April 7, 2020

Reuters: Taliban Break Off Talks With Afghan Government On Prisoner Exchange <[link removed]>

“The Taliban on Tuesday broke off talks with the Afghan government on a prisoner exchange, a main step in peace talks being brokered by the United States after it agreed on a troop withdrawal pact with the militants. Suhail Shaheen, a spokesman for the Islamist insurgent group’s political office in Qatar, said on Twitter a technical team would not participate in “fruitless meetings” and the release of their prisoners was being “delayed under one pretext or another”. The late February pact between the United States and the Taliban, under which U.S.-led international forces will withdraw in exchange for Taliban security guarantees, is the best chance yet of ending the 18-year war. But peace hinges on talks between the U.S.-backed Afghan government and the militants. A prisoner exchange is meant to build confidence on both sides for those talks. A spokesman for the government said it would maintain its work on the prisoner release plan. “We ask the Taliban to not sabotage the process by making excuses now,” said Javid Faisal, a spokesman for the National Security Council in Kabul.”

ABC News: UN Report Says Syria Or Allies Likely To Blame For Attacks <[link removed]>

“A U.N. investigation has concluded it is “highly probable” that the Syrian government or its allies were responsible for attacks on five facilities in the last opposition stronghold in the northwest in 2019 — a school, two health care centers, a hospital and a child care facility. The investigators said it is “probable” a sixth attack on a Palestinian refugee camp in Aleppo was carried out either by armed opposition groups or by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the strongest militant group in northwest Idlib province that is affiliated with al-Qaida. A summary of the 185-page confidential report by a board of inquiry appointed by U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was released Monday. It was charged with investigating incidents in the northwest after Russia and Turkey agreed to establish a “de-escalation zone” in Idlib on Sept. 17, 2018. Guterres said in a letter accompanying the report that the Syrian government did not respond to repeated requests to visit the country. Noting the findings, he said, “I would emphasize in this connection that a board of inquiry is not a judicial body or court of law: It does not make legal findings or consider questions of legal liability or legal responsibility.” While the summary said it is “highly probable” the Syrian government and/or its allies were responsible for five of the six attacks investigated, it never mentioned Damascus’ key ally, Russia, which has provided significant air power to President Bashar Assad.”

United States

NBC News: Texas Teen Faces Terrorism Charge For Threatening To Spread Coronavirus, Police Say <[link removed]>

“Police in Texas are searching for an 18-year-old girl who claimed in a series of Snapchat videos to have tested positive for and to be “willfully spreading” the coronavirus. The teenager, identified by police in Carrollton, near Dallas, as Lorraine Maradiaga, faces a charge of making a terroristic threat. “We have no confirmation Maradiaga is actually a threat to public health,” police said in a statement Sunday. “We are, however, taking her social media actions very seriously.” Jolene DeVito, a Carrollton police spokeswoman, said it is unclear when the videos were recorded. “People started tagging us and sharing the videos on Saturday,” DeVito told NBC News on Monday. One of the videos circulating on social media is believed to have been taken at a COVID-19 drive-thru testing site, DeVito said. In it, a health care professional can be heard telling Maradiaga that she needs to go home and wait for test results. Another video shows Maradiaga at a store, DeVito said. “I'm here at Walmart about to infest every motherf------, because if I'm going down, all you motherf------ are going down,” she says in the video, according to DeVito. Another video later shows Maradiaga in a car, coughing into the camera.”

Iraq

Foreign Policy: Islamic State Aims For Comeback Amid Virus-Expedited U.S. Withdrawal <[link removed]>

“Inside an operational command room at Ain al-Asad air base, which is lined with maps of past missions against the Islamic State, three American radio operators stand at their desks. In past months, they provided intelligence and helped coordinate their Iraqi counterparts’ operations against Islamic State cells within large swaths of the Iraqi desert in Anbar province. But since U.S. drones killed Iranian military commander Qassem Suleimani and his ally Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis in early January, there has been a pause as the withdrawing Americans focus on protecting their own troops. Now the area the Americans are surveying has shrunk down to a fraction of its previous size, leaving large portions of the desert unmonitored. Lt. Col. Tim Garland, a U.S. officer who works directly in anti-Islamic State operations from Ain al-Asad, told Foreign Policy that if they had once surveyed an area the size of Texas, now they were looking at a sliver of that the size of Dallas. And the Islamic State, which has been on the back foot for years now, is eager to move back into this vacuum, aided by the coronavirus-expedited withdrawal of U.S. and allied troops in support of the Iraqi military.”

