U.S.-backed forces have intensified their campaign against the remnants of the
Islamic State (IS) terror group in eastern Syria. The Syrian Democratic

 

 


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Eye on Extremism


February 9, 2021

 

Voice Of America: US-Backed Forces Stepping Up Campaign Against IS In Eastern
Syria
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“U.S.-backed forces have intensified their campaign against the remnants of
the Islamic State (IS) terror group in eastern Syria. The Syrian Democratic
Forces (SDF), a military alliance that has been a major U.S. partner in the
fight against IS, said it has captured dozens of IS members in the eastern
Syrian province of Deir el-Zour. “Our forces have already arrested over 30
terrorists,” said Siyamend Ali, a press officer with the People’s Protection
Units (YPG), the main element within SDF. “This ongoing campaign is targeting
(IS) hideouts and underground tunnels that have been instrumental in their
recent insurgency,” he told VOA in a phone interview. The SDF said in a
statement last week that its latest campaign was in retaliation for the recent
killing of two female officials by IS, adding that the “large-scale operation”
targets the terror group “across the entire Deir el-Zour desert and along the
Syrian-Iraqi border.” Seda al-Faisal al-Hermas and Hind Latif al-Khidr, two
local leaders in eastern Syria, were reportedly kidnapped and killed by IS
militants in late January … In January, IS militants carried out at least 46
attacks in central Syria, killing at least 55 pro-Syrian government fighters
and 26 civilians, according to the Counter Extremism Project.”

 

Al Monitor: Nigeria Deepens Security Ties With Egypt To Battle Boko Haram
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“Egypt is concentrating on strengthening its economic and security influence
in Nigeria and consolidating relations with the ruling regime there. On Jan.
27, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi received a letter from his Nigerian
counterpart, Muhammadu Buhari, which included a formal request from Nigeria to
cooperate with Egypt in security fields, especially combating terrorism by
organizing training courses and exchanging technical expertise. Buhari’s
letter, delivered to Sisi by Nigerian Ambassador Joseph Kishi, dealt with ways
to enhance Nigerian-Egyptian cooperation in the fields of the economy and
trade, and how to benefit from Egypt's role in supporting Nigeria in
infrastructure projects, particularly roads and power generation. The Egyptian
interest in Nigeria has recently increased, stressed Egyptian Ambassador to
Nigeria Ihab Awad, during his meeting with Buhari Jan. 28. He said, “Ties with
Nigeria have grown stronger in recent years, in light of Egypt's keenness to do
so.” Samir Ghattas, head of the Middle East Forum for Strategic Studies, told
Al-Monitor that the Egyptian-Nigerian relations include several areas, most
notably the security field. “Egypt supports Nigeria against the extremist
organization Boko Haram.”

 

United States

 

The Hill: Overnight Defense: Pentagon Says Extremist Groups 'Very Aggressively
Recruit' Troops
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“As the Pentagon looks to root out extremists from its ranks, one of the
issues it faces is extremist groups actively recruiting service members. On
Monday, the Defense Department’s top spokesman said such groups “very
aggressively recruit” service members who are about to leave the ranks. “Some
of these groups are very organized, they very aggressively recruit soon-to-be
veterans,” press secretary John Kirby told reporters at the Pentagon. Why the
interest? Veterans are a major recruitment pool for far-right militia movements
due to their experience with weapons, organization and leadership skills.
Pentagon leaders have long struggled with rooting out such thinking in the
military and preventing service members from entering extremist groups, though
the issue came to the forefront after the Jan. 6 breach of the U.S. Capitol by
supporters loyal to former President Trump. Possible solutions: Defense
Secretary Lloyd Austin and military leaders are discussing potential new
training for troops before they enter the military, while they are actively in
the service and before they leave. “We certainly need to take a look at how
we’re educating potential recruits when they’re still civilians and before they
sign on the dotted line, clearly.”

