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Eye on Extremism
August 26, 2021
“The Taliban is scrambling to reach a deal with former Afghan officials to establish a government that could gain international recognition, keep aid money flowing into the country and restore access to billions of dollars in international reserves. Taliban leaders have shuttled between more than a dozen meetings over the past week with the few former Afghan officials who remain in Kabul, including former president Hamid Karzai; Abdullah Abdullah, former leader of national reconciliation council; and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a former warlord-turned-politician. The meetings have been held in the presidential palace, former government offices and private compounds. For the Taliban, a political agreement could help the group avoid again becoming an international pariah, which would push one of the world's poorest countries even further into poverty. For the former Afghan leaders, a deal would give them a share of power in Afghanistan’s new government. At a news conference inside the former Afghan government’s media center, now adorned with white Taliban flags, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said meetings with former Afghan officials are an effort to seek “their advice about the future government,” so Afghanistan can “build a government that is accountable, serves the country and brings everyone together.”
Associated Press: Boko Haram Militants Kill 16 Soldiers In Niger Attack
“Hundreds of Islamic militants attacked a military outpost in southeastern Niger overnight, killing 16 soldiers and wounding at least nine others, the country’s defense ministry said Wednesday. Extremists from the Boko Haram group targeted the soldiers near the village of Baroua, not far from the border with Chad. “The terrorists, numbering several hundred, had come from Lake Chad and were pushed back” by the military, according to a statement from Niger’s national defense ministry that said 50 militants were killed in the fighting. The military outpost was set up near the village of Baroua after residents who had fled violence in the area were repatriated to their village last July after five years. Boko Haram and its breakaway faction known as the Islamic State in West Africa Province have launched scores of attacks in Niger since the extremists started their insurgency in neighboring Nigeria in 2009. Niger also faces mounting extremist violence along its borders with Mali and Burkina Faso in the west. Hundreds of civilians have been killed this year alone in a series of massacres in the troubled region.”
United States
Reuters: After Taliban Takeover, Concerns Mount Over U.S. Counterterrorism Ability
“With no U.S. troops or reliable partners left, jails emptied of militants and the Taliban in control, doubts are mounting within President Joe Biden's administration over Washington's ability to stem a resurgence of al Qaeda and other extremists in Afghanistan, six current and former U.S. officials told Reuters. Afghan security forces whom the United States helped train crumbled as Taliban militants made their way through Afghanistan in less than two weeks, leaving the United States with few partners on the ground. “We're not in a good place,” said a U.S. defense official, who requested anonymity to discuss the issue. Weeks before the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States by al Qaeda, the lack of visibility regarding potential extremist threats is a chilling prospect for officials. U.S.-led forces toppled the Taliban in 2001 for sheltering al Qaeda militants, leading to America's longest war. The U.S. troop departure ordered for Aug. 31 by Biden and the subsequent collapse of Afghan security forces have stripped the CIA and other spy agencies of protection, forcing them to close bases and withdraw personnel as well. The Biden administration cannot rely on neighboring countries because it has so far been unable to strike accords on bases for U.S. counterterrorism forces and drones, officials said.”
Reuters: Woman Who Aided Islamic State Skips Hearing, US Fears She Cut GPS Bracelet
“A Brooklyn woman who will be resentenced for supporting Islamic State after a court threw out her “shockingly low” four-year prison term did not attend a Wednesday court hearing, and a prosecutor suggested she may have cut her monitoring bracelet. U.S. District Judge Kiyo Matsumoto in Brooklyn said she will issue a bench warrant for Sinmyah Amera Ceasar, 26, who prosecutors have said used the name “Umm Nutella” in her role as a “committed recruiter” for Islamic State. Assistant U.S. Attorney Ian Richardson said Ceasar was not responding to calls and the government believed her GPS tracking bracket had been “tampered with” and perhaps cut. He said the FBI and probation officials are looking for it. Samuel Jacobson, a federal public defender representing Ceasar, said he believed his client knew she had a court date. “I can't say for sure that she understood the specifics,” he said. Ceasar received her four-year term from late U.S. District Judge Jack Weinstein, who cited her need for educational and mental health support after a lifetime of abuse. But the federal appeals court in Manhattan threw out the sentence on Aug. 18, saying it was too short relative to “similar terrorism crimes” and failed to properly address the needs to ensure just punishment.”