Afghanistan

Al Jazeera: Taliban Launches Campaign To Help Afghanistan Fight Coronavirus <[link removed]>

“When 55-year-old Khairullah from a village in Afghanistan's northern Jawzjan province was invited to join a meeting after Friday prayers on March 27, he was not prepared for what he witnessed. Despite the unusually cold spring weather, Khairullah, who asked for his name to be changed, and his neighbours were welcomed by Taliban fighters holding their AK-47s and dressed in complete medical PPE (personal protective equipment) for a workshop on the prevention of the coronavirus. “It's been about a week since the Taliban has been conducting such awareness campaigns here. They are asking people to use masks and gloves, talking about washing hands with soap, those kinds of things,” Khairullah told Al Jazeera, in a phone call from his village in the Taliban-controlled Darzaab district. “They have cancelled all public gatherings, weddings and have asked people to pray at home instead of the mosques,” he added. While Afghanistan has fewer than 400 confirmed cases of coronavirus, there are worries of an outbreak of the deadly virus in a country already facing years of conflict, displacement and poverty.”

Radio Free Europe: U.S. Rejects Taliban Claim It Is Violating Doha Peace Deal <[link removed]>

“The U.S. military has rejected a claim by the Afghan Taliban that the United States is violating the terms of a peace deal signed by the two sides in late February. U.S. Forces-Afghanistan “upheld and continues to uphold the military terms of the U.S.-[Taliban] agreement; any assertion otherwise is baseless,” spokesman Colonel Sonny Leggett tweeted on April 5. Leggett also wrote that the militant group “must reduce violence” and warned that the U.S. military will continue to defend Afghanistan's security forces if attacked, in line with the terms of the agreement. In a statement issued earlier in the day, the Taliban accused U.S. and Afghan forces of conducting raids and air strikes against the group in noncombat zones and of launching operations on civilian areas. It also chastised the Afghan government for delaying the release of thousands of Taliban prisoners as promised in the agreement signed by the United States and the Taliban in the Qatari capital, Doha, on February 29. The militants claim they have reduced their attacks compared with last year and warned that continued violations would create “an atmosphere of mistrust” that would “damage the agreements” and “increase the level of fighting.”

Yemen

Asharq Al-Awsat: Yemen Urges UN Intervention After Houthi ‘Massacre’ At Women’s Jail <[link removed]>

“The Iran-backed Houthi militias’ shelling of a women’s prison in Yemen’s Taiz region sparked uproar in the country and demands for the United Nations and international community to intervene to put an end to the militant’s crimes. The militias had shelled the women’s ward of the Taiz Central Prison on Sunday, leaving six prisoners dead and 28 wounded, revealed government and rights sources. Yemeni Prime Minister Moeen Abdulmalek condemned the “terrorist crime,” saying the Houthis are continuing their “ugly massacres” against civilians. Their attack against the prison is clear indication that they are maintaining their aggressive tactics in rejection of all UN and international calls for peace, he remarked. He listed the Houthis’ attack of the Safer oil pumping station over the weekend and their continued attempts to target Saudi territory as new damning evidence of their criminal nature. Moreover, the PM condemned the international community for continuing to turn a blind eye to these “barbaric crimes”, which only encourages the Houthis to maintain their destructive agenda in Yemen in total disregard for all binding international resolutions.”

