“Northeast Nigeria's conflict with Islamist insurgencies had killed nearly
350,000 people as of the end of 2020, the United Nations Development Progra

 

 


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Eye on Extremism


June 25, 2021

 

Reuters: Northeast Nigeria Insurgency Has Killed Almost 350,000 - UN
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“Northeast Nigeria's conflict with Islamist insurgencies had killed nearly
350,000 people as of the end of 2020, the United Nations Development Programme
(UNDP) said on Thursday. The toll, given by the U.N. agency in a new study on
the war and its impact on livelihoods, is 10 times higher than previous
estimates of about 35,000 based only on those killed in fighting in Nigeria
since the conflict's start 12 years ago. “The full human cost of the war is
much greater,” the UNDP said in a report, released with Nigeria's Ministry of
Finance. “Already, many more have died from the indirect effects of the
conflict,” said the UNDP, citing damage to agriculture, water, trade, food and
healthcare. A Nigerian presidential spokesman declined to comment on the death
toll. Nigeria's war with Islamist insurgencies Boko Haram and Islamic State's
West Africa Province has spawned one of the world's worst humanitarian crises,
with millions of people dependent on aid. The conflict shows little sign of
ending. Children younger than five account for more than nine out of 10 of
those killed, with 170 dying every day, the UNDP said. If the conflict
continues to 2030, more than 1.1 million people may die, the agency said.”

 

Reuters: New Zealand Plans Stronger Hate Speech Laws In Response To
Christchurch Attack
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“New Zealand said on Friday that it plans to strengthen its hate speech laws,
and increase penalties for inciting hatred and discrimination, in response to
the attack by a white supremacist in Christchurch two years ago that killed 51
Muslims. The move comes after a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the
Christchurch attack on March 15, 2019 recommended changes to hate speech and
hate crime laws, which it said were weak deterrents for people targeting
religious and other minority groups with hate. New Zealand's hate speech laws
have resulted in just one prosecution and two civil claims so far, the Royal
Commission had noted. “Protecting our right to freedom of expression while
balancing that right with protections against ‘hate speech’ is something that
requires careful consideration and a wide range of input,” Justice Minister
Kris Faafoi said at a press conference. The government proposed new criminal
offences for hate speech that it said would be clearer and more effective.
Under the proposal a person who “intentionally stirs up, maintains or
normalises hatred” would break the law if they did so by being threatening,
abusive or insulting, including by inciting violence, the government said.”

 

United States

 

New York Post: DoD Contractor Gets 23 Years For Leaking Info To
Hezbollah-Linked Boyfriend
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“She was looking for love in very wrong places. A Pentagon linguist once
attached to a special ops military facility in northern Iraq was sentenced
Wednesday to 23 years in prison for leaking the names of informants and other
secret information to a boyfriend with ties to the Lebanese terror group
Hezbollah. Mariam Taha Thompson, 62, had pleaded guilty on March 26 to one
count of delivering national defense information to aid a foreign government.
“Thompson’s sentence reflects the seriousness of her violation of the trust of
the American people, of the human sources she jeopardized and of the troops who
worked at her side as friends and colleagues,” Assistant Attorney General for
National Security John Demers said in a statement. “That Thompson passed our
nation’s sensitive secrets to someone whom she knew had ties to Lebanese
Hezbollah made her betrayal all the more serious. Thompson’s sentence should
stand as a clear warning to all clearance holders that violations of their oath
to this country will not be taken lightly, especially when they put lives at
risk.”

