Eye on Extremism
June 7, 2022
Associated Press: Nigerian Civilians Bear Brunt Of Attacks By Armed Groups
“Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, faces a myriad of security threats — from Islamic State-linked militants in the north to separatist movements in the south. Much of the violence is related to religious extremism, but some attacks are fueled by conflicts over natural resources. What all have in common, though, is that civilians are most often the victims. Armed groups are able to carry out prolonged assaults in remote locations where help is often delayed by an inadequate security presence. In many cases, accurate death tolls are never compiled. A look at some of the attacks targeting Nigerian civilians in the past five years: JUNE 5, 2022 — Gunmen attack a service at St. Francis Catholic Church in Owo, located in Ondo state in southwestern Nigeria. A local state legislator says at least 50 people were killed. APRIL 2022 — An armed gang attacks four villages in a remote corner of Plateau state in northern Nigeria, killing more than 100 people. MARCH 2022 — Gunmen attack a train near Nigeria’s capital with explosives and gunfire, killing at least seven people. JANUARY 2022 — Dozens of civilians are killed in three days of bloodshed by armed groups in northwest Zamfara state. DECEMBER 2021 — Gunmen open fire on a bus in Sokoto state in northwestern Nigeria, killing at least 23 passengers.”
Asharq Al-Awsat: Saudi State Security Designates 13 Individuals, 3 Entities As Terrorist
“The Saudi State Security designated on Monday 13 individuals and three entities as terrorist. A Lebanese national and two Iranians were blacklisted for ties to Iran's Quds Force and the Iran-backed terrorist Hezbollah party in Lebanon. Four people, including an Afghan and a Syrian national, and a company were blacklisted for ties to ISIS. Two Syrians were found to have set up the Qaterji company that sold fuel to ISIS and cooperating with other terrorist groups, such as the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. Six people were designated for financing the terrorist Boko Haram group. They had set up a cell in the United Arab Emirates that is affiliated with the group and funding its terrorist activities in Nigeria. Two groups, the Saraya al-Ashtar and Saraya al-Mokhtar, were designated terrorist. They are based in Bahrain and backed by Iran. They receive financial, logistic and military support from the Iran Guards. The State Security said the assets of the designated persons and entities will be frozen and all direct and indirect activity with them will be barred.”
United States
The New York Times: Proud Boys Charged With Sedition In Capitol Attack
“Enrique Tarrio, the former chairman of the Proud Boys, and four other members of the far-right group were indicted on Monday for seditious conspiracy for their roles in the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6 of last year, some of the most serious criminal charges to be brought in the Justice Department’s sprawling investigation of the assault. The sedition charges came in an amended indictment that was unsealed in Federal District Court in Washington. The men had already been charged in an earlier indictment filed in March with conspiring to obstruct the certification of the 2020 presidential election, which took place during a joint session of Congress on Jan. 6, 2021. The new indictment marked the second time a far-right group has been charged with seditious conspiracy in connection with the Jan. 6 attack. In January, Stewart Rhodes, the leader and founder of the far-right Oath Keepers militia, was arrested and charged along with 10 others with the same crime. The charge of seditious conspiracy — which can be difficult to prove and carries particular legal weight as well as political overtones — requires prosecutors to show that at least two people agreed to use force to overthrow government authority or delay the execution of a U.S. law. It carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.”
The Washington Post: Kansas Woman Accused Of Leading All-Female ISIS Brigade Likely To Plead Guilty, Docket Entry Shows
“A Kansas-born woman who led an all-female brigade for the Islamic State in Syria is likely to plead guilty to federal charges Tuesday, according to a court docket. Allison Fluke-Ekren, 42, was charged with conspiring to provide material support for terrorism in 2019 by federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of Virginia and taken into U.S. custody in January. She is being held at the Alexandria Detention Center, and the deadline for prosecutors to file an indictment is next week. A brief entry in Fluke-Ekren’s criminal case on Monday says a “plea agreement hearing” has been scheduled for Tuesday before U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema. It is not clear to what charges Fluke-Ekren may plead guilty, and such agreements can collapse before they are finalized in court. A spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney’s office declined to comment. An attorney for Fluke-Ekren did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The charges against Fluke-Ekren are unusual; women make up only a small fraction of those charged by U.S. prosecutors with supporting the Islamic State, and Fluke-Ekren was alleged to have held an unusually high position. Witnesses described Fluke-Ekren as an Islamic State member with various responsibilities, who was fluent in several languages and discussed ideas for a mass-casualty attack on U.S. soil, according to court documents filed by prosecutors.”
Associated Press: Court Upholds ‘Terrorism’ Sentencing Of Pipeline Saboteur
“A federal appeals court on Monday upheld an eight-year prison sentence for an environmental activist who tried to sabotage the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Jessica Reznicek pleaded guilty in June 2021 to a charge of conspiracy to damage an energy facility for vandalizing construction sites on the 1,200-mile (1,930-kilometer) pipeline in 2016 and 2017. Iowa U.S. District Judge Rebecca Goodgame Ebinger included a terrorism-related enhancement in her sentencing, finding that the crime was “calculated to influence or affect the conduct of government.” Reznicek appealed that enhancement, arguing that she was acting against a private company. But the appeals court found that “any error was harmless” in Ebinger’s sentencing because the judge had noted she would have imposed the eight-year sentence regardless of the terrorism enhancement, the Des Moines Register reported. An attorney for Reznicek declined to comment on the court’s decision. Ruby Montoya, another activist who acted with Reznicek, has pleaded guilty to a charge in the incident. But she has attempted to withdraw that plea, arguing she was unfairly pressured into entering it.”
