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Eye on Extremism
May 6, 2021
The Defense Post: 35 Killed In ISWAP Jihadist Attacks In Nigeria’s Borno State: Sources
“Jihadists have killed 35 people, including five troops and 15 militiamen, in two attacks in Nigeria’s troubled northern Borno state, sources told AFP Tuesday. Islamic State-aligned militants have intensified attacks on army camps in recent weeks as part of a decade-long insurgency that has killed 36,000 people and forced more than two million to flee their homes. Fighters from Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) came in several trucks fitted with machine guns and stormed Ajiri town late on Monday. They attacked a military base, leading to intense fighting in which five soldiers and 15 anti-jihadist militia were killed, two military sources said. ISWAP had raided the same base on Sunday, killing the base commander along with six civilians and carting away weapons, military sources said. Troops returned to the base on Sunday. “We lost five troops and 15 Civilian JTF (militia) in the fight,” a military officer told AFP. The source said 10 civilians were killed in the crossfire. “The terrorists came in large numbers around 8:45 pm (1945 GMT) and engaged troops in a fight which lasted hours,” added the officer. Residents fled to nearby Mafa to escape the fighting. “The casualty toll stands at 30,” said a second military source.”
Arab News: Iran Diplomat’s 20-Year Sentence For France Bomb Plot Confirmed
“An Iranian diplomat convicted of masterminding a thwarted bomb attack against an exiled Iranian opposition group in France has decided against appealing the verdict, his lawyer and a Belgian court said Wednesday. Assadollah Assadi was sentenced to 20 years in prison earlier this year for attempted terrorist murder and participation in the activities of a terrorist group after the Antwerp court rejected his claim of diplomatic immunity. Assadi previously worked at the Iranian Embassy in Vienna, Austria. Three other defendants whom the court ruled belonged to the same spy network also were found guilty and received lengthy prison sentences. Assadi's lawyer, Dimitri de Beco, told The Associated Press that he informed the appeals court during a preliminary hearing Wednesday that his client did not intend to challenge his conviction. Assadi's sentence is now final, while proceedings continue for the three other defendants who did appeal, Press Magistrate Els De Brauwer said. Assadi. who refused to attend his trial and contested all the charges, does not recognize the standing of the appeals court because he believes he should have been granted diplomatic immunity, lawyer de Beco said.”
United States
“A Minnesota man is the second member a far-right extremist group to plead guilty to federal terrorism charges in the wake an investigation that began during the days of unrest following George Floyd’s death. Michael Solomon, 31, of New Brighton, pleaded guilty Tuesday to conspiracy to provide material support and weapons to a terrorist group, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said. Solomon faces up to 20 years in prison. His sentencing date has yet to be announced. Authorities say that the FBI initiated an investigation into Solomon and 22-year-old Benjamin Ryan Teeter, of North Carolina, after they appeared at the George Floyd protests in Minneapolis carrying guns and discussing violence against police and other public officials. Both Solomon and Teeter are members of the Boogaloo Bois, an anti-government extremist group. Some members of the group, which started as an online meme, use the term Boogaloo in reference for a second civil war, which they hope to help start. Members of the group frequently show up at protests carrying rifles and wearing Hawaiian shirts. Investigators say that Solomon and Teeter were in Minneapolis last May as unrest gripped the city. Not long after, the two men met with an informant whom they believed to be a member of Hamas, a Palestinian Islamic party that the U.S. designates as a terrorist organization.”
Iraq
Reuters: Militants Attack Oil Wells In Iraq's North, Production Unaffected - Sources
“Militants using bombs attacked two oil wells at an oilfield close to the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk on Wednesday, killing at least one policeman and setting off fires, the oil ministry said. Industry sources said the attack had not affected production. A statement from the oil ministry did not comment on production. The statement said one of the fires, at Well 177 at the Bai Hassan oilfield, had been put out and emergency teams were working to halt a second at Well 183. The militants attacked a nearby security post during the assault, killing one policeman and wounding three others, security officials said. One of the security officials said the attack on the post was meant to distract police and allow other militants to plant the bombs. The last attack on Bai Hassan oilfield, which was claimed by Islamic State, was on April 17, when militants used explosives to attack two oil wells without causing significant damage.”
