A second batch of jihadists has been freed in Mali, sources said Tuesday,
boosting speculation that a French charity worker and Malian politician held

 

 


<[link removed]>
<[link removed]>
Eye on Extremism


October 7, 2020

 

Agence France-Presse: Mali Frees More Jihadists, Boosting Hostage Release
Scenario
<[link removed]>

 

“A second batch of jihadists has been freed in Mali, sources said Tuesday,
boosting speculation that a French charity worker and Malian politician held by
the insurgents may be freed in a swap. About 30 “jihadist prisoners were
released” late Monday and early Tuesday “and were flown north,” a Mali security
source said. “It's to do with the release of the hostage Soumaila Cisse and the
Frenchwoman, Sophie Petronin,” the source said, speaking on condition of
anonymity. More than 100 suspected or convicted rebels were released at the
weekend, an official in charge of the negotiations said on Monday. They were
released in the central region of Niono and the northern region of Tessalit
after arriving by plane. Cisse, a 70-year-old former opposition leader and
three-time presidential candidate, was abducted on March 25 while campaigning
in his home region of Niafounke ahead of legislative elections. Petronin, a
French charity worker who is now 75, was abducted by gunmen on December 24,
2016, in the northern city of Gao. She is the last French national held hostage
in the world. Her son, Sebastien Chadaud, who lives in Switzerland, flew to
Paris on Tuesday “and should be in (the Malian capital) Bamako in the early
afternoon,” Petronin's nephew, Lionel Granouillac, told AFP.”

 

The National: Fears Terrorists Will Exploit Europe’s Migrant Routes In New
ISIS Recruitment Drive
<[link removed]>

 

“Migrant routes across Europe used by ISIS terrorists who launched attacks on
Paris could again be used by extremists, experts warn. The migrant crisis was
exploited by ISIS terrorists five years ago, as they sought to pass from Syria
through Europe under the radar and pick up asylum seekers to fight for the
Caliphate cause. It is now feared these well-trodden paths will again be used
in recruitment drives for the terrorist group … Hans-Jakob Schindler, director
of the Counter Extremism Project think tank, said there could also be a major
security risk with the movement of Syrians from Al Hol. Mr Schindler said any
radicals who are tempted to flee the camp could join the majority of Syrian
migrants and head to Europe. “There are a significant amount of Syrians in Al
Hol who did not de-radicalise," he said. "If anything they re-radicalised and
will come out with a new furore in their ideological thinking." Mr Schindler
said these people were “extremely dangerous” and "pose a major threat to
Europe".

 

United States

 

ABC News: Nation’s Deadliest Domestic Terrorist Inspiring New Generation Of
Hate-Filled ‘Monsters,’ FBI Records Show
<[link removed]>

 

“A week before 36-year-old Timothy Wilson decided to blow up a Kansas
City-area hospital that was already reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic, he
considered attacking a slew of other targets instead, including several local
mosques, a synagogue and an elementary school filled with Black children. But,
according to FBI records, before the avowed white supremacist from Raymore,
Missouri, picked his final target in March, Wilson texted an associate with a
particular question: “How did McVeigh do it?” More than 25 years ago, Timothy
McVeigh killed 168 people and injured nearly 700 others when he bombed the
federal building in Oklahoma City, making him the most ruthless domestic
terrorist in U.S. history. Fortunately this time, Wilson's associate was
actually an undercover FBI agent, and Wilson was stopped before he could carry
out his bloody assault. In the past three years, the FBI has arrested a few
hundred Americans suspected of ties to domestic terrorism or violent white
supremacy. And, as the nation confronts a surge in racially motivated violence,
the FBI uncovered references to McVeigh in several of those investigations,
according to an ABC News review of court records and government documents.”

