President Trump ordered the Pentagon to pull nearly all U.S. troops out of
Somalia, where for 13 years they have been fighting a low-intensity battle

 

 


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Eye on Extremism


December 7, 2020

The Wall Street Journal: U.S. Will Move Nearly All Troops Out Of Somalia,
Officials Say
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“President Trump ordered the Pentagon to pull nearly all U.S. troops out of
Somalia, where for 13 years they have been fighting a low-intensity battle
against the local al Qaeda affiliate, al-Shabaab, U.S. officials said. The
roughly 700 troops stationed in Somalia would move to bases in Kenya and
Djibouti and enter Somalia to conduct shorter counterterrorism missions against
al-Shabaab, as well as a smaller force of Islamic State militants. The U.S.
troops are expected to leave the country by early next year, the officials
said. The move, supported by the new acting defense secretary, Chris Miller,
effectively reverses the course set by his predecessor, Mark Esper. Mr. Esper
favored drawing down U.S. forces operating in the volatile Sahel region of West
Africa while maintaining the American presence in Somalia, according to a
senior U.S. official. The Pentagon, in a statement sent to lawmakers Friday,
said that despite the withdrawal, U.S. aims in Somalia hadn’t changed. “We will
continue to degrade violent extremist organizations that could threaten our
homeland while ensuring we maintain our strategic advantage in great power
competition,” the statement said.”

 

The Australian: French Ban On Homeschooling Targets Islamist Extremism
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“Homeschooling will be banned for all children in France from the age of three
as President Emmanuel Macron presses ahead with plans to clamp down on radical
Islam. Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin, a hardline conservative who Mr Macron
appointed in July to head his security push, said the aim was to save “these
children who are outside the scope of the republic”. He was referring to the
several thousand children, and ­especially girls, who are educated at home by
fundamentalist families and disappear off the radar of the education system.
About 50,000 children receive home education in France out of 12 million
pupils. A draft law to curb the spread of a radical “separatist” culture in
France’s big Muslim population will receive cabinet endorsement this week.
However, the homeschooling ban may be struck out of the law as unconstitutional
when it is examined by the state Constitutional Council, the government has
been warned. All children in France will have to attend recognised schools once
they turn three and will be recorded with individual identification numbers in
the education system.”

 

Syria

 

Voice Of America: Turkish-Backed Rebels Intensify Attacks On Syrian Town  
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“A town in northern Syria has increasingly been under attack from rebel groups
backed by Turkey amid fears of a new Turkish offensive into the region.  On
Sunday, Syrian rebel fighters supported by the Turkish military carried out
artillery attacks on the town of Ain Issa and several nearby villages, local
news media reported.  Ain Issa is currently controlled by the Kurdish-led
Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a major U.S. partner in the fight against the
Islamic State (IS) terror group. The town is located on the strategic M4
Highway that connects northeast Syria to the western part of the war-torn
country. ”In the past two weeks, these attacks on Ain Issa have increased
significantly,” said Hosheng Hesen, a reporter with the Syria-based North Press
Agency. “In addition to the town, a camp for internally displaced people has
also been targeted several times by the armed groups,” he told VOA. According
to North Press Agency, the ongoing shelling has left at least nine civilians
wounded, including two children. Turkey views the SDF as an extension of the
Turkey-based Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), an outlawed group designated as a
terrorist organization by Ankara and Washington.”

 

Iraq

 

Reuters: Islamic State Shadow Follows Families As Iraq Closes Camps
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“Tuqqa Abdullah and her Iraqi family have wandered from one displaced people’s
camp to the next in the past three years, buying time and hoping they will one
day be able to go home. Just 14 when her father took the family to the then
Islamic State (IS) stronghold of Mosul, she has inherited a legacy that might
take generations to overcome. In the meantime, her options are running out.
When Iraqi forces captured Mosul in the dying days of the three-year-old IS
caliphate in 2017, Abdullah’s father and older sons were killed. The surviving
family members were among many thousands of relatives of suspected IS members
moved into temporary camps. Last month, Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi
launched the closure of the remaining camps, arguing that the families belong
at home. But many of their occupants remain barred from returning by their
local communities, who associate them with the group that imposed its brutal
rule over large swathes of northern Iraq. When the al-Jadaa 1 camp where
Abdullah and her family were living shut down, they did not head back to their
village near the northern town of Al-Qayyarah but went instead to al-Jadaa 5.
“We have nowhere to go if this camp closes,” said Abdullah, who shares a tent
with her mother, grandmother and younger siblings.”

