“The Taliban says it has captured most of the district of Burka in
north-eastern Afghanistan, after 200 government troops surrendered. Meanwhile,
the

 

 


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


May 7, 2021

 

Newsweek: Taliban Captures District In Afghanistan, Attacks City Amid U.S.
Withdrawal
<[link removed]>

 

“The Taliban says it has captured most of the district of Burka in
north-eastern Afghanistan, after 200 government troops surrendered. Meanwhile,
the Biden administration continues its withdrawal of troops from the central
Asian country. Baghlan is one of 34 provinces in Afghanistan. A large number of
armored government vehicles, weapons and ammunition were seized by the Taliban,
a spokesman for the group, Zabihullah Mujahid, said on Twitter. He added that
most areas in the Baghlan district had been “cleared of mercenaries”. The BBC
and local media outlets confirmed that other areas of central Baghlan had been
captured by the Taliban. The armed group captured the Burka district in
Baghlan, on Wednesday. Baghlan police spokesperson Ahmad Jaweed Basharat said
that the Burka district had been seized by the Taliban at 10.00 a.m. on May 4
following the withdrawal of government forces. Bisharat said after clashes
broke out, security forces retreated tactically from the Burka district center.
“I can confirm that the enemy has captured the Burka district as a result of an
encounter. Security and defense forces tactically, without suffering any
losses, withdrew and have plans to recapture it,” Basharat told Arab News.”

 

The National: UN: ISIS Used Chemical And Biological Weapons Against Iraqis
<[link removed]>

 

“ISIS used chemical weapons against Iraqis between 2014 and 2016, a report by
the UN investigation body for ISIS crimes said this week, urging authorities to
seek justice. The insurgents, which took over large areas of Iraq and Syria in
2014, declared a so-called caliphate and imposed a reign of terror over
northern Iraq that included public beheadings and the sexual enslavement of
Yazidi women. “A new investigation opened with respect to the development and
use of chemical and biological weapons by ISIS in Iraq has developed rapidly,”
said a report by the UN investigative body, known as Unitad. The agency was
created to bring ISIS suspects to justice. Weaponised vesicants, nerve agents
and toxic industrial compounds are suspected to have been used

“Through the collection of a diverse range of evidence, the team has confirmed
the repeated deployment of chemical weapons by ISIS against civilian
populations in Iraq between 2014 and 2016, as well as the testing of biological
agents on prisoners,” said the report. Under pressure from human rights lawyer
Amal Clooney and Yazidi survivors, the UN Security Council in 2017 created
Unitad to help Iraq collect and preserve evidence for future prosecution.”

 

Bloomberg: Ethiopia Declares Tigray, Oromia Groups Terrorist Organizations
<[link removed]>

 

“Ethiopian lawmakers declared two political groups as terrorist organizations,
as the government moves to quell instability in the run-up to elections next
month. The House of Peoples’ Representatives backed a government proposal to
outlaw the Oromo Liberation Army and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front in a
vote Thursday in the capital, Addis Ababa. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s office
at the weekend accused the OLA of carrying out a series of recent attacks
against civilians that left many people dead and displaced and put society “in
constant anticipation of danger and fear.” Federal troops have been battling
supporters of the dissident TPLF in the northern Tigray region since November.
The OLA, an separatist group that broke away from the Oromo Liberation Front
last year, vowed to step up attacks on Addis Ababa. “The OLA will engage in
total war to remove this illegitimate clique from power and to finally enforce
the constitutionally enshrined right to self-determination for the Oromo people
and other oppressed nations of Ethiopia,” OLA spokesman Odaa Tarbill said in an
emailed statement on Thursday. Billene Seyoum, a spokeswoman for Abiy, said she
wouldn’t comment about a statement from an entity deemed a terrorist
organization by the parliament.”

