“The Taliban have proposed a three-month ceasefire in Afghanistan in return for
the release of 7,000 captured fighters, a government official said. Na

 

 


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Eye on Extremism


July 16, 2021

 

BBC News: Afghanistan: Taliban Offers Ceasefire For Return Of Prisoners
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“The Taliban have proposed a three-month ceasefire in Afghanistan in return
for the release of 7,000 captured fighters, a government official said. Nader
Nadery, an Afghan government negotiator, described the proposal as a "big
demand". The government has so far not said how it will react. Clashes between
the government and the Taliban have intensified since US troops began to
withdraw from the country. The Taliban recently claimed their fighters had
retaken 85% of territory in Afghanistan - a figure impossible to independently
verify and disputed by the government. Other estimates say the Taliban controls
more than a third of Afghanistan's 400 districts. Mr Nadery said Taliban
leaders had also requested that their names be removed from a United Nations
blacklist. Last year 5,000 Taliban prisoners were released and it is believed
that many of them returned to the battlefield, worsening violence in the
country, says BBC correspondent Lyse Doucet. On Thursday, Afghan forces said
they had recaptured a border crossing with Pakistan that had been taken by the
Taliban. The insurgents deny having lost control of the border post. Video
footage posted to social media earlier this week appeared to show a white
Taliban flag being flown above the Spin Boldak crossing near Kandahar.”

 

Bloomberg: Explosives Found In Pakistan Blast That Killed Chinese Citizens
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“Pakistan says it cannot rule out terrorism as the cause of a bus explosion
that killed 12 people including nine Chinese citizens, as China called on the
South Asian country to protect projects valued at tens of billions of dollars.
After saying an initial probe indicated the blast on Wednesday had been caused
by a gas leak, Pakistan “confirmed traces of explosives” had been found, the
country’s information minister, Fawad Chaudhry, said in tweet Thursday.
“Terrorism cannot be ruled out,” Chaudhry said hours after Chinese Foreign
Minister Wang Yi asked his Pakistani counterpart Shah Mahmood Qureshi to
quickly investigate the cause of the explosion on a bus carrying workers in the
northern Kohistan region, according to a statement from China. “China is
shocked by the serious casualties of Chinese personnel in Pakistan,” Wang was
cited as saying in the statement. “If this is a terrorist attack, the
perpetrators must be arrested immediately and be severely punished.” Beijing
will send a “working group” to Pakistan and help investigate the blast, foreign
ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told reporters during regular briefing on
Thursday. Concerns are mounting about an advance by the Taliban in neighboring
Afghanistan, which threatens to disturb peace across the region.”

 

United States

 

Associated Press: 'Boogaloo' Ex-Convict Gets Home Confinement For Illegal Gun
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“A Maryland man who belonged to an anti-government extremist movement was
sentenced Thursday to six months of home confinement for illegally possessing a
firearm. Frank William Perry, 39, acknowledged following the “boogaloo,” a
concept embraced by a loose network of gun enthusiasts and militia-style
extremists. The term was derived from an ’80s movie sequel called “Breakin’ 2:
Electric Boogaloo,” and is slang for a second civil war or collapse of the U.S.
government. Perry pleaded guilty in March to a gun charge that carries a
maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. Prosecutors weren’t seeking a sentence
stiffer than the one month he already spent in jail after his arrest. U.S.
District Judge Catherine Blake also sentenced him to three years of supervised
release. “I hurt my children and my family with my actions. I was raised better
than that,” Perry said, apologizing to the judge, his fiancee and his young
children in the Baltimore courtroom. Perry said he had been worried for his
family’s safety and “took the wrong route” to protect them. Blake said it was a
serious offense, but agreed not to incarcerate him, noting that as a truck
driver he needed to support his family. He’ll need a probation officer’s
permission to leave the state.”

 

CBS News: 2 Men Charged With Plotting To Attack Democratic HQ In Sacramento
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“Two Northern California men were charged in federal court with conspiring to
attack the Democratic headquarters in Sacramento, the U.S. Department of
Justice Northern District of California said on Thursday. Ian Benjamin Rogers,
45, of Napa, and Jarrod Copeland, 37, of Vallejo, began plotting an attack on
targets they associated with Democrats after the 2020 Presidential election and
attempted to gain support from an anti-government militia group, the DOJ said.
Both men allegedly planned to use explosive devices in their attacks and hoped
their actions would spark a movement to overthrow the government. Rogers has
been in custody since his arrest on January 15. On that day, law enforcement
officials searched his home and business and found a cache of weapons including
45 to 50 firearms, thousands of rounds of ammunition, and five pipe bombs,
officials said. Video from earlier this year shows the Bay Area business where
police say Rogers was stashing guns and explosives. Copeland was taken into
custody on Wednesday. They were both charged with conspiracy to destroy by fire
or explosive a building used or in affecting interstate commerce.”

