Eye on Extremism
March 10, 2020
Al
Jazeera: US Calls For A UN Vote On Taliban Deal:
Diplomats
“The United States has called for a Tuesday vote at the UN Security
Council to endorse Washington's deal with the Taliban that is supposed
to pave the way to peace in Afghanistan, diplomats said. The US
military has begun withdrawing troops as part of the pullout agreed in
the February 29 agreement with the Taliban. The request for a UN vote
came after negotiations on a draft resolution, diplomats said on
Monday. The deal signed in Qatar is aimed at ending the US's longest
war, fought in Afghanistan since 2001. The agreement seeks the
withdrawal of all US and NATO troops from Afghanistan in 14 months. It
also secured a Taliban guarantee that Afghanistan would not be used as
a launching pad for activities that would threaten the security of the
US in the future. Intra-Afghan negotiations are also set to begin by
Tuesday to work out a permanent and comprehensive ceasefire. About
14,000 US troops and approximately 17,000 troops from 39 NATO allies
and partner countries are stationed in Afghanistan in a non-combatant
role. The US-Taliban talks were launched in 2018 as part of a push by
US President Donald Trump's administration to strike a deal with the
armed group, which has been fighting the US-led forces in Afghanistan
since being toppled from power in 2001.”
Time:
Sudan's Prime Minister Survives 'Terror Attack' In
Capital
“Sudan’s prime minister said Monday he survived a “terror attack”
after an explosion and gunfire targeted his motorcade in the capital
of Khartoum. Abdalla Hamdok, a longtime economist, tweeted he was
“safe and in good shape” following the explosion. Sudanese state TV
said Hamdok had been heading to his office when the attack took place.
Hamdok also tweeted a photo of himself smiling and seated at a large
desk, while a TV behind him showed news coverage reporting he’d
survived. The attack highlighted the fragility of Sudan’s transition
to civilian rule, almost a year after pro-democracy protesters forced
the military to remove autocratic President Omar al-Bashir from power
and replace him with a joint military-civilian government, which has
promised to hold elections in three years. However, Sudan’s generals
remain the de facto rulers of the country and have shown little
willingness to hand over power to civilians. Hamdok, in his brief
statement on Twitter, said, “Rest assured that what happened today
will not stand in the way of our transition, instead it is an
additional push to the wheel of change in Sudan.” No one immediately
claimed responsibility for the attack.”
United States
The
Hill: The Coronavirus: Blueprint For Bioterrorism
“Regardless of the source of the coronavirus, it is now a roadmap
for future bioterrorism. The damage has been quick and enormous — much
greater than 9/11 — and worldwide. The responses have been predictable
and ineffective. And the cost of a potential weapon such as this is
close to zero. It represents the perfect asymmetric warfare strategy,
and there should be little doubt these lessons are being studied
carefully by military planners in North Korea, Tehran, Moscow, Beijing
and desert caves throughout the Middle East. The conventional, and
most likely, view of the COVID-19 outbreak is that it originated in
Wuhan, China, near the most sophisticated Chinese bioweapons lab and
then proceeded into the world from there, leaving people to guess
whether it originated in the lab and leaked, came from wild bats or
snakes, or came from an exotic meat market. But now, or in the future,
there is another possibility: an intentional bioweapons attack from a
non-state (or, perhaps, hidden, state) actor, and that represents a
serious threat that America must take seriously. ISIS and other
terrorist groups long have sought effective bioweapons as the “poor
man’s nuclear weapon.”
Syria
The
Daily Beast: Far-Right Terrorists Want Syria Crisis To Bring On Race
War
“The indifference of Europeans and the West to the long Syrian
civil war is once again blowing up in their faces. The Assad regime
and its backer, Russia, are bombarding Idlib province, the last “safe
haven” for the rebels, pushing nearly a million displaced Syrians to
flee to the Turkish border. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who wants
to force the Europe Union to engage, has meanwhile opened his
country’s E.U. frontier for refugees to enter the continent. It’s a
heartbreaking and chaotic situation where nobody wins—except for the
far right. These extremists are driven by a false narrative of a
Muslim “invasion” of the West. For years, it has helped them gain
political power while inspiring terrorist attacks in places like Oslo
and Christchurch. Now, as boats of refugees arrive again at Greek
shores and desperate migrants try to storm their way through fences or
slip through rivers and fields, the far right’s mythology is getting a
boost. Much like Europe’s refugee crisis of 2015, all corners of the
far right are seizing on Turkey’s announced opening of its European
borders. In Germany, France, Britain, Russia, Austria, Ukraine, and
Greece itself, far-right groups are characterizing this crisis as an
all-out race war, declaring “heads should roll and White Men should
regain control of their lands.”
