“One of the United States’ most wanted terrorists and a senior member of a
group with strong ties to al-Qaida appeared in the Afghan capital of Kabul

 

 


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Eye on Extremism


August 24, 2021 

 

 

Vice: One Of The World's Most Wanted Terrorists Is Strolling Freely Through
Kabul
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“One of the United States’ most wanted terrorists and a senior member of a
group with strong ties to al-Qaida appeared in the Afghan capital of Kabul late
last week. Khalil al-Rahman Haqqani, who currently has a $5 million bounty on
his head for his links to al-Qaida terrorist operations, was seen leading a
crowd of worshippers through prayers at Pul-i Khishti mosque in Kabul's old
city on Friday. Khalil is a prominent figure in the Haqqani Network, a militant
organisation allied with both the Afghan Taliban and al-Qaida that has been
described as the most lethal insurgent group targeting Coalition and Afghan
forces in Afghanistan. His nephew is Sirajuddin Haqqani, the leader of the
Haqqani Network and a Specially Designated Global Terrorist in the eyes of the
U.S. Department of State, who has a $10 million bounty on his head. The
presence of representatives from the notorious group, which has a reputation
for ruthlessness and has been accused of some of the most deadly militant
attacks in Afghanistan, has rankled fears that the Taliban will be no less
brutal in their governance of the country than when they were last in power,
between 1996 and 2001. During that time, the Taliban ruled a reign of terror
with rife human rights abuses, due to their strict interpretation of Sharia
law.”

 

CNN: Police Kill Top Commander And Deputy Of Militant Group In Indian Kashmir
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“The top commander of a militant group and his deputy, allegedly involved in
dozens of target killings, died in a shootout, Indian police in Kashmir said on
Monday. Abbas Sheikh, chief of the militant group The Resistance Front (TRF),
and Saqib Manzoor were killed during a shootout in Srinagar, the main city of
Indian Kashmir, said Kashmir police chief Vijay Kumar. Kumar said the militants
were involved in dozens of target killings, including the murders of Babar
Qadri, a prominent lawyer, and a few workers of the country's ruling Bharatiya
Janata Party (BJP). The TRF is an offshoot of Pakistan-based militant group
Lashkar-e-Toiba, Kumar said. India and neighboring Pakistan have disputed
Kashmir since the end of British colonial rule in 1947. Both countries claim it
in full but rule it in part. More than 50,000 people have been killed in more
than three decades of insurgency in Kashmir that India accuses Pakistan of
fomenting by supporting Muslim militant groups fighting India's security forces
in its part of the divided region. Pakistan says it only offers political
support to its fellow Muslims in the Himalayan region.”

 

United States

 

Associated Press: Proud Boys Leader Who Burned BLM Flag Gets 5 Months In Jail
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“The leader of the Proud Boys extremist group was sentenced to more than five
months in jail on Monday for burning a Black Lives Matter banner that was torn
down from a historic Black church in downtown Washington and bringing two
high-capacity firearm magazines into the nation’s capital days shortly before
the Jan. 6 riot. Enrique Tarrio told the court he was “profusely” sorry for his
actions, calling them a “grave mistake.” “What I did was wrong,” Tarrio said
during the hearing held via videoconference. Tarrio, from Miami, was arrested
as he arrived in Washington two days before thousands of supporters of
then-President Donald Trump — including members of the Proud Boys — descended
on the U.S. Capitol and disrupted the certification of the Electoral College
vote. Tarrio was ordered to stay away from Washington, and law enforcement
later said Tarrio was picked up in part to help quell potential violence.”

 

Syria

 

Al Monitor: Syrian Jihadis Hail Taliban ‘Conquest’ Despite Their Own Effort To
Rebrand
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“Islamists of various shades have hailed the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan
as a major victory for global jihad. Leaders of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the
powerful extremist Sunni group that rules over broad swathes of the
northwestern province of Idlib and used to pay fealty to al-Qaeda and the
Islamic State (IS), are no exception, airing hope that a similar scenario will
unfold in Syria with the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad and his “criminal
regime.” “With utmost joy and delight, we received the news of the conquest of
our people in Afghanistan and their land’s [liberation] from the occupation and
its agents at the hands of the Taliban,” HTS said in an Aug. 18 statement.
“Perhaps in this victory witnessed today is a lesson and opportunity for the
international community and other sides silent about the crimes of Bashar and
his aides, as it should encourage them to support the will of the peoples and
repeat their demands and not stand alongside the flayer in confronting the free
peoples,” the statement added. Iraqi HTS leader Abu Maria al-Qahtani was even
more bullish. “At a time when the massacres committed by the military against
those who raised peaceful slogans among Muslims were being commemorated, good
news started flowing from Afghanistan.”

