Eye on Extremism - 01-27-21

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Eye on Extremism - January 27, 2021
By: Counter Extremism Project
Re: info@counterextremism.com

As of January 27, 2021:

Australian Associated Press: Mali, French Forces Kill 100 Jihadists

“Malian and French forces killed about 100 jihadists and took another 20 captive in a joint operation this January in central Mali, the West African nation's army says. It says the campaign lasted from January 2 to 20 and targeted areas bordering Burkina Faso, where militant groups with links to al-Qaeda and Islamic State control large tracts of the remote desert and regularly carry out raids on the army and civilians. “The purpose of this operation was to force the enemy out of its areas of refuge,” the army said on Tuesday. France has more than 5100 military personnel based in the West African Sahel region to help counter the militants, an involvement that is facing increased opposition at home and from some quarters in Mali.”

Associated Press: Maldives Police Say They Uncovered Plot To Attack School

“Police in the Maldives said Tuesday they have uncovered a planned attack on a school involving eight suspected members of an Islamic State-affiliated group arrested last November. The suspects attempted to build an explosive device on a boat at sea, conducted training on uninhabited islands and attempted to recruit children, the Maldives Police Service said. Police raided the boat and found items that could be used to build a bomb on board and gun cartridges in the shallow sea, it said. The suspects were arrested after police were tipped off by foreign intelligence agencies, it said in a statement. Evidence was found in seized cellphones of a plan to attack a school while exams were in progress, it said. It was unclear why the school was a potential target, but religious extremists in the country are known to discourage people from giving their children anything other than a strictly Islamic education. Police said the details of the investigation have been submitted to the Prosecutor General to press charges in court. Maldives is an archipelago state in the Indian Ocean with a predominantly Sunni Muslim population. The country is known for its luxury tourist resorts but has also been in the news for an increasing number of young men going to fight along with Islamic militants in foreign wars.”

Afghanistan

Agence France-Presse: Afghan Government Envoys Accuse Taliban Of Snubbing Talks

“Afghan government negotiators holding peace talks with the Taliban charged Tuesday their opponents had been avoiding formal engagement for more than a week, an accusation the insurgents denied. The two sides have been meeting in the Qatari capital Doha since September in a US-backed effort to contain the violence in their country, but the negotiations have already been interrupted by several long pauses. “Peace and ending the violence are our people and government's top priority,” tweeted Afghan government negotiator Nader Nadery. “To achieve this noble goal, the (government) peace negotiation team is committed and present in Doha.” His message added that no formal meetings had been held for nine days and said “the other side is not willing to engage in talks to end the conflict and save lives”. The Taliban rejected the suggestion they were putting off direct, formal engagement with the government side. “Reports that the intra-Afghan talks have been delayed indefinitely are false, and the two teams are in touch with each other,” said the spokesman for the Taliban's Doha office, Mohammad Naeem. “No negotiations can be continuous and happening on a daily basis, since there may also be need for internal meetings.”

Newsweek: Taliban Calls On Biden To Follow Trump's Peace Plan In Afghanistan

“The Taliban has called on President Joe Biden to follow through with the landmark peace deal reached between his predecessor and the Afghan Islamist movement amid concerns that the new U.S. administration could reconsider the agreement. Trump struck the historic accord last February, promising to pull troops from the longest war in U.S. history in exchange for peace and power-sharing between the internationally-recognized government in Kabul and the Taliban, officially known as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. Ongoing violence and lingering political disputes have elicited a degree of skepticism of the arrangement at home and abroad, but the Taliban remain steadfast in their support for the pact. “The goal is the independence of the country and the stability of peace in it,” Taliban spokesperson Mohammad Naeem said in a statement sent to Newsweek. “The agreement reached between the Islamic Emirate and the United States of America is the best means for this.” While Biden too has offered support for an exit from Afghanistan, he and his officials have also signaled some reservations with the arrangement they inherited less than a week ago. National security adviser Jake Sullivan discussed the matter Friday with Afghan counterpart Hamdullah Mohib.”

Yemen

Arab News: Yemen Steps Up Diplomatic Drive For Houthi Terrorist Designation

“The Yemeni government and its envoys abroad have cranked up a diplomatic campaign to convince the world to designate the Houthi militia movement a terrorist organization, stressing that doing so would put an end to Houthi attacks inside and outside Yemen, and smooth the way for peace. The official news agency SABA reported on Monday that Prime Minister Maeen Abdulmalik Saeed said during a video conference with the EU ambassadors to Yemen that the EU should follow the example of the US by designating the Houthis terrorists, since it would end the Houthis’ objections to peace plans, and hinder Iran. He repeated his government’s pledges to work on mitigating the effects of the designation on humanitarian activities in Houthi-controlled areas. Similarly, the country’s Foreign Minister Ahmed Awad bin Mubarak urged Mauritania and other countries to label the Houthis a terrorist organization, noting that the US designation came in the context of increasing pressure by the international community on the rebels to accept peace initiatives, and to stop fueling violence in Yemen and the region, abandoning Iran’s “destructive” projects.”