 

CBS News: House Committee On January 6 Attack To Hold First Hearing With Law
Enforcement
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“The House select committee investigating the January 6 attack on the U.S.
Capitol will hold its first hearing at the end of July, featuring testimony
from Capitol Police and Metropolitan Police officers. The House voted largely
along party lines to create the select committee last month, after an effort to
impanel an independent, bipartisan commission was torpedoed by Senate
Republicans. Only eight members out of thirteen have been appointed, with
Speaker Nancy Pelosi choosing seven Democrats and Republican Congresswoman Liz
Cheney to serve on the committee. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy can
choose the remaining five members, but has not yet done so. Even if McCarthy
does not name his appointments in the coming weeks, the hearing scheduled for
July 27 could proceed, as the committee will have a quorum of members present.
McCarthy will meet with former President Donald Trump at his golf club in
Bedminster, New Jersey, on Thursday, Mr. Trump said in a statement. McCarthy's
choice of appointments could be a topic for discussion for the two, as the
former president may want more sympathetic Republicans to be added to the
committee.”

 

Fox News: Bill Bennett: 'We Need To Designate Mexican Cartels As Foreign
Terrorists Like Al Qaeda'
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“After a new government report revealed U.S. drug overdose deaths hit a new
record in 2020, former National Drug Control Policy Director Bill Bennett said
Thursday that the United States needs to designate Mexican cartels as foreign
terrorists. "There is a poison that is coming across. We talked about the
getaways. Do the people get away? How about the drugs that get away? " Bennett
said on "America Reports." "You guys are very good at showing these huge caches
of drugs that are caught and authorities seize. But there’s a lot that we don’t
see, and it’s making its way in the country." Fox News reported that an angel
mom argued that the current border policies under the Biden administration
allowed China’s criminal "partnership" with Mexican cartels to flourish. "This
partnership in combination with our current border policies have allowed this
fentanyl to continuously pour over the Southwest border practically unabated,"
Virginia Krieger, founder of Parents Against Illicit Narcotics, said Thursday
on "America's Newsroom." Krieger, who lost her daughter Tiffany Leigh Robertson
to a fentanyl overdose in 2015, warned that the flow of drugs into the United
States has caused a "fentanyl poisoning" crisis, wherein online sellers have
targeted unaware American teenagers with fraudulent prescriptions filled with
the potent synthetic opioid analgesic.”

 

Turkey

 

Al Monitor: Has Turkey Changed Its Anti-Islamic State Strategy?
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“Increasing security operations against Islamic State (IS) cells across Turkey
since June have raised the question whether Ankara is changing its
oft-criticized anti-IS strategy as the latest operations indicate an increasing
risk of terrorist attack in parallel with the group’s rebuilding attempts in
Syria and Iraq.  Turkey has become one of the hideouts for IS cells escaping
Syria and Iraq following the groups’ major territorial defeat in Syria and Iraq
since 2016. Reports of online “auctions” of Yazidi captives on the deep web by
IS cells in March showcased the groups’ activity range in Turkey. Ankara's
anti-IS strategy has often been criticized as superficial, negligent and
lenient. Turkey’s security operations conducted against IS cells at home and in
neighboring Syria failed to contain criticism over Ankara's anti-IS strategy,
which is still riddled with gaping holes. Yet recent developments suggest that
change might be underway. Turkish security forces detained 307 people over
suspected links to IS in several operations across Turkey in June, according to
Turkey’s Interior Ministry. Local news media reported some 25 more people were
rounded up in early July.”

 

Afghanistan

 

NBC News: Taliban Sweep Through Afghanistan, Imperiling Girls School
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“She should be standing tall. Instead, she walks in fear. With American forces
nearing their withdrawal and the Taliban on the march across Afghanistan,
Lailuma Khaliqyar worries that the thriving Um-Salma girls school, where she
serves as principal, will be easy pickings for the advancing Islamic militants.
“They shouldn’t abandon us at the moment that the Taliban is advancing,”
Khaliqyar, 43, said recently. “When I walk to school, I take every step with
immense fear and worry — I’m not sure I will return home safely.” She fears it
is only a matter of time until nearby Charikar, the provincial capital of
Parwan province — a region known for its delicious grapes — falls to the
Taliban. Once that happens, it will be the end for Um-Salma and the hopes and
dreams of thousands of girls. They will close my school,” said Khaliqyar, whose
three daughters attend the one-story building defended by a lone, unarmed
guard. That U.S. forces quietly vacated the Bagram Airfield, once the epicenter
of America’s war against the hard-line Taliban movement and a 20-minute drive
from Um-Salma school, on July 2 just underlined her fears. And then on Monday
the commander of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan stepped down, marking a
symbolic end of the U.S. military mission in Afghanistan.”