Iraq
Newsweek: Iraq Seeks Anti-Terrorism Role In Baghdad Summit With Iran, Arab Gulf States
“Iraq made a move to unite the Muslim world, extending an invitation to Shi'ite Islam Iran to join its upcoming Baghdad summit that the country hopes will include Saudi Arabia and its Sunni Islam Gulf allies. This move could represent a major shift in a relationship that has come close to open conflict over the past few years. By inviting both Iran and Saudi Arabia, Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi could turn the page on a conflict that has been inflamed by the ongoing war in Yemen, where the two powers support dueling factions, which ultimately led them to sever ties in 2016. “Even if we bring the foreign ministers together at one table this could be considered a breakthrough to end the tensions between Iranians and the Gulf Arabs,” an official close to Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al Khadimi told Reuters. In this photo, Khadimi (L) meets with President Joe Biden in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C. on July 26, 2021. Tensions reached new heights in 2019, when Saudi Arabia accused Iran of a 2019 assault on Saudi oil plants that briefly knocked out half of the country's oil production.”
Turkey
Daily Sabah: Security Forces Eliminate 11 Terrorists In Turkey, Syria
“Turkish security forces on Wednesday eliminated 11 terrorists in counterterrorism operations in southeastern Turkey as well as in northern Syria. Nine terrorists of the PKK’s Syrian wing, the YPG, were killed by Turkish forces in northern Syria, Turkey's Defense Ministry said on Wednesday. Turkish commandos eliminated eight terrorists in the Operation Peace Spring zone and one in the Operation Euphrates Shield region, the ministry said on Twitter. Since 2016, Turkey has launched a trio of successful counterterrorism operations across its border in northern Syria – Euphrates Shield in 2016, Olive Branch in 2018 and Peace Spring in 2019. These operations all aimed to prevent the formation of a terrorism corridor and to enable the peaceful resettlement of residents. Meanwhile, Turkey continues to battle terrorism within its borders. The Interior Ministry on Wednesday announced that two PKK terrorists were eliminated in Şırnak province as part of the Eren-13 operation by gendarmerie commandos and gendarmerie special forces. Operation Eren, named after Eren Bülbül, 15, who was killed Aug. 11, 2017, by armed PKK terrorists, began in January of this year to eliminate terrorism in Turkey.”
Afghanistan
“On his tour through the fallen city of Kabul last week, Taliban-aligned militant Khalil Haqqani rose to address a crowd at the capital’s largest place of worship, Pul-i-Khishti Mosque. As he clutched a U.S.-made M4 rifle, his security guards, similarly armed, were draped in the U.S. combat aesthetics that have come to symbolize the last 20 years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq. Sporting high-cut helmets with night-vision goggle mounts, plate carriers and U.S. camouflage patterns, the guards looked like caricatures of the elite troops who have hunted insurgents in nightly raids and firefights. The bounty of U.S.-provided weapons and vehicles, long paraded by Taliban insurgents after capturing or stealing them from Afghan forces, has grown to alarming proportions, well beyond the ability of U.S. officials to casually dismiss. And while throughout the war, militants prized rifles and other sophisticated personal equipment as individual trophies, the sudden and stunning collapse of the Afghan military has allowed for armored vehicles, helicopters and a glut of heavy weapons to be commandeered by militants now running the country.”
The New York Times: ISIS Branch Poses Biggest Immediate Terror Threat To Evacuation In Kabul
“The United States has been battling the Taliban and their militant partners in Afghanistan, Al Qaeda and the Haqqani network, for 20 years. But the biggest immediate threat to both the Americans and the Taliban as the United States escalates its evacuation at the Kabul airport before an Aug. 31 withdrawal deadline is a common rival that is lesser known: Islamic State Khorasan, or ISIS-K, the terrorist group’s affiliate in Afghanistan. Created six years ago by disaffected Pakistani Taliban, ISIS-K has carried out dozens of attacks in Afghanistan this year. American military and intelligence analysts say threats from the group include a bomb-laden truck, suicide bombers infiltrating the crowd outside Hamid Karzai International Airport and mortar strikes against the airfield. These threats, coupled with new demands by the Taliban for the United States to leave by Aug. 31, probably influenced President Biden’s decision on Tuesday to stick to that deadline. “Every day we’re on the ground is another day we know that ISIS-K is seeking to target the airport and attack both U.S. and allied forces and innocent civilians,” Mr. Biden said. The U.S. Embassy on Wednesday warned Americans to stay away from the airport and told anyone outside the perimeter to “leave immediately.”
