Eye on Extremism
June 8, 2022
Reuters: Founder Of Banned UK Neo-Nazi Group Jailed
“The co-founder of a British neo-Nazi group, whose members have planned or praised the murder of lawmakers, was jailed on Tuesday for being a member of a banned organisation. Alex Davies, 28, helped to set up National Action, a white supremacist group which was proscribed by the government in 2016, after it openly celebrated the killing of Jo Cox, a member of parliament. She was shot and stabbed to death by a Nazi-obsessed recluse in a frenzied street attack. Davies was found guilty last month of remaining a member of the group after it was banned. He was jailed for eight-and-a-half years at London's Old Bailey court on Tuesday. In 2018, a National Action member admitted buying a machete for the purpose of murdering another female lawmaker as well as making a threat to kill a female police officer. Last year, a policeman became the first serving police officer to be convicted of a terrorism offence after he was found guilty of being a member of the group.”
The National: Egyptian Court Sentences Three Muslim Brotherhood Members To Death On Terrorism Charges
“A court in Egypt has sentenced three members of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood to death, after their conviction on 18 separate terrorism charges dating back to 2014 and 2015. The court in the oasis city of Fayoum, south-west of the capital Cairo, named the three men as Mohammed Idris, 32, Mohammed Riyadh 25 and Heleil Raheel, 30, judicial officials said. The court also sentenced 20 other members of the organisation to life in prison and another person to nine years in jail. Egypt uses hanging when capital punishment is passed against civilians. A life sentence is equivalent to 25 years in prison. All 24 were convicted of the same charges and can appeal their sentences before a higher court. The court’s presiding judge, Yasser Muharram Darweesh, said the defendants had planned to assassinate a criminal court judge in Fayoum, Tareq Abouzeid, while he was driving, but they mistakenly shot at a different vehicle. They also killed two policemen in Fayoum and planted roadside bombs across much of the province, opened fire at a local police station and carried out surveillance of police officers they intended to assassinate. “The members of these terrorist cells shared tasks that included execution, surveillance and security when they carried out acts of sabotage and violence,” said the judge while sentencing them.”
United States
NBC News: Homeland Security Warns Of Heightened Extremist Threats, Uvalde Copycats
“The Department of Homeland Security warned Tuesday of potential domestic violence in the coming months due to “several high-profile events.” The bulletin was issued as the Supreme Court appears poised to end constitutional protection for women's rights to abortion and as a highly charged midterm election unfolds less than two years after violent protesters tried to overturn legitimate election results. “The United States remains in a heightened threat environment, as noted in the previous Bulletin, and several recent attacks have highlighted the dynamic and complex nature of the threat environment,” Homeland Security said in a statement. “In the coming months, we expect the threat environment to become more dynamic as several high-profile events could be exploited to justify acts of violence against a range of possible targets.” Clint Watts, a national security analyst for NBC News and MSNBC, said the emotional debates about gun control and abortion rights amount to a “powder keg” of potential violence. The DHS report shows “no surprises and is consistent with what my research team and I see,” Watts added. And Seamus Hughes, the deputy director of the George Washington University's Program on Extremism, likened the DHS warning to a horrific weather forecast.”
CBS News: Son Of Buffalo Shooting Victim Presses Senators On Domestic Terrorism: “What Are You Doing?”
“The former commissioner of the Buffalo Fire Department whose 86-year-old mother was fatally shot at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York, last month, pressured senators to address the rising threat of domestic terrorism, asking if there is “nothing that you personally are willing to do” to stop the spread of extremist ideology at the root of numerous violent attacks in recent years. “You expect us to continue to just forgive and forget over and over again. And what are you doing?” asked Garnell Whitfield Jr., whose mother, Ruth Whitfield, was among the 10 people shot and killed in the attack at Tops Friendly Market in Buffalo on May 14. “You're elected to protect us, to protect our way of life. I ask every one of you to imagine the faces of your mothers as you look at mine and ask yourself, is there nothing that we can do?” Whitfield testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee at a hearing on the growing domestic terrorism threat following the massacre in Buffalo. Noting assessments by federal law enforcement that white supremacy is the greatest domestic threat, Whitfield lamented that “nothing has been done to mitigate it or eradicate it.” “Is there nothing that you personally are willing to do to stop the cancer of white supremacy and the domestic terrorism it inspires?” he asked the panel.”
