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Eye on Extremism
August 23, 2021
The Wall Street Journal: Taliban Battles Militia In First Significant Clashes Since Takeover
“Taliban fighters on Saturday battled a local militia in northern Afghanistan in some of the first significant armed clashes since the rapid takeover of the country, while the Islamist group’s political leaders held talks in Kabul on the formation of a new government. Efforts to evacuate foreign nationals and Afghans who have worked with them over the past two decades, meanwhile, continued to be plagued by chaotic conditions in the capital. Taliban check points and unruly crowds prevented many from reaching the airport. The U.S. Embassy warned Americans that “because of potential security threats outside the gates at the Kabul airport, we are advising U.S. citizens to avoid traveling to the airport and to avoid airport gates at this time.” The security risk partly involved concerns of violence by the Islamic State extremist group, defense officials said. The U.S. is creating at least two new meeting points for Americans to lead them to the airport to improve safety, a U.S. official said. British officials said that airport gates had been closed for a time Saturday, although the Pentagon would not say whether it had to close any of the gates. “There’s a whole panoply of security concerns we have,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said at a Pentagon press briefing.”
Reuters: Gunmen Kill At Least 16 In Latest Niger Village Attack
“At least 16 people have been killed in an attack on a village in southwestern Niger where Islamist militants have repeatedly massacred civilians this year, a local official and a security source said on Saturday. The unidentified gunmen opened fire during Friday prayers in the village of Theim in Tillabery region and killed 16 people, local mayor Halido Zibo said by phone. A security source confirmed the attack and put the death toll at 17. The attack follows the killing on Monday of 37 civilians, including 14 children, in a village in the same region. Armed groups in Tillabery and Tahoua regions bordering Mali have killed over 420 civilians and driven tens of thousands of others from their homes in 2021, New York-based rights group Human Rights Watch said in a report this month. The attacks are part of a wider conflict spanning the borderlands of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger in Africa's Sahel region where jihadists linked to al Qaeda and Islamic State are seeking to take control.”
United States
Fox News: Experts Warn Of Al Qaeda Attacks On US Soil As Global Terror Threat Reaches 20-Year High
“The Biden-ordered Afghanistan withdrawal and subsequent Taliban takeover has increased the global terror threat to its highest point in two decades, and without U.S. intelligence operatives in the region, an al Qaeda 9-11 style attack may be imminent, experts warn. Dr. Tom Copeland, an expert in intelligence failures and mass casualty terrorist attacks and director of research at the Centennial Insititute told Fox News on Thursday that the fall of the Afghan government will likely coincide with the twentieth anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attack. Moreover, Copeland warned, the United States' complete withdrawal could presage another attack of that nature on U.S. soil. “Having an entire country as a safe haven, will give [al Qaeda] more physical space and more breathing space to reconstitute and go back to planning major events, so I think the U.S. withdrawal itself is a large part of that threat,” Copeland said. With the country under complete Taliban control, al Qaeda is expected to set up shop and fully resume operations, making terror attacks on the West an ever-present national security concern, he explained. The fear, Copeland said, is that for the first time in nearly 20 years, the U.S. will be blind on the ground with the absence of an embassy, military bases, and a CIA station based in the region.”
Newsweek: Man Faces Terrorism Charges After Threatening To 'Take Over' Michigan Capitol
“A Charlotte, Michigan man is facing serious charges after allegedly making false bomb threats and threatening the life of Democratic state Representative Cynthia Johnson of Detroit in December 2020. On Friday, Michael Varrone, 49, was arraigned on two counts of false report or threat of terrorism and a count of false report of a bomb threat. Varrone is currently out on bail but was ordered to stand trial on Thursday after receiving a preliminary examination in district court. On December 12, 2020, Varrone allegedly called the Michigan House of Representatives six times and threatened Johnson and her family. The voicemail from Varrone stemmed from Johnson's comments days earlier, telling “Trumpers” to “stand down” after she continuously received death threats from Trump supporters. “If there is one more threat by a Democratic person in Michigan that's supposed to represent me, I will personally come down there and take over that [expletive] building at the Capitol,” Varrone said on the voicemail, according to an affidavit filed in the case. “If I'm threatened by another senator or anybody like Cynthia Johnson, I'll personally take care of that [expletive] and their whole [expletive] family.”