 

The Jerusalem Post: 55 US House Members Introduce Hamas International
Financing Prevention Act
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“A bipartisan group of 55 House members has introduced the Hamas International
Financing Prevention Act that seeks “to impose financial sanctions on foreign
persons, agencies, and governments that assist Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic
Jihad, or their affiliates.” If voted into law, the bill would require the
president to submit to Congress an annual report “identifying foreign persons,
agencies or instrumentalities of a foreign state who knowingly and materially
assist Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, or an affiliate or successor of
one of those organizations.” Rep. Josh Gottheimer (NJ-5) and Rep. Brian Mast
(FL-18) led the legislation that was introduced on Wednesday. “It is critical
that the United States and our allies continue to isolate terrorist groups like
Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad by cutting them off at the source,” said
Gottheimer, the Vice Chair of the House Financial Services Subcommittee on
National Security. Once identified, the president must impose two or more
sanctions against such groups, including seizure of property held within the
United States; denying export-import guarantees, denying export of goods or
technology controlled for national security reasons, and denying loans more
than $10 million.”

 

Syria

 

Al Monitor: Turkey Attacks Kurdish Militants In Northern Syria
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“Turkish soldiers “neutralized” three Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) fighters
in northern Syria, the Turkish state media outlet Anadolu Agency reported
Thursday. The Turkish military uses the term “neutralized” to refer to enemy
combatants who are killed or captured. The fighting took place in parts of
northern Syria controlled by the Turkish military and its Syrian rebel allies.
Two of the PKK fighters attempted to infiltrate Turkish territory near al-Bab
while the other was engaged between the cities of Ain Issa and Tal Tamr,
according to Anadolu Agency. Both areas are close to the Turkish-Syrian
border.  The PKK fights for greater rights for Kurds in Turkey. Its ideological
ally the People’s Protection Units (YPG) is one of the main military forces in
northeast Syria and leads the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which
fights the Islamic State (IS). Turkey refers to the YPG and its allies as PKK.
Ankara views the presence of PKK-aligned groups on its border with Syria as a
threat. Both Turkey and the United States consider the PKK a terrorist
organization. Turkey began a direct military intervention in Syria in 2016
against IS and the SDF. In 2019, Turkey launched a major military incursion
into SDF territory in northeast Syria following the repositioning of US troops.”

 

Afghanistan

 

The Wall Street Journal: Disaster Looms In Afghanistan
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“President Biden meets his Afghan counterpart Friday, and the White House says
it is committed to providing Afghanistan “diplomatic, economic, and
humanitarian assistance.” That’s cold comfort as emboldened Taliban militants
advance across the country. Mr. Biden said in April that U.S. troops would
leave Afghanistan by Sept. 11, and coalition forces have been departing faster
than expected. Since May the Taliban have taken more than 50 of the country’s
roughly 400 districts, a United Nations official said this week. Fighting
continues in many districts, which are comparable to American counties. Some
8.5 million Afghans already live under Taliban control, the Long War Journal
estimates, with more than 13 million in contested zones. These numbers will
keep rising absent a policy reversal from Mr. Biden. Most of the newly captured
districts surround provincial capitals, which the group will move on once U.S.
and allied forces are gone. The intelligence community believes Kabul could
fall six months after the U.S. withdrawal has finished. The offensive has moved
into northern Afghanistan, far beyond the Taliban’s traditional strongholds in
the south.”

 

Associated Press: US To Keep About 650 Troops In Afghanistan After Withdrawal
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“Roughly 650 U.S. troops are expected to remain in Afghanistan to provide
security for diplomats after the main American military force completes its
withdrawal, which is set to be largely done in the next two weeks, U.S.
officials told The Associated Press on Thursday. In addition, several hundred
additional American forces will remain at the Kabul airport, potentially until
September, to assist Turkish troops providing security, as a temporary move
until a more formal Turkey-led security operation is in place, the officials
said. Overall, officials said the U.S. expects to have American and coalition
military command, its leadership and most troops out by July Fourth, or shortly
after that, meeting an aspirational deadline that commanders developed months
ago. The officials were not authorized to discuss details of the withdrawal and
spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity. The departure of the bulk of the
more than 4,000 troops that have been in the country in recent months is
unfolding well before President Joe Biden’s Sept. 11 deadline for withdrawal.
And it comes amid accelerating Taliban battlefield gains, fueling fears that
the Afghan government and its military could collapse in a matter of months.”