 

Syria

 

Al Jazeera: Truck Bomb In Syria’s Al-Bab Kills At Least 18
<[link removed]>

 

“At least 18 people have been killed in a truck bomb explosion in the
Turkish-controlled town of Al-Bab in northwest Syria, a war monitor, activists
and medics said. The explosion on Tuesday near a bus station also wounded at
least 75 people, some of them seriously, the United Kingdom-based Syrian
Observatory for Human Rights said. Ibrahim al-Haj, a spokesman for the Syrian
Civil Defence, a search-and-rescue group that operates in rebel-held parts of
Syria also known as the White Helmets, said 82 people were wounded as a result
of the blast. Videos and images circulated by activists on social media showed
large plumes of smoke rising from the blast site, along with several fires and
damaged buildings. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the car
bombing, but there has been a string of attacks in Al-Bab since its capture by
Turkish troops from the Islamic State group in 2017. “We condemn in the
strongest terms these ongoing indiscriminate attacks on civilians,” senior UN
humanitarian official Mark Cutts wrote on Twitter after the latest bombing. The
town, 40 kilometres (25 miles) northeast of Syria’s second city Aleppo, was one
of the western-most strongholds of the armed group’s self-styled territorial
“caliphate.”

 

Afghanistan

 

Reuters: Exclusive: Taliban, Afghan Negotiators Set Ground Rules To Safeguard
Peace Talks - Sources
<[link removed]>

 

“Taliban and Afghan government-backed negotiators have agreed on a broad code
of conduct to advance the intra-Afghan peace talks in Qatar, even as key
differences between the two warring sides remain, three official sources told
Reuters on Tuesday. Efforts to resolve disagreements over Islamic jurisprudence
and whether a U.S.-Taliban accord reached in February on a U.S. troop
withdrawal would serve as the basis of the peace talks will continue on the
sidelines of the main negotiations, two sources said. The progress was achieved
with the help of U.S. officials, as the two sides drew up 19 ground rules that
their negotiators should observe during talks, the sources said. “Firming up
code of conduct was extremely crucial as it proves that both sides are willing
to continue talks even as we see that violence has not reduced on the ground,”
said one senior Western diplomat on conditions of anonymity. Nader Nadery, a
senior government negotiator, told Reuters that issues still need to be ironed
out. “The discussion over the rules and procedures is not yet completed and
there are issues that need to be further finalised and therefore more work
needs to be done,” said Nadery.”

 

Agence France-Presse: Afghan President Urges Taliban To 'Have Courage' And
Silence Guns
<[link removed]>

 

“Afghan President Ashraf Ghani called on the Taliban to “have courage and
declare a national ceasefire” on Tuesday as he visited Doha where peace talks
between government and Taliban negotiators have stalled. At the end of a
two-day trip, his first to Doha since the talks began, Ghani gave a lecture
where he said Afghanistan's long conflict had to be resolved through
negotiation, “not under the barrel of the gun”. “Nobody is going to wipe you
out,” he said in front of a socially distanced crowd of diplomats and
academics, three weeks after the launch of peace talks between the Afghan
government and the Taliban. Talks between the two sides, hosted by the Gulf
state and aimed at ending Afghanistan's 19-year war, have slowed over
disagreements on how to frame a code of conduct that will guide the broader
talks. Headline issues, including a ceasefire or the type of governance that
will shape Afghanistan's future, have yet to be discussed. Meanwhile violence
continues to rage in Afghanistan, with a suicide attack targeting a provincial
governor killing at least eight people on Monday. Earlier Ghani met with
Qatar's emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, with Doha reaffirming its
commitment to facilitate the peace process.”

