“Suicide bombers set off two powerful explosions in the center of Uganda’s
capital during rush hour in an attack later claimed by Islamic State. At le

 

 


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Eye on Extremism


November 17, 2021  

 

The Wall Street Journal: Islamic State Claims Deadly Bombings In Ugandan
Capital
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“Suicide bombers set off two powerful explosions in the center of Uganda’s
capital during rush hour in an attack later claimed by Islamic State. At least
three people were killed and 33 were injured in the Tuesday morning attacks,
which took place within about 550 yards and three minutes of each other in
Kampala’s heavily guarded business district, police spokesman Fred Enanga said.
Three suspected suicide bombers also died in the blasts. Police also shot and
injured a fourth would-be suicide bomber in a suburb north of Kampala and
during a search of the alleged attacker’s residence recovered a suicide vest
and other bomb-making equipment, Mr. Enanga said. Police blamed the attack on
the Allied Democratic Forces, an Islamist group that started an insurgency
against Uganda’s president, Yoweri Museveni, in the 1990s and in 2017 pledged
allegiance to Islamic State, or ISIS. Islamic State later claimed
responsibility for Tuesday’s attack through its Amaq news agency. The militant
group’s leadership formally recognized the ADF as one of its affiliates in July
2019. The ADF usually operates from the jungles of the eastern Democratic
Republic of Congo, but European security officials say it has recently become
emboldened to launch high-profile attacks in Uganda and neighboring Rwanda
after receiving sizable funding and technical assistance from Islamic State’s
central leadership.”

 

France 24: Over 130 Yemen Rebels Killed In Battle For Marib: Coalition
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“The Saudi-led coalition in Yemen said Tuesday it has killed over 130 Huthi
rebels in the past 24 hours in strikes in and near the northern pro-government
bastion of Marib. The Saudi-led coalition has been reporting high death tolls
in almost daily strikes since October aimed at repelling a rebel offensive on
the city of Marib, the government's last stronghold in the north. The
Iran-backed Huthis rarely comment on the tolls, which have exceeded 3,700 in
the past weeks, and AFP cannot independently verify the coalition's figures.
“Sixteen military vehicles were destroyed and more than 130 terrorist elements
eliminated” in the latest raids, the coalition said in a statement carried by
the Saudi state news agency SPA. It said the operations were carried out in
Marib and Al-Bayda provinces. The Huthis began a major push to seize Marib city
in February, and renewed their offensive in September. There was also reported
fighting on a separate front, along Yemen's Red Sea coast after Huthi forces
pushed south in recent days. The coalition said Tuesday they targeted four
Huthi positions along the western coast.”

 

Syria

 

Al Monitor: Attack On Syrian Prison Holding Iraqi Islamic State Captives
Raises Concerns
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“Reports of a planned Nov. 8 attack on a detention facility hosting thousands
of alleged Islamic State operatives from Iraq and other countries in
northeastern Syria earlier this month have heightened concerns about risks to
regional stability and gains against the international terrorist group. The
Sinaa prison, which was apparently the intended target, holds several thousand
IS operatives and is known to only occasionally be subjected to sweep-up
operations by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The SDF has
repeatedly lamented a lack of funding and personnel to do more than simply
allow the prisoners to effectively run their own affairs within the prison. The
attack is thought to have been planned to liberate prisoners held. The next
day, the international coalition (CJTFOIR) tweeted about “joint success” in an
operation with the SDF in the Deir ez-Zor region, but did not go into
specifics. On Nov. 13, three Iraqi nationals including one woman were
reportedly shot and killed in al-Hol camp in Hasakah province in northeastern
Syria. The camp is run by the Kurdish-led administration and currently houses
over 50,000 people, roughly half of whom are Iraqis. Of the 78 people known to
have been killed in the camp this year, 58 were Iraqis and at least 10 were
beheaded.”

 

Afghanistan

 

The Wall Street Journal: Afghanistan’s Shiite Minority Cautiously Embraces
Taliban Rule, Seeking Protection
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“Going house to house in January 2001, Taliban fighters rounded up hundreds of
men in this Shiite town and nearby villages. Then they executed their captives,
leaving piles of bodies in the snow-covered fields. These days, a Shiite flag
lauding Imam Hussain, Prophet Muhammad’s grandson, flies next to the Taliban’s
white banner atop Yakawlang’s district government compound. Most of the Taliban
fighters and officials here are local Shiites who joined the Sunni Islamist
insurgency years ago, as the downfall of the American-backed Afghan republic
became increasingly likely. Bitter memories of the 2001 killings, they say,
influenced this switch. “Last time, they came and did whatever they wanted here
because they were strangers. People were really afraid of facing the same
violence again, and so now we’ve come here to prevent it,” said Mohammed Hassan
Hamdard, a Shiite native of the area who said he joined the Taliban’s Islamic
Emirate of Afghanistan 12 years ago. “We don’t want other people to govern our
people,” he added, surrounded by a dozen Shiite gunmen. “We are accountable to
the leaders of the Islamic Emirate and are committed to their rules and
principles. On the other hand, they have also committed to preventing
individuals from creating problems for our people.”