New York Post: There Was No Need To Withdraw From Afghanistan, Says Former Sen. Joe Lieberman
“Last year, many of us called on President Donald Trump not to withdraw from Afghanistan, as he seemed intent on doing. We argued that it would be a humiliating surrender to an enemy we had already defeated and a disastrous error. President Joe Biden has now implemented the withdrawal, and the consequences have been as disastrous as feared. President Trump’s policy and President Biden’s decision were not required by any facts on the ground. The United States and Afghanistan had achieved a strategic balance. The number of American soldiers there had been brought down to less than 3,000 from a wartime high over 150,000, and not one of our troops had been killed in battle for more than a year. That is because they and we were no longer at war in Afghanistan. Our mission there was to counter terrorists who want to kill Americans and to give backup support to the Afghan government and military, which were building and defending their nation. President Biden must have understood part of what would be lost if we withdrew when, in June, he raised with Russian President Vladimir Putin a plan to essentially reconstitute our counterterrorism mission in Afghanistan to a friendly neighboring country in Central Asia. Putin naturally objected.”
Metro: Thousands Of Freed Isis And Al-Qaeda Fighters ‘Regrouping’ In Afghanistan
“…Chief among those likely to turn the country into fertile ground for terror is Farooqi, who was arrested by Afghan forces in April 2020 in Kandahar. He was Isis’s emir in South and Central Asia at the time, according to analysis by the Counter Extremism Project CEP). David Ibsen, Executive Director of the New York-based think tank, told Metro.co.uk: ‘Farooqi is a dangerous mastermind for Is-K and his potential release undoubtedly poses a grave threat to Western interests and safety. ‘Is-K is infamous for its brutality across the province and has claimed responsibility for numerous attacks across Afghanistan that have killed numerous civilians. ‘They follow Isis’s extreme adherence to Islamic jurisprudence and view the Taliban as apostates. ‘Farooqi is a formidable enemy and his release would only embolden Is-k’s activities in Afghanistan. Already, the terrorist group has threatened to attack Kabul airport, which would indiscriminately kill countless Afghans, foreign soldiers and Taliban members.’ The warnings about the freed jihadists follow UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace saying the threat from Isis to British troops involved in the airlift at Hamid Karzai International Airport grows with every passing hour.”
“…The group goes by a few names — ISIS-K, IS-K, ISKP, which stands for Islamic State Khorasan or Islamic State Khorasan Province. It has presumably been in Afghanistan since at least November 2014, when jihadists in Afghanistan and Pakistan pledged allegiance to the core ISIS group, said Riza Kumar, a research analyst at the Counter Extremism Project, a New York-based organization that maintains an extensive research database on extremist groups. ISIS-K was officially accepted by the core ISIS group in January 2015. ISIS-K took its name from a historical region that covered much of modern-day Afghanistan and parts of Central Asia. It appeared in late 2014 in the eastern province of Nangarhar, where it retains a stronghold, and it also has a presence in Kunar province, the Afghan capital Kabul and northern Afghanistan. It was formed by the disgruntled commanders of the Pakistani Taliban, or Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP), and joined by a few lower-ranked Afghan Taliban commanders and Afghan jihadist ideologues, said Abdul Sayed, an independent researcher on jihadism and the politics and security of the Afghanistan-Pakistan region.”
“… Experts are alarmed by the prospect of the Taliban's grip on such a huge fortune, warning the “world has a lot to worry about". Ashok Swain, professor of peace and conflict research at Sweden's Uppsala University, told The Sun Online: "If the Taliban is the same old Taliban, then the world has a lot to worry about. “The Taliban victory will not only be a morale booster for other Islamist terror groups around the world, but it will also strengthen them further with the help of arms and drug money."Dr Hans-Jakob Schindler, senior director at Counter Extremism Project, warned the Taliban now has the ability to "tap into any economic activity in the country”. “Since the Taliban have now gained control over Afghanistan by military means, it will be their responsibility to not only rule by force but to govern,” the former coordinator of the ISIL, al-Qaeda and Taliban monitoring team at the UN Security Council told The Sun Online. “It remains to be seen if they demonstrate an interest in doing so or whether their income continues to be diverted primarily to finance their fighting machine and bankroll the rather lavish lifestyles of their leaders.”