 

Bloomberg: Afghan Leader Wants Taliban To Help Fight Against Islamic State
<[link removed]>

 

“Afghan President Ashraf Ghani wants Taliban fighters to integrate into the
country’s armed forces and join efforts to eliminate Islamic State militants,
the first clear indication of the government’s vision for its defense and
security apparatus if peace talks in Qatar progress. “The reason we want peace
with Taliban” is because once the militants are reintegrated into Afghan
society “we will be able to isolate these much more larger networks” of Islamic
State and Al-Qaeda, Ghani said at the Doha-based think tank Center for Conflict
and Humanitarian Studies. During a two-day state visit to Qatar that ended
Tuesday, Ghani met with local leaders and his own government’s negotiators in
order to push peace efforts forward. U.S. special envoy on Afghan
reconciliation, Zalmay Khalilzad, is also in the Persian Gulf country to
support the process. Despite a month of talks Afghan government representatives
and the Taliban are yet to agree on a code of conduct or procedural rules
intended to guide the formal talks ahead.”

 

Lebanon

 

The National: Hezbollah Is Losing Its Ability To Intimidate Anyone
<[link removed]>

 

“Last week, Lebanon’s Speaker of Parliament, Nabih Berri, announced that an
agreement had been reached on a framework for negotiations with Israel to
delineate the two nations' maritime boundaries. The agreement, mediated by the
US, could allow them to resolve their dispute over offshore gas fields in the
Mediterranean. Mr Berri is a close ally of the militant political party
Hezbollah, and the fact that he approved of the framework suggested the party
had given him the go-ahead to do so. But it didn’t make the decision any less
remarkable. By agreeing to indirect negotiations, Hezbollah implicitly
acknowledged that a compromise could be reached when it had argued that
Lebanon’s rights to its offshore gas were inviolable. That prior insistence
meant, in principle, that there was nothing over which to compromise. Stark
reality, however, has trumped ideology. Lebanon is going through a terrible
economic crisis, exacerbated by the resistance of the country’s politicians and
parties to introducing reforms that would unlock financial aid from the
International Monetary Fund. Such reforms would threaten their networks of
corruption and patronage. That is why the prospect of offshore gas reserves
represents a valuable lifeline for them, especially when Hezbollah’s and Mr
Berri’s supporters are increasingly unhappy with Lebanon's economic situation.”

 

Middle East

 

The Washington Post: When Extremist Soccer ‘Ultras’ Aligned With Israel’s
Right-Wing Government, Mayhem Followed
<[link removed]>

 

“This summer in Jerusalem, small, spontaneous protests against Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu grew into weekly Saturday night gatherings of
thousands. They were decentralized and largely leaderless, with seas of
handmade signs, cartoonish effigies and calls for Netanyahu’s resignation over
his indictments on corruption charges and his Likud party’s fumbling response
to the novel coronavirus pandemic. When the Jerusalem police cracked down, the
protests only accelerated. Eventually, Netanyahu’s backers craved their own
show of force. They found it in a group of soccer fans. That group, La Familia,
is composed of infamously racist “ultras” who support the team Beitar
Jerusalem. On their face, ultras are highly organized fans; at games, they lead
raucous chants, unfurl massive banners and set off flares. In practice, they
can operate as members of a street gang united by criminality, ideology or a
little bit of both. Beitar is the unofficial team of Israel’s political right.
It is the only club in the Israeli Premier League to never have had an Arab
player on its roster, and it is Netanyahu’s favorite team. So as the summer’s
protests swept Jerusalem, Likud activist Amnon Ben Ami put the call out for the
ultras on his popular Facebook page: “La Familia, you are the medicine against
those anarchists.”

 

Egypt

 

Al Monitor: Are Sinai-Based Terrorists Shifting To Cairo?
<[link removed]>

 

