“After frantically combing through the debris of the devastated mosque
throughout the night and Tuesday morning, police called off the search for
survivors of a terrorist suicide bombing in the highly guarded site where
several hundred police and army men had gathered for afternoon prayers. The
acting chief minister of this northwestern province, Muhammad Azam Khan,
announced that 95 had been killed with 221 injured, making it one of the
deadliest attacks ever on Pakistan’s security forces. The blast signaled the
brazen revival of violent tactics by the extremist Pakistani Taliban group,
which had once been quelled by a military crackdown and until recently was in
peace talks with the government.”











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Eye on Extremism


January 31, 2023



Washington Post: Pakistan Reels After Bombing Kills Almost 100, Fears More
Terrorism To Come
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“After frantically combing through the debris of the devastated mosque
throughout the night and Tuesday morning, police called off the search for
survivors of a terrorist suicide bombing in the highly guarded site where
several hundred police and army men had gathered for afternoon prayers. The
acting chief minister of this northwestern province, Muhammad Azam Khan,
announced that 95 had been killed with 221 injured, making it one of the
deadliest attacks ever on Pakistan’s security forces. The blast signaled the
brazen revival of violent tactics by the extremist Pakistani Taliban group,
which had once been quelled by a military crackdown and until recently was in
peace talks with the government.”



Associated Press: Recent Extremist Attacks Kill 32 People In Burkina Faso
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“Multiple jihadi attacks across Burkina Faso over several days have resulted
in the death of at least 32 people, including soldiers and civilians,
government authorities said Tuesday. Burkina Faso’s State Information Agency
posted on its Facebook page that a dozen soldiers and a civilian were killed
Monday in Falagountou in Burkina Faso’s Sahel region during clashes between the
military and jihadis. Another 20 people were killed in two attacks over the
weekend in the country’s east-central and western regions. Four people were
executed Saturday afternoon when gunmen intercepted their van between Tenkodogo
and Ouargaye villages. On Sunday, a passenger mini-bus coming from the western
city of Banfora was intercepted by armed men, said Col. Jean Charles dit
Yenapono Some, governor of the Cascades region in a statement. Eight women and
one man were freed, the rest of the people were abducted and their lifeless
bodies were found with bullet holes the following day, he said.”



United States



CBS News: Dearborn Man Convicted Of Providing Material Support To ISIS
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“A Dearborn man convicted of providing material support to the Islamic State
of Iraq faces a maximum of 50 years in prison. According to the Justice
Department, 32-year-old Ibraheem Izzy Musaibli was charged with providing and
attempting to provide material support, conspiring to provide material support
and attending an ISIS training camp. Federal officials say Musaiblibi traveled
to Yemen in April 2015 and researched ISIS, including downloading propaganda
and a book on how to get into Syria. Officials say he traveled to Syria where
he attended an ISIS-run religious training camp before going through military
training. Following graduation from ISIS military camp, he remained with the
group before he was arrested by the Syrian Democratic Forces and turned over to
the FBI in 2018.”



Syria



Associated Press: Bomb Hits Bus Transporting Police In South Syria Wounding 15
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“A roadside bomb targeting a bus transporting Syrian police in the country’s
south Monday wounded 15 of the officers, the Interior Ministry said. The
ministry said in a terse statement that the officers were returning to the
capital Damascus from the southern province of Daraa. The bomb exploded on the
north-south highway near the town of Khirbet Ghazaleh. It said seven officers
were seriously wounded. Such attacks are not uncommon in Syria, where a nearly
12-year-old conflict has killed hundreds of thousands and displaced half the
country’s pre-war population of 23 million.”



VOA News: Ten Dead In New Toll After Fresh Syria Strikes
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“A total of 10 people were killed in a series of drone strikes targeting
pro-Iran factions in eastern Syria, including three dead in strikes on Monday,
a war monitor said. A pro-Iranian commander was among the three killed in the
drone strikes Monday, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights
said, adding that they had been inspecting the site of strikes that had killed
seven others the previous evening. ‘A commander in an Iran-backed group and two
of his companions, all of them non-Syrian, were killed this morning after
renewed drone strikes,’ the Observatory said Monday. The commander's pick-up
truck was targeted while he was inspecting the site of the Sunday evening
strike that destroyed a convoy of six refrigerated trucks transporting Iranian
weapons to Syria from Iraq. The convoy was struck in the Albu Kamal border
region where pro-Iran groups have a large presence, said the Observatory, which
has a wide network of sources inside Syria.”



