“The Islamic State group confirmed for the first time on Thursday that its
leader was killed in a U.S. strike in northwestern Syria last month and nam

 

 


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Eye on Extremism


March 11, 2022

 

Associated Press: IS Confirms Its Leader Was Killed In Syria, Names New Chief
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“The Islamic State group confirmed for the first time on Thursday that its
leader was killed in a U.S. strike in northwestern Syria last month and named
his successor. It was the first official comment from the militant group about
its leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi since U.S. officials said he blew
himself up along with members of his family as American forces raided his
hideout in the northwestern Syrian town of Atmeh, near the border with Turkey,
on Feb. 3. In an audio message released Thursday, IS spokesman Abu Omar
al-Muhajer confirmed the death of the leader, as well as that of the group’s
former spokesman, Abu Hamza al-Qurayshi, in the raid. Al-Muhajer also said that
IS has named a successor to the former leader, identifying him as Abu al-Hassan
al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi and saying the late IS chief has chosen him as the next
caliph. There was no immediate information about the new leader and it wasn't
known whether he is Iraqi like his two predecessors, both killed in rebel-held
parts of Syria. Last month's U.S. strike was the second time in three years
that the United States took out the top IS leader. None of the al-Qurayshis are
believed to be related. Al-Qurayshi is not their real name but comes from
Quraish, the name of the tribe that Islam's Prophet Muhammad belonged to.”

 

The Wall Street Journal: U.S. Military Urges Biden To Place Commandos In
Somalia As Militant Threat Worsens
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“The American military is asking President Biden to station several hundred
commandos in Somalia to help blunt the spread of al Qaeda’s aggressive local
affiliate, al-Shabaab, according to U.S. officials. Military commanders want
the White House to reverse then-President Donald Trump’s last-minute order to
withdraw some 700 Army Green Berets, Navy SEALs and Marine Raiders from bases
in Somalia, where they had been training an elite local unit to fight
al-Shabaab, according to the officials. The Pentagon moved most of the American
commandos to neighboring Djibouti and Kenya. “Since U.S. forces have come out
of Somalia last January, we assess there is an uptick in al-Shabaab
activities,” said a senior U.S. intelligence official, adding that “there has
been no pressure on al-Shabaab at this point and they have freedom of
movement.” The Pentagon considers al-Shabaab to be al Qaeda’s most-potent
franchise world-wide and estimates its strength at 5,000 to 7,000 fighters. The
U.S. has conducted a special-operations war against the group since 2007, much
of it shielded from public view. The military is asking Mr. Biden to deploy
troops now stationed in Djibouti and Kenya back to Somalia.”

 

United States

 

Axios: The Rise Of White Nationalist Hispanics
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“Nick Fuentes, identified as a “white supremacist” in Justice Department
filings, made headlines last week for hosting a white nationalist conference in
Florida. His father is also half Mexican American. The big picture: Fuentes is
part of a small but increasingly visible number of far-right provocateurs with
Hispanic backgrounds who spread racist, antisemitic messages. Driving the news:
Cuban American Enrique Tarrio, the former leader of the Proud Boys, a group the
Anti-Defamation League calls an extremist group with a violent agenda, was
arrested Tuesday and charged with conspiracy in connection to the Jan. 6
Capitol riot. What they're saying: Experts tell Axios far-right extremism
within the Latino community stems from three sources: Hispanic Americans who
identify as white; the spread of online misinformation; and lingering
anti-Black, antisemitic views among U.S. Latinos that are rarely openly
discussed. Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and
Extremism at Cal State University, said in an interview that the trend is “part
of the mutation that takes place as the racist fringe tries to become more
mainstream.” Racism is deeply rooted in Latin American and Caribbean nations,
where slavery was common, Tanya K. Hernández, a Fordham University law
professor and author of the upcoming book, “Racial Innocence: Unmasking Latino
Anti-Black Bias,” told Axios.”

 

Saudi Arabia

 

Reuters: Drone Attack On Refinery In Saudi Capital Did Not Affect Supplies -SPA

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“A refinery in Saudi Arabia's capital, Riyadh, was attacked by a drone on
Thursday morning but petroleum supplies were not affected, Saudi state news
agency SPA reported early on Friday. The attack caused a small fire that was
controlled and did not result in any injuries or casualties, SPA said citing a
statement by an energy ministry official. "The refinery's operations and
supplies of petroleum and its derivatives were not affected," the statement
said. It did not specify where the attack originated from. The world's top oil
exporter has faced frequent missile and drone assaults by Yemen's Iran-aligned
Houthi group that has been battling a coalition led by Riyadh for seven years.
The Houthis have not announced any strikes against the kingdom in recent days
and the Saudi-led coalition had not issued a statement regarding Thursday's
incident. "These repeated acts of sabotage and terrorism on vital installations
and civilian structures ... do not just target the Kingdom but aim to undermine
the security and stability of global energy supplies," the statement said.”

