Eye on Extremism
December 8, 2022
The Wall Street Journal: Germany Arrests Extremists In Plot To Overthrow Government
“German authorities said they had dismantled a suspected terror cell on suspicion of planning to overthrow the government, rekindling concerns in the country about the risks posed by domestic terrorists. Twenty-five people who were partly inspired by the QAnon conspiracy theory were arrested in the early hours of Wednesday, 22 of whom are suspected of conspiring to foment a coup, the federal prosecutor said. Their alleged plans included an armed storming of the federal parliament. The other three, including a Russian citizen living in Germany, are suspected of supporting the group, the prosecutor said. More than 3,000 police officers including special forces conducted raids at 150 properties across Germany, Italy and Austria, in one of the largest operations of its kind in recent history, officials said. “This organization has, according to our knowledge, set the goal of using violence and military means to overthrow the existing liberal democratic order in Germany,” federal prosecutor Peter Frank told reporters Wednesday. Its members thought Germany was governed by a so-called deep state and would soon be freed by an alleged secret society of officials and military officers from the U.S., Russia and elsewhere, he said. After years focused on countering the threat posed by Islamist terrorists, German authorities have widened their focus to far-right militants following a spate of attacks.”
Pulse Nigeria: Boko Haram Kills 33 ISWAP Wives In Reprisal Attack
“Boko Haram terrorists have killed 33 wives of Islamic State of West African Province (ISWAP) terrorists in Sambisa to get back at them for killing their leader, Malam Aboubakar (Munzir), and 15 other fighters in a deadly fight among themselves. Recall: Ali Ngulde, the top Boko Haram leader in charge of Mandara Mountain, has been leading hundreds of fighters into battle against the ISWAP in Sambisa Forest from Mandara Mountain since the 3rd of December. What reports say: Sources say that the attack started with a failed attempt by the terrorist group Jam’at Ahl as-Sunnah lid-Da’wah wa’l-Jihd (Boko Haram) to negotiate with its rival group, the Islamic State of West African Province (ISWAP). Boko Haram told ISWAP that they were ready to surrender themselves (mubayi’a) to IS/ISWAP leadership. According to Zagazola Makama, a Counter Insurgency Expert and Security Analyst in the Lake Chad region, who corroborated the massacre, “Unknown to the ISWAP group, Ngulde and his team had staged an ambush against them in which at least 12 of them were killed in Yuwe while others escaped with bullets wounds. “In the aftermath of the encounters, Boko Haram members seized four Hilux trucks mounted with weapons belonging to their rivals and burnt another.”
United States
The New York Times: Emhoff Emerges As Face Of White House Fight Against Antisemitism
“Sitting alongside leaders of the Jewish community on Wednesday, Doug Emhoff, the husband of Vice President Kamala Harris, described the rising tide of antisemitism in the United States as an “epidemic of hate.” Mr. Emhoff, the first Jewish spouse of a vice president or president, has in recent weeks become one of the federal government’s more forceful voices against violence and hate speech directed at Jews. “Words matter,” Mr. Emhoff said at a round table of government officials, rabbis and leaders of advocacy groups to discuss the extremist acts. “People are no longer saying the quiet parts out loud. They are literally screaming them.” The event took place in an atmosphere of heightened alarm about antisemitism, two weeks after former President Donald J. Trump’s dinner with the white supremacist Nick Fuentes and the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, who has recently heaped praise on Adolf Hitler. Last week, President Biden posted to Twitter, “Instead of giving it a platform, our political leaders should be calling out and rejecting antisemitism wherever it hides.” At Wednesday’s event, Mr. Emhoff described the recent incidents in personal terms. “Judaism isn’t defined by how much we go to temple or how often we celebrate traditions; it’s who we are as a people,” he said. “It’s our identity. It’s my identity. And I’m in pain right now.”
CNN: Investigators Are Zeroing In On Two Possible Motives Centered Around Extremist Behavior In NC Power Stations Attacks, Sources Say
“Investigators – who have found nearly two dozen shell casings from a high-powered rifle – are zeroing in on two threads of possible motives centered around extremist behavior for the weekend assault on two North Carolina electric substations, according to law-enforcement sources briefed on the investigation. The news comes as the primary utility company in Moore County restored electricity to the final customers of the 45,000 homes and businesses that initially lost power. Officials on Wednesday also announced a total of $75,000 in reward money for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or people responsible for Saturday’s attacks. One thread involves the writings by extremists on online forums encouraging attacks on critical infrastructure. The second thread looks at a series of recent disruptions of LGBTQ+ events across the nation by domestic extremists. The FBI and the NC State Bureau are assisting in the investigation. Investigators have no evidence connecting the North Carolina attacks to a drag event at the theater in the same county, but the timing of two events are being considered in context with the growing tensions and armed confrontations around similar LBGTQ+ events across the country, the sources told CNN. In the past two years, anti-government groups began using online forums to urge followers to attack critical infrastructure, including the power grid.”
