Eye on Extremism - April 1, 2016

Eye on Extremism April 1, 2016 NPR: ISIS Attracts Ex-Cons, Creating A New Brand Of Jihadist “Nearly all of the men implicated in last week's attack in Brussels and the November rampage in Paris have something in common – they are ex-convicts. The two brothers thought to have blown themselves up in suicide attacks at the airport and metro station in Brussels spent time in prison. One was convicted of assault and bank robbery, the other took part in a carjacking. They are a new breed of violent jihadi — part gangster, part terrorist — that appears to be be particularly receptive to the message of the Islamic State. Lantin Prison, a minimum security detention facility about 10 minutes from downtown Liege, is one of Belgium's largest prisons. It houses about 960 inmates.” The Wall Street Journal: U.S., Saudi Arabia Impose Sanctions on Terrorist Financing Networks “The U.S. Department of Treasury said it and Saudi Arabia jointly placed sanctions on four individuals and two organizations they linked to al Qaeda, the Taliban and Lashkar-e-Tayyiba. The groups ‘have a long history of inflicting violence on Americans and our allies throughout South Asia and the Middle East,’ said Adam J. Szubin, acting undersecretary of Treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence, in a statement. The action ‘demonstrates the United States’ and Saudi Arabia’s shared resolve to target those who support terrorism,’ he said. Treasury said it used its counter-terrorism authorities to impose the sanctions, and that Saudi Arabia did so under its law against terrorism crimes and financing.” Fox News: ISIS Blocks Christians From Leaving Syrian City Of Raqqa, Report Says “The handful of Christian families remaining in ISIS' Syrian stronghold of Raqqa have been forbidden from fleeing the city, according to a tweet from a secret group that reports from inside the caliphate. The activist group Raqqa is Being Silently Slaughtered said the black-clad terrorist army issued a decree that any Christians or Armenians still within city limits may not leave. It is believed that there are just more than 40 Christian families left in the city, and that they have been forced to register with the extremist group and to pay a ‘jizya,’ or a minority tax in exchange for being unharmed. ‘Any Christian living within Syria or Iraq is in a very dangerous and precarious position,’ David Curry, president and CEO of Open Doors USA, a Christian advocacy organization, told FoxNews.com. ‘We want to see the Christian church survive in the Middle East, especially in the areas occupied by the Islamic State.’” International Business Times: ISIS To Attack Germany? Islamic State Lists German Targets For Brussels-Style Terrorism “The Islamic State group has named its next targets in Europe and called for Muslims in Germany to carry out attacks on Chancellor Angela Merkel’s office in Berlin and the Cologne-Bonn airport, it was reported Thursday. The group, also known as ISIS or ISIL, posted photos of the targets online and called for a Brussels-style attack, Reuters reported, citing information gathered by the SITE intelligence group. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks at the airport in Brussels and the Maelbeek metro last week that killed at least 32 people and wounded at least 300. The terror group also took responsibility for the attacks in Paris in November that killed 130 people. The images posted by ISIS were published in German media Thursday and included slogans that call for violence against the ‘enemy of Allah.’ One image showed a militant in fatigues looking at the Cologne-Bonn airport with the caption, ‘What your brothers in Belgium were able to do, you can do too.’ Another image showed the federal chancellery building in Berlin.” CNN: Ex-Wife Of ISIS Leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi: I Want A New Life In Europe “She was married to the most wanted man in the world, the leader of ISIS. In her first interview since her release from a Lebanese prison last year, Saja al-Dulaimi recalled to CNN Swedish affiliate Expressen TV what it was like to be Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's wife and what she fears for the daughter she bore with him. Expressen said it spoke to Dulaimi, 28, in a secret location near the border of Lebanon and Syria.” Telegraph: Why Libya Now Has Its Last Ever Chance Of Peace “In a land where successive PMs have been kidnapped, shot up or chased out of town since Gaddafi's fall, the arrival of yet another hapless figure to try his luck may not seem that worthy of note. Yet while it’s hardly a promising start, this is far and away Libya's best chance of ending the infighting that has dogged it since 2011, and to stop it becoming a second home on the Med for the Islamic State. What’s more, it’s also Libya's only chance. The new government is the work of nearly two years of tortuous UN-brokered peace talks between the country's two rival groupings, who have waged a low-level civil war for the last two years. Roughly speaking, the faultline lies between a more religious faction on one side, and a more secular faction on the other, who see each other respectively as either Islamist crazies or ex-Gaddafi loyalists.”  Reuters: Iraqi Forces Advance Towards Western Town Held By Islamic State “Iraq's counter-terrorism forces backed by army troops and U.S.-led coalition air strikes advanced towards the western town of Hit on Thursday in an attempt to dislodge Islamic State militants, the military said. A senior officer from the counter-terrorism forces, the elite U.S.