A former Venezuelan politician was charged Wednesday with participating in a
vast narco-terrorism conspiracy in which he traded drugs for weapons and

 

 


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Eye on Extremism


May 28, 2020

 

NBC News: Feds Charge Ex-Venezuelan Politician With Recruiting Terrorists To
Attack U.S. Interests
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“A former Venezuelan politician was charged Wednesday with participating in a
vast narco-terrorism conspiracy in which he traded drugs for weapons and
recruited terrorists from Hezbollah and Hamas to orchestrate attacks against
U.S. interests. The charges against Adel El Zabayar come three months after the
Justice Department unsealed a sweeping indictment against Venezuelan President
Nicolas Maduro and several politicians, accusing them of taking a leading role
in an international drug trafficking network. New York federal prosecutors say
El Zabayar, acting under the direction of the president of the Venezuelan
assembly, traveled to the Middle East in 2014 to obtain weapons and recruit
members of Hezbollah and Hamas to train at hidden camps in Venezuela. The goal,
according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York,
was to “create a large terrorist cell capable of attacking United States
interests on behalf of the Cartel de Los Soles.” U.S. authorities say the
Cartel de Los Soles, or the Cartel of the Suns, is a criminal organization
focused primarily on exporting cocaine to the U.S. The Justice Department has
previously said the cartel works with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia (FARC) and other designated terror groups.”

 

Hindustan Times: Facebook Knew Its Algorithms Promoted Extremist Groups, But
Did Nothing: Report
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“Facebook has been struggling for a while dealing with extremist content on
its platform and that’s not new. Right from the 2016 US elections where
Russians used polarising ads to manipulate American voters to the violence in
Myanmar - the social networking platform has neither cracked down on these
instances hard nor have they taken a stand. A report in the Wall Street Journal
by Jeff Horowitz and Deepa Seetharaman suggests that Facebook “knew that its
algorithm was dividing people, but did very little to address the problem”. The
report notes that internal presentations from 2018 illustrated how Facebook’s
algorithm “aggravated polarising behaviour in some cases”. A slide from that
presentation pointed out that if these algorithms are “left unchecked then they
would feed users more divisive content”. “Our algorithms exploit the human
brain’s attraction to divisiveness. If left unchecked, Facebook would feed
users more and more divisive content in an effort to gain user attention &
increase time on the platform,” the slide read. The WSJ report says that
Zuckerberg and his team shelved the presentation and “decided not to apply its
observations” on any of their products. Facebook’s Chief of Policy Joe Kaplan
was of the opinion that “these changes might have affected conservative users
and publications.”

 

United States

 

Tampa Bay Times: Tampa Supporter Of Islamic State Terror Group Nabbed In
Undercover Sting, FBI Says
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“A Tampa man faces federal charges after FBI agents said he gave “material
support” to the Islamic State and may have scouted Honeymoon Island State Park
for a possible attack. Muhammed Momtaz Al-Azhari, 23, is charged with
attempting to provide material support or resources to a designated foreign
terrorist organization, the Department of Justice announced Wednesday.
Al-Azhari was arrested Sunday in a federal sting operation in which he acquired
weapons from an FBI informant with whom he’d shared his desires to carry out a
mass shooting on behalf of a terror group, according to a criminal complaint.
The document refers to the terror group as the Islamic State of Iraq and
al-Sham, or ISIS. Al-Azhari, a U.S. citizen, served three years in prison in
Saudi Arabia after being convicted in 2015 of attempting to join a terrorist
organization there while traveling to Syria to fight against the Syrian
government, according to the complaint. In late 2018, he returned to the U.S. —
first to California, where his grandmother lives, and then to Tampa. He spent
much of this spring trying to illegally acquire guns from an undercover FBI
agent posing as an eBay seller, the complaint said. Al-Azhari called off the
deal after Tampa police arrested him for trying to carry a pistol into a Home
Depot.”