 

Afghanistan

 

Agence France-Presse: Taliban Peace Will Help In Fighting IS: Afghan Official
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“A successful peace process with the Taliban will allow the government to
focus its resources on countering the Islamic State group and its attacks on
soft targets, Afghanistan's national security adviser said Saturday.
Afghanistan is grappling with a surge in violence that has worsened despite
landmark peace talks with the Taliban which began in September in Qatar. The
Islamic State jihadist group has claimed a series of assaults on vulnerable
targets, including a November attack on Kabul university which saw gunmen
detonate grenades and spray automatic fire across the campus. Hamdullah Mohib,
Afghanistan's national security adviser, said that although IS had been
dislodged from the territory it controlled and its funding sources disrupted,
the group maintained a “network of terror”. “Of course those attacks by
themselves are quite damaging, they bring a lot of fear to our people, and we
are working very hard to prevent them from attacking our cities,” he told AFP.
“We do face a lot of threats... so our resources are stretched,” he said on the
sidelines of a security conference in Bahrain's capital. “One of the reasons
we're focused on this peace process with the Taliban is that if we were to
achieve peace with the Taliban, our security forces will be able to divert
their capabilities onto terrorist groups like Daesh (IS) and then we can
contain them much easier.”

 

Reuters: Pompeo Says Violence Levels In Afghanistan 'Unacceptably High'
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“Violence in Afghanistan is “unacceptably high” as delayed peace negotiations
get underway, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Friday, adding that
Washington has asked the warring parties to “stand back and indeed stand down.”
Pompeo’s comments, made in a virtual address to the IISS Manama Dialogue, an
annual security conference, came two days after Kabul-backed and Taliban
negotiators reached a deal in Doha to proceed with talks on a political
settlement to decades of strife. The negotiations were to have begun on March
10 under an U.S.-Taliban accord for a U.S. troop withdrawal. But they were
delayed by disputes mainly over prisoner releases and the rules and procedure
for the talks amid surging violence. Pompeo noted that he met with the
negotiating teams during a Nov. 21 visit to Doha and he said he told both sides
that the strife must be reduced. “I made clear to them that the violence levels
can’t continue while these negotiations go on and it won’t work,” Pompeo said.
“We’ve asked all of them to stand back and indeed stand down in that respect,”
he said, adding that he hoped that the sides can begin to address some of the
“front end” issues, including a nationwide ceasefire.”

 

Yemen

 

Associated Press: Officials Say Gunmen Kill Secular Thinker In Southern Yemen
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“A Yemeni university professor and secular thinker was killed on Saturday in a
drive-by shooting in southern Yemen, local officials said. Khalid al-Hameidi
was a known critic of Islamic extremists, at a time when dissent has become
dangerous amid Yemen’s yearslong civil war. No group immediately claimed
responsibility for the shooting. The officials said that the gunmen are
believed to have been either members of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula,
which the U.S. considers the world’s most dangerous offshoot of the terror
network, or an affiliate of the Islamic State group. The two militant groups
regularly strike security and military targets in drive-by shootings, suicide
bombings and other attacks. They also target those who speak out against the
militants or their ideology. The officials said two gunmen on a motorcycle shot
al-Hameidi in the city of Dhale, where he was dean of the university’s
education faculty. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they
were not authorized to brief the media. Known for his secular thinking,
al-Hameidi was a harsh critic of religious extremism, and encouraged his
students to organize and take part in mixed-gender cultural and artistic
activities in Dhale University.”