NBC News: North Carolina Substation Attack Raises Security Concerns For U.S. Electric Grid
“The recent attack on two North Carolina substations that cut power to thousands of people has raised concerns about security standards for the country’s electric grid and its numerous power stations, which have faced greater threats in recent years. Outside of weather, suspected and confirmed physical attacks on electric grid infrastructure have been the largest cause of electrical disturbance events since 2014 when, in response to an attack in California the year before, private companies that run power stations were required to increase security standards, according to an NBC News analysis of public Department of Energy reports. Nearly 600 electric emergency incidents and disturbances were caused by suspected and confirmed physical attacks and vandalism on the electric grid in those nine years, the reports show. There have been 106 attack or vandalism incidents from January through August 2022, which is the latest the Energy Department data tracks. Among the years reviewed by NBC News, 2022 is the first that reached triple digits and it only contains eight months of data. The incidents, which are self-reported by power companies to the federal government, provide little to no detail about what occurred. But experts said they can range from theft of copper wire to planned assaults aimed at causing power disruptions, as is what is suspected to have happened in North Carolina.”
The New Yorker: What The Conviction Of Stewart Rhodes Means For Right-Wing Militancy
“For years, Stewart Rhodes used a faded leather briefcase to hold his keepsake photos and papers. He left it with his wife and children in Montana when he moved to Texas in early 2020, the year of covid lockdowns, social unrest, and election lies that would lead Rhodes, the longtime head of the militant, right-wing Oath Keepers, to his conviction for seditious conspiracy last week. In October, as his trial began in a federal courtroom in Washington, D.C., I visited Eureka, a remote Montana town near the Canadian border, not far from where he’d lived rough with Tasha Adams, his estranged wife, and their family, amid the pines and logging roads. Adams gave me the briefcase, and I leafed through baby photos, a dog-eared calendar tracking the first months of his eldest child, and the essays he’d written to get into Yale Law School in 2001, when he was a thirty-six-year-old, disabled Army veteran. Rhodes’s essays recounted how his father had abandoned him when he was three; he grew up with his mother and her family of Mexican American migrant laborers, he wrote, “watching my grandparents and uncles work in the fields.” After enrolling in community college in his late twenties, he transferred to the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, sitting in “rapt fascination,” he recalled, through classes on history, and political and legal theory: “I believe that I have an obligation to take part in the intellectual, political, and legal life of my nation and the world.”
Military Times: Domestic Extremism Is Rare In The Military, ‘But It Is An Issue’
“The Pentagon is still working on getting an idea of just how common extremist activity and affiliations are among service members. Total complaints have numbered in the hundreds over the past few years, but experts warn that even low prevalence still poses a risk, given the military’s unique position. They also caution against dismissing efforts to address extremism because of the small number of cases investigated each year. “I think we need to remember the difference between, ‘This is a wholesale problem,’ versus, ‘This is an issue,’ right?” Seamus Hughes, deputy director of George Washington University’s Program on Extremism, said. “Those two things can be true at the same time, right? This is not a wholesale problem, but there is an issue.” Republican lawmakers in recent months have argued that the low incidence of extremism reports in the military suggests that it’s not worth confronting, calling on the Pentagon to drop its anti-extremism screening and education efforts. By the numbers, the services reviewed 211 reports in fiscal year 2022. Half of those were referred to civilian law enforcement, and another quarter were handled by military judicial or administrative action. So, while the actual numbers are low among a force of more than a million active duty troops, experts have argued that service members and veterans involved in extremist groups pose a disproportionate security risk for multiple reasons.”
