Eye on Extremism - March 5, 2020

[Boats]

Eye on Extremism
March 5, 2020
Re: info@counterextremism.com

Updated as of: March 5, 2020

ABC News: Pentagon Linguist Faces Espionage Charges After Allegedly Sharing Secrets With Hezbollah

“A linguist who worked for the Pentagon is facing espionage charges for allegedly sharing highly sensitive classified information with a foreign national who has apparent connections to the terror group Hezbollah, the Justice Department announced Wednesday. The information allegedly shared by Mariam Thompson, 61, included details regarding secret human assets working for the U.S. and military personnel, prosecutors said. “If true, this conduct is a disgrace, especially for someone serving as a contractor with the United States military. This betrayal of country and colleagues will be punished,” Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Demers said in a statement. Thompson was stationed in the Special Operations Task Force facility in Erbil, Iraq, for roughly two weeks before she began accessing the DoD's systems storing secret information, according to a court filing, and accessed “57 files concerning eight human intelligence sources.” Thompson began to access the system, prosecutors say, one day after the U.S. carried out a series of airstrikes against Iran-backed forces in Iraq and on the same day that anti-U.S. protesters stormed the American Embassy in Baghdad. After investigators were flagged to the uptick in Thompson's alleged activity on the network, she was arrested last week and her living area was searched.”

The New York Times: Airstrike In Northwest Syria Kills 15 Ahead Of Moscow Summit

“An airstrike on a rebel-held village in northwestern Syria hit a poultry farm where several displaced families were taking shelter early Thursday, killing at least 15 people including children and wounding several others, opposition activists said. The activists blamed Russian warplanes for the strike on Maaret Musreen village, which is home to thousands of internally displaced people. The strike came hours ahead of a meeting between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss the escalation in Syria's northwestern Idlib province, which comes amid a monthslong Russian-backed Syrian government offensive there. The fighting in Idlib — Syria's last remaining rebel stronghold — has killed hundreds and displaced nearly a million people, many of whom have fled north toward the border with Turkey. Turkey and Russia are the two main power brokers in Syria and each supports rival sides in the nine-year conflict. Violence worsened in Idlib in recent weeks, with Turkey sending thousands of troops into the area to support Syrian insurgents holed up there. But Erdogan hasn’t been able to stop Syrian President Bashar Assad's offensive, which began in early December.”

Asharq Al-Awsat: Arab Coalition Foils Terrorist Attack On Oil Tanker Off Yemen Coast

“The Saudi-led Arab coalition announced Wednesday that it had foiled a terrorist attack against an oil tanker in the Arabian Sea off the coast of Yemen, reported the Saudi Press Agency. Coalition spokesman Colonel Turki al-Malki said the incident took place some 90 nautical miles southeast of Yemen’s Nishtun port on Tuesday, while the tanker was sailing towards the Gulf of Aden. Four explosives-laden vessels then approached the tanker in an attempt attack it. He explained that the vessels were being controlled remotely. Malki condemned the attack, saying it posed a threat to global energy and trade and marine routes. He sounded the alarm on the terrorist threats in straits stretching from the southern Red Sea, through Bab al-Mandeb, the Gulf of Aden, Arabian Sea and Hormuz Strait. He stressed that the joint coalition command will continue to implement the necessary measures to neutralize and destroy any marine threat in its area of operations, calling on international partners to unite efforts to confront them.”

United States

NBC News: The FBI Has Failed To Identify And Track Homegrown Extremists, Justice Department Watchdog Says

“The FBI has not done enough to identify and fight homegrown extremists, the Department of Justice’s internal watchdog said Wednesday. The agency also failed to follow up on some cases that had been flagged as potential threats to the country, Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz wrote in his report. “The FBI has not taken a comprehensive approach to resolving deficiencies in its counterterrorism assessment process,” Horowitz concluded. The FBI defines homegrown violent extremists as “global jihad-inspired” individuals who were radicalized in the United States and are not taking marching orders directly from “foreign terrorist organization” like Al Qaeda or the Islamic State militant group. Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, homegrown American jihadis have carried out over 20 attacks in the U.S., Horowitz wrote. The best-known example of this was the married couple Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik, who in 2015 massacred 14 people and wounded 22 more in San Bernardino, California, before they were killed in a police shootout. While Malik pledged allegiance to ISIS before embarking on the shooting spree, the FBI concluded that neither he nor Malik were directed by a foreign terrorism outfit.”

