The FBI is warning police nationwide to expect an increase in election-related
threats — and, potentially, violent attacks — from domestic extremists,

 

 


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Eye on Extremism


September 11, 2020

 

Yahoo News: FBI Warns Of Increasing Extremist Threats To The 2020 Elections
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“The FBI is warning police nationwide to expect an increase in
election-related threats — and, potentially, violent attacks — from domestic
extremists, according to a recent bulletin reviewed by Yahoo News. Domestic
violent extremists “across the ideological spectrum likely will continue to
plot against government and election-related targets to express their diverse
grievances involving government policies and actions,” the FBI says in a recent
election-focused bulletin sent to law enforcement across the country. The FBI
document says that as of the beginning of August, the bureau has observed
violent extremists “threatening 2020 political candidates or events, including
threats against current candidates for President, presidential conventions, and
counter protestors at campaign rallies, as well as individuals committing arson
or sending threatening packages targeting political party offices.” Those
threats, the FBI document continues, “likely will increase as the election
approaches, despite the current focus of many [domestic violent extremists] on
the COVID-19 pandemic and civil unrest.” This uptick in threats is coming from
some of the same groups that showed up at protests in recent months looking for
opportunities to become violent, according to Nate Snyder, a former Obama
counterterrorism official who reviewed the FBI bulletin.”

 

Al Jazeera: Coup Makers Launch New Round Of Transition Talks With Mali Actors
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“Mali's military rulers have launched a three-day “national consultation” with
political parties, unions and members of civil society groups, facing questions
at home and pressure from abroad over their plans for returning the country to
civilian rule. About 500 people were expected to attend Thursday's forum taking
place at a conference centre in the capital, Bamako. The talks mark the second
round of discussions between the officers who last month overthrew President
Ibrahim Boubacar Keita and civilian representatives, many of whom had
campaigned fiercely for him to step down during weeks of protests against the
country's economic woes and spiralling security crisis. At stake is how the
military government intends to make good on its promise, made just hours after
the August 18 coup, to restore civilian governance and stage elections within a
“reasonable” timeframe. Approximately 100 supporters of the M5-RFP, the
anti-Keita alliance which led the protests against him, clashed with police at
the entrance to the conference centre, delaying the start of Thursday's talks.
Early jubilation among many Malians over Keita's exit has been superseded by
questions and also divisions about the speed of the handover and the military's
role in the transition period.”

 

United States

 

The Washington Post: This 9/11 Anniversary Arrives With The End Of The War On
Al-Qaeda Well In Sight
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“Remnants of the al-Qaeda terrorist organization that launched the 9/11 terror
attacks 19 years ago remain active throughout the world. But it is now possible
to see the contours of how the war against al-Qaeda ends. The United States had
three aims in this war: strengthen the country’s border defenses, pursue our
enemies and facilitate our allies’ ability to lead the counterterrorism fight.
We have succeeded in making it extremely difficult for terrorists to enter the
United States to conduct cataclysmic attacks, and we have bolstered our allies’
capabilities. As for pursuing our enemies, the campaign to defeat al-Qaeda
began immediately after 9/11, when committed Americans and like-minded partners
sallied forth to destroy the terrorists’ havens in Afghanistan and to wreck
their command-and-control capabilities. Al-Qaeda can still direct others to
commit acts of violence, as seen by the heinous killing of three Americans in
Florida at Naval Air Station Pensacola last year, but it is no longer capable
of conducting large-scale attacks. Although I am now the director of the
National Counterterrorism Center and a member of the intelligence community, my
roots are as a soldier. My active service began on Dec. 5, 2001, with
deployments in Afghanistan and Iraq.”

 

Houston Chronicle: Teen Accused In Zoom Bomb Threat At UH Once Radicalized In
Support Of ISIS, Sister Says
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“A Richmond teen charged with making a bomb threat during a Zoom lecture for
the University of Houston was released on bond at a very different Zoom
gathering before a federal magistrate Thursday. Seated in a courtroom in an
olive green jail uniform, a face mask and handcuffs, Ibraheem Ahmed Al Bayati
told FBI officials he was joking when he “Zoom bombed” a UH geology class last
week. Al Bayati is not enrolled at UH, but is rather an honors student at
Houston Community College who lives with his parents and works full time at
Amazon, his lawyer said. Al Bayati, 19, is accused of making a threat involving
explosives and making a threat through interstate commerce. U.S. Magistrate
Judge Sam Sheldon said the conduct he’d been charged with was “salacious,” but
the evidence thus far did not indicate Al Bayati was a threat or a flight risk.
His $200,000 unsecured bond allows him to continue school and work until his
hearing. The judge, lawyers and an FBI agent made their appearances remotely
through the Zoom app. But four of Al Bayati’s childhood friends showed up in
person to support him; the judge told them to sit several rows behind him in
the empty courtroom.”