Reuters: Kurdish Leader Says He Fears Islamic State Comeback In Iraq
“A senior Kurdish official has said there are growing indications that Islamic State is trying to make a comeback after an uptick in attacks in Iraq. At least 19 members of Iraqi and Iraqi Kurdish security forces have been killed in recent days across the country, according to military statements and security officials, prompting calls from Iraq’s president to remain vigilant to the threat of a resurgent Islamic State. The attacks come after Baghdad’s deadliest suicide bombing in three years, claimed in January by the ultra hardline Sunni Islamist group, and amid fears that a reduction of U.S.-led forces could upset stability. “It seems like (Islamic State) have re-organized,” Lahur Talabany, co-president of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party and a former intelligence chief told Reuters in an interview. Originally an offshoot of al Qaeda, Islamic State took large swathes of Iraq and Syria from 2014, imposing a reign of terror with public beheadings and attacks by supporters abroad. Islamic State was declared militarily defeated in 2017 but has since waged a steady insurgency across parts of northern Iraq and a porous border with neigbouring Syria. Recent months have witnessed more than 25 deadly attacks that Iraqi officials attribute to Islamic State militants.”
Afghanistan
Associated Press: Amid US Pullout, Taliban Issue Threat To Afghan Journalists
“The Taliban on Wednesday issued a threat to Afghan journalists they accuse of siding with Afghanistan’s intelligence agency in Kabul, a warning that came amid a U.S. troop pullout and rising fears of more violence in the war-wrecked country. In a statement, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid warned those Afghan journalists who give “one-sided news in support of Afghanistan’s intelligence” service to stop or “face the consequences.” The U.S. and Britain responded, with their embassies in Kabul quickly condemning the Taliban threat just two days after World Press Freedom Day. “We strongly support Afghanistan’s independent media,” tweeted Ross Wilson, the U.S. chargé d’affaires in Kabul. “We condemn in the strongest possible terms the on-going violence and threats against the media, and the Taliban’s attempts to silence journalists.” Afghanistan is considered one of the most dangerous countries in the world to be a journalist. Since 2006, as many as 76 journalists have been killed in Afghanistan, according to UNESCO. Last year alone at least 15 were killed, and earlier this year, three women employed by media outlets were killed in eastern Afghanistan. The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for some of the killings, including that of the three women. The majority of the targeted journalists have been women.”
Voice Of America: US Airstrikes Target Taliban As Fighting Intensifies
“The United States is making good on its pledge to support Afghanistan's security forces with military force even as U.S. and coalition troops continue to leave the country. A U.S. official confirmed to VOA late Wednesday that U.S. forces were actively carrying out airstrikes against Taliban fighters in southern Afghanistan's Helmand province, where fierce fighting has raged for days. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, declined to share additional details, citing the need for operational security. The Pentagon also declined to offer specifics, though a spokesman said that “there's still quite a bit of robust capability” at the disposal of U.S. commanders on the ground. “To the degree we can, as we transition out, we're going to continue to try to support Afghan national security forces in the field,” Pentagon press secretary John Kirby told reporters. The U.S. airstrikes come as Afghan security forces have come under intense pressure from the Taliban, especially around Lashkar Gah in Helmand province, where aid groups have reported a significant increase in fighting in just the past few days. One group, Doctors Without Borders, said on social media that civilians fleeing the fighting describe bullets pouring into their homes, forcing them to flee, sometimes without shoes or clothing.”
France 24: Taliban Captures District In Northern Afghanistan; Attacks Increasing As US Pulls Out
“Taliban insurgents captured a district in northern Afghanistan, forcing government troops to retreat to the provincial capital amid a recent surge in violence, officials said on Wednesday. Fighting has escalated sharply in recent weeks, with Afghan officials saying the Taliban have stepped up their attacks since Washington announced plans last month to pull out all U.S. troops by Sept. 11. The militants seized the district of Barka in the northern province of Baghlan after hours of fighting with Afghan forces, who retreated to the main city, said Jawed Basharat, a spokesman for the provincial police. The Taliban suffered heavy losses in the fighting, he added, but a senior security official who sought anonymity said at least 10 security forces were killed and 16 others captured by the Taliban. The district fell a day after Afghan security forces fought back a major Taliban offensive in the southern province of Helmand. The Afghan government says it has recorded more than 100 Taliban attacks on security forces and other government installations in 26 of the 34 provinces over the last 24 hours. The Taliban overran a small outpost on a highway in Baghlan, killing nine Afghan soldiers and wounding several, regional officials said on Tuesday.”