 

Agence France-Presse: Eight People Killed In Shelling In Yemen’s Hodeidah
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“At least eight people were killed in the shelling of an industrial compound
in Yemen’s strategic port of Hodeidah, the government said Friday, pointing the
finger at the Iran-backed Houthis. There has been an uptick in fighting in and
around the lifeline port of the western city, where a fragile UN-brokered truce
has largely averted major battles between the government-backed by a Saudi-led
military coalition - and the Houthi insurgents. Yemeni Information Minister
Moammar Al-Eryani condemned the Houthis’ “ugly terrorist attack” on the Thabit
Brothers industrial compound on Thursday, according to the official Saba news
agency. He said that eight workers were killed and 13 others were injured,
while medical sources told AFP there were at least 10 deaths. The United
Nations Mission to support the Hodeida Agreement (UNMHA) also condemned the
incident. “The killing of civilians must stop,” it said Thursday, urging all
parties to maintain the ceasefire. “In addition to being a working factory
servicing the population and providing employment, the site of the industrial
complex is being considered as one of the possible locations of an UNMHA
office,” it said. The United Nations said that a total of 74 civilians were
killed or wounded in Hodeida province in October as hostilities escalated.”

 

Saudi Arabia

 

Asharq Al-Awsat: Saudi Arabia Sentences To Death, Prison Members Of Terrorist
Cell
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“A Saudi court issued on Thursday death and prison sentences against 12
persons accused of forming an armed cell to illegally enter Yemen. One of the
members was accused of killing two security officers at a border checkpoint.
The terrorist crime dates back to Nov. 5, 2012, when a border guard patrol in
the Sharurah sector in Najran (southern Saudi Arabia) was ambushed by a number
of persons armed with automatic rifles. The attack left two security officers
dead, but the rest of the patrol was able to chase and arrest the aggressors as
they were trying to cross the Saudi border into Yemeni territory. A statement
said that a preliminary verification of the identities of the attackers and
their criminal records revealed that the arrested Saudis were previously
detained for their involvement in crimes but later released. The statement
added that they were attempting to join terrorist organizations in Yemen. The
court sentenced the first defendant to death, while the remaining members of
the cell were handed prison sentences for periods ranging between 8 and 25
years. Charges against those included forming a terrorist cell to illegally
enter Yemen, joining terrorist organizations to participate in fighting outside
the Kingdom, possessing and using arms and ammunition to disrupt internal
security, and committing terrorism financing as well as other crimes.”

 

Libya

 

Libya Herald: Libya And UK Discuss Training, Combatting Terrorism And
Organized Crime
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“In a meeting between Fathi Bashagha, Interior Minister of Libya’s
internationally recognized government in Tripoli, and Britain’s ambassador to
Libya, Nicolas Hopton, joint security cooperation was discussed. During the
meeting held on Thursday 3 December, prospects for joint cooperation between
Libya and Britain were discussed, especially in the security field, and British
support for the Ministry of the Interior was discussed through training the
ministry’s security cadres in several security areas, the most important of
which was combating terrorism and organized crime, and benefiting from British
expertise in the field of security work, in addition to a number of topics of
common interest. The security situation in Libya was reviewed and the efforts
made by the Ministry of the Interior to extend security despite the difficult
conditions the country is going through were also discussed.”

 

Africa

 

Agence France-Presse: Morocco Arrests Three From IS-Linked Cell: Police
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“Moroccan police said Friday they have arrested three men in the northern city
of Tetouan suspected of “terrorist plots” and links to the Islamic State group.
The three had recorded a “video in which they pledge allegiance to the supposed
emir of (IS)… and specify the main objectives of their terrorist plans,” the
Central Bureau of Judicial Investigations said. The suspects had already
conducted “several exploratory visits to identify the targets” they intended to
attack with explosives or through methods similar to “Daesh,” the statement
said, using the Arabic acronym for IS. Among the items seized during the
operation were chemicals used to make explosive devices, an IS banner, and
several firearms, it added. The suspects were aged 21 to 38, and one had
“family ties with a fighter in the ranks of IS” in the Iraq-Syria arena, the
statement said. Morocco regularly announces that it has dismantled radicalized
cells, and according to an official report, it made 79 arrests in 2019 related
to “terrorism.”