Turkey
Daily Sabah: Supporters Of Terror Groups Should Not Be In NATO, Turkey Says
“Those who support a terrorist organization that targets a NATO ally should not be a part of the security bloc, Turkey's Defense Ministry said Tuesday. In a briefing, the ministry underlined that Turkey continues to share the values and responsibilities of NATO and remains at the center of the alliance's security as its second-largest army. Noting that NATO's enlargement is meaningful and important to the extent that Turkey's sensitivities are respected, the ministry underlined that NATO is a security organization and one of the biggest issues it must tackle is global terrorism. “Supporting a terrorist organization that attacks an alliance member country is against the spirit of alliance. Those who give this support should not have a place in NATO,” the ministry statement read. It was stressed that Turkey always favors solving problems through dialogue in the hopes of achieving regional and world peace, adding that the country continues to do its best to establish global and regional security and stability. The statement noted that Defense Minister Hulusi Akar will attend the NATO defense ministers meeting in Brussels on June 15-16 and will attend the NATO heads of state and government summit in Madrid on June 29-30, accompanying President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.”
Afghanistan
Reuters: Germany Won't Recognise Taliban As "Dire" Afghan Conditions Persist
“Germany will not recognise the Taliban as the legitimate rulers of Afghanistan as long as "dire" conditions under the Islamists persist, Germany's foreign minister said on Tuesday, calling for a united international call on the Taliban for change. No foreign government has formally recognised the Taliban since they took over Afghanistan last August as U.S.-backed foreign forces withdrew after two decades of war. "When we look across the border the situation is dire," the German minister, Annalena Baerbock, told a news conference in the Islamabad, capital of neighbouring Pakistan. She warned of a looming humanitarian and economic crisis in a country in which she said girls were deprived of education, women were excluded from public life and dissenting voices were suppressed. "As long as they go down this path, there's no room for normalisation and even less for less for recognition of the Taliban as the legitimate rulers of the country, at the same time we will not ... abandon the people of Afghanistan," she said, adding that Germany would send humanitarian aid.”
India
First Post: Prophet Muhammad Row: What Is AQIS, The Al-Qaeda Affiliate Which Has Threatened Suicide Blasts In India?
“…Al-Qaeda officials have called on AQIS to carry out attacks in Myanmar in response to violence against the Rohingya, a Muslim minority group, according to Counter Extremism Project (CEP), a non-profit international policy organisation. The group attempted the seizure of a Pakistani frigate in Karachi’s naval dockyard in September 2014. In July 2020, a report published by the UNSC alleged that around 150 to 200 AQIS members from Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, and Pakistan in Afghanistan. How active is the AQIS in India? The presence of AQIS in India was confirmed after the arrest of three operatives in Delhi in 2015. The Delhi Police later arrested Maulana Abdul Rehman Kasmi, an AQIS operative, and claimed that the group had set up a training camp “somewhere in Jharkhand forests”, according to a report in The Diplomat. The group has been reaching out to Muslims in the country, attempting to draw their attention to the atrocities in Kashmir, India’s dominance in South Asia, undermining “Muslim values and culture” and its alliance with the United States and Russia, the report says.”