New York Post: Manhattan Judge Releases Man Accused Of Plotting To Attack NYC Synagogues
“A Manhattan judge let one of the two men accused of plotting to attack New York City synagogues continue to walk free Wednesday — after prosecutors asked for the second time in two weeks that he be held in jail without bail. Assistant District Attorney Edward Burns argued that disturbing new facts in the case of Matthew Mahrer, 22, were reason enough to keep him locked up after his family paid $150,000 in bail to set him free on Nov. 21. “We now know that Mahrer, [accused accomplice Christopher] Brown and [a] third individual, drove to Pennsylvania on November 18 to purchase a firearm. That individual who drove with them has since been arrested by federal authorities,” Burns said. Prior to his arrest on Nov. 19, Mahrer had been sending an unnamed jailbird payments for the gun he and Brown planned to use in the would-be attacks last month, the prosecutor said. Burns added that Mahrer has continued to financially support the incarcerated person — who was locked up for 3 1/2 years for criminal possession of a weapon — even after his own arrest. He also told the judge that the troubled Upper West Sider — who has bipolar disorder and autism, according to his lawyer— had bought a bulletproof vest before he and Brown were busted carrying weapons and a Nazi armband linked to the alleged plot.”
BuzzFeed News: Drag Queens Are Fearing For Their Lives As Right-Wing Extremist Attacks Intensify
“Something felt wrong from the moment Brian Hernandez took the stage. Gazing out into the Friday night crowd at the Starlighter, the San Antonio music venue where his drag troupe was about to perform, he couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach. “I introduced the first performer, and then I went to the owner and said, ‘I’m sorry, I can’t do this, something feels off,’” Hernandez, who performs under the stage name Miss Taint, told BuzzFeed News. The next day he realized he’d been right — video of the show, filmed by an attendee who turned out to be a far-right self-proclaimed “independent journalist,” had gone viral online. Furious conservatives sent a torrent of hate to the venue and performers on social media and in emails, calling the drag queens “groomers” and “demonic.” The outrage was largely focused on the presence of a child at the show, who the videographer said was “unattended.” Hernandez knew exactly who that child was — there’d only been one there, and she was the young daughter of a food vendor who works right outside the venue selling Filipino cuisine. A single mother who often brings her daughter to work, both have gotten to know Starlighter staff and performers well, who often help look after the 4-year-old when she comes inside during her mom’s shifts.”
The Villager: Two Men Cuffed For Plotting Terrorist Attack Against Manhattan Jewish Community: DA
“Two people were indicted in Manhattan on a slew of charges for making terroristic threats to the borough’s Jewish community. Long Island resident Christopher Brown and Manhattan resident Matthew Mahrer were arrested on Nov. 18 at Penn Station. Brown and Mahrer are each charged with one count of Conspiracy in the Fourth Degree; two counts of Criminal Possession of a Weapon in the Second Degree; one count of Criminal Possession of a Weapon in the Third Degree; and one count of Criminal Possession of a Firearm. Brown also charged with two counts of Criminal Possession of a Weapon in the Second Degree as a Crime of Terrorism; one count of Making a Terroristic Threat; one count of Making a Terroristic Threat as a Hate Crime; and one Count of Criminal Possession of a Weapon in the Fourth Degree. “A horrific tragedy was averted thanks to the diligence, hard work and coordination between my Office and our local, state and federal law enforcement partners. The increase in antisemitic attacks and threats cannot and will not be tolerated. Manhattanites and all New Yorkers should know that we continue to vigorously prosecute hate crimes every day and are using every tool at our disposal to address hate and bias,” said District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg, Jr.”
Paul Wells: The Progress Of Our Arms
“…Of course the weekend dealt with many other topics. China’s threat to Taiwan — where the Halifax Forum plans to hold its first conference outside Canada next year —was studied from several angles. I learned a lot from Hans-Jakob Schindler, who is senior director of a formidable think tank on European domestic extremism, the Counter-Extremism Project; and from Mauricio Meschoulam, a Mexican political scientist who has lately tried to adapt his work analyzing global terrorist networks to a study of Mexico’s murderous drug cartels. (His analytical tools sometimes fit and sometimes, in interesting ways, don’t.) Their work and others’ will inform my work, I hope for years to come. But the Halifax International Security Forum, which usually ponders a range of hypothetical disasters, this year inevitably narrowed its focus to a concrete case, the Ukraine invasion. This was also the focus of Lloyd Austin’s speech to the attendees. Austin is Joe Biden’s secretary of defense, a retired four-star army general who had leading roles in Afghanistan and Iraq. This was his first trip to Canada, 14 months after the Senate confirmed his nomination. His next stops would be Indonesia and Cambodia — his fifth visit in a year to the Indo-Pacific region. He appeared onstage with Anita Anand, Canada’s defence minister, a few times. They spoke warmly about working together.”