 

USA Today: Biden Administration Will Relocate Thousands Of Afghan Interpreters
Who Worked With US Military
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“The Biden administration agreed to relocate thousands of Afghans who worked
with the U.S. military as interpreters and translators while their visa
applications are vetted, according to a senior administration official. “Those
who helped us are not going to be left behind,” President Joe Biden told
reporters on Thurday when asked about the plan. The decision comes amid growing
pressure from lawmakers in both parties, who fear Afghans who served alongside
American troops will be killed by the Taliban as the United States completes
its military withdrawal. The official, who was not authorized to discuss the
matter publicly, declined to say exactly how many Afghans would be relocated or
where they would go while their visas are processed. The United States could
fly them to a third country or a U.S. territory. The relocation plan was first
reported by The New York Times. Thousands of Afghans are desperately seeking to
leave their homeland as the Biden administration withdraws the last American
troops in the coming months. These Afghans fear that once U.S. forces are gone,
the Taliban will sweep back into power and target them as traitors.”

 

Pakistan

 

The Washington Post: Years After Pakistan’s Terrorism Crackdown, Many With No
Terrorist Ties Face Risk Of Execution
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“Muhammad Anwar was 17 when he was involved in a group fight that caused a
death in his village. His trial ended in a death sentence, and at one point, he
came within a day of being executed as part of a government crackdown on
terrorism. Twenty-eight years passed before Anwar was released from prison this
spring. The once-healthy teen, now a partially paralyzed man with severe heart
problems, returned to a place he barely remembered. Everything felt foreign. He
made a list of places to visit, including the house of his older brother, a
teacher who died while Anwar was behind bars. He considers himself lucky,
though. A legal advocacy group took up his case and pursued repeated appeals.
The country’s Supreme Court ultimately commuted his sentence because of his age
at the time of the crime. “Stopping the death warrant . . . was a big task,”
Anwar recounted last month. “We might not have managed to do it on our own.”
Until a gruesome Taliban attack on a high school in December 2014, Pakistan had
gone half a dozen years with a de facto moratorium on capital punishment.
Although the government explicitly justified bringing it back to fight
terrorism, officials resumed executions for other capital offenses several
months later.”

 

The Washington Post: Pakistan Arrests Key Suspect In Lahore Bombing That
Killed 3
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“Pakistani security forces on Thursday arrested one of the alleged
perpetrators of a car bombing the day before that killed three people and
wounded 25 near the residence of a convicted militant leader linked to the
Mumbai terrorist attacks, officials said. The man behind Wednesday’s attack in
the eastern city of Lahore was arrested at the airport as he was trying to
leave the country, said Suhail Ahmad, a security official familiar with the
investigation. He identified the man as Pakistani national David Peter. Ahmad
refused to share further details, saying the government would issue a statement
about a breakthrough in the case achieved by the Punjab Counter-Terrorism
Department with the help of the country’s intelligence agencies. Hours earlier,
Pakistan’s Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said in a video message on
Twitter that the Punjab police were close to arresting those responsible for
the Lahore car bombing. The powerful explosion in the Johar Town neighborhood
was near the residence of anti-India militant leader Hafiz Saeed, designated a
terrorist by the U.S. Justice Department and has a $10 million bounty on his
head. Saeed is the founder of the outlawed Lashkar-e-Taiba group, which was
blamed for the 2008 Mumbai attacks that killed 166 people.”