 

The Independent: Taliban Victory Has ‘Heightened Risk’ From Militant
Insurgents Around The World, Say Terror Analysts
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“Afghanistan’s fall to Taliban control has created the conditions for
terrorist groups to use the country to launch attacks abroad, while Africa’s
Sahel region has seen the rise of the fastest growing Islamist insurgency in
the world, according to a report by a leading security company. The Islamist
victory across the border has led to the formation of new militant alliances in
Pakistan’s tribal areas and the rise in assaults on security forces there are
likely to continue, says Control Risks which raises the terrorism rating in
those parts of Pakistan from “high” to “extreme”. The report states “it will
come as no surprise that Afghanistan has moved to ‘extreme’ from ‘high’. The
Taliban, a sanctioned terrorist organisation, is in control. Or maybe it is
not, which is one of the elements of volatility in that country for the coming
year. The risk is very high that Afghanistan becomes a safe haven for
terrorists with ambitions within its border and beyond.” A number of states in
Africa – the DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo) and parts of the CAR (Central
African Republic), and South Sudan have also moved to the “extreme” category in
the company’s annual “RiskMap”. However clashes between the Islamic State West
Africa Province (ISWAP) and a faction of Boko Haram has weakened the militant
influence in Nigeria’s Borno state and limited their expansion to the south.”

 

Pakistan

 

Associated Press: Police Raid In Kashmir Kills 2 Civilians, 2 Suspected Rebels
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“Four people have died in Indian-controlled Kashmir after a deadly raid by
government forces on alleged militants in the disputed region’s main city,
police and families of the victims said Tuesday. The region’s head of police,
Vijay Kumar, said that militants “fired indiscriminately” at police and
soldiers when they cordoned off a business center Monday night in Srinagar,
following a tip that rebels were hiding there. The ensuing clash led to the
death of two civilians and two suspected rebels — including a Pakistani
national, Kumar told reporters on Tuesday. However, families of the slain
civilians said Indian troops used them as human shields during the deadly
standoff. Police said the civilians were killed in the crossfire and were
identified as the shopping center’s owner, Mohammad Altaf Bhat, and a trader,
Mudassir Ahmed. The police chief said Ahmed, a dental surgeon and real estate
dealer who had rented an office space in the building, was an “overground
worker,” a term Indian authorities use for rebel sympathizers and their
civilian supporters. Kumar said Ahmed provided shelter to the slain foreign
militant in the building and was also ferrying other militants from one place
to another.”

 

Nigeria

 

Associated Press: Gunmen Kill 15 In Latest Attack In Nigeria’s Northwest
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“Gunmen have killed at least 15 people in Nigeria’s northwest, the Sokoto
state governor said, the latest incident in a spiral of violence in Africa’s
most populous country. The gunmen stormed communities in Sokoto state and
raided houses from Sunday night into Monday morning, Gov. Aminu Tambuwal said
in a statement, just days after nearly 30 people were shot dead across remote
communities across Nigeria’s troubled north. At least 13 people were killed in
Illela, a town near the border with neighboring Niger and some 97 kilometers
(60 miles) from the state capital, he said, adding that two others were killed
in Goronyo, about 76 kilometers (47 miles) east of the state capital. The
violent attacks across the northwest and central parts of Nigeria have killed
hundreds of people this year. Most affected communities are in remote areas
that don’t have adequate security or telecommunications, such as Goronyo
community where more than 40 people were shot dead a month ago when assailants
opened fire at a crowded marketplace. The gunmen are mostly young men from the
Fulani ethnic group who had traditionally worked as nomadic cattle herders and
are caught up in a decades-long conflict with Hausa farming communities over
access to water and grazing land, according to authorities and security
analysts.”