Pakistan
Reuters: Pakistan Says 4 Soldiers Killed In Ambush By Afghan Militants
“Four Pakistani soldiers were killed and six wounded in an ambush by militants from Afghanistan along the border between the two countrieson Wednesday, Pakistan's military said. The soldiers were working on fencing along the border in the Zhob district, an area of Pakistan's Balochistan province, the military said in a statement. Zhob sits across from Afghanistan's eastern Paktika province. Late on Wednesday the Tehrik-e-Taliban, a banned militant outfit operating along the border, claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement shared with Reuters. Security officials in Paktika province said they had no knowledge of the incident. Pakistan's Foreign Office said it had asked Afghanistan to take action against the militants. A statement said the Afghan embassy in Islamabad had been asked “to convey Pakistan’s concerns to the relevant Afghan authorities to undertake effective measures against organised groups of terrorists operating from the Afghan soil”. Pakistan says it is constructing a fence along its 2,500 km (1,500 mile) frontier with Afghanistan to secure the area, despite Kabul’s protests that the barrier would divide families and friends along the Pashtun tribal belt straddling the colonial-era Durand Line drawn up by the British in 1893.”
Middle East
The Jerusalem Post: IDF Carries Out Attacks On Hezbollah Outposts - Syrian Reports
“The IDF carried out attacks against Hezbollah outposts near Quneitra on the Syrian border Wednesday night, according to Syrian reports cited by Israeli media. This is the second consecutive night that Syrian media reported an attack by the IDF in Syria. On Tuesday, an alleged Israeli airstrike targeted a site near Latakia and Tartus along Syria’s Mediterranean coast, according to the Syrian state news agency SANA. A civilian was killed and six were injured, including a child, according to Syrian media. The last alleged Israeli airstrikes in Syria were reported late last month after a surface-to-air missile was fired from Syria and exploded near the nuclear reactor in Dimona in southern Israel. The missile was reportedly fired in response to an alleged Israeli strike in Syria.”
Mali
“A French journalist who was abducted by Islamist militants in Mali last month has appeared in a video pleading for his release. Olivier Dubois was kidnapped in the northeastern city of Gao on April 8 by an al-Qaeda-linked affiliate known as Jamaa Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), or the Support Group for Islam and Muslims, according to the video and Paris-based press freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders. “I’m Olivier Dubois. I’m French. I’m a journalist. I was kidnapped in Gao on April 8 by the JNIM,” he said in the 21-second clip released Wednesday. The footage could not be immediately verified, and it was unclear when it was recorded. In it, he sits cross-legged on the floor of what appears to be a canvas tent while birds can be heard chirping in the background. “I’m speaking to my family, my friends and the French authorities for them to do everything in their power to free me,” he said. The abduction of Dubois was not previously made public as authorities worked quietly to secure his release, Christophe Deloire, secretary general of Reporters Without Borders, said Wednesday on Twitter. Deloire said he was notified of Dubois’s disappearance two days after he did not return to his hotel in Gao after going out for lunch.”
Africa
Reuters: Gunmen Kill 15 Soldiers In Attack In Southwest Niger
“Unidentified gunmen killed 15 soldiers and wounded four more on Tuesday in an attack on an army post in southwest Niger, the ministry of defence said on Wednesday. The attack in north Tillabery region, which borders Mali and Burkina Faso, came two days after gunmen killed 16 soldiers in the nearby Tahoua region of the West African country. The soldiers were part of a special anti-jihadist force called Operation Almahaou, said Niger's defence minister in a statement. They were attacked on Tuesday afternoon by heavily armed men on motorcycles, whom he described as “terrorists”. Several of the assailants were also killed in combat, while others retreated toward the north and are being pursued, said the statement. The area is overrun by jihadist groups with links to al Qaeda and Islamic State, who have killed hundreds of soldiers and civilians since 2018 when they began broadening their reach beyond bases in Mali. The scale of the violence this year has called into question claims of progress in the fight against Islamist militants by governments in West Africa's Sahel region and former colonial power France, which has 5,000 troops there to support them.”
France 24: Six Western Hostages Now Held In Africa’s Troubled Sahel Region
“A French journalist kidnapped by an Al-Qaeda linked group brings to six the number of Western hostages known to be held in the troubled Sahel region on the southern fringes of the Sahara. Romanian mineworker Iulian Ghergut was grabbed by armed men in Burkina Faso on April 4, 2015. He had been working in a manganese mine near the border with Mali and Niger. His kidnapping was claimed by Al-Qaeda-linked Islamist group Al-Mourabitoun prominent in the Sahel. The 82-year-old Australian surgeon was kidnapped in Burkina Faso on January 15, 2016 with his wife Jocelyn by the jihadist group Ansar Dine. Jocelyn Elliott was freed a month later. On the third anniversary of her husband's captivity she sent a message to his captors asking for his release, which she repeated in May 2020. American aid worker Jeffery Woodke was kidnapped in the central Niger town of Abalak on October 14, 2016 where he had been working for an NGO. He is now believed to be in Mali. Niger's then-president Mahamadou Issoufou said in September 2019 that Woodke was alive and in good health. The Colombian nun was kidnapped on February 7, 2017 by armed men who had entered her congregation in the village of Karangasso, southern Mali.”