Iran
The Jerusalem Post: Iran Official On Trial Linked To Terrorist Who Murdered Jews And Kurds
“The alleged Iranian regime mass murderer Hamid Noury, who is currently on trial in Stockholm, Sweden for the massacre of 136 Iranians in Gohardasht prison in Karaj, invited former Iranian intelligence chief and internationally wanted terrorist Ali Fallahian, to dinner. The International Criminal Police Organization issued an arrest warrant for Fallahian due to his role in the bombing of the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina Jewish community center in Buenos Aires in 1994, resulting in the murders of 85 people and injury of hundreds. The revelation was disclosed in August by the London-based “Iran International” news organization on its Persian language website. Fallahian was the intelligence minister from 1989 to 1997 during the tenure of late president Ali Akbar Rafsanjani. Interpol also sought Fallahian with respect to his involvement in the assassination of three Kurdish-Iranian opposition leaders in the West Berlin Mykonos in 1992. Noury sent the text messages to Fallahian and to Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, the current head of the judiciary, in 2019 during Ramadan. The Swedish police preserved the messages from his mobile telephone and the notations of the text messages were part of the interrogation of Noury following his November 2019 arrest.”
Afghanistan
“At a news conference in Kabul last week, Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid made the case that today’s Taliban was no longer the group the world remembers from the last time it came to power nationally. “Nobody will be harmed in Afghanistan,” he said. “Of course, there is a huge difference between us now and 20 years ago.” Observers were quick to seize on signs of compromise and divergence from the hard-line stance that has marked Taliban attitudes regarding the role of women and girls: Female journalists returned to the screen the day after Kabul’s fall, even interviewing a Taliban official on live television. The Taliban’s political office spokesman tweeted a video of a Taliban-aligned scholar advising female hospital staffers to continue their work. These moments would have been difficult to imagine during the Taliban’s previous rule over the country, which lasted from 1996 until the 2001 invasion by U.S.-led forces. But this wasn’t the first time the Taliban tried to present a reassuring face. Some of the official assurances that accompanied the group’s ascension in 1996 struck a similar tone. On Sept. 27, 1996, Taliban forces captured Kabul overnight, flooding in from all directions after a 15-day sweep of the country.”
Associated Press: Taliban Killings Fuel Fear, Drive More Chaos Outside Airport
“Reports of targeted killings in areas overrun by the Taliban mounted Friday, fueling fears that they will return Afghanistan to the repressive rule they imposed when they were last in power, even as they urged imams to push a message of unity at weekly prayers. Terrified that the new rulers would commit such abuses and despairing for their country’s future, thousands have raced to Kabul’s airport, where chaotic scenes continued unabated. People seeking to escape struggled to get past crushing crowds, Taliban airport checkpoints and U.S. bureaucracy. Video images showed crowds gathered in the dark outside the barbed-wire topped walls. Occasionally someone shot a stream of gunfire into the air. What appeared to be American troops stood in the distance. In one dramatic image, a U.S. Marine reached over the razor wire atop a barrier and plucked a baby by the arm from the crowd and pulled it up over the wall. Reports of planes leaving at least partly empty underscored how difficult it still is for people to get into the airport. In an indication of the extent of the chaos, the Belgian foreign affairs ministry confirmed that one of its aircraft took off from Kabul without a single passenger because the people who were supposed to be on board got stuck outside the airport.”