 

NPR: State Department Condemns Group It Removed From Terrorist List
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“Two days after removing a terrorist designation for the Iran-backed Houthi
rebels, the Biden administration criticized the militant group for its
continued attacks in Saudi Arabia and in Yemen. A statement from the U.S. State
Department on Sunday called on the Houthis to “immediately cease attacks
impacting civilian areas inside Saudi Arabia and to halt any new military
offensives inside Yemen.” State Department spokesman Ned Price said the U.S.
remains “deeply troubled” by the group's actions and that President Biden has
endorsed a negotiated settlement to the war in Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Reuters
reports that the Saudi-led military coalition intercepted and destroyed four
armed drones heading to southern Saudi Arabia early Sunday. A spokesman for the
coalition said those drones were launched by Houthis. The Houthis captured
Yemen's capital, Sanaa, along with much of the country's northwestern
territory, a region bordering Saudi Arabia, in late 2014 and early 2015. The
group toppled the Saudi-backed government in power. The United Nations, which
has called Yemen the worst humanitarian crisis in the world, estimates that
more than 200,000 people have died from fighting and war-related problems such
as hunger.”

 

The National Interest: Why The Flames Of White Supremacy Are Still Raging
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"Riot, attempted coup, terrorist insurrection—whatever it was the scenes of
the Capitol building engulfed bya
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mob of people (each with varying degrees of attachment to reality) was
certainly traumatic, both for those inside the building and those watching this
act of desecration unfold. But the trauma and visceral shock of events like
these also tend to unleash what Atlantic journalist Graeme Wood dubbed the
“moronic inferno” of online commentary. Before that, British literary titan
Martin Amis pondered if the term “moronic inferno” might describe a future in
which America’s dream-like state transformed from metaphor into reality—the
only reality. Well, American unreality just erupted into the street with the
Capitol siege, as Viking helmets and beer bellies descended upon a sacred
symbol of American democracy to halt the stolen election of their paranoid
imaginations. The civilizational retreat into our living rooms to escape plague
and pestilence has degraded the faltering boundaries between digital,
imaginary, and the real world like never before, challenging all of us to
maintain perspective and a grip on baseline reality. No surprise then, that
some commentary in response to the disgraceful spectacle of unreality at the
Capitol has created an alternate reality of its own making. But like the
eruption of the paranoid and fantastical into the streets that occurred on Jan.
6, a moral panic, which was largely confined to the digital realm until now,
risks real-world policy consequences in response to the complex challenge of
the far-right."

 

Syria

 

Agence France-Presse: IS Ambush Kills 26 Pro-Regime Fighters In Syria
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“The Islamic State group Monday killed 26 pro-regime fighters in eastern
Syria, as alarm grew following a spate of murders including beheadings in a
camp housing families of the jihadists. Almost 10 years into Syria's civil war,
the jihadists have lost the last scrap of their so-called “caliphate” but
continue to use Syria's vast desert as a springboard for attacks. After the
battles against them, thousands of alleged jihadists and family members live in
jails or overcrowded camps in the country's Kurdish-run northeast. Early
Monday, an IS ambush in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor killed 26 pro-regime
fighters, including seven Syrian troops, the Syrian Observatory for Human
Rights. Eleven jihadists were also killed, it said. It was the latest in a long
string of attacks on pro-regime forces. Last week IS killed 19 in central
Syria, and in December nearly 40 Syrian troops died when IS ambushed a bus
carrying soldiers travelling home for the holidays. The desert in Deir Ezzor
province provides a “safe haven” for jihadists planning attacks on regime
forces and other rivals, the UN has said. Meanwhile, a Kurdish official said 14
killings, including three beheadings, had rocked the largest displacement camp
housing alleged IS relatives since the start of the year.”

 

Afghanistan

 

France 24: Afghanistan's Vice President Saleh: Taliban 'Have Not Honoured'
Deal With US
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“In an interview with FRANCE 24, Amrullah Saleh, the first vice president of
Afghanistan, said that the Taliban had breached their commitments under the
landmark deal agreed with the US last year. He also welcomed the decision of
the Biden administration to review US policy on Afghanistan with “wide eyes and
open ears”. Vice President Saleh pointed out that a recent
Congressionally-mandated report had advocated delaying the full withdrawal of
US troops after the May 1 deadline set under last year's US-Taliban deal. He
stressed that any further troop withdrawal should be based on conditions on the
ground. Saleh said that the Taliban had breached their commitments under the
deal, pointing to a spate of recent attacks and especially to intelligence
showing they had not severed their ties to al Qaeda. He said the Taliban have
not stopped fighting at all, adding that Taliban prisoners freed by the Afghan
government as part of the US-brokered deal had in fact resumed fighting instead
of going back to their homes. Despite his strong criticism of the Taliban,
Saleh said dialogue with them should still be the preferred option.”