Iraq
Asharq Al-Awsat: UN Team Accuses ISIS Of Using Chemical Weapons In Iraq
“The United Nations Investigative Team for Accountability of ISIS (UNITAD) revealed in a report that the terrorist group used chemical weapons in Iraq. According to the report, which was submitted to the UN Security Council on Tuesday for discussion, ISIS used chemical weapons in the areas it controlled in Iraq and Syria between 2014 and 2019. Key lines of inquiry during this period concerned evidence of ISIS financial, procurement and logistical arrangements and linkages to command elements, as well as an expanded understanding of suspected sites of manufacturing, production and weapon use across Iraq. “Evidence suggests that ISIS manufactured and produced chemical rockets and mortars, chemical ammunition for rocket-propelled grenades, chemical warheads and improvised explosive devices,” the report said. “Furthermore, the ISIS program involved the development, testing, weaponization and deployment of a range of agents, including aluminum phosphide, chlorine, clostridium botulinum, cyanide, nicotine, ricin and thallium sulfate.” The report said that evidence, including records, of ISIS training senior operatives on the use of chemical weapons, including chemical dispersion devices, were examined.”
Afghanistan
CBS News: Taliban Militants Carry Out First Public Execution Since The Group Reclaimed Afghanistan
“Taliban authorities on Wednesday executed an Afghan convicted of killing another man, the first public execution since the former insurgents took over Afghanistan last year, a spokesman said. The announcement underscored the intentions by Afghanistan's new rulers to continue hardline policies implemented since they took over the country in August 2021 and to stick to their strict interpretation of Islamic law, or Sharia. The execution took place in western Farah province before hundreds of spectators and many top Taliban officials, including from the capital of Kabul and the province, according to Zabihullah Mujahid, the top Taliban government spokesman. The decision to carry out the punishment was “made very carefully,” Mujahid said, following approval by three of the country's highest courts and the Taliban supreme leader, Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada. The executed man, identified as Tajmir from Herat province, was convicted of killing another man five years ago and stealing his motorcycle and mobile phone. The victim was identified as Mustafa from neighboring Farah province. Many Afghan men use only one name. Mujahid said Tajmir was executed by the father of the victim, who shot him three times with a rifle.”
Pakistan
Nikkei Asia: U.S. Signals Support For Pakistan Against Resurgent Terror Threats
“The U.S. has signaled a commitment to helping Pakistan counter a resurgence of militant violence, adding veteran Pakistani jihadi leaders to its list of global terrorists and vowing to take action against groups sheltered across the border in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. The State Department last Thursday slapped the terrorist designation on the deputy head of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), an outlawed Pakistani jihadi group, and three senior leaders of al-Qaida in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), the terrorist outfit's regional branch. The State Department's statement also said the U.S. is “committed to using its full set of counterterrorism tools to counter the threat posed by terrorist groups operating in Afghanistan,” including AQIS and the TTP, to keep militants from using Afghanistan as “a platform for international terrorism.” The U.S. announcement came days after the TTP in late November called off a monthslong cease-fire with Islamabad and ordered its commanders to conduct attacks across the country. Since then, the TTP has claimed responsibility for a suicide attack on a police truck in Balochistan province's city of Quetta on Nov. 30, which killed four people and wounded a dozen others, amid a spate of other attacks targeted at law enforcement.”
Nigeria
Reuters: Nigerian Military Ran Secret Mass Abortion Programme In War Against Boko Haram
“Fati wondered if her life was over. Nigerian soldiers surrounded the Lake Chad island village where Islamist insurgents held her and many other women captive. Shells exploded. Bullets whipped by. As her captors fled, Fati blacked out in terror. When she awoke in a military camp nearby, “I felt the happiest I ever had in my life,” said Fati, now in her early 20s, recalling the attack that occurred several years ago in Nigeria’s northeastern Borno state. Over more than a year, she told Reuters, she had been forcibly married to insurgents, beaten and repeatedly raped – resulting in a recent pregnancy. Now, finally, she had been rescued. “I was extremely grateful to the soldiers,” she said. About a week later, Fati said, she lay on a mat in a narrow, dim room at a military barracks in Maiduguri, the state capital. It was rank, with cockroaches skittering across the floor. Uniformed men came in and out, giving her and five other women mysterious injections and pills. After about four hours, said Fati, who was about four months pregnant, she felt searing pain in her stomach and black blood seeped out of her. The other women were bleeding as well, and writhing on the floor. “The soldiers want to kill us,” she thought. She recalled the injections, then understood: The soldiers had aborted their pregnancies without asking – or even telling – them.”