Lebanon

Reuters: France Wants More U.S. 'Realism' In Dealing With Lebanon's Hezbollah

“The United States under new President Joe Biden needs to adopt a more realistic attitude towards the Iranian-backed Hezbollah movement to help break the political and economic impasse in Lebanon, a French presidential official said on Tuesday. French President Emmanuel Macron has been spearheading international efforts to rescue Lebanon, once a French protectorate, from its deepest crisis since its 1975-1990 civil war. He has travelled twice to Lebanon since a huge explosion at the Beirut port in August devastated swathes of the capital, but no progress has been made to form a credible interim government. “There is urgency in Lebanon and we think that there are priorities that we (France and the United States) can pursue together,” the French official told reporters, speaking on condition of anonymity, saying Macron’s first priority was putting together a viable Lebanese government. “We don’t expect a change in American attitude towards Hezbollah, but more American realism on what is possible or not given the circumstances in Lebanon,” he said, without elaborating on what Paris wanted Washington to do.”

Middle East

Eurasia Review: Islamic State And Taliban Use Different Strategies To Appeal To Women In English-Language Magazines

“ISIS, Al Qaeda, and the Taliban use their English-language magazines to encourage women to support jihad in different ways, according to new research. Experts hope highlighting these varying recruitment strategies will be of use for those trying to stop radicalisation and terrorism. The Taliban-produced magazines encourage women to carry out a traditional role in the home and support men rather than to be violent and commit jihad themselves. Tahrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and ISIS encourage women to be violent – to pick up arms and fight. The magazines encourage women to leave their husbands if they don’t support jihad, even without permission. Researchers from the University of Exeter analysed sixty-eight English language jihadi magazines by Islamic State (ISIS), TTP – the Pakistani Taliban group which operates on the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan which pledge allegiance to ISIS, Al Qaeda, and the Taliban, coding data about the themes and messages they found manually to see how frequently they were found in the publication. Their research is published in the journal Small Wars & Insurgencies. Researchers examined at 68 magazines produced between 2013 and 2020.”

Africa

The North Africa Post: Morocco’s Domestic Spy Agency Helps FBI Foil Terror Attack In NY

“Morocco’s General Directorate for Territorial Surveillance (DGST), equivalent of UK’s MI5, has tipped off the FBI about a terrorist plot hatched by a US soldier who was nabbed by US authorities on January 19, said on Tuesday Mr. Haboub Cherkaoui, Head of the Central Bureau of Judicial Investigation (BCIJ). The case of US Army private Cole Bridges, who was arrested in coordination between FBI and US army for plotting a terrorist attack and for his ties with ISIS, had set off concern of the Moroccan domestic intelligence agency for his jihadist views posted in social media, said Mr. Cherkaoui in a statement to Moroccan news agency MAP. In Sept.2020, the DGST informed the FBI about this soldier and his terrorist activity, said chief of the BCIJ. The case of this soldier, who will stand trial for plotting a terrorist attack on the 9/11 memorial in Manhattan, has been reported lately by US “News Talk Florida”. “Bridges provided detailed diagrams and even training manuals to help ISIS fighters better kill American forces,” according to US daily. Bridges joined the US Army in 2019, the same year that prosecutors say he started being immersed in the propaganda of terrorist groups and became a pledged supporter of jihadi terrorists.”

United Kingdom

BBC News: 'I'm No Marvel Villain' Says Bristol Terror Defendant

“A man found with bomb-making manuals and speeches on Islamic State has told a court he is “not a terrorist”.

Souhaib Embarek was caught sharing “terrorist tutorials” and had videos and images of terrorist attacks. He admits five charges of possession of information useful to a terrorist, and one of disseminating terror documents, on the basis he was “reckless”. “I'm not the guy the prosecution is trying to make me - some Marvel villain,” he told the Old Bailey. On Tuesday, during a hearing to decide the issue of his intent, Embarek insisted it was all a “fantasy game”. The court heard he had poison recipes, speeches on Islamic State and had shared jihadi “lessons” in the form of audio files via encrypted Telegram chat. The 34-year-old was arrested after firearms officers forced entry into his home in Clifton, Bristol, on 9 December 2019. “All this digital stuff is just a game. I'm not attached to it because it doesn't mean anything to me,” he said. The defendant said he would take on the role of “investigative journalist” online and claimed he was the “victim”. The court heard Embarek threw his mobile phone out of his bedroom window when armed police raided his home. Asked why, he said: “I thought it was some hitman coming to kill me.”