 

Pakistan

 

Associated Press: Roadside Bomb Targeting Troops Kills 2 In Southwest Pakistan
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“A powerful roadside bomb targeting security forces killed two soldiers in
southwest Pakistan, the mílitary said Thursday, a sign of increasing violence
in the region. The overnight attack happened in Pasni, a district in the
impoverished Baluchistan province, according to a military statement. It said a
search operation was still underway to arrest those who orchestrated the
bombing. It provided no further details and only said hostile intelligence
forces were behind the violence. No group immediately claimed responsibility,
but previous such attacks on security forces have been blamed on small
separatist groups that have been carrying out a long-running insurgency
demanding independence from the central government in Islamabad. The Pakistani
Taliban and the Islamic State group also have a presence in Baluchistan.
Although Pakistan says it has quelled insurgency in Baluchistan, such attacks
on troops have increased in recent months in the province which shares a long
border with Iran and Afghanistan.”

 

Reuters: Pakistan Military Rescues 5 Telecom Workers Kidnapped Near Afghan
Border
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“Pakistan's military rescued five telecommunications workers kidnapped by
Islamist militants last month close to the Afghan border in a series of
operations in which two soldiers were killed, the military said on Friday.
Northwest Pakistan's border regions have become relatively peaceful after years
of violence but Pakistani Taliban militants have been more active recently amid
concern that surging violence in Afghanistan will spill over the frontier. No
group claimed responsibility for the kidnapping of 16 men installing a mobile
telephone tower in the Kurram ethnic Pashtun tribal district on June 26. Ten of
the workers were later released but one man was beheaded and the militants
demanded a ransom for the last five. "To rescue the remaining 5 abducted
labourers, security forces launched series of intelligence based operations in
highly inhospitable terrain under extreme weather conditions," the military
said in a statement. The rescue was on Thursday. The military did not say which
militants group it believed was behind the kidnapping but said civilians in the
area fully supported "the security forces in fighting the menace of terrorism.”

 

Egypt

 

Al Jazeera: Abuse And Torture In Egyptian Prisons Fuels ISIL Recruitment
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“In the last six months of Mohamed Soltan’s prison sentence, he was placed in
isolation in Egypt’s notorious Torah Prison, where he was beaten and tortured
mentally and physically every day. “I was completely cut off from the rest of
the world, with no access to daylight or sense of time,” he said. Only jailed
members of the armed group ISIL (ISIS) had access to his cell – and they
attempted to recruit him. “They tried to talk me out of my hunger strike,
because ‘the world only respected hard power, might makes right’, they told me.
They tried to sell me on taking matters into my own hands and joining their
ranks to fight oppression,” said Soltan, an Egyptian-American human rights
defender who was imprisoned for 22 months from 2013-2015. Soltan, who was
charged with “spreading false news” for tweeting about the dispersal of
demonstrations and spent much of his prison sentence on a hunger strike, said
he saw first-hand how ISIL members recruited inmates by exploiting their pain
and grievances towards the Egyptian government. Six years after his release,
researchers from Washington, DC-based NGO Human Rights First (HRF) said ISIL
members are still given free rein to radicalise inmates across the Egyptian
prison system.”

 

Nigeria

 

Sahara Reporters: Nigerian Army Reacts To Release Of Over 1000 Ex-Boko Haram
Fighters
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“The Nigerian Army has confirmed that it released 1,009 persons who were
implicated in the Boko Haram insurgency war, but denied that they were
ex-fighters of the sect. The army authorities who did not give the extent of
involvement of the released persons in the insurgency added that the exercise
was part of the ongoing Counter Terrorism Counter Insurgency Operations
(CTCOIN) in the North-East. The Director, Army Public Relations, Brig Gen
Onyema Nwahuckwu, stated this on Thursday while reacting to the release of the
1009 former fighters as reported by SaharaReporters and other outlets. 
Nwachukwu said, “It is an indisputable fact that the ongoing Counter Terrorism
Counter Insurgency Operations (CTCOIN) in the North-East has led to the arrest
of several terrorism/insurgency suspects. “These suspects have been held in
custody, while undergoing profiling and further investigations by  experts from
the Joint Investigation Centre (JIC) and those who are found culpable are
usually handed over to prosecuting agencies  accordingly, while those who are
not implicated in terrorism and insurgency are cleared and released to the
state government for rehabilitation before they are reintegrated into the
society.”