Fox News: Missouri Man Gets 19 Years In Prison For Role In ISIS Attack Planning

“A Missouri man accused of plotting a terrorist attack with who he believed to be members of the Islamic State but who were in reality undercover FBI agents was sentenced Wednesday to 19 years in prison. Robert Lorenzo Hester Jr., 28, of Columbia, pleaded guilty in September to attempting to provide material support to the terror group from October 2016 to February 2017, the Justice Department said. Prosecutors said Hester advocated violence on social media and was contacted by the undercover agents who posed as ISIS operatives. He said he was willing to assist ina jihadist attack. He posted on social media that he had converted to Islam and posted photos of weapons and the ISIS flag. According to a criminal complaint, Hester was told the attack would target “buses, trains and a train station in Kansas City” on the Presidents Day holiday. According to the affidavit, Hester “expressed approval” of the attack plan and told an undercover agent that it would be “good to strike back at the true terrorist.” Hester, a U.S. citizen, joined the Army in 2012 and received a general discharge less than a year after enlisting after violating multiple Army regulations. In his communications with the undercover agents, he cited his military training and claimed “proficiency with 'assault weapons.'“

Afghanistan

The Wall Street Journal: U.S.-Taliban Deal Comes Under Pressure Amid Military Action

“The Trump administration is facing an uphill battle to keep a landmark agreement with the Taliban on track after a resurgence of violence and growing diplomatic strain between Washington and Kabul. President Ashraf Ghani declined Wednesday to meet with President Trump’s special envoy, who arrived in Kabul in an effort to salvage a four-day old agreement calling for the U.S. military to withdraw from Afghanistan by next fall, an Afghan government official said. The U.S. envoy, Zalmay Khalilzad, is expected to instead meet Mr. Ghani’s vice president, Amrullah Saleh. Mr. Ghani’s difficulties with the U.S. have been increasing in recent months. The U.S. hasn’t recognized his re-election following a disputed presidential contest against Mr. Ghani’s rival, Abdullah Abdullah, last year. And Mr. Ghani has refused to cooperate with the Trump administration on its pledge to the Taliban to secure release of up to 5,000 insurgents held by the Afghan government. Under the deal, the prisoner release must precede any talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government. Those talks are set to start Tuesday, but a delay is likely. On Wednesday the U.S. military conducted an airstrike against the Taliban in defense of Afghan forces, the first since the U.S. signed a deal with the militant group to map out an end to 18 years of war, America’s longest.”

The Washington Post: Pompeo Under Pressure To Release Taliban Deal ‘Secret Annexes’

“The Trump administration has signed and publicized its peace deal with the Taliban. But even now, big questions remain. Chief among them is why the State Department has insisted on classifying two secret annexes to the deal, which could make it harder for the American people to know if the Taliban is holding up its end. Before the deal’s signing, rumors spread about four “secret annexes” and their content. Some of that speculation turned out to be incorrect. But three sources who have seen the annexes tell me there are two documents that have been classified by the administration. Members of Congress and cleared staff can view them, but they are not available to the general public. These secret annexes include specifics of the Taliban’s commitments on counterterrorism and details about how the United States will verify Taliban compliance with those commitments. The State Department declined to comment on the annexes. But the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Eliot L. Engel (D-N.Y.), told me he wants them declassified and publicly released. “After 18 years of fighting the Taliban, the American people deserve to see all aspects of the Trump-Taliban deal,” Engel said.”

Pakistan

Voice Of America: Pakistani Military Vulnerable To Extremist Infiltration, Experts Warn

“A recent publication by an al-Qaida militant group about a retired Pakistani three-star general joining its ranks has renewed debate about the influence of Islamist militants in the country’s military. Nawa-e-Afghan Jihad, the al-Qaida Indian subcontinent branch, in its mid-February Urdu language magazine announced that retired Lieutenant General Shahid Aziz had entered “the righteous path” by joining the group. It claimed Aziz had pledged allegiance to the group as early as 2015 after being contacted by the group’s leader, Hafiz Tayab Nawaz. “You understood the invitation of truth, proclaimed your service to God and joined us in the cause of jihad,” the group said. Husain Haqqani, the director for South and Central Asia at the Hudson Institute and the former Pakistani ambassador to the U.S., told VOA that Aziz was likely radicalized because of his increased discontent with the Pakistani army and his anti-American sentiments. Haqqani said the general’s mysterious disappearance in 2016 after disclosing sensitive information in a book about the Pakistani military was a clear indication of his affiliation with al-Qaida.”

