Eye on Extremism
December 16, 2022
Associated Press: UN Warns Terrorist Threat Has Increased And Is More Diffuse
“The U.N. Security Council warned Thursday that the threat of terrorism has increased and become more diffuse in various regions of the world aided by new technologies. It strongly condemned the flow of weapons, military equipment, drones and explosive devices to Islamic State and al-Qaida extremists and their affiliates. The presidential statement, approved by all 15 council members, was adopted at the end of an open meeting on counterterrorism chaired by External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar of India, who called terrorism “an existential threat to international peace and security.” In the presidential statement, which is a step below a resolution, the Security Council expressed grave concern that terrorists are raising and transferring funds in a variety of ways, including abusing legitimate businesses and non-profit groups, kidnapping for ransom and trafficking in people, cultural items, drugs and weapons. The council urged the 193 U.N. member states to prioritize countering terrorist financing. It also esaid terrorist groups “craft distorted narratives that are based on the misinterpretation and misrepresentation of religion to justify violence” and use names, religion, or religious symbols for propaganda, recruitment and manipulation of followers. To tackle this, the council called for counter-narratives “promoting tolerance and coexistence.”
Reuters: One Dead As Fresh Clashes Erupt Between Afghan, Pakistani Border Forces
“Clashes erupted once again between the border forces of Afghanistan and Pakistan near the key Chaman-Spin Boldak border crossing on Thursday, resulting in one death and over a dozen injuries, Pakistani officials said. Previously, cross-border shelling and gunfire killed eight Pakistani civilians and one Afghan soldier on Sunday near the same crossing, which connects Pakistan's southwestern province of Balochistan with the southern Afghan province of Kandahar. Thursday's fighting started when Pakistani forces repairing a portion of the border fence damaged during Sunday's clashes came under attack from the Afghan side of the frontier, a provincial official Balochistan, Zahid Saleem, told Reuters. Both sides blamed each other for instigating Sunday's clashes. Afghanistan's ministry of defence, run by the Taliban administration, said in a post on Twitter that Pakistani forces had opened fire first, and called for a resolution of the issue through negotiations. "Negative actions and creating excuses for war will benefit no one," the ministry said. Saleem, who is additional chief secretary of the province, said Afghan mortar shells had landed in civilian settlements on the Pakistani side. "One civilian has been killed and 12 others, including women and children, were injured," a local official of the Pakistani border area of Chaman said, adding that clashes were still ongoing.”
United States
CBS News: Americans Accused Of Supporting And Raising Money For ISIS
“Three Americans and a Canadian were charged with providing material support to the Islamic State (ISIS), the Justice Department announced Thursday, accusing them of fundraising for the terrorist organization and using misleading and covert communications and posts to avoid scrutiny. Federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York allege Mohammad David Hashimi of Virginia, Abdullah At Taqi of New York, Seema Rahman of New Jersey and Khalilullah Yousuf of Ontario, Canada, worked with an unnamed “facilitator” apparently connected to ISIS' central media organization to garner financial support for the terrorist group using Bitcoin and fundraising sites like GoFundMe. According to the criminal complaint unsealed this week, the defendants allegedly worked in various ways to raise more than $35,000 worth of cryptocurrency and other monetary donations. In many cases, investigators say, the ISIS facilitator instructed the defendants and their associates to post fake campaigns and create false causes for their initiatives “in order to deceive” and avoid scrutiny. The fundraising site accounts they used appear to have been purposely misleading and did not indicate what the funds would be actually used for, one campaign even reading, “Help raise funds for some needy families for Eid,” court documents say. Other pages read, “Widow in Need of Assistance” and “Ramadan Appeal for Gaza,” apparently to keep investigators from discovering their purpose.”
Syria
Kurdistan 24: Suspect Arrested Involved In Smuggling ISIS Members From Al-Hol: SDF
“The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) on Thursday in a statement said that the SDF’s Counter-Terrorism Units (YAT) arrested a ISIS suspect involved in smuggling ISIS families from al-Hol camp. “Our Counter-Terrorism Units (YAT), in coordination with the forces of the International Coalition, conducted last Tuesday, December 13, a security operation in the eastern countryside of the al-Hasaka,” the SDF said in a statement. “The operation resulted in arresting a terrorist involved in smuggling ISIS families from the al-Hol camp in addition to supplying the terrorists with weapons.” The majority of al-Hol's residents are Iraqi and Syrian families with links to ISIS. However, the camp also houses many foreign ISIS families. In November, the SDF said they halted operations against ISIS due to Turkish threats to invade and continued aerial and artillery attacks. However, on Dec. 13, the SDF said they had resumed their operations and that they had conducted three operations, which resulted in the death of one ISIS “emir,” along with two other individuals. Also Pentagon Press Secretary, Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, earlier confirmed that the US has “resumed in full on December 9.”