The Washington Post: Opinion: Nikki Haley: America Must Not Recognize The Taliban
“President Biden badly bungled the withdrawal from Afghanistan, making the United States weaker and less safe while leaving more than 10,000 Americans and 38 million Afghans at the mercy of the brutal Taliban. He must not also bungle the coming decision on whether to recognize these barbarians as Afghanistan’s legitimate government. Doing so would bring the United States even lower while raising up a regime that deserves nothing but scorn and isolation. Shockingly, the Biden administration has yet to rule out recognizing the Taliban. The administration is “taking stock” of the situation, while calling on the tyrannical group to protect the Afghan people’s rights. Hopefully, Biden is just posturing until we get all Americans out. If not, it’s an embarrassing reversal from the administration’s previous promise to oppose the Taliban if they took power at the point of a gun, which they did. This is not a run-of-the-mill transfer of power. It is a violent coup against a democratically elected government. Recognizing the Taliban would ignore how sick and twisted it truly is. The Taliban of 2021 is little different from the Taliban of 2001. Then, those terrorists harbored other terrorists, namely the murderers behind the Sept. 11 attacks.”
Qantara.de: Why Afghanistan Should Be Filthy Rich
“…Some analysts, however, question whether the Taliban have the competence or the willingness to exploit the country's natural resources, given the income they generate from the drug trade. "These resources were in the ground in the 90s too and they [the Taliban] weren't able to extract them," Hans-Jakob Schindler, senior director at the Counter Extremism Project, pointed out. "One has to remain very sceptical of their ability to grow the Afghan economy or even their interest in doing so. "Even so, senior Taliban officials last month met Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Tianjin, where Taliban Political Commission Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar said he hoped China would "play a bigger role in [Afghanistan's] future reconstruction and economic development.”
Pakistan
Reuters: Suicide Bomb Attack In Pakistan Kills Two Children, Injures Chinese National
“A suicide bomb attack in Pakistan on a motorcade carrying Chinese personnel injured one Chinese national and killed two local children, the Chinese embassy in Islamabad said on Saturday. “The Chinese embassy in Pakistan strongly condemns this act of terrorism, extends its sincere sympathies to the injured of both countries, and expresses its deep condolences to the innocent victims in Pakistan,” it said in a statement. The attack took place on Friday at the Gwadar East Bay Expressway project in Balochistan, the embassy said. Several wounded people were treated at a local hospital, it said. The embassy called on the Pakistan authorities to conduct a thorough investigation of the attack. No group has claimed responsibility for the incident. In July, a suicide bomber attacked a bus carrying workers to a dam construction site in northern Pakistan, killing 13 people, including nine Chinese nationals. Pakistan's foreign minister said Pakistani Taliban militants known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan were behind that attack. The TTP told Reuters it was not involved. Beijing is investing over $65 billion in infrastructure projects in Pakistan as part of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor, under its wider Belt and Road initiative.”
Mali
The Defense Post: 15 Soldiers Killed In Ambush In Central Mali: Army
“Suspected jihadists mounted an ambush Thursday on an army convoy in central Mali that left 15 soldiers dead and 34 wounded, 10 of them seriously, the army said. “A bomb-laden vehicle exploded, followed by intense gunfire” in the late-morning attack, the army said in a statement, calling the casualty toll “provisional.” A military official blamed the carnage on “terrorists” — the usual term for jihadists. The ambush occurred near Douentza in the jihadist-infested Mopti region, 600 kilometers (370 miles) from the capital Bamako. The region is the epicentre of a deadly Islamist offensive that began in northern Mali in 2012 and then advanced into neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger, inflaming ethnic tensions along the way. Thousands of soldiers and civilians have died in the conflict to date and hundreds of thousands of people have had to flee their homes. Extremists linked to Al-Qaeda took control of Mali’s vast desert north in early 2012, before being largely driven out in a French-led military operation that began in January 2013. But huge areas are still in the grip of lawlessness, despite a 2015 peace agreement with some armed groups that sought to definitively stamp out the jihadist threat.”
Africa
Voice Of America: Chad To Bring Home Half Of Its Troops Fighting Sahel Militants
“Chad has decided to recall half of its 1,200 troops battling Islamist militants in the tri-border area of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, a spokesperson for Chadian authorities said Saturday. Chad deployed the soldiers in February to support a France-backed regional fight with insurgents linked to al-Qaida and Islamic State who have destabilized swaths of territory in West Africa's Sahel region in recent years. The decision to withdraw 600 of these soldiers was made in agreement with Chad's Sahel allies, General Azem Bermandoa Agouna said, speaking on behalf of the Transitional Military Council in Chad. The recalled Chadian troops would be redeployed elsewhere, Agouna said, without giving further details. The authorities in Chad have faced a separate conflict this year with insurgents in the north. France has also said it plans to reduce its presence in the Sahel to around half the 5,100 soldiers there, although it has given no timeframe. The former colonial power has hailed some successes against the militants in recent months, but the situation is extremely fragile with hundreds of civilians killed in rebel attacks this year. Mahamat Idriss Deby, who leads the Transitional Military Council (CMT), has run Chad since his father, the former president, was killed while visiting the front line in April.”