France
Associated Press: Italians Convicted Of Left-Wing Terrorism Face French Court
“After living in freedom for decades in France, nine Italians convicted of left-wing terrorism for attacks in the 1970s and 1980s appeared in a Paris court Wednesday for an extradition hearing. The hearing is a first step in what could be a two- or three-year process to determine whether to send them to Italy. But their arrest last week was seen as an important move toward resolving a long-festering political and judicial dispute between Rome and Paris. Seven were arrested at their homes in France on Wednesday, and two others surrendered to police the next day. They were questioned and then released under judicial supervision. Police are still seeking one other person. All 10 were convicted in Italy of crimes dating to the 1970s and 1980s, but had fled Italy and sought refuge abroad before they could be imprisoned to serve their sentences. The Paris court now must decide whether to approve the extradition of each person. “I feel pain, I am in shock. ... I am not able to answer your questions,” said one of the Italians, Marina Petrella, former member of the Red Brigades, which during the 1970s and 1980s carried out killings, kidnappings and “kneecappings,” in which targets were shot in the legs. Four other Italians who appeared in court Wednesday were also from the Red Brigades.”
Germany
Associated Press: Germany Bans Muslim Group Over Alleged Terror Donations
“The German government on Wednesday banned a Muslim organization that it accused of supporting “terrorism globally with its donations.” Police raided buildings associated with Ansaar International in 10 German states, the German Interior Ministry said in a statement. The ministry alleged the money the organization collected ostensibly went into welfare projects as a ruse to help finance groups such as the Syrian al-Qaida affiliate known as the Nusra Front, the Palestinian group Hamas and al-Shabab in Somalia. “The organization Ansaar International and its suborganizations were banned. The network finances terrorism globally with its donations,” an Interior Ministry spokesperson tweeted. More than 1,000 police officers raided buildings and office spaces across Germany and confiscated about 150,000 euros ($180,000). “When wanting to fight terrorism, one needs to dry out its money sources,” German Interior Ministry Horst Seehofer said. He alleged that Ansaar International “spreads a Salafist view of the world and is financing terror around the globe under the disguise of humanitarian help.” A man who answered a phone call to the organization’s headquarters in the western German city of Duesseldorf immediately hung up when The Associated Press called seeking comment.”
Europe
The National: Norway Convicts ISIS Woman As Terrorist Enabler In Legal First
“A Norwegian woman who lived in ISIS-controlled Syria as a housewife to three fighters was sentenced to jail despite not being involved in violence. The case made legal history in Norway because the woman was essentially convicted of being a housewife, the prosecution said. The Norwegian-Pakistani woman, who admitted to having “radical ideas”, enabled her three husbands to take part in fighting by staying at home with their children, the court said. As a housewife to three successive husbands she could not claim to be a passive bystander, Judge Ingmar Nilsen said. “By travelling to an area controlled by ISIS in Syria ... by moving in and living with her husbands, taking care of the children and various tasks at home, the defendant enabled her three husbands to actively participate in ISIS fighting,” the judge said. “She was a supporter who … looked after her three husbands at home and raised the new generation of ISIS recruits.” The trial was the first prosecution in Norway of someone who had returned after joining ISIS-controlled areas. “This is a special case. This is the first time that, to put it bluntly, someone has been charged for being a wife and mother,” prosecutor Geir Evanger said.”
European Eye On Radicalization: There Is No “Good” Violence In A Democracy
“Last summer, Right-wing mobs took to the streets of London to attack public property and symbols they associated with progressive politics. At the same time across the Atlantic, Right-wing protestors sealed off several blocks of a major city in the American South, declaring it sovereign territory. To the horror of the press, the city’s Republican Mayor recognised the “legitimate grievances” of the demonstrators. In response, the countering extremism field kicked into gear. New funding was announced, conferences, roundtables and counter-narrative campaigns ensued. Except, that’s not what happened. Of course we’ve had plenty of Right-wing political violence, but the protestors, activists and rioters described above were not Right-wing, instead falling on the Left of the political spectrum, broadly conceived. It was not Mandela attacked, but Churchill, the Cenotaph and Whitehall police officers. The autonomous zone carved out of a downtown was not a Right-wing militia in the American interior, nor a fawning Republican Mayor, but self-proclaimed anti-fascists, indulged by city authorities in the progressive, enlightened coastal tech hub of Seattle.”
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