Iraq
The
New York Times: U.S. Military Reviewing Iraq Operations After 2 Troops
Die Fighting Isis
“American military commanders are reviewing how their forces
conduct missions in Iraq and Syria after the deaths of two U.S.
Special Operations troops in northern Iraq on Sunday during an
operation against Islamic State fighters, military officials said on
Monday. The review, spurred by the particular circumstances
surrounding Sunday’s mission, will examine how U.S. forces advise and
accompany local troops, the officials said. During the review,
American military operations will continue, they said. The Americans
killed were part of a Marine Special Operations team partnered with
Iraqi counterterrorism forces, and were locked in a brutal gun battle
while clearing a well-defended cave complex in mountains near the town
of Makhmur, roughly 40 miles southwest of Erbil. The U.S. deaths are
the first of 2020 in the nearly six-year American campaign against the
terrorist group. According to one military official, the Americans who
were killed had to be pulled out with a hoist after falling into a
crevice. In a statement, Col. Myles B. Caggins III, a spokesman for
the American-led mission in Iraq and Syria, said U.S. troops had to
deploy additional forces to recover the dead in an effort that took
roughly six hours. Other officials said that those additional troops
were drawn from the elite Delta Force.”
Turkey
Asharq
Al-Awsat: Turkish Interior Ministry: 282 Isis
Militants Deported Since November
“The Turkish interior ministry announced Sunday deporting two
German nationals and one Swedish ISIS militant holding French
citizenship as part of a program to extradite foreign fighters. It
said 282 ISIS terrorists have been deported since November 11. Among
them are 32 Germans, 19 French citizens, and six Dutch, six British
and three Swiss nationals, as well as two from each of Belgium, the
United States, Ireland, Denmark, Bulgaria, Belarus, Switzerland,
Australia, Greece and Croatia. Turkey launched the campaign to deport
foreign fighters in November 2019, saying it would repatriate most
detainees with suspected links to ISIS. Interior Minister Suleyman
Soylu said Sunday that Turkey is not a “hotel” for ISIS militants.
Speaking to reporters, Soylu said Turkey would send back any captured
ISIS militant to his country even if his citizenship was revoked. “We
will send them back ... but the world has come up with a new method by
revoking their citizenship,” Soylu said. “They are saying they should
be tried where they have been caught. This is a new form of
international law, I guess.”
Asharq
Al-Awsat: Hamas New Base In Turkey After Limiting Presence In Lebanon,
Qatar
“The Hamas leadership is currently based in Ankara and Doha,
however, it has been frequently conducting its operations from Turkey,
after Qatar and Lebanon asking the movement to reduce its public
presence on their territories, sources from the movement told Asharq
Al-Awsat. The sources indicated that Hamas politburo chief Ismail
Haniyeh and his deputy Saleh al-Arouri are settling in Turkey at this
stage, while others are settling in Qatar and Lebanon. They pointed
out that Haniyeh moves between Turkey and Qatar, depending on the
situation, and that others stay between the two countries. Haniyeh
chose Turkey despite the strong ties he has with the Emir of Qatar,
Tamim bin Hamad. In 2017, Qatar asked Hamas not to use its territories
in any way that could be interpreted as an attack or aggression
directed against Israel, due to political developments in the region.
The decision came shortly after US President Donald Trump's attacked
Hamas, describing it as a terrorist organization, and criticizing
everyone who provided cover to the movement. About a year ago, Hamas
received a similar request from Turkey, when Israel launched a media
campaign against Arouri.”
