Eye on Extremism
March 31, 2020
The
New York Times: At Least 27 Afghan Security Personnel Killed In
Taliban Assaults
“Taliban insurgents have killed 27 members of the Afghan security
forces, police and government officials said on Monday, as a peace
effort brokered by the United States struggles to get off the ground.
The Taliban and the United States struck a deal last month allowing
the United States and its allies to withdraw their forces in exchange
for Taliban promises on preventing terrorism. A Taliban commitment to
talk peace with the U.S.-backed government was part of the pact but
efforts to get talks going have been hampered by differences between
the government and the Taliban on a prisoner exchange and on
negotiating teams. The Taliban have not agreed to a ceasefire with
government forces and fighting has not ended, although the insurgents
have not announced any spring offensive, which they normally do at
this time of the year. In the latest clashes, insurgents stormed the
compound of a top police officer in the northeastern province of
Takhar on Sunday, killing 13 policeman and wounding the senior
officer, a spokesman for the force said. In the southern province of
Zabul, Taliban forces attacked government security outposts, killing
at least 11 soldiers, also on Sunday, police said. The ministry of
defense said on Twitter six soldiers were killed in those
clashes.”
Premium
Times: Terrorism: UN General Assembly Condemns Killing Of Nigerian
Soldiers
“President of the United Nations General Assembly, Tijani
Muhammad-Bande, has condemned the recent killing of several Nigerian
soldiers by terrorists in Borno State. Mr Muhammad-Bande, who is
Nigeria’s Ambassador to the UN, reacted to the incident in a tweet on
Monday. Twenty-nine soldiers died when Boko Haram fighters ambushed
their convoy at Gorgi Village in Borno State, according to the Defence
Headquarters. Coordinator of the Defence Media Operations, John
Enenche, a major general, said 39 others were wounded in the attack
which occurred on March 23. The Nigerian envoy said the attack was
more disturbing coming amid the coronavirus pandemic. “My condolences
on the recent heinous attacks in #Nigeria by Boko Haram. I join the
international community in its condemnation. “These callous acts are
more worrisome in light of the #COVID19 pandemic. “With Nigeria’s
leadership and global cooperation, we will defeat terrorism,” he said
in the tweet.”
Voice
Of America: Lebanese Activists Fear Hezbollah-Led Government Is Using
Coronavirus To Solidify Power
“Lebanese activists and journalists say they fear the Hezbollah-led
Cabinet could be using the COVID-19 pandemic as justification to
further consolidate its power through targeting dissent. A state of
emergency announced March 15 introduced strict restrictions on
citizens. Activists deemed the step a “security plan” that lacks
regard for public health. They say the government could use its
expanded powers to imprison activists who were involved in organizing
protests last October. “The government activated criminal laws to
arrest and charge people at a time that it did not stop flights from
[coronavirus] epicenters like Iran and ignored taking necessary
measures to protect the people,” Jad Yateem, an activist and founding
member of LiquaaTeshrin, told VOA. LiquaaTeshrin is a group formed by
Lebanese activists who demand government reform. The group last week
called on the Lebanese government to change its state of emergency in
the face the spread of the virus in the country. It said the
government needed more effective measures to safeguard society’s
health and livelihood. Members of Hezbollah's Islamic health unit walk
past closed shops while disinfecting a street, as a precaution against
the spread of coronavirus disease, in Sidon, Lebanon, March 28,
2020.”
United States
NBC
News: Missouri Man Planned To Bomb Hospital During Pandemic To Get
Attention For White Supremacist
Views
“A Missouri man who was killed last week was planning to set off a
bomb at a hospital to further his radical white supremacist ideology,
federal authorities said Monday. Timothy Wilson, 36, died March 24
when the FBI sought to arrest him after a six-month investigation. A
summary of the case in an FBI advisory sent to law enforcement Monday
said he met with an undercover FBI employee and talked about setting
off a vehicle bomb at a hospital because of “the increased impact
given the media attention on the health sector” due to the coronavirus
pandemic. Agents said Wilson bought several bags of fertilizer that
can be used in bombs and kept them in a storage unit. They said Wilson
and the undercover operative visited the hospital and discussed
planning the attack. On March 24, Wilson met the undercover at the
storage unit and picked up what he thought was a working bomb but was
actually an inert device constructed by the FBI. He was killed in a
shootout when the FBI moved in to arrest him. “Wilson had taken the
necessary steps to acquire materials needed to build an explosive
device,” the FBI said last week in a public statement. Investigators
“kept close track of Wilson in order to protect public safety.”