 

United States

 

Houston Chronicle: Appeals Court Yanks ISIS Terrorism Sentencing From Houston
Federal Judge
<[link removed]>

 

“A federal appeals panel Thursday handed down a rebuke to a lifetime judge in
Houston, ruling he’d erred in re-sentencing a Spring man who supported ISIS.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals opinion Thursday ordered the sentence for
Asher Abid Khan to be wiped clean and calls for his third sentencing for
assisting jihadists overseas be assigned to another trial judge because the
first two hearings showed he was not only “biased” but also “fixed and
inflexible” on considering the rationale for handing down an unusually short
sentence. The court also explicitly challenged the comportment of veteran U.S.
District Judge Lynn N. Hughes, who has often drawn attention for his
free-wheeling lectures to lawyers and other court participants. “We reverse the
defendant’s sentence as substantively unreasonable and remand for a second
resentencing,” said the ruling written by Judge E. Grady Jolly. “And because
the sentencing judge seems immovable from his views of the sentence he imposed,
and because the judge displayed bias against the government and its lawyers we
… reassign this case to a different judge..” The ruling comes after Justice
Department lawyers twice challenged Hughes’ sentence for Khan, 26, a recent
engineering graduate of University of Houston, who traveled to Syria to join
ISIS several years ago, before getting cold feet.”

 

Madison.com: Wisconsin Dells Area Man Arraigned On Terrorism Charge In Plot To
Kidnap Michigan Governor
<[link removed]>

 

“Wisconsin Dells area man was arraigned in Michigan on a charge of terrorism
after being extradited out of Wisconsin. Brian Higgins, 52, was charged in
Michigan in October with one charge of providing material support to a
terrorist act. He is accused of participating in a right-wing extremist militia
plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, specifically by providing use of
night-vision goggles and using a dash cam to surveil the governor’s vacation
home. Several other men have been arrested for alleged participation in plot
and are facing federal or state court actions. Higgins dropped his appeal over
being extradited to Michigan last month and was later sto a jail there. He
appeared virtually in court and received a $100,000 bond but only needs to
provide 10 percent, according to court records. He may not have contact with
the governor, her family, her staff or other government officials. He may not
have contact with any other defendants or militia members. Higgins cannot go
within 500 feet of the governor’s workplace of residences. He may not use or
possess any weapons. Higgins must surrender his passport and wear a GPS
tracking device. He will be able to leave Michigan, but not the country.”

 

The EurAsian Times: US Cyber Command Gives-Up On Terror Organizations Like
Islamic State & Shifts Focus On China
<[link removed]>

 

“The US Cyber Command will be diverting its counterterror resources used
against the Islamic State to the Indo-Pacific region, probably to thwart
Chinese cyber threats. According to the military portal C4ISRNET, the Joint
Task Force (JTF) of the Cyber Command was specifically created in 2016 to fight
the Islamic State online. However, in view of the rising cyber threats, which
US agencies have linked to China, the JTF would now focus on the Indo-Pacific
region. In a written statement submitted to the US Congress in March, General
Paul M. Nakasone, Commander of United States Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM), said:
“Counterterrorism operations in cyberspace are continuous, helping to protect
the force and prosecute targets in Afghanistan and other regions on behalf of
USCENTCOM [Central Command] and USSOCOM [Special Operations Command].” “We are
also shifting JTF-Ares’ focus (though not all of its missions) from
counterterrorism toward heightened support to great power competition,
particularly in USINDOPACOM’s [Indo-Pacific Command’s] area of responsibility.”
Although the primary objective of the JTF was to lead the joint cyber effort,
the US Cyber Command’s digital offensive against the militant group has
undergone various changes.”

 

Iraq

 

Associated Press: Iraq’s Prank TV Show Depicting IS Attacks Taken Off Air
<[link removed]>

 

“Responding to viewer outrage, Iraq’s media regulator canceled a TV prank show
that lured guests into simulated ambushes by militants, forcing participants
and viewers to relive some of the terror and fear that were widespread under
the rule of the Islamic State group. The show, Tannab Raslan, was being aired
by the local Asia TV as a special during the holy month of Ramadan until Iraq’s
Communication and Media Commission this week ordered it off the air. The show —
a form of reality TV — follows Iraqi celebrity guests, including actresses and
soccer players, who are invited to what is described as a “charity event” but
then fall prey under various scenarios to a staged ambush by actors playing
militants. They are later freed by other actors playing Iraqi security forces.
The ambush re-enactments include fake weapons and stunt explosions while the
“militants” threaten to detonate fake suicide vests. The show’s name Tannab
Raslan refers to the name of its presenter, Raslan Haddad, and a popular Iraqi
game that children play with marbles in which a score is called “tannab.”

