United States
Fox News: Terrorist Financier Released Under First Step Act, Says He 'Would Be Proud' To Fund Terrorists Again
“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
“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
“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
“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
“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’
“…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
“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
“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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