New
York Magazine: The Prep-School Nazi
“Six years before he would found a neo-Nazi group called the Base —
Mein Kampf–ing its launch with a tweeted Hitler photo and the caption
“Führer, you were only the beginning. We will finish what you started”
— the prep-school grad from New Jersey was getting dressed in his room
at the Standard Hotel in the Meatpacking District. His father,
Michael, helped him into his tuxedo jacket. Playing the best-man role,
his friend Don fastened a white lily to the lapel. Later, he would be
known to his followers as Norman Spear. Now, at 39, he was just
Rinaldo Nazzaro. An earlier engagement hadn’t worked out, but today he
was getting married. Across town, at the Gramercy Park Hotel, Lyudmila
Sergeyeva, Nazzaro’s pretty, dark-haired 31-year-old Russian fiancée,
was having her hair done. She put on a strapless Vera Wang wedding
dress and ivory Vera Wang Lavender slingback pumps. Her florist Stacey
arrived with a bouquet, inspired by Kate Middleton’s, of garden and
tea roses and flax flowers. “All white and pure,” as the bride would
write later in a Facebook testimonial.”
Syria
The
Washington Post: Kurdish-Led Forces Put Down Revolt By ISIS Detainees
At Prison In Syria
“Kurdish-led forces on Monday put down a revolt at a prison in
northeast Syria for former Islamic State fighters after militants
complaining about their conditions seized control of parts of the
facility. The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces said the riot was
quelled by Monday night, more than 24 hours after prisoners inside
smashed doors, broke down walls and took over at least one wing of the
prison. “Due to great efforts made by our forces & swift
intervention against the insubordination of ISIS detainees inside one
prison, we were able to avoid catastrophe & take control. No
prisoners escaped,” the SDF commander, Gen. Mazloum Kobane Abdi, said
on his Twitter account.The prison revolt was the most serious yet by
the thousands of former Islamic State fighters detained in prisons in
the area, typically in cramped, overcrowded conditions that have drawn
criticism from human rights groups. The uprising coincided with
mounting fears across northeast Syria that the coronavirus will arrive
in the war-ravaged area, with potentially devastating consequences in
the crowded prisons. U.S. officials say about 10,000 foreign fighters
from dozens of nations and family members are being held in detention
centers and camps there, along with tens of thousands of Syrians and
Iraqis.”
Iran
Reuters:
Iran Says Attack By “Terrorists” Inside Turkey Halts Natural Gas
Exports
“Iran said on Tuesday its natural gas exports to Turkey have
stopped after an attack on a pipeline inside the neighbouring country,
an Iranian official told state TV. “This morning, terrorists attacked
a natural gas pipeline inside Turkey near Iran's Bazargan border with
Turkey ...Flow of gas has been halted,” said Mehdi Jamshidi-Dana,
director of National Iranian Gas Co. “The pipeline has exploded
several times in the past. It is also likely that the PKK group has
carried out the blast,” he told Iran's state news agency IRNA,
referring to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party. The pipeline, which
carries around 10 billion cubic meters of Iranian gas to Turkey
annually, frequently came under attack by Kurdish militants during the
1990s and up until 2013, when a ceasefire was established. Jamshidi
said that because of the new coronavirus outbreak, “the Turkish border
guards have left, but we have informed them of the explosion and are
waiting for their response”, IRNA reported. “It takes usually three to
four days to repair and resume gas exports.”
Foreign
Policy: How An Iranian Airline Tied To Terrorism Likely Spread The
Virus (And Lied About It)
“There are many reasons why Iran has become the Middle East’s
flaming epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic. They include the
government trying to hide the outbreak; insufficient testing capacity;
refusal to cordon off cities and Shiite shrines; superstition,
politicization, and propaganda blaming Iran’s usual enemies; and the
lack of seriousness in dealing with the crisis. All these factors
undoubtedly play a role, but there is another, far less public suspect
for bringing the disease to Iran and worsening its spread among the
population: a private Iranian airline tied to the regime’s ideological
army and sanctioned by the United States, which continued
uninterrupted flights to and from China, including Wuhan, many weeks
after the epidemic had already broken out. Bahram Parsaei, a member of
Iran’s parliament, recently singled out Mahan Air and Iran’s Civil
Aviation Organization as the prime suspects behind the country’s
devastating outbreak. What has made the suspicions worse are
contradictory statements and misinformation coming from officials and
airline executives.”