“Egyptian authorities continue to crack down on terrorist elements in the
Sinai Peninsula, but more recently these operations seem to have moved out of
Sinai and closer to the capital city of Cairo. On Sept. 28, Egypt’s security
forces killed two suspected militants in Qalyubia governorate, in the Greater
Cairo area. The Egyptian Ministry of Interior said in a statement that a
shootout erupted when police raided a hideout in al-Qalg used by suspects
planning terrorist attacks. The statement said Hossam Abd Rabbo, 47, and Ahmed
al-Sayyid al Biyoumi Ibrahim, 37, were killed and found in possession of a
machine gun, a pistol and various types of ammunition of different calibers.
According to the statement, the suspects belonged to an extremist and terrorist
cell that had been targeted in April before carrying out a terrorist attack
ahead of the Coptic holidays. The ministry had said April 14 that Muhammad
al-Hofi, a counterterrorism officer at the ministry, was killed during clashes
with terrorists in Cairo's Amiriyah district. Seven terrorist operatives were
also killed. The Egyptian armed forces announced Aug. 30 that seven officers
and soldiers were killed and wounded during raids conducted at terrorist
groups’ hideouts in the northern Sinai Peninsula, which indicates that the
confrontation has moved to the capital and nearby governorates, according to
observers.”

 

Nigeria

 

Agence France-Presse: Nigerian Displaced Face Jihadist Attacks After Returning
Home
<[link removed]>

 

“Authorities in volatile northeastern Nigeria have been encouraging thousands
of people displaced by jihadist violence to return home, even as bloody attacks
persist. On September 27, hundreds of people came back to Baga, a fishing town
on the shores of Lake Chad in Borno state, six years after it was seized by
Boko Haram. Their return came shortly after the convoy of Governor Babagana
Umara Zulum was ambushed by the IS-linked Islamic State West Africa Province
(ISWAP) while he was making an assessment of the area. Thirty security
personnel and civilians were killed. Jihadists have seized swathes of territory
in Borno, Boko Haram's birthplace, forcing some two million to flee their
homes. Most of the displaced have moved into squalid camps in the regional
capital, Maiduguri, relying on food handouts from international charities. Like
many officials before him, Zulum has insisted that the displaced “must return”
to rebuild their homes and live a “dignified” life. Since 2018, people have
returned to five major towns where they typically live behind a defensive line
of trenches to fend off jihadists.”

 

Africa

 

Asharq Al-Awsat: Security Forces Bust Terrorist Cell Planning Attacks In
Morocco
<[link removed]>

 

“Security agencies in Morocco busted on Monday an ISIS-affiliated terrorist
cell in the northern city of Tangier. After receiving information about
terrorist activity, security forces raided four positions in the city,
arresting the primary suspect and three members of the cell. They confiscated a
number of weapons and electronic equipment. Investigations with the suspects
revealed that they sought to join ISIS training camps in the Sahel region, but
failed, prompting them to turn to plotting dangerous terrorist attacks in
Morocco. Investigators also discovered a recording of one of the members
pledging his allegiance to the current alleged leader of ISIS. The Central
Bureau of Judicial Investigation said the arrest underscores that terrorism is
still a threat in the kingdom, warning that extremists were still plotting
operations in the country. Investigations will continue with the detainees.”

 

Germany

 

The New York Times: Far-Right Extremism Taints German Security Services In
Hundreds Of Cases
<[link removed]>

 

“Germany’s security services recorded more than 1,400 cases of suspected
far-right extremism among soldiers, police officers and intelligence agents in
the three years ending in March, according to a government report released
Tuesday. The report, compiled by the domestic intelligence service, is a first
attempt to document the extent of far-right infiltration of the security
services. It comes as the number of cases of extremists found in police forces
and the military has multiplied. Dozens of police officers have been suspended
for joining far-right chat groups and sharing neo-Nazi propaganda. In June, the
defense minister disbanded a whole company of Germany’s special forces after
explosives, a machine gun and SS memorabilia were found on the property of a
sergeant major. Horst Seehofer, the German interior minister who presented the
new report flanked by intelligence and police chiefs, said Tuesday that there
should be “no tolerance” for extremists and that every case was “shameful.” But
Mr. Seehofer insisted that there was no “structural problem,” and said the vast
majority of people in the security services were loyal to the German
Constitution.”

 



Click here to unsubscribe.
<[link removed]>