 

Afghanistan

 

NBC News: Kabul Airport Shooting Heightens Evacuation Chaos As Taliban Try To
Take Control
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“A deadly firefight brought renewed chaos on Monday to the Kabul airport,
where thousands of Afghans were waiting to flee the country as the Taliban
faced down a nascent resistance movement in the north. One Afghan soldier was
killed and three others were injured in the fight between Afghan security
forces and “unknown attackers” at the north gate of the airport, the German
military said in a tweet. It said American and German forces were also
involved, adding that no German soldiers were hurt. NBC News reached out to
U.S. Central Command and NATO for comment. It was not immediately clear if any
U.S. troops were killed or injured.  The German military said in a later tweet
that the Afghan soldiers involved in the incident were “members of the Afghan
army” taking part in a multinational operation to secure the airport. It was
not clear how many Afghan soldiers were operating at the airport, or anywhere
else in Afghanistan. The Afghan army, built and trained at a two-decade cost of
$83 billion to the U.S., largely capitulated in the Taliban's offensive across
Afghanistan, which culminated in the Afghan government collapsing and President
Ashraf Ghani fleeing Aug. 15.”

 

The New Yorker: Afghanistan, Again, Becomes A Cradle For Jihadism—And Al Qaeda
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“In March, I travelled to Afghanistan and the Middle East with General Kenneth
“Frank” McKenzie, Jr., the Alabama-born marine who heads Central Command. He
has been overseeing the frantic evacuation out of Kabul. During one of several
interviews aboard his plane, I asked him, “Do you really think, given the
intermarriage, the interweaving of the Taliban and Al Qaeda, that the Taliban
is really ever going to be able or willing to restrain Al Qaeda from doing
anything against us?” By then, the Taliban held roughly half of Afghanistan, a
country about the size of Texas. McKenzie was chillingly candid. “I think it
will be very hard for the Taliban to act against Al Qaeda, to actually limit
their ability to attack outside the country,” he replied. “It’s possible, but I
think it would be difficult.” For more than a year, both the Trump and Biden
Administrations had reams of warnings—from the military and diplomats,
congressional reports and a commissioned study group, its own inspector
general, and the United Nations—that the collapse of the Afghan government, an
ever-growing possibility, would also mean a resurgence of Al Qaeda. In April, a
U.S. intelligence assessment warned Congress that Al Qaeda’s senior leadership
“will continue to plot attacks and seek to exploit conflicts in different
regions.”

 

The Daily Beast: Taliban May Have Inherited ‘Hundreds’ Of Missiles From
Ex-Government
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“The Taliban, its al Qaeda ally, and the renegade ISIS-K terror group may have
inherited hundreds of deadly shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles from the
fallen Afghan government’s weapons depots, experts say. The exact number of
missiles and their origin, kind, age and viability are hard to come by. A 2019
report by the RAND Corp. think tank put the total at an alarming 4,500, but
according to experts, that figure is unreliable, and almost certainly
represents the number of MANPADS—Man-portable air defense systems—acquired by
successive Kabul regimes going back decades. It’s highly unlikely that
Washington supplied any to Kabul, experts explained. Any left today likely
represent a fraction of those acquired by the Taliban regime overthrown by the
U.S. in 2001, or its predecessors. Still, if even a fraction of MANPADS fell
into the hands of the Taliban, Al-Qaeda or ISIS-K, an Islamic State faction
active in Afghanistan and elsewhere nearby, that would be alarming. Elements of
the terror groups have entered Kabul, according to current reports. “There is a
strong possibility ISIS-K is trying to carry off an attack at the airport,” a
U.S. defense official told CNN Saturday.”

 

Brinkwire: It’s Only A Matter Of Time Until al-Qaeda Uses Taliban Backing In
Afghanistan To Target Europe.
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“It’s only a matter of time until al-Qaeda uses Taliban backing in Afghanistan
to target Europe. According to a terror specialist, the Taliban’s win in
Afghanistan will soon bring terror strikes and misery to Europe. The Taliban
have projected a more moderate face since seizing Kabul on Sunday, stating they
want peace, will not seek retribution against old foes, and will protect
women’s rights within the context of Islamic law. However, Dr. Hans-Jakob
Schindler, Senior Director of the Counter Extremism Project (CEP), an
international non-profit dedicated to combating the growing threat of terrorism
and extremist ideology, cautioned that the group’s words should be treated with
caution. Dr. Schindler, writing for Euronews, reminded the international
community that the Taliban were the first to embrace al-Qaeda, allowing the
terror organisation to create a massive terrorist network. If western
democracies apply economic sanctions on Afghanistan’s unrecognized new ruling
government, the Taliban will most likely resort to al-Qaeda for funds,
according to the terror expert. In exchange, the terror group will be able to
reestablish a strong presence in Kabul, raising fears of new strikes against
the West. “There is little question that, aside from being a big military win,
it is also a victory for the insurgency’s propaganda with worldwide
repercussions and is considered as a significant step forward by the global
Islamist terrorist movement,” he said.”