 

Africa

 

Reuters: Child Soldiers Carried Out Burkina Faso Massacre, Say U.N. And
Government
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“A massacre in northeast Burkina Faso in which more than 130 people were
killed this month was carried out mostly by children between the ages of 12 and
14, the United Nations and the government said. Armed assailants raided the
village of Solhan on the evening of June 4, opened fire on residents and burned
homes. It was the worst attack in years in an area plagued by jihadists linked
to Islamic State and al Qaeda. Government spokesman Ousseni Tamboura said the
majority of the attackers were children, prompting condemnation from the U.N.
“We strongly condemn the recruitment of children and adolescents by non-state
armed groups. This is a grave violation of their fundamental rights,” the U.N.
children’s agency UNICEF said in a statement on Thursday. Despite interventions
from U.N. peacekeepers and international armed forces, attacks by Islamist
extremists continue unabated across West Africa’s Sahel region, including
neighbouring Mali and Niger. Local officials in Burkina Faso’s north, where
jihadists control large areas, said child soldiers have been used by Islamist
groups over the past year, but this month’s attack was by far the highest
profile case. It represented a new low for the impoverished West African
country that since 2018 has seen a sharp rise in attacks on civilians and
soldiers.”

 

The Defense Post: Two Killed In Niger As Troops Foil Jihadist Attack
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“Two villagers were killed during a raid in Niger’s troubled south as troops
repulsed an attack by jihadists in another area, security sources said
Wednesday. The director of a school and a retired police officer were “killed
in cold blood” while sleeping in the village of Fantio Tuesday night in the
southwestern region of Tillaberi, a security source told AFP. The attackers,
who were riding motorcycles, took away cattle, the source added. In mid-May,
during the Muslim festival of Eid, raiders killed five people and seriously
wounded two others in the same village. Also on Tuesday, soldiers foiled an
attack by Boko Haram jihadists in the volatile Lake Chad region, killing three
of the attackers and seizing weapons, a multinational military force said. The
remaining attackers fled in four vehicles following the clash in the
southeastern town of Bosso, said a statement from the Mixed Multinational Force
(FMM). “Three attackers were neutralised (killed) and one vehicle seized,” the
force said, adding that a machinegun and three Kalashnikov assault rifles had
also been recovered. The FMM is made up of soldiers from Nigeria, Chad, Niger,
and Cameroon. A local lawmaker from Bosso confirmed both the attack and the
toll.”

 

United Kingdom

 

BBC News: Aberdeen Terrorism Case 'Has More Than 1m Pages Of Documents'
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“Lawyers for a man accused of planning to carry out terrorist acts in Aberdeen
have to examine more than one million pages of documents, a court has heard.
Richard Smith, 28, is charged with offences said to have happened between
August 2018 and November 2019. Prosecutors claim Mr Smith “with the intention
of carrying out acts of terrorism” did “engage in conduct” in the preparation
of them. This includes a claim he allegedly stated “all Muslims must die”. His
defence counsel said he was still not ready for a trial to be set. Ronnie
Renucci told the High Court of Glasgow: “There is a mountain of evidence - over
one million pages of material. “There are certain matters that need to be
investigated.” He said a cyber crime expert had been instructed to examine
information on 47 discs currently being held by police. Mr Smith - who denies
the charges - was not present. Lord Matthews adjourned the case until a further
hearing in August.”

 

Newsweek: White Supremacist Who Encouraged Attacks On Black People Via
Telegram Jailed
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“A British man who shared terrorist materials and spoke about his hatred of
Black people in far-right social media channels has been jailed. Michael
Nugent, 38, of Surrey, southeast England, was sentenced to three-and-a-half
years in jail on Wednesday, June 23, after pleading guilty to terrorism
offenses. Nugent was found to have used different personas on the encrypted
messaging service app Telegram to express racists views and his hatred of
ethnic minorities, as well as to share terrorism documents with others. Among
some of the extremist materials he shared were manuals on how to make
explosives and homemade firearms. Nugent also posted an edited video of the
Christchurch Mosque terror attack in which Brenton Tarrant killed 51 people in
March 2019. According to an extract from the defendant's diary that was read
out in Kingston Crown Court, Nugent wrote that ethnic minorities should be
“sent home” and “sterilised,” the BBC reported. “We are being genocided in our
own homes,” Nugent wrote. “Terrorism is the only way out of it.” Nugent also
described the massacre in Christchurch targeting Muslims as a “game changer” on
Telegram. He was arrested on August 19, 2020, after London's Met Counter
Terrorism officers linked the racist accounts to Nugent.”