BBC News: Africa's Jihadists: What Taliban Takeover Of Afghanistan Means
“As Afghanistan fell to the Taliban, Islamist groups waging insurgencies in Africa were quick to celebrate. “God is great,” a media outlet linked to Somalia's al-Shabab wrote in response to the takeover. Elsewhere, the leader of al-Qaeda affiliate Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) used his first public message since 2019 to congratulate the Taliban. “We are winning,” Iyad Ag Ghaly said, drawing comparisons between the withdrawal of foreign troops in Afghanistan and France's decision to reduce its military presence in West Africa's Sahel region. And it is not just Africa's Islamist fighters who have been seeing parallels with Afghanistan. From Somalia in the east to Nigeria in the west, newspapers have published articles and citizens have taken to social media to share their concerns. If a wake-up call was needed for African governments heavily reliant on foreign support in their fight against Islamist insurgents, then the Taliban's seizure of Afghanistan is likely to be it. Since 2012, Mali - one of Africa's biggest countries - has been battling various jihadist groups in its northern and central regions. It has had to rely on French troops and UN peacekeepers to keep the militants from taking control.”
Germany
Newsweek: The 'Insecure' German Terrorist Who Loaned Mohammed Atta His Computer
“German citizen Said Bahaji purchased an airline ticket on August 20, to leave Hamburg for Karachi, Pakistan via Istanbul on September 3rd. Bahaji, a roommate of Mohammed Atta in Hamburg, provided support for the 9/11 hijackers while they were in the United States. He left Germany just days before 9/11 and was a sought-after fugitive until his death near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border was reported in 2013. Bahaji was the only German citizen of the Hamburg group. Educated in Morocco, he returned to Germany for college and attended Technical University of Hamburg-Harburg. He spent five months in the German Army before receiving a medical discharge. At the University, he met Atta and two petitioned the school in 1999 to establish a Muslim prayer room. He attended the al Quds mosque in Hamburg with the 9/11 hijackers. A famous video of his marriage on October 9, 1999—recovered after 9/11—showed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, and bin al-Shibh attending. The FBI later said in an intelligence report about the video, “On the recording at approximately the eleventh minute, Ramzi BINALSHIBH [sic] gives what is more of a political than congratulatory speech. BINALSHIBH ends his statement with a poem in Arabic ... a Palestinian 'war poem.'“
Europe
Express: 'Only A Matter Of Time' Before Al-Qaeda Attacks Europe With Taliban Support In Afghanistan
“Since seizing Kabul on Sunday, the Taliban have presented a more moderate face, saying they want peace, will not take revenge against old enemies and will respect the rights of women within the framework of Islamic law. But Dr Hans-Jakob Schindler, a Senior Director for the Counter Extremism Project (CEP) an international non-profit working to combat the growing threat of terrorism and extremist ideology, warned the group's word should be taken with caution. Writing for Euronews, Dr Schindler urged the international community to remember that the Taliban were the first to provide support to al-Qaeda, allowing the terror group to build a huge network of terrorists. The terror expert warned that should western democracies impose economic sanctions on the unrecognised new ruling government of Afghanistan, the Taliban will most likely turn to al-Qaeda for cash. This, in return, will allow the terror group to have a firm presence in Kabul again, prompting fears of new attacks on the west. He wrote: “Due to the Taliban’s close ties with al-Qaeda and other affiliates, there is little doubt that apart from this being a significant military victory, it is also a victory for the insurgency’s propaganda with global implications and is seen as a significant step forward by the global Islamist terrorist movement.”