Egypt
Arab News: Egypt Steps Up Support For Campaign Against Terror, Crime Groups In Sahel Region
“Egypt wants to intensify bilateral and regional efforts to combat terrorist organizations and organized crime groups in the Sahel region in central Africa, with a focus on reconstruction and development in the post-armed conflict stage. Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry made the announcement during a meeting with his Sierra Leonean counterpart David Francis in Cairo on Tuesday, according to the Middle East News Agency. The central Sahel region, which includes Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, is facing one of the fastest growing displacement crises in the world — yet one of the most forgotten. More than 2.7 million people have been forced to flee their homes and at least 13.4 million are in dire need of humanitarian assistance, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. Ahmed Hafez, the spokesman for Egypt’s Foreign Ministry, said the two ministers share a desire to enhance trade and improve political relations between the two countries. Both ministers signed a bilateral agreement on cooperation in the field of political consultation. They also partnered on two memorandums of understanding to enhance cooperation in the fields of culture and youth. Their aim is to facilitate communication between officials from the two countries while promoting cultural dialogue.”
Africa
Reuters: Gunman Kills Four In Attack Near French Embassy In Tanzania
“A gunman killed three police officers and a private security guard on a rampage through a diplomatic quarter of Tanzania's main city Dar es Salaam on Wednesday, before being shot dead while holed up in a guardhouse at the French embassy's gate. Videos on the internet, apparently filmed by onlookers from buildings across the street from the French embassy, showed the gunman inside the guardhouse. He exchanged fire at very close range with police and men who appeared to be embassy guards. Police said the attacker had first shot two police officers with a pistol at an intersection in the district, which houses a number of diplomatic missions. He took rifles from the fallen police officers, and headed on foot to the French embassy a few hundred metres away, firing randomly and occupying the guard house. President Samia Suluhu Hassan said on Twitter that the attacker had been “neutralised” and “calm has returned”. “I send my condolences to the police service and the families of three policemen, and one officer of the SGA security company, who lost their lives after an armed person attacked them in the Salenda area of Dar es Salaam,” Hassan said. Six people were injured in addition to the four who were killed, police commissioner of operations and training Liberatus Sabas said in a Tweet shared by the account of the Tanzanian Police Force.”
Foreign Policy: Will The War On Terror Move To Africa?
“Watching the Taliban storm Kabul from Aso Villa in Abuja, Nigeria’s president feared a similar fate could befall African countries—without the support of their Western allies. President Muhammadu Buhari wrote an opinion piece in the Financial Times, calling for a “comprehensive partnership” with U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration as troops from the United States withdraw from Afghanistan after 20 years. “As Africans, we face our day of reckoning just as some sense the west is losing its will for the fight. It is true that some of our western allies are bruised by their Middle Eastern and Afghan experiences. Others face domestic pressures after the pandemic. Africa was not then, and even less now, their priority,” Buhari wrote in the Aug. 15 article. The “partnership” Buhari envisions comes in the form of foreign direct investment and technological and intelligence support for African armies, praising U.S. airstrikes against Somalia’s al-Shabab as “what can and should be done.” Buhari’s outstretched hand comes at a time when he faces growing criticism over his government’s continued failure to quell the security threat from Boko Haram as well a lack of investment in the economy.”
Technology
“Lawmakers are reexamining how tech companies should handle violent material in emergency situations after the political tirade of a bomb threat suspect thrust the Capitol into chaos as it streamed on Facebook Live. The Capitol was sent into lockdown Thursday after a man parked near the Library of Congress claimed to have a bomb and threatened to destroy two city blocks. Soon, videos began circulating on social media as suspect Floyd Ray Roseberry live-streamed his political grievances to Facebook from his truck. The suspect streamed for hours before the company removed his account, Politico reported. But even after he was directly cut off from major platforms, video clips of the stream posted by other users spread across Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. One 81-second clip of his remarks shared by a journalist on Twitter drew more than 400,000 views and more than 2,000 retweets before the platform began cracking down on posts containing the video, according to a review by The Technology 202. The issue has struck a nerve among some aides and lawmakers in Congress, who are reeling from threats to their own safety and against the seat of the U.S. government, including the deadly riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6.”
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