 

France

 

The National: France Jails Louvre Machete Attacker For 30 Years
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“A French court on Thursday jailed for 30 years a man who used machetes to
attack soldiers outside the world-famous Louvre museum in Paris. Judges issued
the sentence in line with anti-terrorism prosecutors' demands for Egyptian
citizen Abdalla El Hamahmi, 33, who did not react from behind his coronavirus
mask as it was read to him by an interpreter. El Hamahmi, a married father,
rushed at a group of soldiers patrolling the Louvre area early on February 3,
2017, with a machete in each hand and wearing a T-shirt with a skull motif. He
wounded one soldier to the scalp before being severely injured when the patrol
opened fire. El Hamahmi insisted throughout the trial that he planned to
protest against French policy in Syria by destroying masterpieces inside the
Louvre, which houses thousands of works including Leonardo da Vinci's Mona
Lisa. He claimed to have been surprised to encounter soldiers, who have
patrolled central Paris since a wave of terrorist attacks that killed more than
250 in France from 2015. El Hamahmi said he attacked them “as a reflex”, saying
he was acting “like a robot”. During the trial, tried to deny the authenticity
of a video in which he swore allegiance to ISIS.”

 

Germany

 

The Wall Street Journal: ‘Frontline: Germany’s Neo-Nazis And The Far Right’
Review: From Whence It Came
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“It was Yom Kippur, it was not every day,” says a witness in “Frontline:
Germany’s Neo-Nazis and the Far Right” (Tuesday, 10 p.m., PBS), which opens
with memories of the October 2019 attack on a synagogue in Halle, Germany. The
attacker, too, knew that it was not every day. It was the one in the year that
was most sacred to Jews, which was why there would be a great many of them in
the synagogue—a condition essential to his plan. The assassin had come to the
scene attired in full combat fatigues. That fact comes from a broadcast
bringing word of the attack, a description characteristic of the detail that
gives this riveting and richly complex “Frontline” presentation ( Evan
Williams, reporter-director) its powerful sense of immediacy. So—if with far
less subtlety—do the furious efforts of the attacker with murder in his heart,
who keeps trying, and failing, to break through the locked door of the
synagogue. Which doesn’t prevent him, a while later, from killing two people at
random before he’s captured. This killer, we learn, is 27-year-old Stephan
Balliet, a man who lives with his mother and who, as he soon shows, now
considers himself a loser: His plan had been to kill many people, and in that
he had fallen far short.”

 

Southeast Asia

 

Arab News: Philippines Rescues Daughter Of Suicide Bombers From Militant Group
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“Philippine security forces have rescued the daughter of suicide bombers from
the militant Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG).  The girl’s parents were Indonesian
nationals 35-year-old Rullie Rian Zeke and his 32-year-old wife Ulfah Handayani
Saleh. They were  behind the Jan. 2019 attack on a cathedral in the southern
island of Jolo that killed 23 people and wounded more than 100 others. The
girl, identified as Siti Aisyah Rullie, alias Maryam Israni, was recovered in a
joint operation by military and police teams in Barangay Bangkal, Patikul,
Sulu, shortly before midnight on Wednesday. “She is estimated to be between 10
and 13 years of age,” Col. Alaric Delos Santos, Western Mindanao Command
spokesperson, told Arab News. “There is ongoing coordination with the
Department and Social Services, and even with Indonesian authorities, to
determine what to do with her.” Aisyah’s parents were members of the Indonesian
Daesh-linked group Jamaah Ansharut Daulah and affiliates of the ASG. The
cathedral bombing was the first suicide attack in the Philippines to involve a
woman. Aisyah was reportedly married to ASG member Rudymar Habib Jihiiran,
alias Gulam, and had been indoctrinated to become a suicide bomber like her
parents.”



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