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Eye on Extremism
October 18, 2021
Bloomberg: U.K. Politician’s Murder Puts Focus On Anti-Terrorism Program
“The murder of a U.K. lawmaker has focused attention on “Prevent,” a program designed to identify people at risk of becoming radicalized, as well as on how to combat “corrosive” online discourse. U.K. Home Secretary Priti Patel said Sunday the counter-terrorism program is undergoing an independent review. The suspect in the deadly stabbing of Conservative MP David Amess had reportedly been referred to “Prevent” several years ago -- as had at least two others in the past few years who went on to commit violent or deadly acts. “It’s timely to do that, we have to learn, not just from incidents that have taken place, but how we can strengthen our programs,” Patel said on Sky News’s “Trevor Philipps Show.” The suspect in custody was identified by a U.K. government official as Ali Harbi Ali, a 25-year-old British citizen of Somali origin. He’s been held under the U.K.’s Terrorism Act, the Metropolitan Police said in a statement. Early investigations revealed a potential motivation linked to Islamic extremism, the police said. The BBC reported that Ali was referred to “Prevent” some years ago. However, the U.K. official, speaking under the usual custom of anonymity, said the man was never a formal subject of interest to MI5, the nation’s domestic security agency.”
Reuters: Taliban Pledge To Step Up Security As Shi'ite Victims Buried In Afghanistan
“Taliban authorities pledged to step up security at Shi'ite mosques as hundreds of people gathered on Saturday to bury the victims of the second Islamic State suicide attack on worshippers in a week. Hardline Sunni group Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack on the Fatima mosque in Kandahar that saw a group of suicide bombers shoot their way into the mosque before blowing themselves up among the worshippers during Friday prayers. A health official said the casualty toll from the attack stood at 41 dead and 70 wounded but could rise further. “Some of the wounded are in a critical condition and we are trying to transfer them to Kabul,” he said. On Saturday, large crowds gathered to bury the white-shrouded victims in a mass grave in the southern city of Kandahar. The head of Kandahar police said units would be assigned to protect the Shi'ite mosques which have so far been guarded by local volunteer forces with special permission to carry weapons. “Unfortunately they could not protect this area and in future we will assign special security guards for the protection of mosques and Madrasas,” he said in a statement posted on Twitter by a Taliban spokesman.”
Syria
“The Biden administration is redoubling efforts to persuade countries to repatriate Islamic State fighters and their families from eastern Syria, but there are few signs the United States can quickly break an impasse that military leaders say is a major security threat. Around 11,000 suspected fighters remain imprisoned in makeshift prisons run by Syrian Kurdish forces in northeast Syria. At least 60,000 women and children are confined to camps housing Islamic State families, where officials warn dire conditions and rampant extremism may yield a new generation of militants. At least 70 people have been killed so far this year inside al-Hol, the sprawling camp that has come to symbolize the deadlock over the fighters and family members, hailing from across Europe, the Middle East and beyond, who now personify the unaddressed aftermath of the five-year battle against the Islamic State. Many countries, including close U.S. allies in Europe, have been reluctant to bring home their nationals, citing security fears and the burden of monitoring or prosecuting those with extremist links. “Just because it’s out of sight and out of mind, which it is for the vast majority of Americans, doesn’t mean it’s not a very serious problem,” said Nathan Sales, who oversaw efforts to repatriate those in the facilities as a top counterterrorism official during the Trump administration.”
Pakistan
“Militants in Kashmir have killed seven civilians, including Hindus and Sikhs, in targeted attacks this month, marking an escalation in the decades-old conflict in the Muslim-majority enclave and setting the stage for new clashes. One of the victims, Makhan Lal Bindroo, a Hindu, spent his life running a large pharmacy in Muslim-majority Kashmir’s Srinagar city. This month, militants barged into his shop in a bustling market and shot him four times at point-blank range. “He died before reaching the hospital,” his son, Siddharth, said. The others killed included two schoolteachers and a street hawker. Four were Hindus and Sikhs, prompting dozens of families — mostly those whose members work government jobs — from those communities to leave for the neighboring Hindu-majority region. Kashmir has been a flash point between India and Pakistan since the subcontinent’s partition. In the 1990s, the rise of militant groups battling the Indian state for independence or merger with Pakistan triggered the exodus of tens of thousands of its minority population, considered a dark chapter in the region’s history. A well-regarded figure in Kashmir, Bindroo, 68, was among the few hundred Hindu families that remained in the valley. Siddharth said his father vowed he would never leave his homeland.”
