CEP Mentions
Blick: How IS Finances Its Terror
“... The video is still being reviewed, says Hans-Jakob Schindler, Counter Extremism Project expert and former UN Security Council adviser on global terrorism sanctions. But it is obvious that the attack followed the IS script: "With such attacks, which are difficult to detect in advance, IS is showing that it is still important." In 2017, IS lost its state base in Syria and Iraq, said Schindler. But the group is now on the rise again, for example in Afghanistan and West Africa. The West has withdrawn from the core areas of IS terrorists. "Because the pressure there has decreased, attacks in the West are becoming more likely again ." This raises the question of how terrorists are financed. Although an attack like the one in Solingen - which is presumably inspired by IS but carried out without personal instructions - costs the group nothing, says Schindler. But in Syria, IS is again carrying out more and more bomb attacks.”
Afghanistan
Voice Of America: Female Journalist Silenced On Air Apparently In Compliance With Taliban Morality Law
“A Taliban-controlled state broadcaster in Afghanistan silenced a female journalist and her image during a live media event Tuesday, apparently in compliance with the radical rulers’ recently enacted morality law that bans women from speaking or showing their faces in public. Officials of the de facto Taliban interior ministry organized a news conference in Kabul to share their annual performance before taking questions from around 10 journalists, including a woman. The RTA broadcaster aired the voices and images of all male reporters without interruption. However, when the female journalist from the local Ariana news channel started asking a question, the broadcast abruptly went silent for the next minute or so until she finished, and the focus remained on Taliban officials instead. The channel's audio was unmuted when ministry representatives started answering her query and those asked by others subsequently until the event ended.”
Pakistan
Voice Of America: 'Digital Terrorism' Spurs Debate On Social Media Use In Pakistan
“Pakistan’s military is increasingly issuing warnings about what it calls "digital terrorism," a poorly defined term that some rights activists fear can be applied to anyone who posts criticism of the military online. Pakistani General Asim Munir, chief of army staff, recently warned that digital terrorism was being used to spread "anarchy and false information" against the armed forces. On Pakistan's 77th Independence Day at the Pakistan Military Academy in Abbottabad earlier in August, the top general said, digital terrorism aims to divide state institutions and citizens. The general did not try to differentiate between political opponents of the military who believe it should play a smaller role in the country’s civilian government, versus insurgent separatist groups in places like Balochistan that have battled the army for years. Nor did he identify any individuals, groups or parties as leaders of what he called a “digital terrorism campaign.”
Yemen
Reuters: Greek-Flagged Oil Tanker Appears To Be Leaking Oil, Pentagon Says
“The Greek-flagged crude oil tanker Sounion that was recently attacked by Yemen's Houthis is still on fire in the Red Sea and now appears to be leaking oil, a Pentagon spokesman said on Tuesday. The Sounion was targeted last week by multiple projectiles off Yemen's port city of Hodeidah. The Houthis, who control Yemen's most populous regions, said they attacked it in the Red Sea, as the Iran-aligned group has been attacking ships in solidarity with Palestinians in the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. Pentagon spokesman Air Force Major General Patrick Ryder said that a third party had tried to send two tugs to help salvage the Sounion, but the Houthis threatened to attack them. He said the tanker was carrying about 1 million barrels of crude oil.”
Middle East
Associated Press: Israel Launches A Large-Scale Military Operation In The Occupied West Bank, Killing 9 Palestinians
“Israel launched a large-scale military operation in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday, where its forces killed at least nine Palestinians and sealed off the volatile city of Jenin, according to Palestinian officials. Israel has carried out near-daily raids across the West Bank since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack out of Gaza triggered the ongoing war there. Israel says it is rooting out militants to prevent attacks on its citizens, while Palestinians in the West Bank fear it intends to broaden the war and forcibly displace them. Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, an Israeli military spokesman, said that “large forces” had entered the volatile city of Jenin, which has long been a militant stronghold, as well as Tulkarem and the Al-Faraa refugee camp dating back to the 1948 Mideast war, all in the northern West Bank. He said the nine dead were all militants, including three killed in an airstrike in Tulkarem and another four in an airstrike in Al-Faraa.”
Reuters; Israeli Strike Kills Four Fighters On Syria-Lebanon Border, Security Sources Say
“An Israeli drone strike on a car crossing through a Syrian checkpoint near the border with Lebanon on Wednesday killed three Palestinian fighters and one member of Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, two security sources told Reuters. The car was not transporting weapons, the sources said. There was no immediate comment from Hezbollah or from the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement, to which one of the sources said the three Palestinian fighters belonged. Local Syrian official Abdo al-Taqi told a Syrian radio station that a car was targeted on Wednesday morning on the road between the Syrian capital Damascus and Lebanon's capital Beirut, and four people were killed. Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and other armed factions have launched rockets and drones at Israel from southern Lebanon. The groups have strong ties to Iran and to Syria's government and have transported fighters and weapons through the porous Syrian-Lebanese border.”
Germany
The New York Times: The East Rises In Germany, And So Does Political Extremism
“Anna Wenske, 69, worked for decades at the national theater of East Germany, where she was born and still lives. “After the reunification, everything went kaput,” she said. She lost her job and her savings; it took her years of part-time work to reach a kind of equilibrium. Now she resents what she considers the easy path offered to refugees while Germans suffer. “Too many people exist on this planet, and everyone wants to come to us,” she said in a sunny Weimar, “and we tell everyone welcome and we have nothing left for ourselves.” When it comes to Ukraine, she said, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia lied when he said he would not invade, “but I don’t trust the United States any more than Russia.” When her state, Thuringia, holds elections on Sunday, she says she will probably support the Alternative for Germany party. The radical right ethnonationalist party, known as the AfD, plays with Nazi-era language and its state branch has been classified by domestic intelligence as right-wing extremist.”
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