Afghanistan
Reuters: Afghan Taliban Administration, Myanmar Junta Not Allowed Into United Nations For Now
“A decision on whether the Afghan Taliban administration and the Myanmar junta can send a United Nations ambassador to New York has been postponed for a second time, but could be reconsidered in the next nine months, according to a U.N. credentials committee report. The 193-member U.N. General Assembly is on Friday due to approve the report, which also deferred a decision on rival claims to Libya's U.N. seat. The nine-member U.N. credentials committee includes Russia, China and the United States. The deferment of the decisions leaves the current envoys in the seats for their countries, diplomats said. Competing claims were again made for the seats of Myanmar and Afghanistan with the Taliban administration and Myanmar's junta pitted against envoys of the governments they ousted last year. U.N. acceptance of the Taliban administration or Myanmar's junta would be a step toward the international recognition sought by both.”
Voice Of America: IS Recruits Multiethnic Fighters In Afghanistan, Threatening Regional Security, US Says
“Following this week's Islamic State attack on a guesthouse in Kabul, U.S. officials say the terrorist group is recruiting a multiethnic force that threatens security in neighboring countries and that the Taliban need to do more to eliminate the threat. While the Taliban claim they have restored peace in Afghanistan, a local offshoot of IS, the Islamic State-Khorasan Province (ISKP), has carried out a string of high-profile terrorist attacks in several Afghan cities over the past year. On Monday, IS fighters stormed a hotel in Kabul, killing several people and wounding others, including five Chinese citizens. Previously, U.S. officials had said that most IS fighters in Afghanistan were ethnic Pashtuns from the volatile Afghanistan-Pakistan border regions and that many had links to the Taliban. However, after the Taliban seized power last year, there were concerns that some former Afghan army and intelligence forces were joining IS ranks to defy Taliban persecution. Some of the recent ISKP attacks in Afghanistan, including Monday's attack and an attack in June on a Sikh temple in Kabul, appeared to involve fighters who were from neighboring Central Asian countries. “IS in Afghanistan remains a multiethnic terrorist network and draws most of its recruits from within Afghanistan,” a spokesperson for the U.S. State Department told VOA this week. ISKP first appeared in eastern Afghanistan in January 2015. In late 2019, the U.S. and the former Afghan government announced the terror group was nearly decimated as hundreds of its fighters were killed in joint counterterror operations.”
Pakistan
CNN: Pakistan’s Taliban Problem Is America’s Too
“When the United States withdrew its forces from Afghanistan after 20 years in the country, it did so on a promise that the Taliban once back in government would provide no haven for terrorist groups. The Taliban pledge covered not only al Qaeda – the terror group whose presence in the country led to the US invasion in 2001 – but also the Taliban’s ideological twin next door, the Pakistani Taliban or TTP (Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan). But the recent break down of an already shaky year-long ceasefire in neighboring Pakistan between the TTP and Islamabad raises some troubling questions over whether that promise will hold. The end of the ceasefire in Pakistan threatens not only escalating violence in that country but potentially an increase in cross-border tensions between the Afghan and Pakistani governments. And it is already putting links between the Afghan Taliban and its Pakistani counterpart under the spotlight. As recently as spring last year Pakistani Taliban leader Noor Wali Mehsud told CNN that in return for helping to push the US out of Kabul his group would expect support from the Afghan Taliban in its own fight. Like their erstwhile brothers in arms in Afghanistan, the Pakistani Taliban want to overthrow their country’s government and impose their own strict Islamic code.”
Associated Press: India, Pakistan Envoys Trade Heated Accusations Of Terrorism
“After the U.N. Security Council adopted a statement Thursday warning of increasing dangers of terrorism, envoys from India and Pakistan heatedly traded accusations blaming each other for terror attacks. India’s external affairs minister, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, never named Pakistan in his speech to the Security Council. But answering questions afterward from reporters he recalled former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton saying during a visit to Pakistan a decade ago “that if you keep snakes in your backyard, you can’t expect them to bite only your neighbors, eventually they will bite the people who keep them in the backyard.” “Pakistan is not good at taking good advice,” Jaishankar said. “The world today sees them as the epicenter of terrorism.” Earlier, he told the council that “India faced the horrors of cross-border terrorism long before the world took serious not of it” and has “fought terrorism resolutely, bravely and with a zero-tolerance approach.” He said that the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the United States that killed nearly 3,000 people and the Nov. 26, 2008, terror attack that killed 166 people in Mumbai, India, must never happen again. The 10 Mumbai attackers were members of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistan-based militant group, and Indian investigators later said their actions were directed by phone by handlers in Pakistan.”