Lebanon
The New York Times: Beirut, A City Where Everyone Gets By, Revisits Sectarian Violence
“Tony Nohra, a shopkeeper in a Christian neighborhood of Beirut, was receiving a shipment of yogurt on Friday, the day after sectarian clashes killed seven people in the city, and talking about how many Shiite Muslim friends he had. But when asked how the violence had begun, he snapped. “You have to ask the guys there,” he said, angrily pointing toward the Shiite neighborhood nearby. Overhearing the comment, the Shiite man delivering the yogurt cut in. “No, no,” he insisted. “It started from here.” Most of the time, residents of Beirut, a scrappy Mediterranean city whose roughly 2.5 million inhabitants represent tremendous ethnic and religious diversity, get by and get along. They do business, socialize and even marry outside of their religious groups. Various denominations of Christians, Sunni and Shiite Muslims, Druze, Armenians, Syrian and Palestinian refugees and other groups crowd together, often sharing employers, neighborhoods and apartment buildings. But the clashes on Thursday, the worst sectarian violence in Lebanon’s capital in years, revealed tensions lurking just beneath the surface in a city haunted by 15 years of civil war.”
Euronews: Europe Should Take Action Against Hezbollah's Growing Strength
“Last month, an EU Resolution on Lebanon brought the plight of the Mediterranean nation back into the European spotlight. After defaulting on its Eurobond debt last year, Lebanon is struggling with one of the worst financial crises the world has seen since the 19th century. The government can no longer afford to import basic necessities, while fuel shortages have plunged the country into near-constant darkness. Hezbollah was founded amid the chaos of the 15-year civil war that raged in Lebanon from 1975 until 1990. Ever since its inception, it has engaged in violent terrorist activities, targeting its own enemies and acting as a proxy organisation for Iran, both in Lebanon and abroad - including in Europe. Hezbollah’s destructive influence was exemplified just this week when gunfire erupted in the Lebanese capital during a protest organised by the group.At least six people were killed, and dozens injured, in violence reminiscent of the civil war and the worst street fighting Beirut has seen in years. The simple reason for the dissent was Hezbollah once again attempting to thwart the democratic process. The group was protesting against Judge Tarek Bitar leading the investigation into last year’s cataclysmic port explosion.”
Middle East
Gulf News: Kuwait’s Top Court Jails Professor For 7 Years On Terror Charges
“Kuwait’s top appeals court had confirmed a seven-year imprisonment term against a university professor convicted of bankrolling terrorism in Syria, local media reported. The Court of Cassation also ordered the convict and two others to pay a fine of KD700,000 and confiscation of KD668,00 in their possession. The convict is a teacher at an Islamic Sharia law faculty. The court handed down a similar sentence to his brother and confirmed a five-year-jail term against a third defendant in the same case. The verdicts are final. The three were prosecuted last year after accusation they had illegally collected nearly KD500,000 for financing the terrorist Al Nusra Front, an affiliate of Al Qaeda in war-torn Syria. The defendants denied the charges, claiming they had collected the money to support needy families in Syria.”
Egypt
Al Monitor: Egypt Looks To Expand Counter-Terrorism Cooperation With Sudan
“Sudanese security forces, led by the country's intelligence services, have been cracking down on Islamic State (IS) members over the past weeks. Five members of the Sudanese intelligence service were killed Sept. 28 during a raid on a terrorist cell in Jabra neighborhood, south of the capital Khartoum. According to preliminary information, most of the members of the cell were Egyptian. Among those detained were five Egyptian nationals who had illegally entered Sudan in 2013. One of them was a young woman who, according to social media accounts, was forcibly disappeared in April 2019. Other media reports claimed that one of the arrested members of the terror cell was involved in the deadly explosion at the Mansoura security directorate in Egypt in December 2013 and had escaped to Sudan shortly after. Meanwhile, the Sudanese General Intelligence Service denied in an Oct. 1 statement handing over any of those detained during the Sept. 28 raid to another party — in reference to Egypt — and confirmed dealing with them in compliance with Sudanese legal frameworks. Relations between Cairo and Khartoum under ousted President Omar al-Bashir’s rule had been fraught by the issue of members of the Muslim Brotherhood who had escaped and found refuge in Sudan after the fall of the regime of President Mohammed Morsi in 2013.”
Nigeria
Voice Of America: US Cautious Over Claims Key Is African Leader Is Dead
“Claims from Nigeria that the leader of one of the fastest-growing Islamic State terror group affiliates is dead are being met with extreme caution in the United States. Officials at the White House, Pentagon and State Department said Friday they were aware of accounts that Islamic State West Africa Province leader Abu Musab al-Barnawi had been killed, but some said it was too early to say anything for sure. “We are aware of the reports but note that unconfirmed reports in the past have proven unfounded,” one senior administration official told VOA on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the situation. “That said, ISIS-West Africa remains a threat to peace and stability in the region,” the official added, using another acronym for the terror group. Nigeria's chief of defense staff, General Lucky Irabor, first announced the death of al-Barnawi at a news conference in Lagos on Thursday.” I can authoritatively confirm to you that Abu Musab is dead,” Irabor said, offering no other details. Some media outlets suggested al-Barnawi had been killed in clashes with rival factions, but such claims could not be independently verified.”