 

Syria

 

Arab News: Separate Blasts In Syria’s Idlib Kill 6 Militants, Turkish Soldier
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“Six militants were killed on Wednesday in an explosion that hit their arms
depot in northwest Syria while Russian warplanes flew overhead, a war
monitoring group said. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights
did not say if Russia was behind the blast that killed the non-Syrian militants
allied with the Turkistan Islamic Party, a Uighur-dominated militant group. “We
don’t know if it is the result of aerial bombardment or an explosion inside the
warehouse,” Observatory head Rami Abdul Rahman said. If confirmed, it would
mark the first Russian strike on the Idlib region since a cease-fire went into
effect in March. Home to some 3 million people, the last major opposition
bastion in Idlib is controlled by the Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) alliance, led
by Al-Qaeda’s former Syria affiliate. A Russian-backed regime offensive between
December and March displaced nearly a million people in the northwest, but at
least 140,000 have returned since a cease-fire went into effect, according to
the UN. The truce, which coincided with the novel coronavirus crisis, had put a
stop to the relentless air strikes by the regime and Russia that killed at
least 500 civilians in four months.”

 

Iran

 

Reuters: Iran Changes Tack In Iraqi Politics After Mastermind's Assassination
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“Two diplomats are quietly leading Iran’s push to influence politics in Iraq,
in a departure from the more blunt enforcement employed by Qassem Soleimani, a
top commander slain in a U.S. air strike. The consensual tactics in a country
where Iran has wrestled with Washington for influence for nearly two decades
was designed to break a political deadlock in Baghdad and hasten the departure
of nearly 5,000 U.S. troops from Iraq, according to three senior Iranian
officials involved in the process. “Sometimes you need to step back, observe
and plan based on realities on the ground,” said a senior Iranian official, who
spoke on condition of anonymity. “We want the Americans to leave the region. If
there is chaos in Iraq ... Americans will use it as an excuse to extend their
stay.” A U.S. State Department spokesman said Washington did not interfere in
Iraqi politics. Washington and Tehran came close to war earlier this year after
rocket attacks on Iraqi bases hosting U.S. forces and U.S. air strikes against
militia groups, including the one that killed Soleimani in January in Baghdad.
The powerful commander of the elite Quds force of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards
(IRGC) had steered political allies in Iraq, fought proxy wars across the
Middle East and sought to impose his will on politics in Baghdad.”

 

Iraq

 

Asharq Al-Awsat: Iraq Military Spokesman To Asharq Al-Awsat: ISIS No Longer
Poses A Threat
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“Since the start of 2020, ISIS has been mounting activities that suggest the
group has reorganized its ranks after the defeats it sustained in the past few
years on both sides of the Syrian-Iraqi borders. The Iraqi army, however, is
showing no signs of concern over the growing activities of the terrorist group.
Military spokesman Yehya Rasool said ISIS no longer poses a threat to Iraq and
that its cells are nearly completely destroyed and unable to threaten Iraqi
towns and civilians. The lack of public display of concern does not mean that
Iraqi authorities aren’t taking the threats posed by ISIS seriously. In the
last few weeks, dozens of security campaigns were carried out against ISIS
hideouts across the country. Rasool, in an interview with Asharq Al-Awsat,
clarified that these raids are preemptive and are based on intelligence
reports. This indicates that Iraqi security apparatuses own a substantial
corpus of intelligence on ISIS cells, extracted from interrogating hundreds of
the group’s operatives and leaders who were arrested during the course of the
past years. Other than Iraqi raids, the Arab- Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces
have been mounting anti-ISIS campaigns with the aid of the US-led international
coalition in Syria.”

 

Afghanistan

 

Agence-France Presse: Afghan Forces Killed In First 'Taliban Attack' Since
Ceasefire End: Officials
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“Seven members of the Afghan security forces were killed Thursday in an attack
officials blamed on the Taliban, the first deadly assault since a three-day
ceasefire ended. The militants attacked a checkpoint in Parwan, north of the
capital, said Waheeda Shahkar, spokeswoman to the provincial governor. “The
Taliban have also suffered casualties,” Shahkar added. District police chief
Hussain Shah said Taliban fighters set fire to the checkpoint, killing five
security force personnel. Two more were shot dead. The Taliban have not
commented. It is the first attack that Afghan officials have blamed on the
Taliban since the ceasefire -- held over the Eid al-Fitr festival -- ended on
Tuesday night. According to Afghanistan's Independent Human Rights Commission,
civilian casualties fell by 80 percent during the temporary truce. A drop in
violence has largely held since it ended on Tuesday night, although Afghan
security forces carried out air strikes in the south on Wednesday that killed
18 “militants,” police said. The surprise truce offer from the Taliban and the
lull in fighting has raised hopes that stalled peace negotiations between the
insurgents and the Afghan government could begin soon.”