 

Asharq Al-Awsat: Iraq Starts Repatriating ISIS Families From Al-Hol
<[link removed]>

 

“Iraqi MP Sherwan Aldubardany said that a number of ISIS families from Al-Hol
camp arrived in Mosul, northern Iraq, amid mounting concerns that some ISIS
family members could be a “time bomb” that jeopardizes the country’s security.
In his statements on Wednesday, Aldubardany said that secured buses were sent
by the Ministry of Migration and Displaced to transfer the families to the
south of Mosul through Sinjar. For his part, Iraqi MP Ahmed al-Jabouri
described transferring the ISIS family members from Syria to Iraq as a
“disaster”. Jabouri told Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper that this move is a time
bomb, reiterating previous warnings of the dangers of this decision. Available
data shows that up to 100 families will arrive in Iraq, out of 30,000 Iraqi
persons present in the camp. The camp hosts various nationalities, including
Iraqis from several provinces such as Nineveh, Anbar, Babel, Kirkuk,
Salaheddine, and Diyala. In the same context, strategic expert, Dr. Moataz
Mohieddin told Asharq Al-Awsat that the camp has tens of thousands of
displaced. A great number of them are Iraqi women and children, he stressed.
There are up to 40,000 Iraqis and around 10,000 families from different origins
in the camp who live amid an poor security and lack of international
supervision.”

 

The National: Kurdish Official Says Spate Of ISIS Attacks In Iraq Shows
Group's Resurgence
<[link removed]>

 

“There are growing indications that ISIS is trying to make a comeback in Iraq
after a sharp rise in attacks in recent days, a senior Kurdish official said.
At least 18 members of Iraqi and Iraqi Kurdish security forces were killed
recently across the country, according to military and security officials,
prompting calls from Iraq's president for vigilance against the threat of a
resurgent ISIS. The attacks came after Baghdad's deadliest suicide bombing in
three years, claimed in January by the militant group, and amid fears that a
reduction of US-led forces could upset stability. “It seems like [ISIS] have
re-organised,” Lahur Talabany, co-president of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan
party and a former intelligence chief, told Reuters. Originally an offshoot of
Al Qaeda, ISIS took large areas of Iraq and Syria from 2014, imposing a reign
of terror with public beheadings and attacks by supporters abroad. ISIS was
declared militarily defeated in 2017 but has since waged a steady insurgency
across parts of northern Iraq and a porous border with neighbouring Syria. In
recent months there were more than 25 deadly attacks that Iraqi officials
attribute to ISIS militants. The January bombing of a crowded Baghdad market
killed more than 30 people.”

 

Afghanistan

 

Bloomberg: Pentagon Insists Taliban Victory Isn’t Inevitable In Afghanistan
<[link removed]>

 

“The fall of the U.S.-backed government in Afghanistan to the Taliban isn’t
inevitable after American forces leave the country in the coming months, top
Pentagon officials insisted on Thursday. While a Taliban victory isn’t a
“foregone conclusion,” the Pentagon is considering ways to continue training
Afghan government forces in third-country locations after U.S. troops leave,
General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters at a
news conference with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. “The Afghan security
forces can fight, and they are fighting for their own country now,” Milley
said, adding that Afghanistan’s Air Force conducts 80% to 90% of air strikes in
the nation. “There’s a significant military capability in the Afghan government
and we have to see how this plays out.” But the U.S. top two military leaders
conceded that Afghanistan’s government faces a challenge in fending off a
resurgent Taliban, nearly 20 years after the U.S. ousted the group from power
following the Sept. 11 terror attacks. “We expect that this will be a challenge
for them,” Austin said. Biden has said the approximately 2,500 American troops
deployed to Afghanistan will be gone by Sept. 11.”

