the government's legislative reforms. Iranian proxies in Gaza, Lebanon and
Syria have all recently attacked Israel with rockets as tensions simmer during
the holy month of Ramadan.”



Somalia



Garowe Online: Cuba Negotiates For Release Of Doctors Abducted By Al-Shabaab
<[link removed]>



“Cuba is keen to have two doctors abducted by Al-Shabaab released from their
captors, over three years later, even with reports that the medics are in ‘good
condition’ and are helping the group to treat people and offer medical care in
an undisclosed location. According to Prensa Latina, President, Miguel
Diaz-Canel informed the country that deliberate efforts have been undertaken to
rescue the doctors who were kidnapped by the militants from Mandera County in
northeastern Kenya where they were stationed at the time of the incident. In
Kenya, the driver of the vehicle has been sentenced for being an ‘accomplice’
in an attack where a police officer attached to the medics was killed. Miguel
said Havana is keen to have the doctors released by the Al-Shabaab, a group
that has been causing havoc in the federal republic of Somalia.”



Garowe Online: Somalia: Puntland Police Subtly Validate Claims Of Terrorists
Targeting Bosaso Businesses
<[link removed]>



“Puntland security agencies announced today that they had obtained
information about the individual responsible for the recent terrorist attack at
the Al-Macaruf Company headquarters in Bosaso port city. The attack raised
questions about the outgoing government's failure to ensure regional security.
Puntland Police Chief Brigadier General Mumin Abdi Shire attended a closed-door
security meeting in the Bari Region to discuss the terror incident. The meeting
was also attended by the governor of the Bari region, his deputy, the mayor of
Bosaso, the commander of the Darwish force, the deputy minister of internal
affairs, and other officials.”



United Kingdom



Daily Mail: EXCLUSIVE: Extremist, 30, Who Called Himself 'The Father Of
Terrorism' Is Walking The Streets Free - Despite Being Previously Turned Down
For Parole For Being 'Too Risky'
<[link removed]>



“A British terrorist who was turned down for parole was automatically
released just two months later at the end of his sentence and is now walking
the streets of the UK. Khuram Iqbal, now 30, who once called himself the
'father of terrorism,' was rejected for release by the Parole Board in October
2022, but was allowed to leave prison in December 2022. Under current law,
convicted terrorists like Iqbal who are on a fixed determinate sentence and
have behaved in prison will be released with a limited number of restrictions.
For Iqbal, originally from Cardiff, these restrictions are unlikely to be more
than a police notification order, which requires those given more than
12-months for terror offences to advise the police of practices such as
unauthorised travel.”



Europe



AFP News: Dutch Court Sentences Four Women On IS Terror Charges
<[link removed]>



“Dutch judges on Thursday sentenced four women to jail sentences of up to
three years on terror charges, after they were repatriated from a Syrian
refugee camp last year. They were among five Dutch women and 11 children who
arrived back in the Netherlands last February after an operation by the Dutch
government to extradite them from the Al-Roj refugee camp in north-eastern
Syria. The women went on trial shortly afterwards in the Rotterdam District
Court, facing charges of joining fighters of the now defunct Islamic Caliphate
during the height of the Syrian civil war, and planning acts of terror. ‘The
women travelled to the battlefields in Syria and Iraq knowing that a war was
going on there,’ the judges said in a statement issued by the Rotterdam court.”



The Guardian: ‘It’s Worrying’: Greek Election Ban On Extremist Party May Be
Too Little, Too Late
<[link removed]>



“For two years Ilias Kasidiaris, a convicted leader of the now disbanded
neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party, has used social media to address supporters from
Domokos prison in central Greece. Month after month the former MP has railed
against the inability of the ‘corrupt political regime’ to govern the country
in a stream of hate-filled speeches. For his 134,000 subscribers on YouTube,
the exhortations are a lifeline to Kasidiaris and the Hellenes, the small
nationalist party he set up shortly before being handed a 13-and-a-half-year
prison term for his role in Golden Dawn. And they seem to be paying off. Thirty
months after the violent neo-fascist group was found to be a criminal gang that
had masqueraded as a political organisation – targeting immigrants, killing a
Greek rapper and lashing out at leftists – the appeal of the famously
short-tempered Kasidiaris does not appear to have faded.”



Southeast Asia



Associated Press: Indonesia Police Kill 2 Suspected Jemaah Islamiyah Militants
<[link removed]>



“Indonesia’s counterterrorism police squad fatally shot two men suspected of
ties to Jemaah Islamiyah, an al-Qaida-linked group blamed for a string of past
bombings, police said Thursday. The two men, identified only by their initials,
BA and ZK, were killed Wednesday in a shootout with police during a raid in
Lampung, a province at the southern tip of Sumatra island, said Aswin Siregar,
the spokesperson of the squad, known as Densus 88. An officer was seriously
injured in the shootout and was hospitalized, he said. Siregar said at a news
conference that the raid was part of a broader nationwide crackdown on Jemaah
Islamiyah following tips that it is recruiting and training new members. The
shadowy network is blamed for attacks in the Philippines and Indonesia,
including the 2002 bombings on the Indonesian resort island of Bali that killed
202 people, mostly foreign tourists. The U.S. has designated it a terrorist
group.”



Technology



Fox News: Israel Military Builds Up AI Battlefield Tech To Hunt Hamas
Terrorists, Protect Against Iran Threat
<[link removed]>



“The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) believes that integrating artificial
intelligence (AI) into military operations presents ‘a leap forward,’ but
researchers have raised concerns about the potential escalation AI would create
on the battlefield. ‘There is an understanding in the IDF that there is a great
potential for a leap forward,’ Col. Uri, head of the Data and AI Department,
Digital Transformation Division, told Fox News Digital. ‘Anyone who wants to
make such a change faces a huge challenge.’ The IDF announced in February that
the force has started utilizing AI in its operations, saying that new digital
methods helped produce ‘200 new target assets’ during a 10-day operation in
2021 to successfully target at least two Hamas commanders, the Jerusalem Post
reported. ‘Remember breaking the human barrier – there were times when this
took us almost a year,’ Data Science and AI Commander Col. Yoav said about the
operation.”



ABC News: Discord, Used By Suspect Accused Of Leaking Classified Docs, Has
Become More Popular With Extremists
<[link removed]>



“Discord, the social media platform on which U.S. classified documents
appearing to pertain to the Ukraine war and other parts of the world were
leaked over the last several months, is one of a number of platforms that have
become popular with far-right extremists, experts say. In its infancy, Discord
was built by founders Jason Citron and Stan Vishnevskiy to help people around
the world chat while playing video games online. Launched in 2015, the platform
today is home to 150 million active users around the world with communities of
interest that extend into education, music, tech, and science. Discord is
organized by servers; a Discord user can create their own server or can join
another server. Servers are comprised of multiple text channels where users can
communicate in real-time text, voice, or video.”



The Counter Extremism Project depends on the generosity of its supporters. If
you value what we do, please consider making a donation.

DONATE NOW
<[link removed]>
 




Click here to unsubscribe.
<[link removed]>