Somalia
AFP: Somalia Forces Recapture Key Town From Jihadists
“Somali government forces and allied militias have recaptured a strategic town held by Al-Shabaab jihadists since 2016, President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud said on Tuesday. The army and local clan militias known as “Macawisley” have retaken swathes of territory in the central states of Galmudug and Hirshabelle in recent months in an operation backed by US air strikes and an African Union (AU) force, ATMIS. Pro-government forces entered the town of Adan Yabal in Hirshabelle, around 220 kilometers (140 miles) northeast of the capital Mogadishu, after the Al-Qaeda-affiliated rebels withdrew, the president said. “Somali government forces are in Adan Yabal this morning… They (Al-Shabaab) did not even fight and vacated instead,” Mohamud said in a televised address. Colonel Mohamed Ali, one of the operation’s commanders, told AFP the rebels fled when they learned the army was approaching. “We have taken the town without any resistance and the army is in full control,” he added. Military sources said the jihadists pulled out on Monday evening. ATMIS, which supported the operation with helicopters, said Al-Shabaab had used Adan Yabal as a training base. The force welcomed its return to Somali government control. The rebels, who have been waging a bloody insurgency against Somalia’s internationally backed federal government for 15 years, also used the town as a logistics hub.”
United Kingdom
Evening Standard: Record Number Of Young People Arrested For Terror Offences
“London’s top counter-terrorism officer has warned that the Metropolitan Police is becoming “increasingly concerned” by the number of young people being radicalised by extremist ideologies. It comes as Home Office figures reveal that 33 under-18s were arrested for terror offences in the year leading up to June 2022 – the largest number ever recorded – with the majority relating to far-right ideology. Commander Richard Smith, head of the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command, has called on the public to be “vigilant”, urging parents and carers to “get in touch and act early, in order to prevent their loved ones from going down a dangerous path towards radicalisation”. He said: “We’re becoming increasingly concerned about the number of young people who are being drawn into extremist and terrorist activity. The work we do through Prevent, in close partnership with others, including the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC), is vital in helping to steer those who are vulnerable away from the dangers of extremists and terrorism.” On Wednesday, Mayor of London Sadiq Khan announced that he would be investing a further £725,000 in grassroots community groups in a bid to counter extremism and tackle the rise in hate crimes in the capital.”
Germany
BBC Newshour: Police In Germany Have Arrested Twenty Five Suspected Far Right Extremists
“German authorities say they were preparing to overthrow the government. The plotters include members of the so-called “Reichsburger” movement, which rejects the legitimacy of the modern German state, and conspiracy theorists who subscribe to Q'Anon ideology. Also on the programme: after a two year delay, a UN environment summit, COP15, will convene in Montreal, Canada, to hammer out an agreement to address the biodiversity crisis; and how are Republicans responding to their failure to win the run-off election in the state of Georgia?”
WTOP News: The Hunt: Dozens Arrested In Suspected Plot To Overthrow German Government
“On this week’s episode of “The Hunt with WTOP national security correspondent J.J. Green,” Dr. Hans-Jakob Schindler, senior director of the Counter Extremism Project, explains what happened in a suspected plot to overthrow the German government.”
CEP Senior Director Dr. Hans-Jakob Schindler on BBC World News “The Context with Christian Fraser”
“On December 7, 2022, CEP Senior Director Dr. Hans-Jakob Schindler spoke with Christian Fraser and panelists on BBC World News “The Context”. Dr. Schindler discussed news that German authorities arrested 25 people suspected of plotting to overthrow Germany's government and install their own. The suspects are reportedly members of the Reichsbürger movement and included some QAnon conspiracy theorists. “The primary planning tool was online, chat fora. There were a couple of physical meetings where they tried to recruit members of the police and military forces, but all of the primary planning was done online. This means messenger services and oscial media, which really don't have the controls in place to hinder or in any way bother people planning these things. This is not the very first time that something similar like this has been discovered in Germany...”