 

Lebanon

 

Associated Press: On Appeal, UN-Backed Court Convicts 2 In Hariri Killing
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“Appeals judges at a United Nations-backed tribunal on Thursday overturned the
acquittals of two members of Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group in the 2005
assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. The five-judge
appeals panel at the Special Tribunal for Lebanon convicted Hassan Habib Merhi
and Hussein Hassan Oneissi of five charges linked to the assassination,
including conspiracy to commit a terrorist act and being accomplices to
intentional homicide. The unanimous appeals decision said that judges in the
original trial verdict “committed errors of law invalidating the Judgment and
errors of fact occasioning a miscarriage of justice,” the tribunal said in a
statement. Merhi and Oneissi were originally cleared in August 2020 of
involvement in the assassination outside a seaside hotel in Beirut. A third
Hezbollah member, Salim Ayyash, was convicted at the time as a co-conspirator
on five charges linked to his involvement in the 2005 suicide truck bombing
that killed Hariri and 21 others and wounded 226 people. Prosecutors said Merhi
and Oneissi played “a significant role” in the plot by distributing a video
with a false claim of responsibility after the bombing. “The acts for which
they have been convicted were callous and manipulative, designed not only to
shield the real perpetrators from justice but to deceive the Lebanese people,”
Prosecutor Norman Farrell said in a statement.”

 

Nigeria

 

All Africa: Nigeria: Children On The Battlefield - ISWAP's Latest Recruits
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“Schools have always been a primary Boko Haram target; now both its factions
are using boys in combat. In January, the violent extremist group Islamic State
West Africa Province (ISWAP) released a video showing young boys undergoing
strenuous combat training. As the clip ends, some children are seen executing
soldiers captured from the battlefield. One of the instructors explains that
the boys are being prepared for graduation and deployment. The recruitment and
use of child soldiers by the Boko Haram faction Jama'tu Ahlis Sunna Lidda'awati
wal-Jihad (JAS) is widely known. However it's been unclear whether ISWAP, its
rival faction, has been doing the same. It seems ISWAP's supposed strategy of
not targeting civilians has deflected attention from its recruitment of young
boys. This is the latest in a long list of abuses of children, who have been
particularly hard hit by the Boko Haram crisis. Many have been subjected to
grave human rights violations, including kidnapping, slavery, starvation, rape,
denial of access to formal education, and death. According to former Boko Haram
members, as many as 200 young boys starved to death in the group's training and
radicalisation camps - Darul Quran - before Boko Haram split into two factions
in 2016.”

 

All Africa: Nigeria: Civilians In Armed Conflicts In Nigeria - 7,691 Killed In
2 Years - Women, Girls Sexually Molested, Forced To Keep Mum - - Report
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“Civilians in the Northeast, Northwest, Northcentral and Southeast regions of
Nigeria are usually caught in the middle of ongoing conflicts between the
Federal Government and multiple Armed Opposition Groups, AOGs that have grown
from Boko Haram since 2009. Between 2020 and 2021 alone, the report stated that
7,691 civilians had been killed in armed conflicts ranging from attacks by
terrorists in the North East, deaths either in kidnappers' dens or in the
course of being to the dens that are scattered across forests in the country,
in two years. A breakdown of this figure showed that 3,457 civilians were
killed in 2020 while 4,234 civilians were killed between January and September
2021. On the other hand, 1, 496 security personnel also lost their lives within
the period under review. Some of the civilians who were displaced from their
homes in the process are being accommodated in Internally Displaced Persons
IDPs camps across the six states in the northeast and other states. Protection
for the civilian population, especially during armed conflict is a basic
element of humanitarian law. In fact, the 1949 Geneva Conventions and their
1977 additional protocols contain specific rules to protect civilians.”

 

Africa

 

The New York Times: ‘Inadequate’ Security Led To Deaths Of 3 Americans In
Kenya Attack, Report Finds
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“A series of security lapses and an “inadequate focus” on threats on the
ground helped lead to a deadly assault on a sprawling military base in Kenya in
2020 that killed three Americans, a Pentagon investigation has concluded. The
inquiry, led by the United States Africa Command, also found what the head of
the command described as “shortcomings” in the sharing of intelligence and
deficiencies in the preparation of security forces charged with guarding the
base. “We were not as prepared at Manda Bay as we needed to be,” Gen. Stephen
J. Townsend, the commander of Africa Command, said in a video presentation of
the findings at the Pentagon on Thursday. The report found that “certain senior
officers contributed to the inadequate force protection posture at Manda Bay,
and allowed a climate of complacency and poor understanding of the threat.”
Eight officers and enlisted personnel were disciplined for their actions or
their failure to act, the Air Force said. But a spokeswoman for the service
declined to describe the punishments or the fate of those personnel. The brazen
assault by 30 to 40 Shabab fighters at Manda Bay, a sleepy seaside base near
the Somali border, resulted in the largest number of U.S. military-related
fatalities in Africa since October 2017, when four soldiers were killed in an
ambush in Niger.”