 

Africa

 

Voice Of America: Three Terror Convicts Escape From Kenyan Maximum Security
Prison
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“Kenyan security agencies are searching for three convicted terror suspects
who escaped from a prison in Nairobi Monday. One of the escapees was involved
in an attack on Garissa University in 2015 that killed nearly 150 people. The
three men escaped from Kamiti prison, the largest maximum security prison in
Kenya. Police on Tuesday arrested seven prison wardens in connection with the
escape. Police spokesperson Bruno Shioso says the jailbreakers are still at
large and the arrested wardens are helping with the investigation into how the
men were able to flee. “We just caution people to be on the lookout, to provide
information so that they can cooperate with us. Now we have begun
investigations to know what exactly happened. So, in the fullness of time, we
will be able to share with the public once the investigation is over,” he said.
The three convicts include Musharaf Abdalla, who was convicted of attempting to
attack the parliament in 2012; Joseph Juma Odhiambo, who was arrested in 2019
at the border between Kenya and Somalia for planning to join the terror group
al-Shabab; and Mohamed Abdi Abikar, who was convicted his role in for
al-Shabab’s attack on Garissa University in April 2015. That attack killed at
least 148 people, most of them students.”

 

United Kingdom

 

Sky News: Liverpool Terror Attack: Suspect Killed In Explosion Outside
Hospital Named By Police
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“The suspected terrorist who was killed in a car explosion outside a hospital
in Liverpool has been named as 32-year-old Emad al Swealmeen. He was an asylum
seeker from a Middle Eastern country who had been living in the UK for a while
and had mental health issues, Sky News understands. Al Swealmeen was not
thought to have previously been known to MI5 though that could change as more
details emerge. Officers said they believe he is the male passenger who brought
a homemade bomb with him into a taxi and asked to be taken to the hospital
shortly before 11am on Remembrance Sunday. He was picked up in the Rutland
Avenue area of the city and as the car reached the hospital's passenger
drop-off point, it exploded. The driver of the cab, David Perry, was treated in
hospital after fleeing the car just before it burst into flames, and has now
been discharged. Detective Chief Inspector Andrew Meeks, from Counter Terrorism
Police North West, said: “Our enquiries are very much ongoing but at this stage
we strongly believe that the deceased is 32-year-old Emad al Swealmeen.”
Officers believe al Swealmeen lived at a house in Sutcliffe Street for some
time and had recently rented a property in Rutland Avenue near Sefton Park -
two addresses where searches have been taking place.”

 

Germany

 

Associated Press: Germany Charges Syrian Man Over Alleged Islamic State Attack
Plot
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“A Syrian man who allegedly supported the Islamic State group’s ideology has
been charged with making preparations for an attack in Germany, prosecutors
said Tuesday. The suspect, who was identified only as Abdullah H. in keeping
with German privacy rules, was charged at a Berlin court with preparing a
serious act of violence and terror financing. He was arrested in November 2019
in another case, which prosecutors gave no details of. Federal prosecutors said
that he decided by June 2019 to carry out an attack in Germany that would be on
a similar scale to previous IS attacks in Europe. They said his aim was to kill
or wound as many people as possible. Prosecutors said that the man acquired
material to build improvised explosive devices, including acetone, hydrogen
peroxide and sulfuric acid. He also allegedly made enquiries about using
ordinary fertilizer as an explosive, acquired various metal parts and tools,
and began to build a submachine gun. The alleged plans were halted by his
arrest, prosecutors said.”

 

Technology

 

Business Insider: Prosecutors Say Facebook Deleted Crucial Evidence In A
Crackdown On Extremist Groups
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“Prosecutors said Facebook deleted crucial evidence when it shut down the
accounts of a New Mexico militia group during a crackdown on extremist groups,
The Washington Post reported.  In August 2020, Facebook announced the New
Mexico Civil Guard was removed from the platform. Business Insider's Charles
Davis previously reported that the right-wing vigilante group's leaders include
“a neo-Confederate with a swastika tattoo and a self-styled 'national
anarchist' with a history of denying the Holocaust.” The Post reported that in
June 2020, a group of men dressed in military-style camouflage confronted a
group protesting a statue of a Spanish conquistador in Albuquerque, when one
protester was shot and wounded. The outlet reported that prosecutors accused
the New Mexico Civil Guard of starting the violence even though the alleged
shooter was not a member of the militia group. On Monday, Bernalillo County
District Attorney Raul Torrez filed a petition in California, where the social
media network is based, asking a judge to force Facebook to hand over
information about accounts created by the militia. Prosecutors want information
that could help them identify members of the group, Torrez said at a news
conference on Monday.”

 

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