Middle East
i24 News: 2 Palestinian Terrorism Suspects Arrested In Tel Aviv
“Several attacks were committed recently by Palestinians who entered Israel illegally. Border Police and the Shin Bet internal security service have arrested two Palestinians who entered Israel illegally and are suspected of planning to engage in terrorist activities. The two Palestinians residing in Nablus were apprehended in the south of Tel Aviv, during a joint operation by the armed forces and the internal intelligence services carried out on Monday morning. Both men were taken for questioning by the Shin Bet to clarify the circumstances of their entry into Israel. Israeli forces have stepped up counter-terrorism operations since the recent wave of attacks, several of which were committed by Palestinians who entered Israel illegally. The ongoing military incursions into Palestinian villages and cities in the West Bank is dubbed “Break the Wave.” The Tel Aviv area was hit by two high-profile terrorist attacks during the terrorism wave, including in the predominately ultra-Orthodox city of Bnei Brak on March 29 when four civilians were killed in a shooting and on April 7 in central Tel Aviv on Dizengoff Street when a gunman shot and killed three people and wounded six. Last week, Israeli forces demolished the home of the Bnei Brak attacker, who died in a shootout with police on the night of the terrorist attack that resulted in the death of a police officer.”
Africa
Reuters: M23 Rebels Kill Two Congo Soldiers As Fighting Resumes - Army
“Two soldiers were killed in fighting against M23 militants in eastern Congo on Monday, the army said - the latest violence in a long-standing conflict that has escalated in recent weeks and caused a diplomatic rift with Rwanda. The rebels shelled an army position in North Kivu, killing two soldiers and injuring five. Congo accuses the neighbourung state of supporting the M23, which Rwanda denies. That clash followed a raid on a village in neighbouring Ituri province on Sunday by suspected Islamists from another rebel group that killed at least 18 people, local sources said. Fighters believed to be from the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) killed residents and burned down houses in Otomabere, said a witness, a local chief and a local human rights group. Congolese army spokesman Jules Ngongo confirmed the ADF attack without giving a death toll, and said Congolese forces were in pursuit of the rebels. The ADF is a Ugandan militia that moved to eastern Congo in the 1990s and killed more than 1,300 people between January 2021 and January 2022, according to a United Nations report.”
United Kingdom
BBC News: Man 'Posted Terror Video' After Liverpool Hospital Bombing
“An asylum seeker posted Islamic State (IS) propaganda on social media after the bombing at a Liverpool hospital, a jury has heard. Ahmiri Ahmedi Azizi, 24, from Sheffield, is said to have shared the footage the day after the attack. The video encouraged terrorist attacks against the West, Manchester Crown Court heard. Mr Azizi denies seven counts of disseminating terrorist material between June and November 2021.
Emad Al Swealmeen died when a device exploded in a taxi outside Liverpool Women's Hospital on 14 November. Prosecutor Denise Breen-Lawton said Mr Azizi, who came to the UK from Iran, posted the video on Instagram. She told the court that while people were “recoiling in horror” from the attack, Mr Azizi was “sharing a public video encouraging others to commit violent attacks on the West”. He posted “a terrorist propaganda video by Islamic State encouraging attacks” and “instructing methods of attack with knives and rifles”, she said. Later that month, he also watched a video on making a silencer for an automatic rifle. Mr Azizi's Kurdish co-defendant, Mohammed Hussini, 19, also from Iran, is charged with four counts of the same offence by sending videos via Telegram between August and November 2021.”
The Spectator: Prevent And The Problem Of ‘Political Correctness’
“Britain is reviewing its cornerstone anti-terror programme. As the name implies, Prevent is a strategy designed to stop radicalisation before it metastasises into killer intent. But how well is it working? There have been accusations that Prevent is discriminatory. Groups such as Liberty and the Muslim Council of Britain have criticised the anti-terror strategy for targetting Muslims, arguing that it has caused hurt to Britain’s Islamic communities. But there are also criticisms that, even on its own terms, the Home Office programme isn’t working as well as it should. Dame Sara Khan, the social cohesion tsar, last week warned that efforts to tackle Islamist extremism are being hampered by ‘political correctness’. The fear of being called a racist, she explained, is hampering our ability to avert deadly extremism. Khan is of course right, as anyone who has followed Britain’s numerous terror attacks will have heard. Remember the Manchester Arena bombing and the security guard who spotted the Salman Abedi behaving suspiciously with his rucksack? Kyle Lawler, then aged just 18, claimed that if he had confronted Abedi, his career might have been ruined by an accusation of racism. This is far from the only case.”
Europe
The National Interest: Why Holding Returned Isis Members Accountable Just Got Even Harder
“The case of a returned member of ISIS in Ireland is raising new questions about what is required of the state in proving criminal intent in prosecuting terrorism. A former soldier in the Irish Defence Forces has been cleared of the charge of funding the Islamic State (ISIS) despite being found guilty of being a member of the terrorist group. This raises a concern: if membership in the Islamic State is not sufficient evidence of financial intent, then what more is required to find individuals guilty of supporting terrorist groups that aim to establish a caliphate. Irish national Lisa Smith converted to Islam in 2011 and in 2015 traveled to ISIS-controlled territory in Syria. Smith’s journey to Syria, or hijra, as ISIS refers to it, followed the call made by ISIS leader Abu-Bakr al-Baghdadi. During her time in Syria, Smith married a Briton, Sajid Aslam, and gave birth to a daughter in June 2017. However, as the collapse of the Islamic State became a reality, the Irish convert made the decision to pack her bags and return to Ireland with her daughter in December 2019. She was arrested at Dublin Airport and charged with terrorism offenses. Smith pleaded not guilty to two charges: being a member of ISIS between 2015 and 2019, and financing terrorism. At the Special Criminal Court in Dublin, the prosecution alleged Smith had “endeavoured to access ISIS-controlled territory and sought out the means by which this could be done.”
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