Turkey
Daily
Sabah: Turkey Fighting Terrorists' Fake News Campaigns, Spread Of
Coronavirus
“While Turkey struggles to fight the coronavirus pandemic, it is
also battling against the disinformation campaigns of terrorist
groups, Presidential Communications Director Fahrettin Altun said
Monday. “Just as our government goes after those who practice
stockpiling critical materials and price gouging, we are also going
after terror groups like FETÖ (Gülenist Terror Group), the PKK and
DHKP-C who actively wage disinformation campaigns to undermine our
public health and safety measures,” Altun wrote on Twitter. “We are
also very careful about confronting disinformation campaigns, as well
as misinformed advice on social media as well as other mediums. We are
actively fighting against inflammatory and deceptive posts that intend
to provoke and agitate our people,” he said. Altun’s statements came
after a Cabinet meeting took place headed by President Recep Tayyip
Erdoğan, where the spread of the coronavirus was discussed. Erdoğan
launched a national solidarity campaign, which resulted in a large
number of politicians, cabinet members and businessmen pledging
personal donations for the fight against the pandemic.”
Afghanistan
The
Washington Post: Key In Trump’s Deal With The Taliban: Ex-Prisoners
Whose Release In 2014 Unleashed Republican
Furor
“As American negotiators raced to clinch last month’s landmark deal
with the Taliban, several shadowy figures played a surprising but
significant role: former Guantanamo Bay detainees whose release in a
2014 prisoner exchange sparked a partisan firestorm. The so-called
Taliban Five, a group of high-level militant inmates traded for an
American during the Obama administration, worked behind the scenes to
build support for the agreement, current and former U.S. and Taliban
officials say. Several of the men wielded their clout, as prominent
figures from the Taliban’s pre-9/11 government and longtime prisoners
of the United States, to push months of fractious negotiations toward
a deal. One of them, a fearsome former commander accused in the deaths
of religious minorities in Afghanistan, traveled at least twice to
Pakistan to generate buy-in among skeptical militant commanders, said
the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss
details of the negotiations. The Trump administration heralded the
Feb. 29 agreement as a milestone toward ending nearly two decades of
war, but expected talks among feuding Afghan parties have not
materialized amid disagreements over initial steps and political
disarray in Kabul.”
India
The
Diplomat: The Islamic State’s Increasing Focus On
India
“On March 25, a lone terrorist affiliated with Islamic State
Khorasan Province (ISKP) carried out an attack on a Sikh place of
worship, the Gurudwara Har Rai Sahib, in Kabul, Afghanistan killing 25
worshipers. Some reports mentioned the presence of three attackers,
including suicide bombers, in an attack that lasted for hours holding
some 80 people hostage. The terrorist behind the Kabul gurudwara
attack has been identified as Abu Khalid al-Hindi (real name Mohammed
Mohsin) from the Indian state of Kerala. A statement by the Islamic
State’s (IS) Amaq media claims the attack was “revenge for the Muslims
in Kashmir” who were facing alleged atrocities at the hands of the
Indian government. The recent attack, scattered violence in Jammu and
Kashmir (J&K), and recent propaganda directed toward Indian
Muslims suggest a reorientation of IS strategy in an attempt to garner
support by capitalizing on recent incidents of civil unrest in India.
IS has always thrived on polarization between religious groups and
social chaos for its activities and recruitment, and India is no
exception. This was the second ISKP attack on Afghanistan’s minority
Sikh community after the 2018 suicide bombing of a convoy of Hindus
and Sikhs in Jalalabad, Nangarhar province, which killed 19
people.”
Lebanon
Asharq
Al-Awsat: Hezbollah Holds Onto Lebanon’s Cabinet In Message To Its
Allies
“Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah's strong support has
salvaged the government of Prime Minister Hassan Diab from a shakeup,
politicians with close ties to the March 8 alliance told Asharq
Al-Awsat. Last week, Speaker Nabih Berri expressed anger over the
government's delay in bringing back Lebanese expatriates who were
stranded in their countries of residence following the closure of
Beirut’s airport as part of the coronavirus lockdown measures. The
Speaker threatened to suspend his support for the government if it did
not act to bring the expatriates back home. “If the government holds
onto its position on the issue of expatriates … we will suspend our
representation in the government,” Berri said in a statement released
by his office. Political sources told the newspaper on Sunday that
Diab was concerned that Berri’s warning was in line of a Shiite
decision for a government change. However, the sources asserted that
the PM’s concerns dissipated after a meeting with the Hezbollah
leader’s political aide Hussein Khalil, who delivered Diab a message
from Nasrallah. Khalil eased tension between the Speaker and the
PM.”