 

Sheboygan Press: Sheboygan Man Charged With Terrorist Threat For Facebook Post
On Rioting, Looting After Shooting
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“A 22-year-old Sheboygan man was charged with a felony for Facebook posts
about looting and rioting after the July 2 shooting in which a Sheboygan police
officer shot and killed Kevan Ruffin Jr. Shawn D. King was charged last week
with making terrorist threats and disorderly conduct, a misdemeanor. A warrant
was issued Sept. 3 for King. According to court documents: Several citizens
reported King's posts to Sheboygan County Crime Stoppers and the Sheboygan
Police Department. The first post the morning of July 2 said “WE NOT WAITING
FOR NOTHING OR NOBODY IF Sheboygan DONT GO UP IN FLAMES TONIGHT IT WOULD BE
ONLY BY GODS GRACE!! WE PROTESTING WE RIOTING AND MIGHT EVEN LOOT SO GET READY
YOU RACIST MFS CUZ WE COMING TO MAKE SOME NOISE FOR A WHILE.” A second post
shortly after the first referenced a story from the Sheboygan Beacon about a
man arrested for threats and possessing a firearm, noting that the man was
still alive after resisting arrest and making threats with a gun. In a third
post, made in the afternoon that day, King said he never said he was going to
destroy anything or hurt anyone and was sorry if his posts alarmed people.”

 

Afghanistan

 

NBC News: Afghan Government To Start Talks With Taliban, Raising Hopes For
Peace After Decades Of War
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“A start date for talks between the Taliban and an Afghan delegation that
includes members of the government will begin Saturday, in a diplomatic
breakthrough that could bring the country a step closer to peace after four
decades of war. Taliban spokesman Dr. Muhammad Naeem said in a statement that
the group “would like to declare its readiness to partake in the inauguration
ceremony of Intra-Afghan negotiations” between Sept. 12 and Sept. 22. He added
that the talks are to be held in Qatar where the Taliban maintain a political
office. The announcement comes on the eve of the anniversary of the 9/11
attacks on the U.S. that precipitated the invasion that toppled the Taliban
almost 19 years ago. As the government of Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, the
Taliban had sheltered Osama bin Laden, the Al Qaeda leader and the architect of
those attacks, before U.S. led coalition forces overthrew them. Senior members
of the current Afghan government will also attend the negotiations in Doha at
the behest of President Ashraf Ghani, the government said in a statement.
Welcoming the talks, President Donald Trump told a news conference Thursday,
that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo would attend the negotiations.”

 

Reuters: Prisoners Sought By Taliban On Flight To Doha, Peace Talks This
Weekend
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“Six prisoners sought by the Taliban left Kabul on a flight to Doha on
Thursday evening, two government sources told Reuters, as the insurgents
confirmed they would start long-awaited peace talks on Saturday. The prisoners,
who are accused of insider attacks on Afghan forces and whose release was
objected to by some Western powers, are to be kept under supervision in Qatar’s
capital where United States-brokered peace talks will also initially take
place. “The six will remain in Qatar until the end of November and could be
transferred back to Kabul,” one of the sources told Reuters. Taliban political
office spokesman Muhammad Naeem said in a statement the group would take part
in talks starting on Saturday, beginning with an inauguration ceremony. The
Afghan government negotiating team was scheduled to fly to Doha on Friday for
peace talks, according to a Presidential Palace statement. Three government and
one diplomatic source confirmed talks were expected to begin this weekend after
months of delays. U.S. President Donald Trump in a news conference announced
that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was heading to Doha later on Thursday for
the start of the talks. Pompeo in a statement said the talks presented a
historical opportunity that must not be squandered.”

 

Africa

 

Bloomberg: Ethiopian Opposition Leader Charged With Terrorism, Lawyer Says
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“Ethiopian authorities charged an opposition party leader and seven other
people with terrorism following violent protests that erupted in the capital
earlier this year after the killing of a musician. Eskinder Nega, the leader of
the Balderas for Genuine Democracy party, was accused of inciting clashes and
seeking to overthrow the government through violent means, according to his
lawyer, Henok Aklilu. Four other members of Balderas are among those charged,
he said. “I believe this is politically motivated,” Henok said by phone
Thursday. The charges were reported earlier by the state-affiliated Fana
Broadcasting Corp. Authorities arrested more than 9,000 people during the
protests in Addis Ababa, which were sparked by the assassination of Haacaalu
Hundeessa on June 29. The singer-songwriter was a popular voice during protests
by the Oromo, Ethiopia’s biggest ethnic group, for reforms in the ruling
Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front that led to the appointment
of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed in 2018. Eskinder was sentenced to 18 years in
prison on terrorism charges under former Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, but was
released after seven years when Abiy came to power.”