Egypt

Reuters: Egypt Executes Top Militant Extradited From Libya

“Top Egyptian militant suspect Hisham al-Ashmawy was executed on Wednesday following his conviction over several high-profile attacks, the country’s military spokesman said. Ashmawy, a former Egyptian special forces officer, led the Sinai-based Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, Egypt’s most active militant group, before it pledged allegiance to Islamic State in 2014. He then moved with a group of followers to Egypt’s Western Desert, later crossing the border to Libya to join the al Qaeda-linked Ansar al-Sharia, according to Egyptian officials. He was captured in the east Libyan city of Derna in late 2018 and transferred to Egypt in May 2019. Ashmawy was convicted on several charges including plotting a 2014 attack that killed 22 military guards, and the attempted assassination of a former interior minister in 2013. Military and civilian courts had sentenced him to death before and after his extradition. Egypt’s military spokesman posted a picture of Ashmawy with a thick beard dressed in orange prison overalls on Twitter. “This morning the death penalty was carried out on the terrorist Hisham al-Ashmawy,” he wrote. Local media including the state newspaper al-Ahram as well as security sources had said last week that Ashmawy had been executed, though the news websites later took down their reports.”

Nigeria

Al Jazeera: Six Killed In Attack On Nigeria Military Base

“Armed assailants killed four police officers and two civilian militiamen in an attack on a military base in northeast Nigeria's Borno state on Wednesday. Suspected Boko Haram fighters in trucks fitted with machine guns launched the dawn raid on the army base in the town of Damboa, sparking intense fighting. “We lost four mobile policemen and two civilian militia fighting alongside soldiers during the fight with the terrorists,” said a military officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Anti-armed group leader Ibrahim Liman confirmed the death toll, after supporting soldiers during the attack. Local resident Modu Malari said the assailants attacked with assault weapons and rocket-propelled grenades, but were forced out from the town by troops after a fierce two-hour battle. More than 50 residents were wounded by shrapnel from grenades fired by the rebels, he said. Damboa lies on the fringe of Boko Haram's Sambisa Forest stronghold, from where the group has launched repeated attacks on villages and military posts. In November last year, at least 10 Nigerian soldiers were killed and nine injured in a Boko Haram ambush in Muchima village, outside Damboa.”

All Africa: Nigeria: Insurgency - Nigerian Army Releases 223 Children Cleared Of Ties With Boko Haram

“About 223 children, including 10 girls, have been released from Nigerian Army administrative custody and Maiduguri Maximum Security Prison after being cleared of suspected ties with armed groups, the United Nations Children's Fund has said. Descriptiohe United Nations Children's Fund has revealed. The children were released to Borno State Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development, UNICEF and Borno State authorities in Maiduguri, north-east Nigeria on Tuesday night. In a statement Wednesday evening, Borno state Communication Officer UNICEF, Samuel Kaalu, said the children will immediately be enrolled in a reintegration programme to enable them to re-engage with their families. Mr Kaalu said some of the children are reported to have been missing for up to four and five years, with many presumed dead by their families. UNICEF Country Representative, Peter Hawkins, described the release of the children as a huge step forward towards ensuring the well-being of children in conflict areas. “These children deserve to have a normal childhood - and now require our full care and support to re-enter the lives that were so brutally interrupted by this devastating conflict,” he said.”

United Kingdom

BBC News: Manchester Arena Attack: Brother's Fingerprints Linked To Arena Bomb

“The fingerprints of Hashem Abedi were discovered on a tin can that has been linked to the Manchester Arena bomb, a court has heard. The discovery was made after police found various crushed-up metal tins in the garden of the Abedi family home, jurors were told. Hashem Abedi, 22, is on trial at the Old Bailey, accused of helping his brother Salman plan the bomb attack. He denies 22 murders, attempted murder and conspiring to cause explosions. The court heard how a piece of metal found at the scene was linked to a vegetable oil tin with the alleged plotter's fingerprints on it. Police found the crushed up tins in the garden of the Elsmore Road home in Manchester with prints from both brothers on them, the court heard. A piece of a Consumer's Pride cooking oil tin was found to have 10 finger and palm prints belonging to Hashem on it, jurors were told. Six parts of the same tin were recovered from an address in Granby Row, Manchester, where Salman allegedly assembled the bomb. Fingerprint expert Philip Balduini told jurors he had identified four of Hashem's prints on the scraps, which had been rolled up and left in a blue plastic bag. Hashem had hoarded assorted metal cans in his garden, taken from a takeaway restaurant where he worked, jurors were previously told.”

BBC News: Man Who 'Experimented' With Explosives Cleared Of Terror Charges

“A man with autism who set off experimental explosions in his garden has been cleared of terrorism offences. Chez Copeland, 22, has spent almost two years on remand in maximum security prisons after an explosion in Coventry. Homes had to be evacuated after unstable explosives were found at Copeland's family home in Brookside Avenue on 24 April 2018. At Birmingham Crown Court, he admitted owning a stun gun and acquiring an explosive without a certificate. Judge Mark Wall sentenced Copeland to 22 months' imprisonment - time which he has already spent on remand - and he was released. The court heard Copeland had an “obsessive interest” in the military and had dreamed of joining the armed forces but his ambition was thwarted by his autism. Judge Wall accepted he had “not intended to use HMTD [the explosive] in a criminal way” but had acquired it “because he had a curiosity to see what he could do with it”. He formally found Copeland not guilty of the terrorism and Explosive Substances Act offences after prosecutors offered no evidence following a Supreme Court ruling that “experimentation” was capable of being a lawful defence.”