Pakistan



Reuters: Factbox: Islamist Militants Present Fresh Challenge To Pakistan
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“Monday's mosque bombing in northwestern Pakistan has underscored a resurgence
in militant attacks in recent months in the South Asian nation. No one has
claimed responsibility for the attack, in which more than 90 people were
killed, but officials believe it was launched by Islamist militants. Here are
some facts about the militant threat faced by the economically and politically
unstable nuclear-armed country of 220 million.”



Outlook India: Pakistan: 93 Killed, Over 200 Injured In Suicide Bombing At
Mosque In Pakistan's Peshawar
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“… The TTP is also aligned witht the Afghan Taliban and has fought the
West-backed erstwhile Afghan government. It's also linked to Al Qaeda. "As an
ally of the Afghan Taliban, the TTP also fought the US-backed Afghan government
prior to the latter’s defeat in August 2021. The TTP was founded in late 2007
by a group of Pakistani militants who had previously fought in Afghanistan
alongside both the Taliban and al-Qaeda, and the group has maintained close
ties to both organizations since," notes the think tank Counter Extremism
Project (CEP).”



The Print: ‘Terrorist’ Killed In Operation In Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
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“Pakistani law enforcement agencies gunned down a person, whom an official
called a terrorist, claiming that he killed two Inter-Services Intelligence
(ISI) officers, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s (KP) Kurram Agency, reported Geo news.
According to the Pakistani news website, the ‘terrorist’ was identified as Umar
Niazi. The security agencies arrested the terrorist with serious injuries
following an exchange of fire. Niazi succumbed to his injuries after a while.
On January 3, the ‘terrorist’ killed martyred Naveed Sadiq and Nasir Hussain —
the director and inspector of the Inter-Services Intelligence’s (ISI)
Counter-Terrorism Wing, when they were at a local hotel in Khanewal, Punjab.
Intelligence agencies nabbed the terrorist before he could slip into
Afghanistan, according to Geo News.”



Yemen



Al Arabiya News: Three Alleged Al-Qaeda Militants Killed In Suspected US Drone
Strike In Yemen
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“Three alleged al-Qaeda militants were killed in a suspected US drone strike
in northeastern Yemen on Monday, local government officials said. The attack
was carried out on a car in Marib province, the scene of heavy fighting in 2021
in Yemen’s long-running civil war, the officials said. ‘Three al-Qaeda members
were killed in a strike by a drone that is believed to be American,’ a
government official told AFP on condition of anonymity. ‘The three were in a
car in Wadi Obeida when they were targeted by the suspected US strike that
killed them immediately.’ A second Marib government official confirmed the
strike on al-Qaeda militants and the death toll. There was no immediate comment
from Washington.”



Middle East



Associated Press: Palestinians Say Israeli Troops Kill Man In West Bank
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“Israeli forces killed a Palestinian man in a flashpoint city in the occupied
West Bank on Monday, the Palestinian Health Ministry said. The killing marks
the latest bloodshed in spiraling violence that comes as U.S. Secretary of
State Antony Blinken visits the region. The Palestinian Health Ministry said
the man, Nassim Abu Fouda, 26, was shot in the head in Hebron, often a center
of friction between the Israeli military and Palestinians. The Israeli military
said forces asked a car driving suspiciously to pull over but it then drove
into a soldier, prompting soldiers to open fire. The car then sped away and
crashed, the military said. It added that the driver was taken away by
Palestinian rescue services and that the incident was under review.”



Somalia



Associated Press: Wife Of Islamic State Leader Jailed For 8 Years In Somalia
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“A military tribunal in Somalia has sentenced the wife of the head of a
terrorist organization linked to the Islamic State group to eight years in
prison for passing on information and organizing financial transactions for the
group, a military official said Monday. Fartun Abdirashid, wife of Abdiqadir
Mumin, head of the Daesh group, was sentenced on Monday at a military court.
She has been under custody since her arrest in March last year in the capital,
Mogadishu. Abdirashid was accused of frequently transferring $100 to $200 to
the group’s members, the public prosecutor’s office said. She had a working
relationship with Bilal Al-Sudaani, a senior Islamic State group official who
was killed on Wednesday in a U.S. raid in Somalia’s northern Bari region.
Mumin, a former al-Shabab cleric, pledged his allegiance to Islamic State
leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in 2015.”