 

Reuters: Suspected Islamists Kill At Least 53 In Eastern Congo
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“Suspected Islamist militants killed at least 53 villagers in eastern
Democratic Republic of Congo’s Ituri province this week, a local official said
on Thursday. The authorities blamed the attacks on Tuesday and Wednesday on the
Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a Ugandan armed group active in eastern Congo
since the 1990s. The militia has killed more than 1,000 civilians since the
start of 2019, according to U.N. figures, despite repeated military campaigns
aimed at destroying it. On Tuesday night into Wednesday, ADF fighters attacked
the villages of Tsabi and Tondoli, around 120 km (75 miles) south of the city
of Bunia, officials said. Etienne Babawela, a local village chief, said 53
bodies had been discovered so far. “We don’t know how many deaths there will be
tomorrow,” he said. “It’s as if they had lots of time on Tuesday and Wednesday
while they were killing people.” The United Nations says violence attributed to
the ADF has soared since the start of the year, following the launch of a
large-scale army campaign. In response, the ADF abandoned its bases, split into
smaller, more mobile groups, and took revenge on civilians. Several attacks
attributed to the ADF have also been claimed by Islamic State, although
researchers and analysts say there is a lack of hard evidence linking the two
groups.”

 

Europe

 

RFI: Norway Arrests Terrorist Suspect Linked To 1982 Paris Attack On Jewish
Restaurant
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“Norwegian anti-terror police on Wednesday arrested a suspect linked to a 1982
attack in a Jewish neighbourhood in Paris that left six people dead and 22
injured, police said. “The PST (anti-terror police) arrested a man in the city
of Skien on a European arrest warrant issued by the French authorities,”
spokeswoman Annett Aamodt told AFP. “A European arrest warrant has been issued
by the French authorities, it will be carefully examined to see if the
conditions are met,” she added. The man is suspected of being part of a group
of Palestinians throwing grenades burst into the Jo Goldenberg deli on Aug. 9,
1982, and sprayed machine-gun fire. Six people, including two Americans, were
killed, and 22 injured in the attack. Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet said it was
the second time that France had requested the man arrested. French authorities
announced nearly 33 years after the attack that international arrest warrants
had been issued for the suspects, now in their late 50s and early 60s, who are
believed to have been members of the Palestinian Abu Nidal Organisation.
Souhaur Mouhamad Hassan Khalil Al-Abbassi was arrested in Jordan in 2015. He is
one of three suspects in the attack sought by French authorities.”

 

Technology

 

The National: Internet Watchdog Warns On Live Broadcast Of Terror Attacks
Online
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“Behind the outsized online presence of the global social media giants sits a
counter-terrorism agency that is forging a fightback against the spread of
extremism. Eighteen months after the attack on mosques in Christchurch, New
Zealand, was broadcast live online by the gunman, few doubt the challenge a
similar episode would pose for the major social media companies. For Nicholas
Rasmussen, executive director of the Global Internet Forum to Counter
Terrorism, the shock waves from Christchurch still haunt those who police
online content. “Christchurch could certainly happen today but I think what
could happen today would be you would get a co-ordinated, cohesive response
that would narrow the window, not maybe to zero or five seconds, but would
narrow the amount of time that awful content would be available to a global
audience on mainstream platforms,” he told The National. The GIFCT was set up
in 2017 in response to pressure on Facebook, Microsoft, YouTube and Twitter to
staunch the spread of extremism online. As the former British prime minister
Theresa May noted at the UN General Assembly meeting in September that year,
the average lifetime of ISIS propaganda online at the time was 36 hours.”

 

Engadget: Twitter Bans Far-Right Extremist Group The Oath Keepers
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“Twitter has banned the accounts of far-right extremist group the Oath Keepers
and its founder, Stewart Rhodes. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center,
the group is one of the US's largest anti-government movements. It claims to
have tens of thousands of members, many of whom identify as former law
enforcement and military. The group recently tweeted there would be "open
warfare against the Marxist insurrectionists (its shorthand for Black Lives
Matter activists) by election night." A spokesperson for Twitter told Engadget
it banned accounts associated with the Oath Keepers for violating its policies
on violent extremist groups. "There is no place on Twitter for terrorist
organizations or violent extremist groups and individuals who affiliate with
and promote their illicit activities," the company says on the policy page. "We
examine a group's activities both on and off Twitter to determine whether they
engage in and/or promote violence against civilians to advance a political,
religious and/or social cause." In 2015, some of the group's members, armed
with assault rifles and other weapons, were present at the Ferguson protests
that occurred on the anniversary of Michael Brown’s death.”

 



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