Europe
The National: Brussels 2016 Bombings Trial Disrupted As Five Defendants Walk Out In Protest At Security
“Five of nine defendants in Belgium's biggest trial walked out of court on Wednesday, in a protest over security arrangements. A support group for victims of the 2016 Brussels terrorist attacks for which the men are on trial described this as an attempt to win the jury's sympathy. Before leaving, defendant Ali El Haddad Asufi, 38, a close friend of a suicide bomber in the attacks that killed 32 people, told the court the trial would be a waste of time and money if defendants refused to attend over “humiliating” security measures. “We can't last seven months in these conditions,” he said. “There's a camera over the toilets. I don't understand why it's necessary to see detainees doing their business.” Complaints made by Asufi, who in June was sentenced by a French court to 10 years in prison for his role in the 2015 Paris attacks, follows similar statements by another defendant at the start of the trial, which is taking place north of Brussels in Nato’s former headquarters. Mohamed Abrini, who in June received a life sentence from a French court for his role in the Paris attacks, said he would not answer any questions if conditions of his daily transport from jail did not change. Prosecutors say Abrini fled Brussels Airport in March 2016 without detonating his suitcase of explosives, unlike the two men who accompanied him, Najim Laachraoui and Ibrahim El Bakraoui.”
The Brussels Times: Brussels Terror Trial: El Makhoukhi Knew Where The Cell's Weapons Were, Wiretaps Show
“Bilal El Makhoukhi, a defendant in the Brussels bombing trial, knew where a cache of weapons of the terrorist cell was located, according to State Security wiretaps in June 2016, transmitted to the federal prosecutor. This information is included in the indictment, which federal prosecutors continued to read on Wednesday in the court of assises. State Security was able to intercept a conversation between another accused, Mohamed Abrini, and Mehdi Nemmouche, the perpetrator of the attack on the Jewish Museum in Belgium on 24 May 2014, when they were both incarcerated in Bruges prison. This conversation, held on 27 May 2016, revealed that Bilal El Makhoukhi knew the location of the weapons, explosives and money entrusted to him by Najim Laachraoui, one of the Zaventem terrorists. Abrini claimed that this arsenal was to be used for a new attack. In another conversation, on 1 June 2016, Mohamed Abrini asks Bilal El Makhoukhi about these weapons and how his brother could possibly take possession of them. El Makhoukhi claimed to know where the weapons were hidden. On 2 June, Abrini tried to find out the “code” to recover the weapons. El Makhoukhi replied that the person to whom he had given them would not agree to hand them over to someone he did not know.”
Southeast Asia
Associated Press: Suicide Bomber Hits Indonesian Police Station, Killing 1
“A Muslim militant and convicted bomb-maker who was released from prison last year blew himself up Wednesday at a police station on Indonesia's main island of Java, killing an officer and wounding 11 people, officials said. The attacker entered the Astana Anyar police station with a motorcycle and detonated one of two bombs he was carrying as police were lining up for a morning assembly, said Bandung city Police Chief Aswin Sipayung. The other explosive was defused. A video that circulated on social media showed body parts near the damaged lobby of the police station, which was engulfed in white smoke as people ran out of the building. Food vendor Herdi Hardiansyah said he was preparing meals behind the station when a loud bang shocked him. He saw a police officer whom he recognized as one of his customers covered in blood, being carried on a motorcycle by two other officers to a hospital. He later learned the officer died. Ten others and a civilian were wounded. National Police Chief Gen. Listyo Sigit Prabowo told reporters when he visited the station Wednesday afternoon that the attacker was believed to have been a member of the militant organization Jemaah Anshorut Daulah, or JAD, which pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group and was responsible for other deadly suicide bombings in Indonesia.”
Associated Press: Indonesia Paroles The Bombmaker In Bali's Deadly 2002 Attacks
“An Islamic militant convicted of making the explosives used in the 2002 Bali bombings that killed over 200 people was paroled Wednesday after serving about half of his original 20-year prison sentence despite strong objections by Australia, which lost scores of citizens in the Indonesian attacks. Hisyam bin Alizein, also known by his alias Umar Patek, was a leading member of the al-Qaida-linked network Jemaah Islamiyah, which was blamed for the blasts at two nightclubs in Kuta Beach.Patek was found guilty by the West Jakarta District Court of helping build a car bomb that was detonated by another person outside the Sari Club in Kuta on the night of Oct. 12, 2002. Moments earlier, a smaller bomb in a backpack was detonated by a suicide bomber in the nearby Paddy's Pub nightclub. The attacks killed 202 people — mostly foreign tourists — including 88 Australians. Indonesian authorities have said Patek, 55, was successfully reformed in prison and they will use him to influence other militants to turn away from terrorism. Patek received a series of sentence reductions, often given to prisoners on major holidays for good behavior, said Rika Aprianti, spokesperson for the Corrections Department at the Justice Ministry. Most recently, he was granted a five-month reduction on Aug. 17, Indonesia's Independence Day.”
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