The Extremism Roundup

Islamist & Anti-Muslim Extremism 

• The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), identified by the Justice Department as an “entity” of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood, is renewing its campaign to “Free Aafia Siddiqui.”
• The primary demand of the Colleyville synagogue gunman, Malik Faisal Akram, was the release of Aafia Siddiqui, also known as “Lady al-Qaeda,” who is currently serving an 86-year prison sentence for attempting to kill American military personnel in Afghanistan. 
• CAIR is one of the driving forces behind the “Free Dr. Aafia Movement” and directly raises money for her defense. 

• A judge ruled that Isela Camarena, who stands accused of setting fire to the Islamic Center of New Mexico in November, will remain in jail until her trial.
• The state submitted over 15 pieces of evidence including the half-hour-long surveillance video that reportedly shows Isela Camarena setting the fires.
• Camarena has a long criminal history dating back to 1998 and includes a 2016 felony for possession of a controlled substance.

Alt-Right & Alt-Left Extremism

• Proud Boy member Tusitala “Tiny” Toese was arrested and jailed on felony warrants from both Washington state and Oregon.
• Toese faces three Washington state charges related to his alleged involvement in storming the grounds of the Governor’s mansion in Olympia on Jan. 6, 2021.  
• Toese is also being held for extradition to Oregon on a warrant for charges including assault, rioting, criminal mischief and two unspecified weapons charges.

• Antifa protests threatened violent action at Dartmouth College over a planned appearance by journalist Andy Ngo, who writes about leftist extremism. 
• Ngo is appearing at the college for an event sponsored by conservative organization Turning Point USA and the Dartmouth College Republicans.
• Members of a Northeast Antifa social media group started organizing a counterprotest, with some members of the group making threats and encouraging people to wear black and cover their faces to be protected from later prosecution. 

• A federal magistrate judge in Arizona ordered Oath Keepers leader Edward Vallejo, indicted last week on charges of seditious conspiracy, to be detained pending trial citing evidence presented by prosecutors that he poses a danger to society.
• A federal lawsuit filed last month against the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers is modeled after a 2017 Charlottesville lawsuit and is designed to impinge on their financial earnings and snuff out their operations.

• The self-styled leader of Seattle’s Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, also referred to as CHAZ, is being sued by five women, four of whom are accusing him of trafficking them. The plaintiffs are each seeking $1 million in damages.

Hostile Foreign Influence Operations

• A dual Iranian-U.S. citizen, Kambiz Attar Kashani, 44, was arrested in Chicago on criminal charges of conspiring to illegally export goods and technology to the Central Bank of Iran (CBI).
• Kashani and his co-conspirators repeatedly lied to numerous U.S. companies and orchestrated an elaborate scheme, using two separate United Arab Emirate front companies, to evade U.S. export laws and procure U.S. electronic equipment and technology for the CBI.

• The Department of Homeland Security warns of potential cyber-attacks from Russia, as a response to U.S. or NATO actions against a potential Russian invasion of Ukraine. 
• The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, a component of DHS, last week issued a memo saying every organization in the U.S. is at risk of cyber threats.

Research and Trends in Extremism

• Research conducted by the UK-based Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right (CARR) has revealed hundreds of thousands of racist-related usernames on Twitter, Facebook, and other social media and gaming platforms. Read more
   
• The Department of Defense Office of the Inspector General announced it would be launching a review to determine whether military service recruiting organizations screened applicants for supremacist, extremist and criminal gang behavior. The review comes in the wake of a report which found 40 instances of service members and veterans engaging in extremist activity over the past several years.  Read more

• Conspiracy theories such as Qanon, politics, and differing opinions about COVID-19 are dividing more and more families. Read more