 

Pakistan

 

Al Jazeera: Pakistan: UN Report ‘Vindicates’ Stance On Cross-Border ‘Terrorism’

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“Pakistan’s foreign ministry has hailed a counterterrorism report by the UN
Security Council’s sanctions monitoring team that identifies an increased
threat from fighters based in neighbouring Afghanistan. In a statement released
late on Sunday, Pakistan’s foreign ministry said the report “vindicates” its
stance that Afghan and US-led NATO forces need to do more to fight groups like
the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Jamaat-ur-Ahrar(JuA), and Hizb-ul-Ahrar
(HuA) that pose a regional threat from their bases in Afghanistan. Last year,
the TTP, JuA, HuA and others reunited under the banner of the TTP, also known
as the Pakistani Taliban, which Pakistani intelligence officials say is based
in eastern Afghanistan. “This [merger] increased the strength of TTP and
resulted in a sharp increase in attacks in the region,” said the UN monitoring
team’s report. The report said the strength of the unified group was estimated
at between 2,500 and 6,000 fighters, while one UN member state that contributed
to the report estimated that the TTP “was responsible for more than 100
cross-border attacks [into Pakistan] between July and October 2020”. The TTP
formed in 2007 as an umbrella organisation for a number of local militias
across Pakistan’s northwest that were calling for the imposition of a strict
form of Islamic law across the country.”

 

Lebanon

 

Associated Press: Wife: No Signs Of Torture On Body Of Slain Hezbollah Critic
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“An independent autopsy revealed no signs of torture on the body of a
well-known Lebanese publisher and vocal critic of the Shiite militant Hezbollah
group shot dead in his car last week, his wife said Monday. Lokman Slim, a
58-year-old political activist and commentator, was found dead with six bullets
in his body Thursday on a deserted rural road in the country's south. He was
visiting friends there and was due back in Beirut late Wednesday when his
family reported him missing. Slim's family has expressed skepticism that a
national investigation would lead to those who killed him, citing a history of
unresolved assassinations and political crimes in Lebanon. They hired a private
forensic pathologist to carry out their own examination of Slim's body. Monika
Borgmann, Slim's German wife who also has Lebanese citizenship, said a private
autopsy was necessary to get all the needed information. There was speculation
in Arab media that Slim may have been tortured before he was shot. The
circumstances of his killing remain unclear and Borgmann said a full autopsy
report wasn't yet ready. Borgmann has called for an international
investigation, saying she has suspicions but no proof that his killers were
members or supporters of Hezbollah.”

 

Nigeria

 

Sahara Reporters: Boko Haram Terrorists Kill Six Nigerian Soldiers
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“At least six Nigerian soldiers were killed in an ambush on their convoy
during the weekend by Boko Haram terrorists in Borno, military sources told
SaharaReporters on Monday. The soldiers were attacked along the Goniri-Gorigi
Road as they were returning from a clearance operation. “The terrorists fired a
rocket-propelled grenade on the convoy which hit one of the vehicles with about
8 soldiers in it, six of them died while two others were injured,” a source
said. The source added that several weapons and ammunition were stolen during
the attack.  Another source, a captain in the Nigerian army confirmed the
attack, calling it a huge setback for the military. Boko Haram and its
offshoot, Islamic State West Africa Province, have killed thousands and
displaced millions in North-Eastern Nigeria. Nigerian army has repeatedly
claimed that the insurgency had been largely defeated and frequently underplays
any losses. In the past months, soldiers have been targeted by the insurgents,
who lay ambush on their path. The Boko Haram insurgency has caused over 40,000
deaths and displaced millions of individuals mainly in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe
States. The terror group wants an Islamic caliphate in northern Nigeria.”

 

Institute For Security Studies: West Africa: Soldiers For Rent In The Boko
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“Following Boko Haram's brutal attack on dozens of farmers in Nigeria's Borno
State last November, the state governor called on federal authorities to enlist
mercenaries to counter the terror group's activities in the Lake Chad Basin.
This reflected popular wariness about the ability of countries in the to defeat
the insurgents alone. Using mercenaries against Boko Haram isn't a new idea in
the region, but it raises tricky questions. Cameroon's infamous Rapid
Intervention Battalion, trained by Israeli mercenaries under Eran Moas, has
been involved in fighting the extremists. It's uncertain whether Chad and Niger
have engaged the services of mercenaries but their citizens appear to be
working as guns for hire in other countries. In December 2014, Nigeria's
government recruited South African mercenaries to stop Boko Haram attacks on
its north-eastern cities before the 2015 elections. A report at the time by the
International Centre for Investigative Reporting (ICIR) mentions at least three
private military companies' involvement. These are Conella Services, Pilgrims
Africa, and Specialised Tasks, Training, Equipment and Protection International
(STTEP).”

