Eye on Extremism

October 23, 2020

 

Reuters: US Sanctions Two Officials From Lebanon’s Hezbollah

 

“The United States has imposed sanctions on two officials from the Lebanese Shi'ite group Hezbollah, the US Treasury Department said, including one who served as a senior military commander in the south of the country. Nabil Qaouk, a member of the group's executive council who fought during Israel's 1982-2000 military occupation of south Lebanon, and Hassan al-Baghdadi were both designated "for being leaders or officials" of Hezbollah. The United States deems Hezbollah, the heavily armed, Iran-backed group which is also a powerful political presence in Lebanon, to be a terrorist group. It has sanctioned several Hezbollah members, including its leader and deputy leader. The US Treasury said Qaouk and Baghdadi were members of a Hezbollah council responsible for electing its highest decision-making body, the Shura Council, "which formulates policy and asserts control over all aspects of (Hezbollah's) activities, including its military activities. Qaouk had made speeches threatening war with Israel, denouncing the US presence in the Middle East and praising Hezbollah's guerrilla warfare, the Treasury Department said. Baghdadi has defended attacks on Americans, and praised Iran's Revolutionary Guards and fighters in Syria and Iraq for attacking US military bases, it said.”

 

Al Jazeera: France: Teacher’s Killer In ‘Contact’ With Fighter In Syria

 

“The investigation into the murder of a French teacher for showing cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in class turned to Syria on Thursday, where the killer was reportedly in contact with a Russian-speaking fighter there. Seven people, including two teenagers who helped the killer identify his victim, have been charged with being complicit in a “terrorist murder” after 18-year-old Chechen Abdullakh Anzorov beheaded Samuel Paty on the outskirts of Paris on Friday. Anti-terrorism investigators established that Anzorov, who moved to France with his family from the Russian republic as a child, had been in contact with a fighter in Syria, a source close to the case said. The identity of the Russian-speaking fighter was not yet known, the source added. France paid homage to Paty on Wednesday with President Emmanuel Macron saying the history and geography teacher had been slain by “cowards” for representing the secular, democratic values of the French Republic. “Islamists want to take our future,” Macron said. “They will never have it.” Le Parisien newspaper reported on Thursday that Anzorov’s suspected contact had been located through an IP address traced back to Idlib, a rebel holdout in northwestern Syria.”

 

United States

 

The Wall Street Journal: Far-Right Groups Cited In Domestic Terrorist Attacks

 

“White supremacists and other right-wing extremists accounted for two-thirds of domestic terrorist attacks and plots so far in 2020, but those by antifascist and other leftist groups are rising, according to a new report on U.S. political violence. The report found that domestic terrorism only accounted for five deaths between January and August. But it cites a worrisome trend in which armed extremists from far-right and far-left groups are confronting one another on the streets of U.S. cities at protests on racial and other social and political issues. “We are moving up the escalation ladder,” said Seth Jones, a counterterrorism expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, which published the paper titled “The War Comes Home.” CSIS describes itself as a bipartisan, nonprofit policy research organization. The report comes amid rising concern in Congress about domestic terrorism, and two weeks after authorities announced stopping an alleged plot involving private militia members to kidnap Michigan’s governor. The report’s authors also foresee “various scenarios” for a rise in violence after the vote, and continuing into 2021, fed by political polarization, a down economy, the Covid-19 pandemic, and concerns about immigration.”

 

San Francisco Chronicle: Oakland Man Who Pleaded Guilty To Terror Charges Will Have Sentence Reduced

 

“A federal appeals court ordered a reduction Thursday in the 15-year, 8-month prison sentence of an Oakland man who talked online of planning to kill thousands of people in the Bay Area, saying the evidence failed to show Amer Alhaggagi was seriously planning or promoting terrorism. Alhaggagi, a Berkeley High graduate, pleaded guilty in July 2018 to attempting to provide material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization, the Islamic State, also known as ISIS. Two years earlier, when he was 21, he wrote in an online chatroom of killing 10,000 Bay Area residents by bombing gay nightclubs in San Francisco, setting the Berkeley hills on fire and handing out poisoned cocaine on Halloween. The FBI recorded his posting and had an undercover agent meet with Alhaggagi, who discussed bomb-making, offered to buy explosives and was taken to a locker where fake explosives were stored. He then cut off contact with the agent, saying later in court that he was put off by the sight of apparent explosives and had no intention of using them. Later, however, Alhaggagi opened social media and email accounts for purported ISIS members.”