Modern
Diplomacy: Al Qaeda Thanks Turkey For Protecting It Against Assad,
Russia, Iran
“On March 7th, Al Qaeda’s now largest branch, which is its Syrian
organization that used to be called Al Nusra, praised Turkey’s
President Tayyip Erdogan because his Government stands up for Al
Qaeda, and for other jihadist organizations which are trying to
overthrow Syria’s secular Government, which is led by Bashar al-Assad.
Al Qaeda in Syria now calls itself Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, and their
announcement basically reaffirms their continuing 9-year war against
Syria’s Government (which war has been armed and funded mainly by the
U.S. and the Saud family), and it especially damns Russia for
assisting that secular Government’s efforts to destroy Al Qaeda and
all other jihadist groups in Syria, which fight to eliminate all
secular government and to replace it with God’s government. Before
this group was called Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, it called itself
al-Nusra, but it is simply Al Qaeda in Syria, and it was the backbone
of America’s effort to overthrow Syria’s secular Government and
replace it with one that would be selected by the Saud family. The
Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham announcement is titled “The Moscow Agreement: A
New Mirage” and it is signed by a pro-jihadist scholar, Aymenn Jawad
Al-Tamimi.”
Afghanistan
Reuters:
Islamic State Claims Rocket Attack Targeting Afghan Inauguration:
Statement
“Islamic State has claimed responsibility for a rocket attack
targeting the inauguration of Ashraf Ghani as Afghan president in
Kabul on Monday, the group said in a statement on an affiliated
Telegram channel without giving evidence. Ghani’s ceremony was
disrupted by the sound of two rockets hitting the edge of the compound
of the presidential palace compound in the capital Kabul, Reuters
witnesses said, but there was no word of any casualties and he
continued his speech.”
The
Washington Post: The Taliban Deal Is Failing To Take
Hold
“Peace talks between the Afghan Taliban and a delegation including
the U.S.-backed government were to begin Tuesday under the accord
signed by the Taliban and the Trump administration last month. They
won’t, thanks to political chaos in Kabul, where rival presidents were
inaugurated Monday, and disputes over a prisoner release. The Taliban
has renewed attacks against government forces, killing dozens, despite
assurances by senior U.S. officials that a previous reduction of
violence would be sustained. In short, the U.S.-Taliban deal is
failing to take hold. Yet the U.S. withdrawal is going forward;
hundreds of troops are headed out of the country, officials told the
Associated Press on Monday. This raises an obvious question: Does
President Trump intend to hold the Taliban to its commitments to break
with al-Qaeda and negotiate peace with the Afghan government, or will
he yank U.S. forces from the country no matter what? The signals are
not encouraging. On Friday, the president offered the verbal
equivalent of a shrug when asked whether the Taliban might overrun the
country and reestablish its harsh dictatorship. “It’s not supposed to
happen that way but it possibly will,” he answered. “Countries have to
take care of themselves.”
Pakistan
The
New York Times: Pakistan Army Colonel, 2 Militants Killed In Shootout
In NW
“A Pakistani army colonel and two militants were killed Monday in a
shootout during a pre-dawn raid in the country's northwest, military
and intelligence officials said. In a statement, the military
described the militants as “high-value” targets who were planning
attacks. It said the raid took place on the outskirts of a town called
Tank, and said weapons and explosives were found. It did not provide
further details on the militants' identities or affiliation. Local
intelligence officials gave the identity of the slain officer as army
Col. Mujeeb Ur Rehman. The intelligence officials said the slain
militants belonged to the Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehrik-e-Taliban
Pakistan. The group had a strong presence in the region until recent
years, when the army killed or arrested most of its members in series
of operations. Tank is a strategic town in the northwestern Khyber
Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan, which has witnessed dozens
of militant attacks in recent years, most claimed by the Pakistani
Taliban. Militants have recently been trying to regroup in the region,
raising fears among residents because of the increased army operations
against the insurgents.”
Newsweek:
Pakistan’s Armed Forces Foil ‘Major’ Terrorism
Attempt
“Pakistan’s armed forces on Monday gunned down two “high-value”
terrorists during an intelligence-based operation in Tank, Dera Ismail
Khan, foiling a major terrorism attempt, according to a press release
issued by the Inter-Services Public Relations Directorate. “As soon as
troops cordoned the area, terrorists opened fire,” read the statement.