 

The Hill: McConnell: Taliban Could Take Over Afghanistan By 'The End Of The
Year'
<[link removed]>

 

“Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Thursday predicted that the
Taliban could overrun the Afghan government by the end of the year as U.S.
troops withdraw. “I think there's a high likelihood that the Taliban will be
back in control of the country, maybe as early as the end of the year,”
McConnell told reporters in Kentucky. McConnell has previously bashed President
Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan as a “grave mistake” that will “leave
coalition partners and vulnerable Afghans high and dry,” but his comments
Thursday put a specific marker on the dire predictions. The U.S. military is in
the midst of fulfilling Biden’s order to fully withdraw from Afghanistan by
Sept. 11, the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks that sparked America’s
longest war. Some lawmakers and military officials, including Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, have laid out worst-case scenarios for
Afghanistan after the withdrawal where the Taliban overruns the Afghan
government, allowing al Qaeda to thrive anew and rolling back the rights of
Afghan women and minorities. But Milley has also said he does not think the
worst-case scenario is a “foregone conclusion.” In announcing the withdrawal,
Biden declared that it was “time to end the forever war.”

 

Middle East

 

Yahoo News: What Islamic State Police Files Can Tell Us About Everyday Life
Under The Caliphate
<[link removed]>

 

“It is not often that regimes wither away and leave behind troves of documents
for posterity. It happened in Germany with the Nazi Third Reich and under the
German Democratic Republic. Now, to an extent, we have similar evidence of life
under Islamic State rule as well. The terrorist network still exists, with many
chapters being active in the Middle East, Asia and Africa. But these function
as “regular” terrorist organisations and don’t control territory. The
caliphate, in its former incarnation of “semi-state organisation” in and around
Mosul and Raqqa, no longer exists. But through the ISIS Files Project, run by
the Program on Extremism of George Washington University, bit by bit the
different institutions, bureaucratic arms and policies of the IS caliphate are
being reconstructed and analysed. We were asked to look into the files
retrieved and originated from the “ordinary” IS police, the shurta to see what
light they shed on the way the caliphate functioned on the ground, in
particular in interaction with the populace of that region. To answer that
question we used the concept of “rebel governance”. This is understood as: The
implementation of governmental practices, or serious and substantial displays
of governmental rule vis-à-vis groups and population in a given territory by
non-state actors, leading to a de facto sovereignty and public authority.”

 

The Jerusalem Post: Four Palestinians To Be Charged With Diverting European
Aid To Terrorism
<[link removed]>

 

“Four Palestinians are expected to be indicted for funneling European
humanitarian aid to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a
designated terrorist group, the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) announced on
Thursday. Charges are set to be brought against the suspects in the Judea
Military Court in the coming days. The Foreign Ministry summoned European
ambassadors to demand that their countries stop funding organizations that
funnel money to the PFLP. The PFLP’s “method of deception,” as the Shin Bet
called it, worked in several European countries, bringing in millions of Euros,
much of which was used to commit acts of terror. The Shin Bet, together with
the IDF and police, found that the funding was sent to Palestinian
organizations in the West Bank – particularly one called Health Work Committees
– that are affiliated with the PFLP, designated a terrorist organization by the
EU, US, Canada, and others. The Shin Bet said it has materials documenting the
lengths to which the organizations went to mislead European countries,
including diverting large sums of money from European governmental institutions
to terrorism. The Palestinian NGOs generated reports of fictional projects,
false documents, forged bank authorizations and more.”

 

Transport Security International: Vehicle Ramming Attacks Global Domestic
Terrorists Learn From Hamas
<[link removed]>

 

“For most Americans, the first they heard of using a vehicle to attack and
kill people was in Charlottesville, VA, in 2017 when a man drove his car into
anti-white-supremacist protestors, killing Heather Heyer and wounding dozens of
others. But Charlottesville was just the tail end of a movement that has killed
people across the globe. For Europeans and those in the Middle East, vehicle
ramming attacks (VRAs) is a familiar tactic. In fact, according to the Global
Terrorism Database, vehicle borne attacks date to the 1970s but accelerated
after Hamas’s 2014 attacks against Israeli targets. It was quickly picked up by
Al-Queda and Isis as a low-cost, high-profile method to terrorize civilians. It
was then exported into Europe and now it is a key tactic used by domestic
terrorists around the world. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) defines
such attacks as deliberately aiming a vehicle intending to inflict fatal
injuries or cause property damage. “This tactical evolution is a microcosm of
the broader tectonic shifts in today’s terrorism threats,” said Mia Bloom,
author of Dying to Kill, in a recent piece.”