 

Middle East

 

The Times Of Israel: Gaza Arson Attacks Spark 9 Fires In Israel; Terror Groups
Plan Border Protests
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“Terrorists in the Gaza Strip sparked at least nine fires in southern Israel
throughout Monday with balloon-borne incendiary devices flown over the border
as tensions in the region heated up, Fire and Rescue Services investigators
said. Firefighters from Fire and Rescue Services, the Israel Defense Forces,
the Jewish National Fund and local communities have been battling brushfires
throughout the day in the Eshkol and Sdot Negev regions of southern Israel.
Fire and Rescue Services investigators said they determined that at least nine
fires in Eshkol were sparked by these balloon-based attacks. Another fire in
Sdot Negev was also likely the result of arson, but this was still being
checked, the investigators said. The attacks drew harsh criticism from local
government officials, who called on the government to take action. “The
audacity of the terror groups to renew the terrorism of balloons and to burn
our fields must be rooted out today. If it is not stopped today, we will find
ourselves… [again] putting out fires and crying that our harvests have gone up
in smoke,” the mayor of the Eshkol region, Gadi Yarkoni, said in a statement.”

 

Libya

 

Asharq Al-Awsat: ISIS Attack Thwarted In Southern Libya
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“A leaked confidential document from the Libyan interior ministry revealed
that 100 terrorists have set up base at Libya’s Watiya Air Base. The Libyan
National Army (LNA), commanded by Khalifa Haftar, meanwhile announced that it
had thwarted a suicide attack by the ISIS terrorist group in southern Libya.
LNA spokesman Ahmed al-Mismari said the terrorist had attempted to detonate a
booby-trapped vehicle at a military position in the southern town of Zella. A
clash ensued with the LNA, with the attacker being fatally wounded. Moments
before dying, he said that he hailed from Sudan. Zella is a small oasis town
that lies south of Sirte city and near an oilfield carrying the same name. The
attack coincided with a revelation that some 100 Tunisian terrorists at the
Watiya base were planning to infiltrate Tunisia to carry out attacks. The
information was revealed by Libya’s Government of National Unity (GNU) Interior
Minister Khaled Mazen in correspondence to several heads of security agencies
and police forces in Arab and international countries. In the leaked letter,
Mazen called for intensifying operations and efforts to thwart any terrorist
plots.”

 

Nigeria

 

PM News Nigeria: Four Boko Haram Terrorists Shot Dead In Gun-Duel With Soldiers

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“The Multi-National Joint Task Force (MNJTF), has shot four Boko Haram
terrorists dead in a gun-duel along the fringes of lake Chad. A statement
signed by Col. Muhammad Dole, Chief of Military Public Information of MNJTF, on
Monday in Maiduguri, Borno, said rifles, ammunition and other accessories were
recovered from the insurgents in the encounter. “The renewed vigour and
resilience in the conduct of the ongoing clearance operations to flush out
remnants of BHT/ISWAP terrorists around the fringes of Lake Chad region, is
yielding positive results. “The troops of MNJTF Sector three, Monguno,
conducting routine patrols along Gajiram general areas, suddenly came under
attack by BHT/ISWAP terrorists at Gambari axis. “The ambush was successfully
repelled and the troops charged through. During the encounter, four insurgents
were neutralised while many fled with multiple gunshot wounds. “Unfortunately,
one solder sustained injury and is receiving treatment at a military medical
facility,” Dole said. According to him, items recovered include, three AK 47
rifles, 10 special rounds of 7.62 special rounds and assorted drugs, among
others.”

 

Canada

 

Global News: Extremist Groups ‘Actively Recruiting’ Military And Police,
Canadian Intelligence Report Warns
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“Far-right extremist groups are “actively recruiting” past and present members
of the military and police, according to a declassified Canadian intelligence
report obtained by Global News. The report cited 17 examples in Canada, the
U.S., U.K., Germany and New Zealand which “illustrate the intersections and
relationships between ideologically motivated violent extremism and uniformed
personnel.” Six of the cases involved members of the Canadian military or
reserves. “IMV extremist groups actively recruiting uniformed personnel,”
Canadian government threat assessment said. IMV is the acronym for
Ideologically Motivated Violence. “Several xenophobic and
anti-government/anti-authority violent extremist groups openly recruit current
and former military and law enforcement personnel.” It said the groups included
the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers and Boogaloo Movement, as well as the Three
Percenters — a so-called patriot group that took part in the Jan. 6 assault at
the U.S. Capitol. “While there is a small number of members in every province,
including members of the military, ex-military, and police, the movement is
growing in Canada,” it said of the Three Percenters.”

 

Technology

 

The Hill: UN-Backed Tech Group Adds Taliban To List Of Terrorist Organizations
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“Tech platforms should ban or restrict content from the Taliban, a United
Nations-backed group advised Monday. The group, Tech Against Terrorism, added
the Taliban, which has regained control of Afghanistan amid the pullout of U.S.
forces, to its Terrorist Content Analytics Platform (TCAP), which detects
verified terrorist content online and alerts platforms of it. “The Taliban was
one of the groups that we have considered adding to the TCAP for a long time,
however in light of recent events in Afghanistan and to provide clarity for the
tech companies we work with on this (admittedly challenging) content moderation
issue, we have decided to accelerate inclusion of official Taliban content,”
the group said in a statement. “Whilst we appreciate that this is a challenging
moderation issue, the fact that the Taliban now effectively constitutes the
Afghan government should not prevent platforms from implementing their rules in
this area and from removing material produced by a designated terrorist
organisation,” the group said. The TCAP has previously listed ISIS and al Qaeda
content, as well as content from designated far-right organizations.”



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