 

Yemen

 

The Jerusalem Post: Iran Is Increasingly Promoting Antisemitic Houthi Leader
From Yemen
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“Although Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and Supreme Leader Ayatollah
Khamenei reject claims that their views are antisemitic, they have increasingly
been highlighting their Yemenite Houthi allies of the Ansar Allah movement,
whose slogan is “curse the Jews.” The Houthis rose to prominence in 2015 when
they rapidly conquered part of the country and threatened to take Aden. Iran
backs the Houthis against Saudi Arabia, which had intervened to prevent Aden
from falling. Iran’s role in Yemen gives it the ability to project power into
the Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandab Strait. It has shipped drones and missiles to
the Houthis. The Houthi rebels call themselves Ansar Allah (God's Helpers) and
they make no secret of their views on Jews. Their official slogan is “God is
great, death to America, death to Israel, curse the Jews, victory to Islam.”
Iran began to see the Houthis as a proxy force against Saudi Arabia in 2016 and
2017, and encouraged them to use drones and ballistic missiles to strike at
Riyadh. The Houthis complied, and in 2019 their drones were hitting Saudi
cities weekly. Their ballistic missiles were flying hundreds of kilometers.
Iran’s love affair with Ansar Allah grew to such an extent that when it planned
the drone swarm attack on Saudi Arabia’s Abqaiq in September 2019, it gave the
Houthis credit for the attack.”

 

Middle East

 

Agence-France Presse: Coalition Against IS To Meet Virtually Amid Virus
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“Foreign ministers from nations fighting the Islamic State group will meet
virtually next week to coordinate action as the coronavirus pandemic disrupts
operations, the United States announced Wednesday. Top diplomats from the
82-nation coalition will hold talks on June 4 to “discuss ways to keep
continuous pressure on ISIS's remnants in Iraq and Syria and strengthen our
collective approach to defeat ISIS's global ambitions,” the State Department
said. The nations will also look to manage “the challenges the coalition faces
due to the COVID-19 pandemic,” it said in a statement. The United States, the
host of the last ministerial meeting in November, is leading the virtual talks
alongside Italy, which had hoped to hold a major counterterrorism meeting
before being hit hard by the pandemic. President Donald Trump last year
declared the defeat of the Islamic State group, which once held vast swathes of
land, as he moved to pull US troops out of Syria. A raid in October by US
special forces killed Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the movement
notorious for its grisly attacks against civilians and enslavement of
non-Muslims. But alarm has been growing over attacks by the extremists around
the world including in Africa and Afghanistan.”

 

Africa

 

Reuters: Forty Villagers Killed In Massacre In Northeast Congo
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“Suspected Islamist militants have killed at least 40 people in northeastern
Congo, a rights group said on Wednesday, the latest in a wave of attacks
against civilians in the mountainous jungles near the Ugandan border. Fighters
from the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) group, which was driven out of Uganda
in the late 1990s, attacked Samboko village around 100 km (60 miles) southwest
of the city of Bunia, early on Tuesday, said Omar Kavota from rights group
CEPADHO. They killed at least 40 people with machetes and looted food and
valuables, Kavota added, a day after killing at least 17 in the nearby village
of Makutano. More than 400 people have been killed in attacks attributed to the
ADF since the army began an offensive to oust the group from its bases last
year, according to the Kivu Security Tracker (KST), a research initiative that
maps unrest in the region. Following two months of relative quiet, the area has
seen a rise in deadly attacks in the last three weeks, KST said. Rachel
Tarwayo, a government administrator, said she was aware of the Samboko
incursion but could not provide any further details. “On the ground some people
have fled and others have given themselves the courage to stay for the moment,”
said Gili Gotabo, a rights activist in the region.”

