Islamist Extremism |  | Two billion dollar Iranian oil refinery at Gulf port of Bandar-Abbas | Iranian Oil Workers Strike is Most Serious Threat Yet to the Regime - More than 1,000 workers at the Bushehr and Damavand petrochemical plants carried out a threat to go on strike, blocking streets and chanting “death to the dictator,” according to Radio Farda.
- Oil worker strikes were pivotal in the Islamic Revolution of 1979, which led to the fall of the Shah.
- Workers at several oil fields posted videos, threatening, "we will destroy everything we have built" if their demand for an end to violence against the protesters is not met. Read More
Administration Officials Hold In-Person Meeting With the Taliban Top Biden administration officials met in person with the Taliban for the first time since al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed by the U.S. in late July. The administration sent the CIA’s deputy director and the top State Department official responsible for Afghanistan to the meeting in the Qatari capital of Doha. Read Now CUNY Drops CAIR-Affiiliated Administrator The City University of New York (CUNY) allegedly removed Saly Abd Alla, CUNY’s chief diversity officer, from an investigation into claims of antisemitism and anti-Zionism made by a Jewish professor. Alla is a former leader of CAIR’s Minnesota chapter. The move comes in the wake of outrage at the appointment of someone with a record of Anti-Israel activity being appointed to investigate charges of antisemitism. Read Now | | | | | Alt-Right & Alt-Left Extremism |  | A leader of the Portland Proud Boys speaks during a gathering - Nathan Howard/Getty Images | Former Proud Boys Leader Pleads Guilty to Seditious Conspiracy - A former leader of the Proud Boys, Jeremy Bertino, 43, pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy in the District of Columbia for his actions before and during the breach of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Bertino pleaded guilty in connection to a charge of unlawful possession of a firearm, stemming from a court-authorized search of his residence in March 2022. Bertino faces a statutory maximum of 20 years in prison for seditious conspiracy and up to 10 years in prison for the firearms charge. Read More Man Fakes Arson Attack He Blamed on Antifa Denis Molla, 30, of Brooklyn Center, Minn. pleaded guilty to filing fraudulent insurance claims for a staged arson that he blamed on left-wing radicals. Read More Man Sentenced for Threatening Election Official Online - Travis Ford, 42, of Lincoln, Neb. was sentenced to 18 months in prison for making multiple threatening posts on an Instagram page associated with an election official, including, “Do you feel safe? You shouldn’t. Do you think Soros will/can protect you?” Read More
Antifa Member Indicted for Planting Pipe Bomb at Civil War Reenactment - Gerald Leonard Drake, 63, from Winchester, Va. was indicted for mailing threatening letters, stalking and planting a pipe bomb at the Cedar Creek Battlefield in Middletown, Va. during a Civil War reenactment event in 2017. In mailings sent by Drake to victims and two newspapers, he purported to be a member of Antifa. Read More
Abortion Rights Activists Arrested - Half a dozen abortion rights activists in Riverside, Calif. have been charged with felony vandalism after causing more than $13,000 in property damage to the Riverside Historic Courthouse. Read More
| | | | | Hate Crime |  | Incel Tres Genco, via 10 WBNS screenshot | Incel Plots Mass Shooting of Women A self-identified “incel” Tres Genco, 22, of Hillsboro, Ohio, pled guilty and admitted he plotted to commit a mass shooting, targeting women at a university in Ohio. Read More NYPD Cop Charged With Anti-Muslim Hate Crime - An 18-year veteran of the New York Police Department has been fired due to his alleged involvement in an anti-Muslim road-rage incident. Read More
| | | | | Hostile Foreign Influence Operations |  | View of the LAX Delta Sky Club. LAX’s website was partially disrupted due to Russian hacking attack - AaronP/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images | Russian Hackers Disrupt US Travel Websites - A pro-Russian hacker group, Killnet, is taking credit for temporarily taking down websites of multiple U.S. airports through denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. Read More
Saudi Arabia Ramped Up Influence Operations - An OpenSecrets analysis has found that Saudi Arabia ramped up spending on foreign lobbying and influence campaigns targeting the U.S. during the first year of President Biden’s administration. Since 2016, Saudi interests have spent over $142 million on lobbying and influence operations in the U.S. Read More
| | | | | Research & Trends in Extremism |  | Fabian Sommer/picture alliance via Getty Images | Supreme Court to Hear Case Regarding Social Media’s Liability for Terrorism - The Supreme Court has agreed to hear two cases relating to the extent that online platforms can be held liable for terrorist recruitment efforts on their platform.
- In Gonzalez v. Google, Reynaldo Gonzalez is suing YouTube, claiming that its algorithms helped the Islamic State group radicalize and recruit terrorists through videos and that this led to the death of his daughter, Nohemi.
- In Twitter v. Taamneh, the Court will consider whether Twitter can be found to be aiding and abetting terrorists, and, as with the last case, be held liable for damages in civil court. Read More
Statewide Survey Finds Most Colorado Hate Crimes Go Unreported | | | QUOTABLE
“There is no greater tyranny than that which is perpetrated under the shield of the law and in the name of justice.”
--Montesquieu
| | | NOTE TO OUR READERS: We have pulled out the salient points of the articles in this newsletter to keep you informed and focused on the most relevant, important and timely news in national security and extremism. While our national security experts stand behind the summary bullets and deem them trustworthy, Clarion Project does not endorse all the views expressed in the articles linked. | | | | |