 

United Kingdom

 

Reuters: UK Lowers Terrorism Threat Level To 'Substantial'
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“Britain’s terrorism threat level from international terrorism has been
lowered to ‘substantial’ from ‘severe’, the third highest tier which means an
attack is deemed to be likely as opposed to highly likely. The threat level is
set by the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre and the security services. It has
five levels moving from low to moderate, substantial, severe and critical. The
United Kingdom was moved on to a severe setting last November following attacks
in France and Austria.”

 

Sky News: Britain's Youngest Terrorist And Leader Of Neo-Nazi Cell Avoids
Custody With Rehabilitation Order
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“The country's youngest convicted terrorist, who led a neo-Nazi cell from his
grandmother's house, has avoided custody. He was 13 when he obtained
instructions for explosives, and a year later had collected a haul of terror
material and was sharing far-right ideology in chatrooms. An Old Bailey judge
gave the teenager - now 16 - a two-year youth rehabilitation order, as he was
sentenced on Monday with his grandmother holding his hand. A picture has
emerged of him standing in front of a Nazi flag and giving a Nazi salute. The
defendant, from southeast Cornwall, had pleaded guilty to 10 counts of
possessing terrorist material and two of disseminating terror documents. Judge
Mark Dennis QC told the boy, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, that
he had entered an “online world of wicked prejudice”. He said a custodial
sentence would undo the work to rehabilitate him and noted his remorse, as well
as saying he was “susceptible to the influence of others”. However, he warned
that any reoffending would mean “ever-lengthening terms of incarceration”. His
grandmother was with him as he was sentenced by video-link from Bodmin
Magistrates' Court. The court previously heard that between October 2018 and
July 2019 the teenager had collected a large stash of far-right material.”

 

The Guardian: Manchester Police Warned In 2016 Over Terrorism Strategy, Arena
Inquiry Hears
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“Greater Manchester police were warned about shortcomings in their terrorism
response plans six months before the Manchester Arena bombing, the public
inquiry into the attack has been told. The inquiry heard on Monday how the
police inspectorate outlined a number of concerns it had identified, as part of
a national review, in a November 2016 “hot debrief” with GMP’s
counter-terrorism lead, Catherine Hankinson. Among the inspectorate’s
conclusions was the risk of a force duty officer becoming overwhelmed in the
event of a marauding terrorist firearms incident (MTFA). Inspectors found that
the majority of force duty officers “felt ill-equipped” to deal with a
terrorism incident and needed more training before enacting Operation Plato,
the police codename for a continuing marauding attack. The inquiry heard that
the inspectorate report quoted an unnamed force duty officer as saying: “I get
two days on how to command vehicle pursuit and approximately one to two hours
in MTFA.” The inquiry has previously heard that, on receiving reports of
gunshot injuries and an active gunman during the arena attack on 22 May 2017,
Insp Dale Sexton, the force duty officer at GMP HQ, declared Operation Plato,
believing an armed terrorist was on the loose.”

 

Southeast Asia

 

The Straits Times: Radicalised Malaysian Man Arrested Under ISA And Deported,
Wife Placed On Restriction Order
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“A 33-year-old radicalised Malaysian working as a cleaner here has been
arrested and deported to Malaysia for planning to travel to Syria with his
Singaporean wife to take up armed violence for terrorist group Islamic State in
Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The Internal Security Department (ISD) on Tuesday (Feb
9) said the man's 34-year-old wife, a religious teacher who was radicalised by
him and had wanted to go with him, has been placed on a Restriction Order for
two years. Her teaching accreditation has been suspended. The man, Mohd Firdaus
Kamal Intdzam, was arrested under the Internal Security Act (ISA) in July 2020.
The ISD said there was no indication he had made any specific plans to cause
violence in Singapore. Investigations revealed that Firdaus started being
radicalised in 2016, when he went online to deepen his religious knowledge and
was exposed to pro-ISIS content. “Through sustained exposure to pro-ISIS
materials, Firdaus was convinced by early 2018 that ISIS was fighting for
Islam, and that its use of violence to create an Islamic caliphate was
justified,” said ISD. It added that Firdaus had regarded a self-declared leader
of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, as the true Islamic ruler.”



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