“During operation two terrorists (high value targets) were killed. In
intense exchange of fire Colonel Mujeebur Rehman embraced shahadat,”
it added. According to the statement, a large cache of arms and
ammunition was recovered from the terrorists’ hideout during the
sanitization operation. Prime Minister Imran Khan responded to the
intelligence operation by applauding its success and hailing the
courage and bravery of the martyred Col. Mujeebur Rehman. He also
prayed for the departed soul of Col. Mujeebur Rehman. In a statement,
the prime minister said all of Pakistan acknowledged the sacrifices of
the armed forces and security institutions. He said the unprecedented
sacrifices of the country’s security forces had resulted in the
eradication of terrorism from the state and allowed for peace to
flourish. Special Assistant to the P.M. on Information Firdous Ashiq
Awan also hailed the intelligence operation in a posting on
Twitter.”
Saudi Arabia
The
New York Times: Militant Hamas Criticizes Saudi Trials Of Members,
Backers
“Hamas on Monday criticized the secretive criminal trials in Saudi
Arabia of dozens of members and supporters of the militant Palestinian
group. The group, which rules the Gaza Strip, said Saudi authorities
detained dozens of “the best of and the most elite of the Palestinian
people residing in Saudi Arabia.” A popular account on Twitter focused
on the arrests and trials of dissidents reported that the Saudi
government is conducting the trials before the Specialized Criminal
Court, a secretive tribunal established to try terrorism cases. The
arrests intensified in 2019 and there has been no official comment
from the Saudi government on either the arrests or the trials. Ties
have not been warm between Hamas, an offshoot of the pan-Arab Muslim
Brotherhood, and Saudi Arabia in recent years. The Palestinian group
relies more on Saudi’s regional rival Iran for funds, weapons and
expertise. Hamas says the detainees, among them some Jordanians, were
held for “supporting the Palestinian cause.” Earlier, a Hamas official
explained that this means raising funds and soliciting donations. In
January, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh visited Tehran to attend the
funeral of Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the commander of Iran’s
expeditionary Quds Force killed in a U.S. airstrike in Iraq.”
Egypt
Asharq
Al-Awsat: Egypt Sentences 41 People To Life On Terror Charges Linked
To Hasm Group
“A military court in Cairo sentenced 41 people to life in prison on
terror-related charges, rights lawyer Khaled el-Masry said. The
military sentenced 98 others to prison terms ranging from three to 15
years. It acquitted 50. The court convicted the defendants of joining
a militant group known as Hasm, which has links to the Muslim
Brotherhood, which is banned in Egypt, where it is considered a
terrorist organization. Hasm has targeted mainly Egyptian security
forces in bombings and drive-by shootings. The 41 were also accused of
carrying out several militant attacks, including one that killed a
senior Egyptian army officer and the attempted assassination of a
deputy public prosecutor in 2016. The verdicts can be appealed,
el-Masry said. Egypt has for years been battling a long-running
insurgency centered in North Sinai that is now led by an ISIS group
affiliate.”
Nigeria
Punch
Nigeria: Boko Haram Kills Hospitalised Soldiers, Villagers In
Niger
“An attack by Boko Haram terrorists on an army post in the
southeastern Niger region of Diffa left eight dead and three missing,
state radio said Monday. Local sources had said Sunday that a “major”
attack had killed soldiers who were hospitalised in Diffa, but they
did not give figures. Chetima Wangou came under attack by Boko Haram
by around 20 heavily armed vehicles, the radio report said. “On the
friends’ side there were eight dead, eight wounded, three missing. On
the enemy side almost all the assailants were neutralised,” the radio
said. It said there were three successive clashes and that vehicles
that had managed to cross the border into Nigeria were “almost all
neutralised” by air strikes by a joint multinational force of Niger,
Nigeria, Chad and Cameroon. The region which abuts Nigeria and Chad
has repeatedly suffered attacks by the Boko Haram jihadist group since
2015, but they have subsided since late last year. The new attack was
partially enabled by a lower water level on the Komadougou River
marking the border between Niger and Nigeria, a humanitarian source
told AFP. In February last year, seven Nigerian soldiers were killed
in an attack in the same village of Chetima Wangou.”