 

The Defense Post: Israeli System Downs Isis Drones In Mozambique
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“The Mozambique Army downed three ISIS drones using an Israeli counter-drone
system in the country’s north, Israel Defense reported, citing the army. The
MC-Horizon 360D V3 counter-drone system reportedly jammed the drones that were
likely sent to gather information on troops. According to The Jerusalem Post,
the drones were also going to be used to bomb the soldiers. The downing
happened within a year of the Kfar Saba-based MCTECH RF Technologies craft
being sold to the East African country.  The system provides 360-degree
coverage and detects drones through a “signaling channel and radio transmission
(both the uplink and downlink),” at a radius of 1.5 kilometers (0.93 miles),
triggering a “neutralization system which deactivates the drone/quadcopter from
any operation,” the manufacturer wrote. The 20 kilograms (44 pounds) modular
system can be carried in a backpack and attached to a vehicle or vessel. Citing
the CEO of Israeli private security company Orad, The Jerusalem Post reported
that MCTECH RF Technologies has sold the system to many militaries worldwide
since 2014 and that the downing was the first by a foreign military. “In
Mozambique, ISIS is attacking troops with drones. They use drones to identify
troops, to bomb troops, and even to identify troops and then navigate artillery
to hit forces.”

 

Gulf News: UAE Re-Affirms Right To Protect Soil, Gains From Terrorism Threats
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“The UAE has reaffirmed its inherent right to self-defence in response to
armed aggression and to preserve its sovereignty and territorial integrity
under international law, reiterating that the attacks perpetrated by terror
groups will not proceed without a comprehensive response, and that the UAE has
the legal and moral right to prevent terrorism from threatening its soil. This
came in a speech delivered by Khalifa Shaheen Al Marar, Minister of State,
during the 157th ordinary session of the Arab League Council, which was held at
the headquarters of the General Secretariat of the Arab League in Cairo at the
foreign ministerial level. Al Marar, who headed the UAE delegation, added that
the UAE has faced vicious terrorist attacks by the terrorist Houthi militias
that targeted civil areas and objects and led to civilian casualties and
in-kind losses. Similarly, Houthi terrorist attacks on civilian objects in
Saudi Arabia have continued, he added, referring to the large number of
ballistic missiles and drones used in Houthi aggression. He stressed that the
vigilance and readiness of the UAE Armed Forces and their professionalism in
confronting these attempts have thwarted large-scale terrorist operations that
targeted the more than 200 nationalities living in the UAE, noting that over
“two million citizens from brotherly Arab countries are living in the UAE.” “We
express our deep thanks to brotherly Arab countries for standing in solidarity
with us and for the unanimous issuance of Resolution No. 8725 during the
extraordinary session of the Arab League Council on January 23, 2022.”

 

United Kingdom

 

The Irish Times: Lisa Smith Trial: Court To Rule On Admissibility Of Political
Scientist’s Evidence
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“The Special Criminal Court will rule Friday on whether it will consider the
opinion evidence of a political scientist who told the trial of Lisa Smith that
anyone who travelled to Syria to support the Islamic State was a member of the
terrorist organisation Isis. Lawyers for Ms Smith have argued that the opinion
evidence is not admissible and should not be considered as evidence by the
three judges of the non-jury court. Mr Justice Tony Hunt, presiding, said the
court will deliver its judgement on the legal issue on Friday. Ms Smith (40),
from Dundalk, Co Louth travelled to Syria after terrorist leader Abu Bakr
al-Baghdadi called on all Muslims to travel to the Islamic State. She has
pleaded not guilty to membership of an unlawful terrorist group, Islamic State,
between October 28th, 2015 and December 1st, 2019. She has also pleaded not
guilty to financing terrorism by sending €800 in assistance, via a Western
Union money transfer, to a named man on May 6th, 2015. Dr Florence Gaub, a
director with the European Union Institute for Security Studies, has told the
trial that the Islamic State or caliphate announced by al-Baghdadi was the same
thing as the terrorist organisation Isis and that a person became a member of
Isis when they joined the state “actively with any type of act of support.”