 

Nigeria

 

Sahara Reporters: Boko Haram Terrorists Kill Five Nigerian Soldiers, 15
Civilian Jtf Members, 10 Others In Fresh Attack On Borno Village
<[link removed]>

 

“Militants of the Islamic State backed faction of Boko Haram, the Islamic
State West Africa Province (ISWAP), formerly known as Jamā'at Ahl as-Sunnah
lid-Da'wah wa'l-Jihād, have killed five soldiers in Ajiri. Ajiri is a community
in Mara Local Government Area of Borno State, which is about 52km from
Maiduguri, the state capital. SaharaReporters gathered that the insurgents who
came in several trucks fitted with machine guns on Monday evening also killed
15 Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF) members and 10 residents. Security sources
said some CJTF members have still not been accounted for 48 hours after the
attack. The incident has since sent panic across the area with residents said
to be fleeing the community for fear of another attack by the insurgents. “They
attacked a military base, killing five soldiers and 15 CJTF members. For now
there's no single human being in Ajiri,” a source said. The incident comes few
hours after the insurgent invaded the military base in Ajiri, killing an army
commanding officer. SaharaReporters had on Sunday reported how the terrorists
attacked the military camp, dislodging the troops.”

 

Africa

 

Al Jazeera: Further Militarisation Will Not End Mozambique’s Insurgency
<[link removed]>

 

“The recent raid by supposedly ISIL-linked insurgents on the northern
Mozambican city of Palma, which left dozens of civilians dead and displaced
30,000 others, has given rise to a narrative that Africa is now a hotbed for
international terror groups and should be the next main front in the global
“war on terror. Such sweeping framing, if uncritically embraced, could result
in the further militarisation of the region. But militarisation would not
resolve, and may even exacerbate, Mozambique’s insurgency problem. North, East,
and West Africa have been suffering from different forms of insurgency for more
than a decade. Since the very beginning, international and regional bodies and
Western and African governments have been trying to address the issue by
increasing their military presence in these regions. The United States, for
example, has 29 bases in 15 different countries or territories across Africa,
mostly in the restive Sahel and Horn of Africa regions. France has been leading
its largest overseas military operation, Operation Barkhane, in the Sahel
region since 2014. The 4,500-person anti-insurgency operation covering Burkina
Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger has an annual budget of more than
$700m.”

 

United Kingdom

 

Forbes: Britain’s Decisive Role In The Air Campaign Against ISIS
<[link removed]>

 

“Recent activities are demonstrative of how Britain’s armed forces continue to
make an active and valuable contribution to the U.S.-led multinational campaign
against the Islamic State (ISIS) group. During its first operational cruise,
which will begin later this month, the Royal Navy’s flagship, the HMS Queen
Elizabeth, will support combat operations in the Middle East with its stealthy
F-35B Lightning II fighters, the short take-off and vertical-landing (STOVL) or
‘jump-jet’ variant of that fifth-generation aircraft. “The F-35B Lightning jets
pack a potent punch against Daesh and help prevent them from regaining a
foothold in Iraq,” said Britain’s Minister for the Armed Forces James Heappey,
using the Arabic acronym for ISIS. “This is a prime example of the U.K. Armed
Forces stepping forward with our allies to confront persistent threats around
the world. It is Global Britain in action.” This upcoming deployment is the
latest example of the U.K.’s commitment to continuously supporting the air
campaign against ISIS. The Royal Navy is also likely taking this opportunity to
give its F-35B pilots combat experience and more practice operating off its
flagship. Incidentally, this isn’t the first time British F-35Bs have seen
combat.”