Somalia
Air
Force Mag: US Airstrikes Kill 6 Al-Shabab Militants In
Somalia
“U.S. airstrikes on al-Shabab targets killed six people and wounded
two more in the first week of March as U.S. Africa Command continues
to ramp up its operations targeting the group in Somalia. Three of the
strikes—two on March 2 and a third on March 5—targeted al-Shabab
militants near Qunyo Barrow, Somalia, in the country’s Middle Juba
region. A fourth strike targeted one of the terror group’s camps near
Gandarshe, which is located about 33 miles south of Mogadishu, on
March 7, the command said. All of the strikes were coordinated with
Somalia’s federal government. AFRICOM said no civilians were harmed in
the strikes. “Al-Shabab’s leadership recently reiterated its primary
focus of attacking American and Western targets beyond Somalia’s
borders,” U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Miguel Castellanos, the command’s
deputy director of operations, said in a March 5 release. The series
of airstrikes brings this year’s total to at least 21 so far. That
high pace, following the 63 total strikes conducted in 2019 that
killed about 320 terrorists, is part of the “consistent pressure that
we’ve applied to that network,” U.S. Africa Command spokesman Col.
Christopher Karns said at AFA’s 2020 Air Warfare Symposium. “What
we’re doing on the continent is very much containing the threat to
make sure that it doesn’t continue to grow in a way where their
violence is exported more broadly,” Karns said.”
Africa
Reuters:
At Least 43 Killed In Attack On Burkina Faso
Villages
“Unidentified assailants killed at least 43 people in raids on
villages in northern Burkina Faso on Sunday, in one of the deadliest
such attacks of the past year, the government said. The attackers
struck at least two villages inhabited by Fulani herders in the North
region, near the border with Mali, the government said in a statement
on Monday. No claim was immediately made for the attack, but
tit-for-tat reprisal killings between the Fulani and rival farming
communities have surged over the past year across Burkina Faso, Mali
and Niger, compounding violence by jihadist groups with links to al
Qaeda and Islamic State. The violence killed hundreds of civilians
last year across the Sahel, a semi-arid strip of land beneath the
Sahara Desert, alarming Western powers who have poured money and
troops to combat the Islamist groups. It comes as the United States
considers a drawdown of troops in the region. Corinne Dufka, West
Africa director for New York-based Human Rights Watch, said Sunday’s
attack was one of six incidents in northern Burkina Faso since the
start of the year that the organization is investigating in which
vigilante fighters allegedly killed civilians or suspected
jihadists.”
Reuters:
Mali Militants Say They Are Open To Talks If Foreign Troops
Leave
“Al Qaeda-linked militants have said they will only attend peace
talks with Mali’s government if it expels French and United Nations
forces. There was no immediate response from the government which has
been proposing talks in recent weeks to try and end an insurgency that
has spread violence across the West African state and its neighbors.
But Malian authorities have repeatedly said they want French forces to
stay, and France has promised to boost its military presence in the
Sahel region. Attacks by groups linked to al Qaeda and Islamic State
in Mali and neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger killed hundreds of
civilians last year, and stoked even deadlier ethnically-charged
reprisals. The bloodshed has worsened despite the presence of more
than 11,000 U.N. peacekeepers in Mali and around 5,000 French troops
across the region. “There can be no talking about negotiations under
the shade of occupation, before the departure of all French forces and
their followers from Mali,” al Qaeda-linked Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa
al-Muslimin (JNIM) said in a statement issued on social media on
Sunday. JNIM also called on the U.N. peacekeeping mission MINUSMA to
leave, saying it was echoing the demands of Malian protesters, some of
whom have called on foreign troops to withdraw.”