Germany

Deutsche Welle: Germany Underestimated Far-Right Terror For 'Too Long'

“Germany must admit that it underestimated the threat of far-right terror for too long, the president of the Bundestag told lawmakers on Thursday. The country must do more to smash far-right networks, while also addressing the problem of Islamophobia in society, Wolfgang Schäuble told Germany's lower legislature. Schäuble, addressing a parliamentary debate on the Hanau attacks, called for “sincerity from the state, which must admit to having underestimated the extreme right-wing danger for too long.” “The decisive answer to this must be to uncover radical networks with all constitutional means and to smash right-wing extremist associations,” said Schäuble, adding that the state must “finally get better at consistently enforcing the law”. The perpetrator of the Hanau attack killed nine people with foreign roots at both a cafe and a shisha bar in the city. Authorities judged the murders to have been racially-motivated. Schäuble said that such crimes “do not happen in a vacuum” but in a “poisoned social climate in which resentment towards 'otherness' — and the most absurd conspiracy theories — are stoked.”

The Daily Beast: As Small German Towns Become Neo-Nazi Stomping Grounds, Some Are Fighting Back

“Martina Angermann was a popular mayor in Arnsdorf, a picturesque little town of about 5,000 people east of Dresden. She’d been in office since 2001. But when a conservative carpenter named Detlef Oelsner, whom she’d bested in past elections, and a businessman who blamed her for sabotaging his real estate development plans launched a hate-filled campaign to take her down, no one in her town stood up to defend her. It’s a pattern that’s being repeated in other parts of Germany, but mostly in the east, as neo-Nazis, their sympathizers among the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party, and cynical fellow travelers have built their bases of support and political influence. No longer are they content with their not-so-quiet campaigns of fear and intimidation along racial and other discriminatory lines. (Since 1990, the murders of 208 people have been attributed to right-wing extremist or racist motives. Last month, a man shot and killed nine people of foreign heritage at two shisha bars near Frankfurt.) Now they are targeting local politicians like Angermann (pictured above), a woman who spent 18 years building roads and renovating spaces for an indebted community, but who dared to speak out against the right-wing extremists.”

Southeast Asia

The Straits Times: 2 Years' Jail For Maid Who Contributed $130 To Support Terrorist Acts

“A domestic helper who earned just $600 a month contributed $130 in total last year to support terrorist acts. Indonesian Anindia Afiyantari also uploaded videos supporting the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorist group onto her Facebook accounts. Whenever her accounts were blocked, she would create another one using a different e-mail address. Her multiple accounts were eventually banned from Facebook. Anindia, 32, was sentenced on Thursday (March 5) to two years' jail after pleading guilty to three terrorism financing charges under the Terrorism (Suppression of Financing) Act involving $90. Two other similar charges linked to the remaining $40 were taken into consideration during sentencing. She was the third Indonesian maid in recent weeks to be dealt with in Singapore courts over similar offences. On Feb 12, Turmini, 31, who goes by only one name, was sentenced to three years and nine months in jail, while Retno Hernayani, 37, was ordered to spend 1½ years behind bars. Around 2010, Anindia learnt about Indonesia-based terrorist group Jemaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD) after watching a news programme about the arrest of radical cleric Abu Bakar Bashir.”

Technology

Yahoo News: ISIS More Advanced In Using Social Media Than US, UK : Army Chief

“Army Chief General MM Naravane on Wednesday said that the terrorist organisation ISIS was far more advanced in using social media than forces like the US and the UK. “In Iraq and Syria, it is the ISIS an organisation steeped in the 17th century, was far more advanced in using social media than the 21st-century forces like the US and the UK,” said General Naravane while speaking at the Indian Army's internal seminar with the theme 'changing characteristics of land warfare and its impact on the military'. Emphasising on China's military might, he said: “China has not been involved in real hardcore combat for a few decades now, yet its regular showcasing of its military might has created this aura of China being the undisputed military leader in key technology domain.” “The Balakot airstrike demonstrated that if you play an escalatory game with skill, military ascendence can be established in cycles that do not necessarily lead to war,” he said. Last year, the Indian Air Force had carried out an airstrike in Pakistan's Balakot, targetting Jaish-e-Muhammed's (JeM) terror training camps in response to a terror attack on a CRPF convoy in Jammu and Kashmir's Pulwama in which at least 40 personnel were killed.”