Africa
AFP: Lake Chad Multinational Force Says More Than 800 Jihadis Killed
“A multinational force with troops from Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon and Chad on Tuesday said it had killed more than 800 jihadis in about two months in the volatile Lake Chad region. The four West African nations and Benin reconstituted the force in 2015 to fight Boko Haram and its rival, the Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP). The Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF) said 805 jihadis were killed on Lake Chad's islands and neighboring areas between March 28 and June 4, calling the operation a resounding success. The vast, swampy Lake Chad basin stretches across the borders of Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon and Chad, and Boko Haram and ISWAP have established bases on its many small islands. Almost 3,000 soldiers from the four countries were involved and captured or destroyed 44 vehicles, 22 motorcycles and weapons in ground, naval and air operations, the force said. Ammunition was seized and improvised explosive device (IED) production centers were destroyed, it said. IEDs injured around 20 soldiers from Niger, with one in a serious condition, the military force said. The MNJTF was set up in 1994 but had been largely dormant before 2015. Boko Haram attacks broke out in Nigeria in 2009 before spreading to neighboring countries.”
Newsweek: In Burkina Faso, Local Militias Take Lead In Anti-Terror Fight
“The ongoing insurgency that has raged across much of Burkina Faso, a landlocked country in West Africa, has brought misery and suffering to the nation of 21 million. Visible reminders of the struggle are everywhere. A burned-out truck has become an unlikely playground for children. Another charred vehicle sits on the edge of a field of maize. Kibsa Ouedraogo, who has a swagger General Patton would admire, heads a local militia group, Volunteers for the Defense of the Fatherland (VDP). It has clashed with terrorists across Burkina Faso's North Central region since its founding in 2020. The VDP, a self-defense militia, draws from a variety of ethnic groups in Burkina Faso. Its members include Muslims, Christians, and animists. While the press often focuses on various international efforts involved in the conflict, localized militias have increasingly taken on larger roles in the ongoing struggle. The Volunteers for the Defense of the Fatherland is seen as a stop-gap measure to halt a spreading conflict. For critics, it's a symptom of a conflict increasingly reflected in ethnic terms. To their terrorist opponents, VDP militias are potential soft targets. “We will be ready for them if they come, we've prepared a little surprise for them,” Ouedraogo says in French, pointing to a series of slit trenches dug in front of a half-finished schoolhouse. The site offers clear fields of fire onto a road, which leads to a nearby village.”
United Kingdom
BBC News: Watlington Man, 18, Charged With Terrorism Offences
“An 18-year-old man has been charged with terrorism offences linked to extreme right-wing ideology. Oliver Riley is accused of possessing documents likely to be useful to a person preparing or committing an act of terrorism and enabling others to access such a publication, police said. He is also charged with sending a grossly offensive electronic message. Mr Riley, from Watlington in Oxfordshire, is due at Westminster Magistrates' Court on 28 June.”
Express & Star: Londoners United In Face Of Terrorism, Says Mayor On Attack’s Fifth Anniversary
“…Sir Ivor, from the Counter Extremism Project, and former head of counter-terrorism in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, said the attack could be attributed “in significant part, to the failure of the intelligence community to monitor appropriately subjects of interest”. In a statement on the anniversary, he said: “The 2017 London Bridge attack can be attributed, in significant part, to the failure of the intelligence community to monitor appropriately subjects of interest. “The primary perpetrator of the attack, Khuram Shazad Butt, was known to both the police and MI5 from as early as 2015. At that time he was investigated, but the investigation was quickly ‘moved into the lower echelons’ and his file was classed as ‘low priority’. “While the monitoring of peripheral subjects like Butt can often be a tedious and thankless task, it is also often the difference between life and death. The Government’s subsequent official enquiry into the numerous terrorist attacks which occurred in the UK in 2017 specifically identified this as an area of counter terror policy in need of significant reform.” He referred to the case of Malik Faisal Akram, originally from Blackburn in Lancashire, who carried out an attack on a Texas synagogue in January.”