Southeast Asia
Reuters: Indonesia Police Arrest 53 Suspected Of Plotting Independence Day Attack
“Indonesian police have arrested 53 militants suspected of planning an attack on independence day this week, including alleged members of networks blamed for past attacks like the 2002 Bali bombings, the police said on Friday. Some of those arrested were from the group Jemaah Islamiah (JI), a jihadist network with ties to al Qaeda, or the Islamic State-inspired Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD), blamed for a church bombing on Sulawesi island in March, police said. Argo Yuwono, a national police spokesperson, told reporters the arrests had taken place across 11 provinces in the week leading up to Indonesian independence day on Tuesday. “They went after people from the government,” he said, without specifying which people. “They wanted to use the momentum of the independence day.” Argo said police had seized weapons, ammunition and donation boxes used to raise funds. Militant attacks in Indonesia have included the 2002 Bali bombings, believed to have been orchestrated by JI, which killed over 200 people including dozens of Australians. Abu Bakar Bashir, JI's spiritual leader, left prison last January after serving a 10-year term. A resurgence in attacks has been linked to the hundreds of Indonesians that went to Syria and Iraq to fight for Islamic State before returning.”
Technology
NBC News: Some Taliban Websites Go Offline Amid Broader Tech Crackdown
“Five websites operated by the Taliban went offline Friday, as many tech companies move to limit the group’s digital reach following their takeover of Kabul, Afghanistan, on Sunday. The websites were central to how the group relayed messages to people inside and outside Afghanistan, as the Taliban continue to exert control over the country. All five sites operated in various languages, including Pashto, Dari, Urdu, Arabic and English, which are all spoken by people in Afghanistan and neighboring regions. It is unclear why the websites were unavailable, but public information about the websites shows they each used Cloudflare, a major internet services provider. The Washington Post first reported on the sites’ outages. Cloudflare did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The company has been staunchly against censoring or taking down websites of its customers based on their content, but it has made some exceptions. In 2017, Cloudflare dropped its protection of the Daily Stormer, a neo-Nazi website that was used to plan a violent rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, that summer, causing the website to go offline. In 2019, Cloudflare likewise stopped serving the message board 8chan, following a shooting in El Paso, Texas, that killed 23 people after it was reported that the suspected killer posted a manifesto to 8chan explaining his intentions.”
Bloomberg: Facebook, Twitter Face High-Stakes Choice On A Voice For Taliban
“Facebook Inc., Twitter Inc. and Google, already under fire for wielding outsized influence on political discourse around the world, are on the brink of another high-stakes decision -- whether to give the Taliban a social-media megaphone. Their actions will have lasting impacts on the diplomatic stage and on the lives of everyday people in Afghanistan. The militant group’s rise to power is forcing Silicon Valley’s biggest internet companies to revisit their policies on how to treat controversial political actors. While the Taliban is banned from holding accounts or spreading propaganda on most big online networks, its takeover of the government means the tech giants will soon have to decide whether to expand its access or grant it the ability to manage Afghanistan’s official state social media channels. They may also have to make decisions about whether to keep up or flag content that both praises and criticizes the group, with potentially perilous consequences for those posting it. The events unfolding in Afghanistan underscore how difficult it is to make quick judgments on who deserves to have a voice on social networks during dangerous and fast-moving international crises. Facebook and other platforms tout their mission of fostering a robust and free-flowing political debate while only lightly moderating content, and have been accused of censorship for blocking posts expressing some extreme views.”
“The Taliban have unfurled a propaganda campaign showing themselves as a modern movement that embraces human and women's rights and will bring stability. Journalists are invited for interviews or called live on television. On social media, spokesmen and fighters show images of people cheering the Taliban. For 15 years, the group has been promoting propaganda via radio, internet and social media, once banned by the Taliban itself. The virtual emirate once again became a real dominion. Young men having fun in the water, a speedboat passes by. The sun shines. People laugh and seem to be having the time of their lives. It is a striking video on the Twitter account of M. Naeem, the spokesman for the political department of the Taliban, as he describes himself in his Twitter bio. It is just one of the many videos and photos that should show that the new Taliban are quite different from the old ones.”
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