“U.S. allies in northeastern Syria are intent on prosecuting hundreds of
Islamic State foreign fighters for war crimes despite a lack of support from
the international community. The Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration of North
and East Syria (AANES) announced Thursday it would begin judicial proceedings
for about 2,000 IS foreign fighters held in mostly makeshift prisons since the
fall of Baghuz, the terror group's last Syrian stronghold, in March 2019. ‘It's
been almost five years,’ Bedran Jia, co-president of the AANES Foreign
Relations Office, told reporters, speaking through an interpreter, during a
virtual briefing Thursday. ‘We can no longer keep these people without a
trial.’ ‘They will be public trials,’ Jia added. ‘Everybody – monitors,
observers, experts, all the lawyers – they will be welcome in these trials. …
It will be very transparent.’”











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**NOTE: XXXX media monitoring will be suspended on Monday, June 19 in
observance of Juneteenth. It will resume Tuesday, June 20.**



Eye on Extremism



June 16, 2023



Voice of America News: Syrian Kurds Launch New Attempt to Prosecute Captured
IS Foreign Fighters
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“U.S. allies in northeastern Syria are intent on prosecuting hundreds of
Islamic State foreign fighters for war crimes despite a lack of support from
the international community. The Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration of North
and East Syria (AANES) announced Thursday it would begin judicial proceedings
for about 2,000 IS foreign fighters held in mostly makeshift prisons since the
fall of Baghuz, the terror group's last Syrian stronghold, in March 2019. ‘It's
been almost five years,’ Bedran Jia, co-president of the AANES Foreign
Relations Office, told reporters, speaking through an interpreter, during a
virtual briefing Thursday. ‘We can no longer keep these people without a
trial.’ ‘They will be public trials,’ Jia added. ‘Everybody – monitors,
observers, experts, all the lawyers – they will be welcome in these trials. …
It will be very transparent.’”



Associated Press: Detroit-Area Man Gets 14 Years In Prison For Fighting For
Islamic State
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“A Detroit-area man who was captured on a Syrian battlefield in 2018 fighting
for Islamic State was sentenced Thursday to 14 years in prison. Ibraheem Izzy
Musaibli of Dearborn was convicted in January of providing support to a
designated terrorist organization. ‘For his betrayal of our nation and his
fellow citizens, he is deserving of a long sentence,’ U.S. Attorney Dawn Ison
said. Musaibli, 32, traveled to Yemen in 2015 and continued his research into
Islamic State, including downloading propaganda from the group and a book on
how to get into Syria, according to trial evidence. ‘ISIS assigned him to a
military fighting battalion, and Musaibli spent at least nine months fighting
on the front lines,’ Assistant U.S. Attorney Hank Moon said in a court filing.”




Recent CEP Press Releases

* New CEP Reports Assess Ties Between Terror Groups In Africa And Their Ties
To Organized Crime
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* New CEP Reports Examine Development Of Al-Qaeda, ISIS Affiliates In West
Africa And Sahel
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* Extremist Content Online: Extreme Right Instagram Users Spread Propaganda
And Plans For 3D Printed-Firearms
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* Tech & Terrorism: Big Tech Companies Cut Ethics And Safety Staff Following
Section 230 Ruling
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* Extremist Content Online: TikTok Accounts Spreading Extreme Right
Propaganda And Glorifying Terrorism
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United States



Fox News: Terrorist Financier Released Under First Step Act, Says He 'Would Be
Proud' To Fund Terrorists Again
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“A convicted terrorist financier serving a 30-year sentence in U.S. federal
prison was recently released under the First Step Act after serving only 23
years, and said he ‘would be proud’ to send money again to the same terrorist
organization he was convicted of providing support to. Mohamad Youssef Hammoud,
a Lebanese national who illegally immigrated to the U.S. in 1992, was convicted
in 2002 of providing material support to Hezbollah, a Lebanon-based militant
group that the State Department designates a terrorist organization, among a
number of other charges. Hammoud was initially sentenced to 155 years in
prison, but the punishment was later vacated by the U.S. Supreme Court. He was
re-sentenced to 30 years in 2011. The First Step Act, a criminal justice reform
law that passed through Congress with the support of both parties and was
signed by former President Donald Trump in 2018, provided a means for Hammoud
to request an early release, including through the compassionate release
statute of the law.”



Syria



AFP News: Turkey Drone Strikes Kill 16 In Syria: Monitor
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“Turkey has escalated drone attacks on Kurdish-held regions of north and
northeast Syria this week, killing 16 people including one civilian in a single
day, a war monitor said Thursday. The strikes mostly targeted Kurdish-held Tal
Rifaat and Manbij in the country's north near the Turkish border, areas Ankara
has repeatedly threatened to attack. ‘Turkey has significantly escalated its
drone strikes since the start of the week,’ with 16 killed on Wednesday alone,
said Rami Abdel Rahman, who heads the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war
monitor. The Turkish defence ministry meanwhile said its forces had ‘destroyed
terrorist targets’ and ‘neutralised 16 terrorists’, referring to Kurdish-led
fighters. Four fighters from the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF)
were killed when ‘a Turkish drone targeted a military vehicle’ in Hasakeh
province, which is run by a semi-autonomous Kurdish administration, the
Britain-based Observatory said.”