 

Germany

 

Deutsche Welle: Germany Marks First-Ever National Remembrance Day For Victims
Of Terrorist Violence
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“In Germany, there are three cases of violent extremism that stand out in
recent memory: the series of murders committed by the neo-Nazi National
Socialist Underground (NSU) from 2000 to 2007, the 2016 Islamist attack on the
Breitscheidplatz Christmas market in Berlin and the racist killing spree in the
city of Hanau in February 2020. On Friday, the victims of these attacks will be
remembered when Germany marks its very first National Day of Remembrance for
the Victims of Terrorist Violence. The date, March 11, has special significance
— it's also the European Day of Remembrance of Victims of Terrorism, created
after a series of bombings on trains in Madrid killed 191 people and injured
more than 2,000 on March 11, 2004. Ahead of a planned memorial for German
victims of terrorism in Berlin, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser spoke of those
who had been affected. “These attacks have dramatically changed the lives of so
many people. Many, with a great amount of strength, are still fighting their
way back to their normal lives. We must not abandon them,” she said. Faeser's
portfolio includes domestic security, and she vowed that Germany's national
security services and domestic intelligence were doing all they could to help
survivors and prevent further attacks.”

 

Europe

 

The National: Denmark Charges 'ISIS Fighter' With Treason
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“Danish prosecutors have for the first time charged a citizen accused of being
an ISIS fighter in Syria with treason. The man was recruited in 2013 and
remained with the group for four years until it was defeated on the
battlefield, officials said. The 31-year-old, who has not been identified by
authorities, was said to have appeared in an online ISIS video with three other
men threatening other Danes and using their images as target practice. The man
has been charged with treason under a law that came into force at the end of
2015 as Denmark was part of the international coalition fighting the terrorist
group. From the eastern city of Aarhus, he faces other charges including
recruiting others to the ISIS cause. He was arrested in 2019 after he was
expelled by Turkey and has since remained in prison. He is due to stand trial
in November in a case that is expected to last nearly six months and
prosecutors say he faces up to life in prison if found guilty. The prosecution
says it can show that the man signed up for ISIS, joined a combat unit and
fought against the coalition when “the Danish state was a party on the opposite
side”, said Lise-Lotte Nilas, the public prosecutor for Copenhagen. She said
the case was particularly serious because he fought for a long period of time
“until he was no longer able to participate actively because of physical
injuries.”

 

Technology

 

The Washington Post: Pro-Russia Rebels Are Still Using Facebook To Recruit
Fighters, Spread Propaganda
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“In the days after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Aleksandr Zaldostanov, the
leader of a pro-Putin biker gang, the Night Wolves, turned to Facebook to
disparage the Ukrainian president and push falsehoods about the war. “Ukraine
is a torn off piece of Russia, which is shrinking in pain and bleeding still,”
he posted on March 1 to more than 18,000 followers. “Russia did not start a war
now!!!! Those who divided us started it!” A former physician known by his
nickname, “the Surgeon,” Zaldostanov has been on the U.S. government sanctions
list since 2014, amid allegations that he helped Russian troops confiscate
weapons during the country’s invasion of Crimea. The sanctions block
Zaldostanov’s assets and generally prohibit U.S. citizens from “dealing” with
him, but on Facebook he maintains a very active account, posting frequent
support of Russia since the invasion. The multitude of sanctioned entities and
individuals who, like Zaldostanov, maintain a robust Facebook and Instagram
presence is the subject of a pair of new whistleblower complaints, filed in
December and February, arguing that Facebook parent company Meta engaged in
“reckless or willful” violations of U.S. sanctions law by permitting the
accounts, according to redacted copies reviewed exclusively by The Washington
Post.”

 

Reuters: Facebook Allows War Posts Urging Violence Against Russian Invaders
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“Meta Platforms (FB.O) will allow Facebook and Instagram users in some
countries to call for violence against Russians and Russian soldiers in the
context of the Ukraine invasion, according to internal emails seen by Reuters
on Thursday, in a temporary change to its hate speech policy. The social media
company is also temporarily allowing some posts that call for death to Russian
President Vladimir Putin or Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko,
according to internal emails to its content moderators. "As a result of the
Russian invasion of Ukraine we have temporarily made allowances for forms of
political expression that would normally violate our rules like violent speech
such as 'death to the Russian invaders.' We still won't allow credible calls
for violence against Russian civilians," a Meta spokesperson said in a
statement. The calls for the leaders' deaths will be allowed unless they
contain other targets or have two indicators of credibility, such as the
location or method, one email said, in a recent change to the company's rules
on violence and incitement.”

 

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