The
Guardian: Schools Close In North-East Kenya After Al-Shabaab Targets
Teachers
“A series of targeted killings of schoolteachers by a militia group
in Kenya has seen an exodus of staff and the closure of hundreds of
schools across the north-east of the country. Thousands of teachers
have left their posts in the past two months following several
suspected al-Shabaab attacks in the region. Schools in rural areas
near the Somali border have been badly hit. On 13 January, suspected
members of the Somalia-based terrorist group al-Shabaab attacked the
village of Kamuthe in Garissa county and killed three non-local
teachers and destroyed a communication mast. A few days earlier, a
boarding school in another remote village in the Dadaab area of
Garissa was targeted by al-Shabaab attackers, according to the Kenyan
police. They killed three students and a teacher. Predominantly
inhabited by ethnic Somalis, north-eastern Kenya shares a long, porous
border with Somalia and it is one of the country’s most marginalised
areas. It is inhabited mostly by nomadic pastoralists whose access to
education has been limited. “When the teachers leave, the students go
back to their nomadic lifestyle,” said Ahmed Abdi Mohamed, headteacher
of Balambala boarding school, Garissa county, where seven non-local
teachers have left in recent weeks.”
News
24: Boko Haram Jihadists Attack Niger Army Position After Lull In
Conflict
“Boko Haram jihadists have attacked an army position in
southeastern Niger, sources said on Sunday, following a lull in
violence since the end of last year. The attack on Saturday in Niger's
Diffa region, which has been targeted since 2015 by the jihadist
group, left an unknown number of soldiers injured. “The military base
of Chetima Wangou was attacked by heavily armed Boko Haram elements
who came in vehicles,” a local journalist told AFP. “There were
injuries among our soldiers who were admitted to Diffa Hospital for
emergency medical treatment,” the journalist added. “The attack took
place but we do not have a toll,” a security source told AFP. Chetima
Wangou is a small village about 25km southwest of the regional capital
Diffa. Since 2015, the group has targeted areas near Lake Chad, north
of the city. The attack was the latest ascribed to the jihadist group
which began a bloody insurgency in neighbouring Nigeria in 2009 that
has spread to nearby countries, prompting a regional military
response.”
United Kingdom
The
Guardian: Police Referred Own Staff To Counter-Terrorism
Scheme
“Two police forces referred members of their own staff to a
government programme designed to steer vulnerable individuals away
from committing acts of terrorism, inspectors have revealed. The
revelation comes after a 21-year-old frontline Metropolitan police
officer was arrested on suspicion of being a member of a banned
rightwing terror group. “Insider” threats posed by staff vulnerable to
radicalisation are overlooked by the majority of forces, according to
a report by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire &
Rescue Services (HMICFRS). The report also called into question the
omission of the Ministry of Defence police (MDP) from the list of
public sector bodies subject to the Prevent statutory duty, which
legally compels workers to refer concerns about extremism to the
programme. The MDP is a civilian force that provides armed and unarmed
security at sites around the country such as the Atomic Weapons
Establishment at Aldermaston, housing estates for military personnel
and training areas. Overall, the inspectorate found that forces were
meeting their Prevent duty with “many positive aspects of the Prevent
work police forces do.”
Technology
The
Hill: Facial Recognition Could Stop Terrorists Before They
Act
“America lost another piece of its soul when two homemade bombs
exploded on Patriots Day, 2013, at the Boston Marathon. That act of
home-grown terrorism killed three spectators and wounded hundreds of
others. With it, the innocence of a celebrated event, and others like
it, became forever lost. In the seven years since the Boston Marathon
bombing, there have been successive acts of domestic terrorism: 14
dead and dozens wounded in San Bernardino, 2015; 49 dead in the 2016
Orlando night club shooting; 8 killed in the 2017 New York City pickup
truck incident; 22 killed in the 2019 El Paso Walmart shooting, And
three sailors killed in the Pensacola Naval Air Station shooting last
December. All of these crimes were committed by men with deeply
extremist views. Most documented their hate on social media postings
prior to doing the deed. And some even showed up in a law enforcement
database. Regrettably, none of this information was used to prevent
their horrific acts. Today, local police and national law enforcement
agencies have a greater chance to identify, anticipate and preempt
terrorist actions through new artificial intelligence — AI —
tools.”
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