 

Syria

 

Radio Free Europe: UN Extends Sanctions Against Former Tajik Commander Who Joined Islamic State

 

“The UN Security Council has extended sanctions against Colonel Gulmurod Halimov, a former commander of the Tajik Interior Ministry's Special Forces, known as OMON, who joined the Islamic State (IS) extremist group in Syria in May 2015 and who has been reported killed several times in recent years. Halimov’s name remained in the UN Security Council’s updated sanctions list that was made public on October 21. After Halimov announced that he had joined Islamic State via the Internet in May 2015, Tajikistan issued an international warrant for his arrest and the United States has offered $3 million for information on his whereabouts. There have been several unconfirmed reports from both northern Iraq and Syria since 2015 that Halimov was killed while fighting for IS militants. Tajik authorities have repeatedly rejected those reports, saying they think he is still alive.”

 

Afghanistan

 

The Wall Street Journal: Afghan Airstrike Targeting Taliban Kills 12 Children As Peace Talks Stall

 

“An Afghan airstrike killed 12 children in a religious school, local officials said Thursday, as government forces responded to a wave of Taliban attacks that have raised questions about Kabul’s ability to secure the country after a U.S. troop drawdown. The Afghan Ministry of Defense said all the victims of the strike were Taliban militants, but that it would still launch an investigation into the incident. The airstrike on Wednesday in the northern province of Takhar came in response to two ambushes by the Taliban in the same region a day earlier that killed at least 44 government security forces, according to a provincial security official. The Afghan air force mistook the religious school for a Taliban hideout, said Mohammad Azam Afzali, a member of the Takhar provincial council who is originally from Baharak district, where the strike took place. The 12 killed were all children, he said, in addition to 18 other injured civilians. The Taliban offensive in Takhar is the worst of a wave of insurgent attacks since the group began its first-ever direct talks with the Afghan government in Qatar’s capital last month—jeopardizing the U.S.-brokered peace process. The two sides have quickly found themselves at odds over procedural differences, including which religious school of thought should form the basis of negotiations.”

 

The New York Times: A Radical Cleric Ignites An Islamist Resistance In Afghanistan

 

“In one of the oldest districts of the ancient city of Herat, religious vigilantes loyal to a local cleric patrol the streets, routinely detaining and interrogating couples they suspect are unmarried. Then the vigilantes take the suspects to the cleric’s tribunals that enforce his interpretation of Shariah law, which forbids public contact between a single woman and an unrelated male. The penalty for violators: the man is whipped or clubbed, and the woman is returned to male relatives for likely punishment. The cleric, Mawlawi Mujib Rahman Ansari, has also posted billboards declaring that any man whose wife does not completely cover herself in public is a coward. And he has banned music and concerts, while also declaring that Covid-19 was sent by God to punish non-Muslims. Mawlawi Ansari, 36, a burly, bearded cleric, has carved out his own fief in a conservative district of Herat, a western Afghanistan city renowned for art and culture. Residents say his enforcers have seized control of the district from the police, who rarely interfere with their vigorous enforcement of strict Shariah law. Though he says he is not affiliated with the Taliban, Mawlawi Ansari’s edicts are an echo of that movement’s harsh Islamic codes — and perhaps a portent of what could come as the insurgency negotiates a power-sharing deal with the government.”