France
Associated Press: Italian Police Seek Pakistanis Tied To 2020 Attack In Paris
“Authorities in the northwestern Italian port city of Genoa on Tuesday were executing arrest warrants on 14 Pakistani citizens linked to the man who stabbed two people in September 2020 outside the former offices in Paris of the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine. The suspects are accused of criminal association with an international terror group, and are suspected of belonging to a terror cell called “Gabar Group” with direct links to the attacker, Pakistani-born Zaher Hassan Mahmood, anti-terrorism investigators said in a statement. Mahmood, now 27 and in French custody, told investigators that he acted out of anger over caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad that had been recently republished by the weekly paper. Two people were seriously wounded in the stabbing, which took place outside the newspaper’s former offices where Islamic extremists killed 12 people in January 2015. The two brothers involved in the 2015 attack targeted Charlie Hebdo because they believed the newspaper had blasphemed Islam by publishing the same Muhammad caricatures.”
Germany
Reuters: German Far-Right Growing And More Prone To Violence - Govt Agency
“Political extremism is a growing threat to Germany, with its adherents, primarily on the far right and increasingly driven by misinformation, ever more willing to resort to violence, a new report by domestic intelligence showed. The Federal Agency for the Protection of the Constitution counted 33,476 politically motivated crimes in 2021, a slight increase over the previous year, after 32,924 in 2020, but there was a 10% increase in politically motivated violent crime. “Far-right extremism remains the biggest extremist threat to our democracy,” Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said introducing the report on Tuesday. “We see a high degree of openness to violence here.” Political extremism is highly sensitive in Germany given the country's Nazi past and many Germans feel a special responsibility to root out racism and intolerance. The president of the domestic intelligence service, Thomas Haldenwang, said misinformation played a key role in nourishing all the various extremist activity. In a positive development, the German population seemed more or less immune to propaganda Russia was spreading in Germany in support of its war in Ukraine.”
Europe
Associated Press: Russia's Navalny Loses Appeal On Terrorist, Extremist Label
“Imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny on Tuesday lost an appeal contesting the decision by penitentiary officials to label him as “inclined to commit crimes of a terrorist or extremist nature.” Navalny, who has been behind bars since January 2021, was first designated by the penitentiary authorities as a flight risk, which implied additional checks and inspections in prison. But in October last year officials replaced that label with the “terrorist or extremist” one. “I was worried they would demand that I kissed portraits of (President Vladimir) Putin and learned quotes by (his top associate Dmitry) Medvedev, but it wasn't necessary. It is just that my bunk bed now has a label that describes me a terrorist,” Navalny, in his usual sardonic matter, commented on the move at the time in a social media post. He and his defense team filed an appeal contesting the label, but a panel of judges in the Russia's Vladimir region about 100 kilometers (62 miles) east of Moscow on Tuesday rejected the appeal and ruled to keep the designation in place. Navalny, Putin's fiercest foe, was arrested in January 2021 upon returning from Germany, where he had been recuperating from nerve-agent poisoning that he blames on the Kremlin, and handed a 2½-year sentence for a parole violation.”
Technology
Politico: Online Platforms Now Have An Hour To Remove Terrorist Content In The EU
“Facebook, Google and Twitter now have an hour to take down flagged terrorist content spreading on their platforms or risk fines of billions of euros. Passed in 2021, the EU’s terrorist content regulation enters into force Tuesday. It seeks to crack down on terrorist propaganda on social media and viral livestreams of gruesome attacks such as the 2019 Christchurch mosque shootings. Public authorities such as law enforcement, interior ministries and Europol can now require a platform or cloud services to remove specific posts, music, livestreams, photos and videos inciting violence and glorifying terrorist attacks. Promoting terrorist groups and instructions for how to commit an attack will also be forbidden online. Any European Union country, from Hungary to Poland, can tell a company to remove terrorist content across the bloc. Digital companies will have an hour to comply and will have to ensure similar content is not uploaded again. Users will be informed that their content has been deleted and can contest the decision. If tech companies regularly fail to tackle terrorist content, they could face a fine of up to 4 percent of their global revenue. The law has been criticized by digital rights activists who worry that the tight deadline and limited safeguards could stifle free speech.”
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