Lebanon

The Jerusalem Post: Mossad Blamed For Assassination Of Hezbollah Commander - Report <[link removed]>

“After a Hezbollah commander in charge of pursuing spies and collaborators was found killed in southern Lebanon over the weekend, Lebanese and Iranian media began reporting that the Mossad “and its mercenaries” were suspects in the assassination. Hezbollah commander Ali Mohammed Younis was killed by unknown assassins in southern Lebanon on Saturday. The Hezbollah commander was “responsible for pursuing spies and collaborators,” according to unofficial statements, the Iranian Fars news agency reported. The Fars report included an image of a body lying next to an open vehicle. Hezbollah sources said Younis was found stabbed to death in his vehicle, Lebanese MTV news reported. He was found south of Nabatiya, Sputnik news reported. A body was found on Saturday at the same location with stab and bullet wounds, Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) reported. The report included an image that appeared the same as the image published in the Iranian reports about Younis’s death. A suspect has been arrested, NNA reported. Al-Quds Al-Araby reported that the statement issued by Hezbollah mourning Younis indicated that his death was connected to his work, adding that the death may have also been due to differences between Younis and another group over financial issues.”

Nigeria

Sahara Reporters: Breaking: Boko Haram Terrorists Burn Houses, Loot Shops In Adamawa Village <[link removed]>

“Boko Haram terrorists have attacked a village in Adamawa State, destroying residential buildings and looting shops. The terrorists attacked Kirchinga under Madagali Local Government Area of the state on Monday night, razing no fewer than five houses. A source told SaharaReporters that the terrorists in large numbers arrived the village in pickup vans and motorcycles at about 4:00pm. The Boko Haram fighters also shot an octogenarian in the leg before being repelled by troops of the Nigerian Army. A resident said, “The devastation would have been worst but for the timely response by soldiers stationed in Kirchinga.” Commander of the troops in Madagali, Colonel Abdulsalam, also confirmed the attack.  He said, “Yes, there was an attack but it was repelled successfully.”

Africa

The New York Times: Gunmen Kill 25 Soldiers In North Mali Attack: Army Spokesman <[link removed]>

“Unidentified gunmen killed 25 soldiers and wounded six others in an attack in the Gao region of northern Mali on Monday morning, army spokesman Diarran Koné told Reuters. No other details were available. Northern Mali is under siege from armed jihadist groups with links to Islamic State and al Qaeda that have carried out frequent deadly attacks on the military in recent years.”

North Africa Post: Tunisia: Two Terrorists Linked With ISIS Killed In Kasserine <[link removed]>

“Tunisia security forces Saturday slain in restive Kasserine governorate two notorious terrorists whose group is known as an affiliate cell of the Islamic state terror group (ISIS). Forces from the defense and interior ministries, Tunis Webdo reports, laid an ambush on Salloum mountain, a hideout for terror groups. The forces managed to kill two wanted terrorists who had been part of a string of attacks on armed forces and the killing of civilians. Mohamed Ouanas Ben Mohamed Midani Ben Mohamed Hajji aka “Abou mosaab” and Nadhem Ben Mohsen Ben Ammar Dhibi aka Abou Ammar/Adam, both from Jound Al Khilafa; a group affiliate to ISIS, were killed in the preventive operation. Both men according to the defense ministry were involved in several attacks and other gruesome killings notably the beheadings of three shepherds, Said Ghozlani (2016), Khalifa Soltani (2017) and Khaled Ghozlani (2018). The forces also managed to seize weapons and ammunition in the operation. The Tunisian army and security forces have lost dozens of men in the Kasserine mountainous region located at the border with Algeria and used as safe haven by terrorists who often lay ambushes to security patrols.”

United Kingdom

BBC News: Boy From Newcastle Accused Of Right-Wing Terror Offences <[link removed]>

“A boy has been charged with right-wing terrorism offences. The 16-year-old from Newcastle faces 11 charges including supporting the banned neo-Nazi group National Action. He was charged after being summonsed to Westminster Magistrates' Court earlier, with a first official court hearing to be held in due course. The offences, which also include encouraging terrorism and inciting racial and religious hatred, date from between May and October last year. He was arrested in October by Counter Terrorism Policing as part of an investigation into “suspected right wing terrorism online”, a force spokeswoman said. National Action was proscribed by the government, meaning it is a criminal offence to be a member, in December 2016. The boy faces four counts of inviting support for National Action in social media posts, three of publishing statements to encourage an act of terrorism and three of distributing materials intended to stir up racial hatred. He also faces one charge of distributing material intending to stir up religious hatred.”



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The Counter Extremism Project - United States
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