Afghanistan



The National: Taliban Shelter Al Qaeda But Rifts Within The Movement Are
Emerging, UN Says
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“A recent report by the UN has said the Taliban are once again allowing the
terror group Al Qaeda on Afghan soil – one of the original justifications for
the US-led invasion of the country, following the group’s September 11, 2001,
attacks in New York and Washington that killed 3,000 people. The UN as well as
experts spoken to by The National say the movement is now torn between a
dangerous militant wing that refuses to compromise and a less militant but
still extremely conservative side. The Taliban have also appointed several Al
Qaeda members to advisory roles in its administration as well as provided their
members with monthly ‘welfare payments’, portions of which filtered down to
fighters of affiliated groups, according to the Security Council’s Analytical
Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team. The sustained influence of Al Qaeda, the
report claims, has contributed to widening fault lines within the Taliban.”



Long War Journal: Generation Jihad Ep. 94 — Al Qaeda Has Key Roles In
Taliban’s Afghanistan
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“Bill welcomes back to the show Generation Jihad regular Ambassador Edmund
Fitton-Brown. Now a member of the Counter Extremism Project’s advisory board,
Edmund previously served as the UK’s Ambassador to Yemen and later as the
coordinator of the U.N. Security Council’s Sanctions Monitoring Team. Edmund’s
former team at the U.N. just released its latest report on Afghanistan which
details (among other troubling issues) just how embedded al Qaeda is in
Afghanistan’s Taliban government. Bill and Edmund dissect the report’s
findings.”



Somalia



Garowe Online: Al-Shabaab's Shift In Tactics, Raises Concerns Over Regional
Security
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“The recent change of tactics by Al-Shabaab could trigger more security
challenges in the Horn of Africa, experts say, with the group now targeting
military bases and installations, a radical shift from small-scale sporadic
attacks mainly using Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs]. Within a span of two
weeks, the militants targeted Uganda People's Defense Forces [UPDFI Forward
Operating Base (FOB| in Bulo Marer killing 54 soldiers, and would later try to
run over the Ethiopian military base in Dolow town in the porous Gedo region,
but were effectively repelled. According to professor Abdiwahab Sheikh
Abdisamad, the Chairman of the Institute for Horn of Africa Strategic Studies,
the Al-Shabaab, the change of tactics has ‘proven to be successful for the
group, causing alarm over its increased effectiveness and the potential
implications for regional security’. For the last seven months, Al-Shabaab has
been under immense pressure in Somalia following the operations against them by
the Somali National Army [SNA] with the help of the African Union Transition
Mission in Somalia [ATMIS], the US Africa Command, and the local militia.”



Africa



Rnews: SA ‘Hub Of Terrorist Financing’
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“…Some analysts believe that terrorist financing has flourished because South
African authorities have become too comfortable with the absence of any visible
Islamic activities in South Africa. “I don’t think South Africa realized that.
It was the Americans who said ‘something wrong is going on in the country’,”
Hans-Jakob Schindler, director of the Counter Extremism Project working group,
told AFP.”



South America



Associated Press: Argentine Judge Calls For Detention Of Four Lebanese
Citizens In AMIA Bombing Probe
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“A federal judge in Argentina has called on Interpol to detain four Lebanese
citizens, so they can be questioned for their suspected role in the 1994
bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center that killed 85 people. ‘Regarding
these individuals, there are well-founded suspicions that they are
collaborators or operational agents of the … armed wing of Hezbollah,’ judge
Daniel Rafecas wrote in a resolution dated June 13 that the Associated Press
obtained Thursday. Argentine prosecutors have long alleged that Iranian
officials used the Lebanon-based militant group Hezbollah to carry out the
deadly attack. Iran has long denied any involvement in the incident. Both the
United States and Argentina have designated Hezbollah as a terrorist
organization. Most of the Lebanese citizens now being sought by Rafecas have
ties to the porous tri-border region that connects Argentina, Brazil and
Paraguay and that the United States has long said is a hub for terrorism
financing.”



India



Reuters: Indian Police Say Five Foreign Militants Killed In Kashmir
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“Indian police said security forces killed five foreign militants early on
Friday in a gunfight in Kashmir along the Line of Control (LOC), the defacto
border with Pakistan in the Himalayan region. A joint team of Indian army and
police prevented infiltration across the border by the militants, police said.
‘Five foreign militants were killed in the operation in Jumagund area near the
LOC. The search operation in the area is going on,’ said Vijay Kumar, the chief
of Indian police in Kashmir. He did not specify their nationalities. Claimed in
full by both India and Pakistan but only controlled in parts by the
nuclear-armed neighbours, Muslim-majority Kashmir has been the site of a bloody
insurrection against New Delhi since the 1990s.”



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