 

Evening Standard: Neo-Nazi Student Promoted Extremist Group In Online
Campaign, Court Told
<[link removed]>

 

“A neo-Nazi student campaigned on social media for an extreme right-wing group
which aimed to “stir up a race war”, a court has heard. Andrew Dymock, 23,
promoted the System Resistance Network (SRN) group through a Twitter account
and a website, the Old Bailey was told. The defendant, from Bath in Somerset is
on trial on 15 charges, including 12 terrorism-related alleged offences.
Opening his trial, prosecutor Jocelyn Ledward said the case centred on a period
in 2017 and 2018 when Dymock was studying politics at Aberystwyth University in
Wales. He used online platforms to promote and raise money for SRN, which
“preached zero-tolerance” to non-whites, Jewish and Muslim communities and
described homosexuality as a “disease”, jurors were told. Ms Ledward said: “Its
clarion call was for the expulsion of all minorities and a white revolution.
“Its online campaign, comprising virulently racist, anti-Semitic and homophobic
propaganda, sought to stir up a race war against ethnic minorities and others
that it perceived as ‘race traitors.’” SRN was one of a small number of
organisations which filled a “dubious gap” left following the proscription of
far-right group National Action and was itself banned in 2020.”

 

Express: ISIS returns: Counter terror expert warns flood of Brits joining
group could be repeated
<[link removed]>

 

“Around 900 British citizens joined ISIS before the group’s self-styled
"Caliphate" in Syria and Iraq was crushed. However according to Liam Duffy, a
strategic advisor to the Counter Extremism Project (CEP), it would be “foolish”
to claim this won’t happen again. He also argued society must stop the
“celebritisation” of western ISIS volunteers which has “inverted the
victim/aggressor relationship”. Mr. Duffy is author of ‘Western Foreign
Fighters and the Yazidi Genocide’, a CEP report published earlier this year.”

 

France

 

The Economist: France Worries About How To Handle Released Terrorists
<[link removed]>

 

“Being locked up is a piece of piss if the guy was ready to die,” said
Youssef, who had been jailed for jihadism. “Ten years in prison? It’s fi
sabilillah (in the cause of Allah). I’m going to learn the Koran, and leave
even stronger.” Youssef (not his real name) was speaking to Hugo Micheron, a
researcher conducting a study on jihadism in France. By the time the book was
published last year, Youssef had served his term and been set free. France is
grappling with an unfamiliar challenge: how to handle those let out after
serving time for terrorist-related offences. Of the 500 or so such detainees
now behind bars, 58 are due for release this year, and a total of some 100 by
2023. Most were convicted for joining jihadist groups in Syria or Iraq, or
helping others to do so. They were often sentenced to terms of only five to six
years. Far stiffer sentences, including life, were handed down last December to
accomplices in the terrorist attacks in Paris in 2015.”

 

Germany

 

The North Africa Post: German Citizen Beheads Moroccan Wife In ISIS Style
<[link removed]>

 

“A German citizen who recently converted to Islam has beheaded his Moroccan
wife in a crime that bears the hallmark of the Islamic state group, ISIS. The
man in his fifties, living in the city of Hamburg attends a local mosque in the
northern German city where there is an important Turkish community, local media
report. German security forces and interior intelligence services are
investigating the crime and are wondering whether the man acted alone or
received instructions for the gruesome assassination. Neighbors and mosque
members told security forces that the man’s behavior had changed before the
killing as he developed a long bear and was donning Afghan men’s dress code.
Germany, several countries have been complaining, has become a safe haven for
dozens of former ISIS militants who fought in Syria and Iraq. Morocco has
warned the European country against the presence on its soil of former ISIS
terrorists. In March, an investigative report by French television M6 raised
the alarm over the presence of former fighters of the terror group who are
living freely in Germany.”

 

Australia

 

ABC News Australia: Islamic State Supporter Zainab Abdirahman-Khalif Released
From Adelaide Jail
<[link removed]>

 

“An Adelaide woman who swore allegiance to terrorist group Islamic State (IS)
has been released from prison after serving her sentence, but will remain the
subject of a federal control order. Zainab Abdirahman-Khalif, a 26-year-old
former nursing student, was intercepted by police in 2016 as she tried to leave
Australia on a one-way ticket to Turkey. She was found guilty by a jury in 2018
of intentionally being a member of Islamic State. That conviction was
overturned in 2019 on appeal, and she was released — but her acquittal was
quashed in October by the High Court, and she was sent back to prison to serve
out the remaining 205 days of her three-year sentence. The High Court found
that she had taken intentional steps to join the group, and reinstated her
conviction for being an IS member. “[This] included swearing allegiance to the
Caliph, and answering the call to go to Sham to serve in support of the jihadis
by attempting to fly to Turkey by one-way flight without informing her family
and without the resources to return,” the High Court said in its judgment. “It
cannot reasonably be doubted that it was open to the jury to conclude that the
respondent thereby intentionally took steps to become a member of Islamic
State.”