Middle East
The
Jerusalem Post: Security Forces Arrest Palestinians Suspected Of
Terrorism
“Israeli security forces arrested two Palestinians in the Ramallah
area, including the father of a terrorist responsible for two deadly
attacks against Israeli soldiers and civilians in 2018. The
Palestinians were arrested by Israel Border Police officers on
suspicion of involvement in several terror incidents in recent months,
the Israeli police said. During the operation hundreds of Ramallah
residents threw stones, Molotov cocktails, as well as bottles of paint
and other objects towards the troops who responded with riot dispersal
means including teargas and stun grenades. According to Wafa news
agency, troops raided two Ramallah-area villages and detained Omar
Barghouti and his son Mohammed in the village of Kobar as well as
Mahmoud Murrar, a lawyer from the village of Budrus and seized his
car. Omar Barghouti is the father of Asam and Saleh Barghouti who
carried out a shooting attack at Ofra Junction on December 9th 2018
which injured seven Israelis, One newborn child, who was delivered
prematurely as a result of the attack, died three days later. Asam
Barghouti is suspected of carrying out another shooting attack outside
the outpost of Givat Assaf, just south of Ofra, days later in which
two IDF soldiers, Staff Sergeant Yuval Mor Yosef and and Sergeant
Yosef Cohen were killed.”
Egypt
Asharq
Al-Awsat: Egypt Postpones Trial Of ‘Hasm’, ‘Liwa Al-Thawra’ Terror
Suspects
“A Cairo Military Court postponed Sunday the trial of 271 terrorist
suspects to Monday. The Public Prosecutor had ordered the defendants
to be referred to the military judiciary after they were charged with
“assuming command of and joining the Muslim Brotherhood’s terrorist
Liwa al-Thawra and Harakat Sawa'd Misr (HASM) groups.” They are also
accused of committing 12 terrorist operations against police officers,
as well as booby-trapping cars and monitoring public and economic
installations and public figures in order to later commit hostile acts
against them. According to the probe, the defendants supplied the two
groups with money, explosives, firearms, ammunition and other logistic
support. They also committed several murders and attempted murders
against officers and members of the police force in various provinces
of the country. Investigations also linked the case to leading Muslim
Brotherhood members in Turkey. “The fugitives abroad devised a
terrorist plot to restructure the armed wing of the Muslim
Brotherhood, in cooperation with leading fugitives inside the country,
in order to commit hostile acts against judicial and police officials,
the armed forces and prominent state figures and economic
installations,” the probe found.”
Germany
Daily
Sabah: Racism Not Main Motive For Hanau Terror Attack: German
Police
“German federal police investigators do not believe that the
perpetrator who carried out a deadly terror attack targeting
foreigners in Hanau last month was a far-right extremist, local media
reported Monday. The suspect, who has been identified only as Tobias
R, reportedly chose his victims with the aim of attracting the most
attention possible for his conspiracy theories involving secret
service surveillance. He did not go through a typical far-right
extremist radicalization, the broadcasters WDR and NDR, and the
Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper reported. A federal prosecution
spokesman declined to comment on Monday, saying that investigations
are ongoing. Tobias R. stormed into two shisha bars and fatally shot
nine people of foreign descent, including five Turks, during the Feb.
19 attack in the center of Hanau. The 43-year-old then returned home
and killed his 72-year-old mother and himself. He had disseminated
woolly thoughts, abstruse conspiracy theories and racist views online.
The reports suggest a change of focus by investigators. Prosecution
officials said from soon after the attack that there were “serious
indications of a racist motivation.”
Australia
Yahoo
News: Charities Watchdog Eyes Terror Financing
“Australia's charities regulator has 19 investigations under way
into terrorism financing. More than 57,000 bodies are registered under
the Australian Charities and Not-for-Profits Commission, which was set
up in December 2012. An audit report released on Tuesday found 34 out
of 53 terrorism-financing investigations had been completed as of the
end of January, with the remaining 19 cases in progress. Seven
charities have so far been deregistered as a result of the
investigation project, which also involves co-operation with the
anti-money laundering body AUSTRAC. The audit report was largely
positive in regard to the charities watchdog, which oversees bodies
earning about $142 billion a year. To date, 77 charities have had
their registration revoked for various reasons as a result of the
ACNC's compliance activities. But the auditor-general found there were
some issues that needed to be addressed. “The ACNC has processed
applications in a timely manner, but should better document assessment
processes under its 'light touch' approach to registration,” the audit
report found. The commission had been largely effective in helping
charities meet their ongoing compliance obligations. “It has been less
effective in addressing non-compliance,” the report found.”
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