 

The Washington Post: Our Secret Taliban Air Force

 

“Army Sgt. 1st Class Steve Frye was stuck on base last summer in Afghanistan, bored and fiddling around on a military network, when he came across live video footage of a battle in the Korengal Valley, where he had first seen combat 13 years earlier. It was infamous terrain, where at least 40 U.S. troops had died over the years, including some of Frye’s friends. Watching the Reaper drone footage closely, he saw that no American forces were involved in the fighting, and none from the Afghan government. Instead, the Taliban and the Islamic State were duking it out. Frye looked for confirmation online. Sure enough, America’s old enemy and its newer one were posting photos and video to propaganda channels as they tussled for control of the Korengal and its lucrative timber business. Wesley Morgan @wesleysmorgan has reported on the U.S. military and its wars since 2007. He is the author of the forthcoming book “The Hardest Place: The American Military Adrift in Afghanistan’s Pech Valley.” What Frye didn’t know was that U.S. Special Operations forces were preparing to intervene in the fighting in Konar province in eastern Afghanistan — not by attacking both sides, but by using strikes from drones and other aircraft to help the Taliban.”

 

Middle East

 

Foreign Policy: Foreign Fighters’ Life After The Caliphate

 

“Since the fall of the Islamic State in 2014, countries from the United States to Indonesia have had to consider what to do with citizens who left home to join the militant group, particularly whether to repatriate them. Those conversations have recently taken on new urgency, especially after the beheading by a Chechen Islamist (whose affiliations and history are as yet unconfirmed) of a schoolteacher in France—an attack that has been followed by more than 40 raids on the homes of alleged radicals. Such gruesome incidents aside, as countries consider repatriating the fighters who once joined the Islamic State, it is worth considering some of the lives of those who already turned against the group and made it out of the Middle East. Many of those who fled in 2015, when it became clear that the caliphate was not going to survive much longer, now have regular lives with partners, kids, and pets. “The only reminder of my life in Syria is a scar on the leg and a cat called Assad,” said one former member in an August interview. (The name Assad, in Arabic, means “lion.”) And like everyone else, especially now during the pandemic, their main concern is supporting themselves and their families. Some former Islamic State members who escaped from Syria with significant amounts of money now live a comfortable life.”

 

Libya

 

Asharq Al-Awsat: Tunisia, France Discuss Libya Crisis, Repatriation Of Extremists

 

“A French delegation led by Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian and Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin arrived Wednesday in Tunisia on a visit set to end on Thursday. Tunisian diplomats revealed that the visit will focus on key issues including Tunisia's readiness to host Libya's political dialogue in a few days and the repatriation of Tunisians accused of extremism in France. The French govt. welcomed Tunisia’s hosting of the first face-to-face meetings of the UN-led Libyan Political Dialogue Forum at the beginning of November, and expressed its will to help guarantee the success of this landmark event. Earlier, both parties backed the international efforts in quest of a peaceful solution among rival Libyan parties. According to media reports, Darmanin will discuss with the Tunisian side the repatriation of several Tunisians who are accused of extremism and who are illegal residents in France. Following the murder of French middle-school instructor Samuel Paty last week for showing cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in class, the public called for sending extremists and terror suspects back to their home countries. The visit will also discuss the third meeting of the Tunisian-French Higher Cooperation Council scheduled next March, in addition to continuing coordination in international and regional issues.”

 

Mali

 

Reuters: Mali's Army Liberates Village Besieged By Jihadists - Army Statement

 

“Mali's military has regained control of a village in the centre of the country where more than 2,000 residents have been besieged by suspected Islamist militants for two weeks, it said in a statement on Thursday. The siege began when the militants kidnapped several people in Farabougou, most of whom are of the farming Bambara ethnic group. Malian troops had been unable to reach the village by land because heavy rains have made the roads impassable, a local resident said. But a mission aided by the air force on Thursday meant that soldiers were able to penetrate the remote area, the statement said.”

 

Africa

 

Bloomberg: Tanzania Confirms Terror Attack Near Its Southern Gas Fields

 

“About 300 suspected Islamist militants carried out an attack in Tanzania last week, the first such raid since Islamic State-linked fighters began an insurgency in Mozambique three years ago. The gunmen attacked Kitaya village in the gas-rich region of Mtwara and retreated to Mozambique, Inspector General of Police Simon Sirro told journalists Wednesday on Tanzania’s Indian Ocean island of Pemba, without giving more details. Kitaya is on the banks of the Ruvuma river that separates the two countries. Police have since arrested “both locals and foreigners in connection with the terrorist incident,” he said. Tanzania is working with regional neighbors to “flush out the terrorists,” he said, without naming the group behind the raid. Islamic State claimed the Oct. 14 attack, according to SITE Intel Group, which monitors jihadist activity. Militants based in Mozambique’s gas-rich northern Cabo Delgado province have killed more than 2,110 people since the insurgency begun and displaced 310,000 others, according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, which tracks violence. Some of the gunmen involved in last week’s attack were Tanzanians who authorities believe were behind a string of murders in the coastal town of Kibiti in 2017, Sirro said.”