Mali



Reuters: UN Experts Call For Probe Into Possible War Crimes In Mali
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“United Nations experts have called for an independent investigation into
possible war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by government forces
and Russian private military contractor Wagner group in Mali, they said in a
statement on Tuesday. The West African country hired fighters from Russia's
Wagner group in 2021 to help it fight militant groups linked to al Qaeda and
Islamic State, which are waging a decade-long insurgency that has spread to
neighbouring countries.”



Africa



Associated Press: Family Says Sudan Freed Man Convicted Of Killing US Diplomat
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“Sudanese authorities have released a man convicted of the 2008 killing of a
U.S. diplomat in a drive-by shooting in the capital, Khartoum, his family said
Tuesday. The release followed a 2020 deal between Sudan and the Trump
administration that included compensation settlements for killings of
Americans. Abdel-Raouf Abu Zaid, designated a terrorist by the United States,
was captured weeks after the shooting. He was convicted and sentenced to death
for the killing of John Granville, an official with the U.S. Agency for
International Development, and Granville’s Sudanese driver. Abu Zaid spent most
of the past 15 years behind bars in Kubar Prison in Khartoum and was released
on Monday, according to his brother, Abdel-Malek Abu Zaid, who posted photos on
social media showing the scene outside the prison following Abdel-Raouf’s
release.”



Europe



Associated Press: Machete Attacker Jailed Until Trial For Terrorism
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“Spain’s National Court on Monday ordered pre-trial imprisonment of a man
suspected of killing a Catholic Church officer and injuring four more during a
machete attack last week in the southern city of Algeciras. Investigating Judge
Joaquín Gadea agreed to the public prosecutor’s request for prison without bail
for Yassin Kanjaa. After the 25-year-old Moroccan testified for over an hour in
a court in central Madrid, the judge ruled that he should be tried for
manslaughter and terrorism charges. The judge said Kanjaa carried out a jihadi
attack, though he said the suspect was not linked to any specific terrorist
organization. ‘The judge understands that the evidence gathered supports that
the activity carried out by Yassin Kanjaa can be classified as a directed
jihadi attack,’ a press statement issue by the High court said.”



Associated Press: Lone Assailant Injures 3 In Brussels Subway Stabbing Attack
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“A lone assailant wielding a knife injured three people in Brussels on Monday
during a rush-hour rampage through a subway car before being detained by police
in the station under the European Union’s headquarters, officials said. The
Brussels prosecutor’s spokesperson, Martin Francois, said one of the three
injured people was taken to hospital and remained in a ‘life-threatening’
condition. The two others were treated for lesser injuries. Francois told the
Associated Press that at first sight ‘there were no indications of terrorism.’
He said the suspect was a 30-year-old male. Since Belgium was hit by twin
terror outrages in Brussels and Zaventem that killed 32 civilians six years
ago, fears of a terror motive are never far away in cases of apparently random
public attacks. Social media posts showed police with their guns pointed at a
man at the Schuman station, while others showed a man wrapped in warming foil
being attended to by first aid officials outside it. The station is directly
under the main office of the EU’s executive Commission.”



Southeast Asia



Hindustan Times: 4 Let Terrorists Held, Hideout In Forests Of Awantipora
Destroyed: J&K Police
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“Four terrorists linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba were arrested and their hideout in
forests of Awantipora in Jammu and Kashmir was destroyed, police said on
Monday. Incriminating materials were recovered from the terrorist hideout and a
case was registered, they added. The operation was conducted jointly by Jammu
and Kashmir police and security forces. Kashmir Zone Police tweeted, ‘Police
alongwith security forces busted & destroyed terrorist #hideout in Hafoo
Nageenpora forests of #Awantipora. 04 #terrorist associates linked with #terror
outfit LeT arrested. #Incriminating materials & other items recovered. Case
registered, investigation in progress.’ The counter-terror operations in the
Kashmir Valley have intensified followed rise in target killings in recent
months.”



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