Sahara Reporters: Scores Of Boko Haram Terrorists Killed As Military, Insurgents Clash In Maiduguri
“No fewer than three Nigerian soldiers and 20 Boko Haram insurgents lost their lives on Saturday as the military tried to recapture Maiduguri town, the Borno state capital. The insurgents were said to have invaded 777 housing estate, on the outskirts of Maiduguri metropolis around 10: 15 pm on Saturday. A report by Peoples Gazette says Air Force fighter helicopters were immediately deployed to prevent the insurgents from taking over the area. While soldiers engaged the insurgents, residents of Pompomari, 778 and 1000 housing estates were put on alert. The incident came hours after Nigerian soldiers at Banki Junction, in the Kumshe area of the state had repelled an ambush laid by Boko Haram terrorists. Similarly, three soldiers and 20 terrorists were killed in a separate incident that occurred around 07:45 pm on Friday. Assorted weapons and mats belonging to the insurgents were seized in the process. Boko Haram and its offshoot, Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) have killed thousands and displaced millions of people in North-Eastern Nigeria. The Nigerian military has repeatedly claimed that insurgency had been largely defeated and frequently underplays any losses.”
United Kingdom
The Independent: Ministers Ignored Official Recommendations To Combat Hateful Extremism
“Ministers have failed to act on any of the official recommendations for tackling the rise of extremism in Britain, it has emerged. Over three years, the Commission for Countering Extremism (CCE) – set up by Theresa May in the wake of the Manchester Arena attack – has repeatedly warned more had to be done to tackle the evolving threats facing the UK, including closing legal loopholes that allowed those who inspired terrorists to go free. But ministers have not formally responded to any of the reports released by the body since 2019, and none of the suggested measures have been put in place, despite warnings that security threats would worsen until the government stepped up its response. It comes as counterterror police investigate the murder of Conservative MP Sir David Amess, who was stabbed to death while holding a constituency surgery inside a church on Friday. Officers are reportedly investigating whether Ali Harbi Ali, the 25-year-old arrested over the killing, had been “self-radicalised” during lockdown. Figen Murray, whose son Martyn Hett was killed in the Manchester attack, referenced the Manchester Arena inquiry’s report that warned “doing nothing is not an option” in regard to the threat of extremism, and that more people could be harmed if action is not taken.”
Europe
Vice: ‘A Far-Right Terrorist Shot Me Four Times, But I Felt No Hate When I Testified Against Him’
“It’s been ten years since Ylva Schwenke was shot four times by a far-right terrorist. Aged 14, she was one of hundreds of young people attending a summer camp organised by the Labour Party-affiliated Workers’ Youth League (AUF) when it was attacked by Anders Behring Breivik. Breivik murdered 69 people, mostly teenagers, on the small island of Utøya where the summer camp was based, having already killed eight people in a bomb attack outside the Prime Minister’s office in Oslo. Two days after the attack, Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg quoted a member of the AUF who was at Utøya in a televised speech, saying: “If one man can create that much hate, you can only imagine how much love we as a togetherness can create.” As Norway mourns the five victims of a mass killing attack in the south of the country, VICE World News spoke to Schwenke in her first major English language interview about what happened that day, what it meant to survive Utøya, and how Norway responded in the decade since. Ylva Schwenke: It was a rainy Friday and the second day of the camp. We had a big football tournament that morning, and everyone was super happy because Gro Harlem Brundtland, Norway's first female prime minister, came to visit that day.”
Asharq Al-Awsat: Spain Arrests ISIS Cell Planning Terrorist Attacks In Europe
“The Spanish police have detained five people on suspicion of belonging to a terrorist group. Earlier, three other suspects were detained this year on charges of belonging to the same cell. Investigations revealed that the ISIS affiliates have been trying to establish bases in several European Union countries and form cells to carry out terrorist plots. The source said that these elements arrived in European countries through illegal immigration networks that use the seaports in southern Spain. A spokesman for the Spanish police said that the detainees were very dangerous, and they almost acquired automatic weapons, including Kalashnikovs. The spokesman said that the cell includes a group of Algerian youths, including two ISIS members, who had previously participated in the Syrian war. The agencies monitored their entry to Spain late last year. Police sources said that following investigations and analysis of documents seized from the first group of suspects, a fourth person of Algerian nationality was arrested, whom they referred to as “Sheikh.” The sources said that the Sheikh entered from southern Spain by the sea with a group of illegal immigrants two months after the arrest of the cell members.”
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