 

Africa

 

Deutsche Welle: 'Islamic State' Poses Growing Threat Across Africa
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“Last week, Niger's President Mohamed Bazoum said his country needed
technological assistance from its European partners to fight jihadis. He
complained of swaths of territory in Mali and Niger being taken over by the
so-called "Islamic State" (IS) — known also as ISIS — and its affiliates.
Bazoum's comments came as French President Emmanuel Macron announced France
would start closing military bases in northern Mali by the end of 2021,
including the 5,100-member Barkhane force. "We are going to reorganize
ourselves in line with this need to stop this spread to the south," Macron told
reporters. "Unfortunately, ISIS is so widespread in Africa today that you can
say it is across the continent," Nigerian political analyst Bulama Bukarti told
DW. "You are talking about groups of countries and subregions." Jihadis have
taken control of significant territories in the Sahel and the Lake Chad
regions, which include parts of Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Chad and Nigeria. In
2018, the West Africa Center for Counter Extremism (WACCE) reported up to 6,000
West Africans who had fought with IS had returned home from Iraq and Syria
after the group's self-proclaimed caliphate collapsed. "It was only a matter of
time before we would begin to see ISIS activities replicated in their home
countries," said Mutaru Mumuni Muqthar, director of the WACCE in Ghana.”

 

Europe

 

Euractiv: EU Takes Italy To Court For Not Sharing Terrorism-Related Data
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“The European Commission has referred Italy to the European Court of Justice
in Luxembourg for failing to comply with the ‘Prüm decisions’, the rules
established by the EU Council of interior ministers in 2008 to strengthen
judicial cooperation between member states, which for Brussels are “a
fundamental tool in the fight against terrorism and crime”. The rules allow
member states to swiftly exchange information on DNA, fingerprints and national
vehicle registration data, allowing prosecutors and the police to identify
suspects and establish links between criminal cases across the EU. But Italy
has not yet granted such facilities to its European partners, because it has
never opened its databases to other states. The Commission had launched an
infringement procedure already in 2011, when the information exchange had
become operational, and having received no response in 2017, it moved to the
second step, sending a reasoned opinion and urging Italy to fully comply with
its legal obligations. After repeated investigations on the progress made by
the country in fulfilling its obligations, “it is noted that to date Italy
still does not allow other member states to access its data relating to DNA,
fingerprints and registration of vehicles,” the European Commission said.”

 

Southeast Asia

 

Al Jazeera: Easter Bombings: Sri Lanka Probes Charges Against Spy Agencies
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“Sri Lanka’s President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has ordered an investigation into
allegations that some members of state intelligence agencies knew and met with
people who carried out Easter Sunday bombings in 2019 that killed more than 260
people, a government official said. The Catholic Church in Sri Lanka wrote to
the president on Tuesday raising concerns about the government’s handling of
the suicide bombings and asking it to investigate alleged links between
intelligence personnel and the group that carried out the attacks. Two local
Muslim groups that had allegedly declared allegiance to the ISIL (ISIS) group
carried out six coordinated attacks on churches and leading tourist hotels,
killing 269 people. Another man did not carry out a planned attack at a fourth
tourist hotel but killed himself later by exploding the bomb at a different
location. The letter from the National Catholic Committee for Justice to Easter
Sunday Attack Victims, a group of bishops and priests led by Archbishop of
Colombo Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, called on the president to take legal action
against former President Maithripala Sirisena for negligence as recommended by
a presidential inquiry commission report.”

 

Technology

 

American Security Today: Tech & Terrorism: Facebook Puts Onus On Users To
Identify Extremism
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“…Criticisms also began to build when far-right groups were found to have
promoted violence during the 2020 U.S. presidential election using Facebook
groups and pages. “The Redirect Initiative is Facebook’s latest half measure to
tackle extremism on its platform in which users are asked to do the policing
instead of the companies themselves,” said Counter Extremism Project (CEP)
Executive Director David Ibsen. “By putting the onus on users, Facebook is
deflecting from its responsibility to be more proactive about removing
offending content.” David Ibsen serves as Executive Director for the Counter
Extremism Project (CEP), a not-for-profit, non-partisan, international policy
organization formed to combat the growing threat from extremist ideologies.
David Ibsen serves as Executive Director for the Counter Extremism Project
(CEP), a not-for-profit, non-partisan, international policy organization formed
to combat the growing threat from extremist ideologies. “Moreover, Facebook’s
initiative ignores a crucial root cause for the spread of extremist
content—proprietary algorithms that have a perverse incentive amplify divisive
and controversial content to keep users on their sites and generate more
revenue for the company.”



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