Germany

Deutsche Welle: Tajik IS Cell Member In Germany Jailed For 7 Years

“A German court on Tuesday sentenced a man to seven years in prison over plans to to shoot dead a critic of Islam as part of an “Islamic State” (IS) terror cell. Summing up the four-month trial, a Düsseldorf court spokesman said the 31-year-old man living in Wuppertal had formed an IS cell with other Tajiks also living in Germany's western Ruhr District. The accused, known as Ravsan B., had later handed a functioning semi-automatic pistol over to another cell member for use in a planned attack that was foiled through police investigations, said the spokesman. His full name was not published because of German privacy laws. The court also found that he with others — motivated by jihadi radicalism — had planned a contract murder in Albania in 2019 to earn funds for the IS movement. That attack, however, was not carried out because at the last moment doubts emerged about the identity of the intended victim, described last year by German federal prosecutors as an Albanian businessman. Four suspected members of the cell were arrested in April 2020. Wuppertal was where authorities intervened in 2014 when Salafists patrolled streets in orange vests emblazoned with the words “Sharia police.”

Technology

Morning Consult: Big Tech Is Running Out Of Excuses For Inaction

"Facebook and Twitter’s recent efforts to deplatform individuals and groups following the storming of the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6 is but the latest in a litany of reactive and piecemeal “too little too late” measures implemented more to deflect criticism than protect the public. Although the move has helped to slow the spread of violence-inciting misinformation, a closer look at Big Tech’s history with removing extremist and terrorist content reveals that the industry has done little to seriously address the systemic ills that plague social media platforms ... We at the Counter Extremism Project have long fought against extremists’ and terrorists’ misuse of social media and the internet, urging Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and others to remove and prevent the reposting of content clearly prohibited by their Terms of Service. Nonetheless, the tech industry has pushed back on such efforts through lobbying and PR campaigns seeking to stymie criticism and paths to smart regulation, choosing instead an approach of inaction that is ineffective and ultimately dangerous."

The New York Times: Telegram, Pro-Democracy Tool, Struggles Over New Fans From Far Right

“The messaging app Telegram has long been an engine of resistance and an annoyance for tyrants. Authoritarian leaders in Russia and Iran have tried to ban it. When protests broke out recently in Belarus and Hong Kong, Telegram was the glue that held democracy movements together in the face of violent onslaughts by powerful security services. These days, though, Telegram is quickly becoming an online refuge for a different kind of resistance. Far-right conspiracy theorists, racists and violent insurrectionists have been flocking to Telegram in recent weeks after being banished from the big American social media platforms following the storming of the Capitol building in Washington by a mob supporting President Donald J. Trump, who himself was cut off from Facebook and Twitter. Twenty-five million new users flooded Telegram in the days after Twitter and Facebook, reacting to the Jan. 6 mayhem at the Capitol, purged users they deemed responsible for having incited violence or spread disinformation. The company’s founder, Pavel Durov, described it as “the largest digital migration in human history.” The cascade of new users presents a new complication for Mr. Durov, who has positioned himself as an unambiguous ally of the street and free speech.”

Business Insider: As Signal Downloads Surge, Employees Are Reportedly Worried The Messaging App Isn't Doing Enough To Head Off Extremism

“Employees at encrypted-messaging app Signal are worried that an explosion in growth — prompted by users moving over from rival WhatsApp — could cause extremism to spread on the platform, according to a new report from The Verge. An engineer called Gregg Bernstein, who left Signal this month, told the Verge that Signal's CEO Moxie Marlinspike was worryingly passive at the prospect of extremists using the platform to organize. “It's not only that Signal doesn't have these policies in place. But they've been resistant to even considering what a policy might look like,” said Bernstein. He said that after President Donald Trump told the far-right extremist group the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by,” Marlinspike was asked at a company all-hands meeting how Signal planned to prevent extremists from organizing on the app. “The response was: if and when people start abusing Signal or doing things that we think are terrible, we'll say something [...] You could see a lot of jaws dropping. That's not a strategy — that's just hoping things don't go bad,” Bernstein said. Signal is backed by the nonprofit Signal Foundation, which was started in 2018 with a $50 million loan by WhatsApp founder Brian Acton, and is popular among activists and dissidents for its rigorous approach to privacy.”