 

France

 

Voice Of America: Macron Pays Homage To Slain Teacher While Vowing To Fight Islamist Extremism

 

“French President Emmanuel Macron paid a soaring tribute Wednesday to a middle school teacher brutally killed in an Islamic terrorist attack last week, while vowing an all-out fight against radical Islam he said threatened the nation. Seven people, including two teenagers, face possible prosecution. President Macron’s homage to slain history teacher Samuel Paty was broadcast live from the Sorbonne University in Paris — picked deliberately for its symbolism of learning and light. Macron called Paty the kind of teacher people never forget:  a man who was respectful of his students and had read the Muslim holy book, the Quran. Paty –who posthumously received France's highest Legion of Honor award – had become the face of France, the President said, of the nation’s determination to destroy terrorists and thwart Islamist extremism. Macron’s address was among a number of displays of anger and grief in France after Paty’s gruesome beheading last Friday as he returned home from the Paris-area school where he taught. French prosecutors have charged seven people with the killing.”

 

Germany

 

Reuters: Suspected Islamist Was Under Observation On Day Of Dresden Attack

 

“A Syrian suspected of killing a tourist in the German city of Dresden early this month had been classified as a radical Islamist and was under observation on the day of the attack, security officials said on Thursday. The 20-year-old man had been categorised in 2017 as likely to pose a threat to public safety, said Saxony state’s head of police, Petric Kleine. Some 600 suspected Islamists are in this category in Germany, according to authorities. The Syrian was released from prison, where he had served more than two years for recruiting members to a terrorist organisation, only days before the attack. In an assessment months before, authorities had said it was highly likely the man would commit more crimes once released, Kleine added. He was under observation on the day of the attack and the two preceding days, said the head of the Saxony branch of the domestic intelligence agency, Dirk-Martin Christian. He added that people just released from prison were not normally monitored 24 hours a day, but declined to give more details. Investigators accuse the Syrian of attacking two tourists, one aged 53 and the other aged 55, from the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia with a knife. Both were severely injured and the 55-year-old later died.”

 

Europe

 

Reuters: Moscow Terrorist Bomb Attack Thwarted, Attacker Held, Says FSB

 

“Russian security services thwarted a terrorist bomb attack in Moscow on Thursday and detained a man preparing to detonate a bomb at a government building, the Federal Security Service (FSB) said. The FSB described the man as a native of Central Asia and said he was working under instructions from an international terrorist group. Such incidents are rare in the capital, but an FSB employee was killed in central Moscow in December when a man opened fire at FSB headquarters. The FSB said it had found components for an improvised explosive device among the detainee’s belongings, together with instructions for making explosives and correspondence with fellow militants. “The offender planned to travel to a combat zone in the Middle East to participate in the activities of terrorist groups,” the FSB said in a statement on its website. It said investigations were being carried out and that a criminal case had been launched.”

 

Technology

 

Bloomberg Law: No Terrorist Enhancement For Opening Online Accounts For ISIS

 

“The terrorism enhancement for sentencing shouldn’t have been imposed against a defendant who ran afoul of the law by talking big in chatrooms used by ISIS, the Ninth Circuit said Thursday. Amer Alhaggagi pleaded guilty to providing material support to a foreign designated terrorist organization and other charges related to his activities in the chatrooms. But his expert testified at his sentencing hearing that the 21-year-old was immature, wasn’t radicalized, and bragged online about being a terrorist to impress the other people in the chatrooms. The district court nevertheless applied the terrorist enhancement to Alhaggagi’s sentence. The enhancement applies when...”

 

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