 

Germany

 

Associated Press: Anti-Semitic Crime Rises In Germany, Most From Far Right
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“Anti-Semitic crimes in Germany last year reached their highest level since
the country started keeping statistics, amid an overall strong increase in
right-extremist criminality that is a cause for “great concern,” Interior
Minister Horst Seehofer said Wednesday. Overall, politically-motivated crimes
were up 14.2% in 2019 over the previous year, which is the second highest level
since authorities began tracking such crimes in 2001, Seehofer told reporters
in Berlin. Crimes by the extreme left rose the most, increasing 23.7% to 9,849,
but the majority of politically motivated crimes were from the extreme right,
with 22,342 cases and an increase of 9.4%. At the same time, crimes linked to a
foreign ideology dropped 23.7% to 1,897 and those motivated by a religious
ideology fell 27.5% to 425. “The largest threat, as in the past, is the threat
from the right,” Seehofer said. “Extreme-right politically motivated cases make
up more than half of all of such recorded crimes — it is an order of magnitude
that causes us concern, great concern.” Nearly 40% of all political crimes were
classified as “propaganda crimes” — such as displaying banned symbols like the
swastika. Violent crime dropped 15.9% to 2,832 cases.”

 

Europe

 

New Europe: Experts Warn Of Bioterrorism After Pandemic
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“The Council of Europe has warned of an increased possibility of a deliberate
use of biological weapons, like viruses or bacterias, as acts of terrorism in a
post-coronavirus world. “The COVID-19 pandemic has shown how vulnerable modern
society is to viral infections and their potential for disuption,” the
council’s Committee on Counter-Terrorism said in a statement. The committee
warned that the damage to humans and economies could be significantly higher
than the one of a traditional terrorist attack. It therefore called on the 47
Council of Europe member states to do training exercises and prepare to tackle
a biological weapons attack. “The Council of Europe has no concrete evidence of
a heightened threat from bioterrorism due to the pandemic. It does, however,
underline the need for continued international cooperation in this field”, a
spokesperson said.”

 

Southeast Asia

 

BBC News: Crossing Divides: The Bomb Maker Turned Peacemaker
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“I am an expert bomb maker. I can make bombs in just five minutes.” Ali Fauzi
was a key member of Jemaah Islamiyah, a militant group with links to al-Qaeda,
which was responsible for Indonesia's worst attack - the 2002 Bali bombing that
killed more than 200 people. “My brothers carried out the Bali bombing. It was
huge bomb in the heart of the island's tourist district.” The group went on to
carry out a string of bombings in Indonesia. They were deadly attacks on major
hotels and Western embassies. The seemingly sleepy village of Tenggulun in
Lamongan, East Java was the group's base camp. Now Ali Fauzi's mission is very
different. He works to help former jihadis leave a life of violence and to stop
new recruits from joining the next wave of militant groups in South East Asia.
“The reality is that it is much easier to recruit people to terrorist groups,”
he says. “They only have to pull a trigger and lots of people will join them
but the process of deradicalisation takes time. It has to be done step by
step.” And his new mission has come at a high personal cost. “The threats
against me are intense, it's not just verbal attacks but death threats. But,
honestly, I am not scared because I know what I am doing is right. I am ready
and prepared to die doing this.”

 

Technology

 

Daily Mail: Facebook Bans Adverts From Muslim Campaign Group Cage Which Claim
Coronavirus Is A Punishment From God
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“Facebook has banned advertisements from a campaign group who has claimed that
coronavirus is a punishment from god. London-based Cage have been using
Facebook and YouTube to raise £400,000 during Ramadan, as reported by The
Times. The advocacy group ran 16 adverts as part of its campaign called
Reviving Divine Justice, but four were banned, including one on coronavirus,
launched on April 22. The video that references the deadly pandemic is called
'One deed that can change the world' and opens with a news clip showing
hospital staff working on a patients, as a journalist says 'they are fighting a
war here, they are losing.' It then switches to an image of the world and a
voiceover says 'the world is in crisis and no one seems to know how to stop
it.' The person adds: 'While we exhaust ourselves in finding a cure...isn't it
time that we also reflect?' 'Isn't it time we search for the roots of our
problems.'  The video adds that 'Allah has his ways which he has informed us
about. They do not change, so pay attention! 'Allah has warned us: 'Whatever
misfortune befalls you it is because of what your own hands have done'.'  It
also says that 'Allah will not change our condition until we change what is
within ourselves.' The video is available to view on the Cage's YouTube
account.”



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