 

United Kingdom

 

BBC News: Lincoln Man Ben John In Court Over Terrorism Offences
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“An alleged far-right extremist has appeared in court accused of possessing
documents on combat, homemade weapons and explosives. Ben John, 20, appeared at
the Old Bailey charged with seven counts of having a record likely to be useful
to a terrorist on or before 7 January. Mr John, of Addison Drive, Lincoln,
spoke only to confirm his name and was granted conditional bail. He is next due
to appear at Nottingham Crown Court on 12 March. A preliminary trial date has
been set for 2 August.”

 

France

 

New Delhi Times: Islamic Terror Groups Praise Recent Terror Attacks On France
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“On October 29, 2020, three people were killed in a stabbing attack at
Notre-Dame de Nice, a Roman Catholic basilica in Nice, France. The suspect,
identified as Brahim Aouissaoui, a 21-year-old Tunisian, was shot by the
police. Aouissaoui who had a copy of the Quran and three knives with him,
shouted “Allahu Akbar” (God is Greatest) when approached by police who shot and
seriously wounded him, France’s anti-terror prosecutor Jean-Francois Ricard
told a press conference. Nice Mayor Christian Estrosi characterized the attack
in his city as a terrorist incident. He said it was again the victim of what he
called “Islamo-fascism.” He said the suspect, taken to a hospital after being
wounded during a police arrest, did not stop saying “Allahu Akbar” during his
detention … Islamic terror groups have praised the spate of terror attacks in
France. The ISIS praised the Nice attacks on RocketChat. According to the
terrorism monitoring website, Counter Extremism Project (CEP), the ISIS
supporters on RocketChat praised the attack and shared photos of Aouissaoui and
a video allegedly from the aftermath of the assault showing emergency personnel
recovering a body. The ISIS published a full-page article in Al Naba featuring
an image of Nice attack and giving threatening calls to France.”

 

Southeast Asia

 

Asia Times: IS-Linked Militants Attack Town In Philippines
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“Islamic State-inspired militants in the Philippines attacked a town in
Maguindanao province on Thursday night, terrorizing residents and bringing back
memories of the Marawi siege three years ago on the southern island of
Mindanao. Under the cover of darkness, reports said about 50 heavily armed
members of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Forces (BIFF) occupied the center of
Datu Piang town, formerly called Dulawan, once the seat of power and commerce
for Muslims in that part of the country in the early 1900s. “Dulawan, Datu
Piang is now like Marawi. ISIS-inspired BIFF attacked the town center,” Datu
Zamzamin Ampatuan, a senior executive at the Philippines’ Department of
Agriculture, posted on social media at 10:34pm on Thursday. An army company
stationed in the municipality and the town’s small police force repelled the
attack until back-up forces arrived, prompting the militants to withdraw an
hour later. In 2008, tens of thousands of people sought shelter at the town
center of Datu Piang after fighting broke out between government forces and the
Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) after the signing of the Memorandum of
Agreement on Ancestral Domain between the two parties, which the Supreme Court
ruled as unconstitutional.”

 

The Tribune: Sri Lankan Government To Expedite Easter Sunday Bombings Probe:
Minister
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“Sri Lankan government will expedite the ongoing probe of Easter Sunday
suicide bombings that killed 258 people, including 11 Indians, last year, a
senior Cabinet minister said on Saturday. Nine suicide bombers, belonging to
local Islamist extremist group National Thawheed Jamaat (NTJ) linked to ISIS,
carried out a series of blasts that tore through three churches and as many
luxury hotels in Sri Lanka, killing 258 people and injuring over 500 on April
21, 2019. “Sri Lankan government will expedite the ongoing probe of Easter
Sunday suicide bombing. I will meet the Attorney General on Monday to see how
we could proceed,” Sarath Weerasekera, the minister of public security, told
Parliament. He was reacting to an Opposition lawmaker charging that the current
government appeared not interested now to carry on with the probe. Niroshan
Perera, the Opposition member told parliament, that the head of the local
Catholic Church Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith had just a few days ago had expressed
doubt if the investigations were leading nowhere. Ranjith said if the current
government showed no genuine interest in the investigations to see its
conclusion the Catholic minority would lose confidence in the government.”



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