 

Europe

 

Associated Press: Israel Accuses Spanish Woman Of Aiding Banned Militant Group
<[link removed]>

 

“Israeli authorities on Thursday charged a Spanish woman under the country’s
anti-terrorism laws, accusing her of funneling large sums of donations from
European governments to a banned Palestinian militant group. Juana Ruiz Sánchez
was charged in a West Bank military court. Her indictment was the culmination
of a more than year-long investigation into financing for the Popular Front for
the Liberation of Palestine. The group is regarded by Israel, the United
States, Canada, and European Union as a terrorist organization. Ruiz, a Spanish
citizen and West Bank resident, has worked for Health Work Committees, a
Palestinian non-governmental organization that provides medical services in the
territory. She was indicted on Israeli terrorism-financing offenses and other
charges. The Palestinian NGO’s senior accountant, former accountant and former
purchasing department manager were expected to be charged with similar offenses
in the coming days, according to the Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security
agency. Ruiz, 62, had been held by Israeli authorities without charge since her
arrest at her home near Bethlehem on April 13.”

 

Southeast Asia

 

Deutsche Welle: Former Maldives President Survives Bomb Attack
<[link removed]>

 

“Mohamed Nasheed, the 53-year-old former president of the Indian Ocean island
nation of Maldives, narrowly escaped what is suspected to have been an
assassination attempt in the capital, Male, on Thursday evening.Nasheed was
injured by a bomb rigged to a motorcycle as he was getting into his car. A
Maldives government statement said: “Nasheed escaped an assassination attempt.
He is injured but his condition is stable.” He is currently being treated at
ADK Hospital in Male. A pro-democracy fighter, Nasheed currently serves as the
country's parliamentary speaker, a position he has held since May 2019. Before
that, he became the predominantly Sunni Muslim country's first
democratically-elected president in 2008, a role he served in until 2012, when
he was forced from office in a coup. Nasheed was subsequently put on trial and
sentenced to 13 years in prison on terrorism charges — which were roundly
decried by human rights groups as politically motivated. Amnesty International
labeled Nasheed a prisoner of conscience. When Mohamed Nasheed was granted
leave from prison for medical treatment he fled the country and went into exile
in the UK. He returned to the Maldives in 2018 and was elected speaker of the
People's Majlis, the country's second most powerful political position, in
2019.”

 

Technology

 

Vice: LiveLeak, The Infamous Site For Beheading Videos, Is Gone
<[link removed]>

 

“For almost 15 years the website LiveLeak shocked and entertained the
internet. If you wanted to see uncensored and horrifying footage of war and
violence that YouTube wouldn't allow, then LiveLeak would serve it up to you.
In 2014, Business Insider called it “The Islamic State's favorite site for
beheading videos.” Now, LiveLeak is gone, replaced with a softer sounding video
website called ItemFix that eschews the violence and gore that made LiveLeak a
staple of the dark side of the internet. “Nothing lasts forever though and—as
we did all those years ago—we felt LiveLeak had achieved all that it could and
it was time for us to try something new and exciting,” LiveLeak co-founder
Hayden Hewitt said in a blog post explaining the change. “The world has changed
a lot over these last few years, the Internet alongside it, and we as people.
I'm sat here now writing this with a mixture of sorrow because LL has been not
just a website or business but a way of life for me and many of the guys but
also genuine excitement at what's next.” LiveLeak began in 2006 as an offshoot
of the early internet shock site Ogrish. Along with Rotten.com and others,
Ogrish was a place people went to when they wanted to see the worst the web had
to offer.”



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