Somalia
Voice Of America: Somali Government Says Al-Shabab Is Deliberately Displacing Civilians
“The Somali military accused al-Shabab militants of deliberately displacing civilians from villages and towns they had captured before they could be reclaimed by government forces. Military officials said al-Shabab's strategy is to prevent people from collaborating with the government. Al-Shabab also is “kidnapping” relatives of self-mobilized local forces supporting the government as a punishment, officials said. The Somali government says troops seized nearly 70 localities from al-Shabab. The last major town seized, Adan Yabaal in the Middle Shabelle region, was almost empty when troops entered on December 5. Military officials said some of the residents fled when the fighting got closer, but others were ordered to leave prior to that by al-Shabab. “They took many families with them because they accused them of letting their sons join the Ma'awisley, and said that their boys had taken up arms against al-Shabab,” said Brigadier General Abdullahi Ali Anod, spokesperson for the Somali military. The Ma'awisley are the local forces fighting alongside the Somali government. Anod said the group's key reason for removing civilians from towns is to prevent people from establishing relations with the government. “We are fighting over territory and over the people.” He said the terror group is exercising a strategy that instructs their local commanders, “If you lose the territory, do not lose the people.”
Germany
NPR: Extremism Experts Say Germany's Far-Right Actors Are Familiar
“Far-right actors in Germany were arrested for plotting a coup last week — parts of the story are fantastical but chilling. Extremism experts in the U.S. say some themes are familiar. ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: We're still learning details about a far-right group's planned coup in Germany. There was stunning news last week that 25 people had been arrested for allegedly trying to overthrow the German government. NPR's Sergio Olmos has been looking into the details of what the group was planning and how the plotters may be connected to other extremist groups. Hey, Sergio. SERGIO OLMOS, BYLINE: Hey, Ari. SHAPIRO: Start by reminding us what we know about what happened last week, what the plotters were trying to do. OLMOS: The raids last week were among the largest in German post-war history. Three thousand officers searched 130 properties, making 25 arrests and more expected to come. At the heart of all this is this far-right group called the Reichsburger, or citizens of the Reich. They deny the legitimacy of the German government. In some ways, they're similar to the sovereign citizens movement here in the U.S. It sounds far-fetched. Nobody thinks that this group had a realistic shot of storming Parliament and bringing down the government. Institutions are quite strong, but they made a professional attempt at it.”
Australia
Daily Mail: Terrorist Wannabe Who Was Jailed For Planning To Fight For ISIS And Thrown Behind Bars Again For Gun Possession Is Released Back Into The Community
“Jailed after planning a Syria trip to fight for ISIS and thrown back behind bars for owning a prohibited firearm, a Sydney man will now be watched carefully after release. On Friday, the NSW Supreme Court made an extended supervision order requiring Moudasser Taleb be monitored for two years after walking free from Silverwater prison on December 9. In granting this order, Justice Dina Yehia noted the 27-year-old had a history of non-compliance with the court's demands, including obtaining a double-barrelled shotgun in violation of a firearms prohibition order. She also noted two psychologists' reports which suggested there remained a risk he would fall back into violent extremism. 'The imposition of an ESO would facilitate holistic supervision of the defendant targeted to managing the risk that he will commit a serious terrorism offence,' she wrote. In June 2019, the Bankstown man was convicted by a jury after planning a trip from Sydney to Syria to engage in hostile activities in support of Islamic State. He gave the one-finger Islamic State salute after he was found guilty. Two years earlier, an undercover police sting arrested Taleb at Sydney International Airport with a bag containing military clothing, a sleeping bag, tactical gloves, a solar charger and other gear. He was also found with well over 200 videos on his phone including some showing beheadings, people with ISIS flags and battlefields.”
Europe
Associated Press: Albanian Court Jails Iranian Man For 10 Years Over Terrorism
“An Albanian court has convicted an Iranian man on terrorism-related charges and sentenced him to ten years’ imprisonment, court officials said Thursday. In a ruling issued Wednesday but made public a day later, Albania’s Special Court on Corruption and Organized Crime found Bijan Pooladrag guilty of funding terrorism and being a member of a terrorist organization. No details on Pooladrag’s age, home city, or when he had come to Albania were made known. Pooladrag denied the charges. He has the right to appeal the verdict. Pooladrag was arrested two years ago on suspicion of spying on members of the Iranian opposition group Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, or MEK, some 3,000 of whom live in exile in Albania. Previously based in Iraq, the group moved to the small Balkan country in 2014. Pooladrag was originally part of the MEK community, which he left almost three years ago. Albania’s relations with Iran have been tense after the country took in the MEK members. In two separate instances in 2020 and 2018, Tirana expelled four Iranian diplomats for “threatening national security.” In September, Albania cut diplomatic ties with Iran over a July 15 cyberattack that temporarily shut down numerous Albanian government digital services and websites. Tirana called the disruption an act of “state aggression.”
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