-trained units which led the recapture of nearby Ramadi three months ago, said his troops were one kilometer from the town center, 130 km (80 miles) west of the capital Baghdad. The recapture of Hit, strategically located on the Euphrates River near Ain al-Asad air base where several hundred U.S. forces are training Iraqi army troops, would push Islamic State further west towards the Syrian border, cutting a connection to the northern town of Samarra and leaving Falluja their only stronghold near the capital. Baghdad has had success in pushing back the militants in recent months and has pledged to retake the northern city of Mosul later this year, but progress has often been fitful.” Telegraph: The Mass Boko Haram Kidnapping Nigeria Covered Up “Boko Haram seized hundreds of children from a remote town in northeast Nigeria in late 2014 but initial calls to report the kidnapping were ignored with locals fearful of the government's response, residents told AFP on Wednesday. A local government administrator, a chief, another elder and a resident all said some 300 children were among the 500 girls, boys and women taken from Damasak on Monday November 24, 2014. The numbers involved surpass even the 276 schoolgirls who were taken from Chibok in April the same year, which drew worldwide condemnation and calls for action.” Reuters: FBI's Secret Method Of Unlocking iPhone May Never Reach Apple “The FBI may be allowed to withhold information about how it broke into an iPhone belonging to a gunman in the December San Bernardino shootings, despite a U.S. government policy of disclosing technology security flaws discovered by federal agencies. Under the U.S. vulnerabilities equities process, the government is supposed to err in favor of disclosing security issues so companies can devise fixes to protect data. The policy has exceptions for law enforcement, and there are no hard rules about when and how it must be applied. Apple Inc has said it would like the government to share how it cracked the iPhone security protections. But the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which has been frustrated by its inability to access data on encrypted phones belonging to criminal suspects, might prefer to keep secret the technique it used to gain access to gunman Syed Farook's phone.” United States Reuters: Nuclear Terrorism Fears Loom Over Obama's Final Atomic Summit “Just as fears of nuclear terrorism are rising, U.S. President Barack Obama's drive to lock down vulnerable atomic materials worldwide seems to have lost momentum and could slow further. With less than 10 months left in office to follow through on one of his signature foreign policy initiatives, Obama will convene leaders from more than 50 countries in Washington this week for his fourth and final Nuclear Security Summit, a high-level diplomatic process that started and will end on his watch. A boycott by Russian President Vladimir Putin, apparently unwilling to join in a U.S.-dominated gathering at a time of increased tensions between Washington and Moscow, adds to doubts that the meeting will yield major results.” ABC News: Terrorism Fears Dominate Nuclear Summit In Washington “President Obama and more than 50 world leaders convened in Washington today in an attempt to reach global cooperation on securing nuclear weapons materials. Obama launched the summit nearly six years ago and has made freeing the world of nuclear weapons a theme of his presidency. The gathering of world leaders comes a week after bombings by Islamic State militants in Brussels killed 32 people and injured more than 300 and days after a suicide bombing at a park in Lahore, Pakistan on Easter Sunday. Pakistan’s prime minister decided to forgo the summit following the attack, sending the country’s minister of state for foreign affairs in his place. While the summit mainly aims to address nuclear security, the broader of threat of terrorism, particularly from the Islamic State, is likely to overshadow much of the talks.” Politico: U.S., Saudis Set Aside Spat Over Iran To Sanction 'Tartan Taliban' “The U.S. and Saudi Arabia, whose relationship has hit a new low during the Obama administration because of differences over Iran, are nonetheless putting up a united front when it comes to sanctioning terrorist networks. The two countries on Thursday announced a new series of sanctions on four people and two organizations tied to Al Qaeda, the Taliban and the Lashkar-e-Taiba extremist groups. Although not unprecedented, such a bilateral move is relatively rare for Washington and Riyadh, former Obama administration officials and analysts said.” Syria Aljazeera: Russian Forces Clear Mines In Syria's Palmyra “Russian combat engineers arrived in Syria on a mine-clearing mission in the ancient town of Palmyra after it was recaptured from Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) this week. On Thursday, the Defence Ministry said sapper units were airlifted to Syria with equipment including state-of-the art robotic devices to defuse mines at the 2,000-year-old archaeological site. Russian television stations showed Il-76 transport planes with the engineers landing before dawn at the Russian air base in Syria. Sunday's recapture of Palmyra by Syrian troops under the cover of Russian air strikes was an important victory over ISIL fighters, who controlled the area for 10 months.” Fox News: US, Russia Deny Report Of Deal To Give Syria's Assad Refuge In Another Country “The U.S. and Russia hit back Thursday against a report claiming embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad will be given refuge in another country as part of an agreement between Washington and Moscow on the future of Syria’s peace process. The al-Hayat newspaper, citing an unnamed senior diplomatic source with knowledge of the alleged agreement, said U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has already told several Arab countries about the plan. The source also said the agreement was welcomed by members of the U.N. Security Council, the Jerusalem Post reported. But U.S. and Russia later denied that any agreement was in place.” ABC News: Syrian Activists: Airstrikes Hit East Of Damascus, Kill 23 “The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Thursday's casualties near the capital were caused by a series of airstrikes that struck the rebel-held town of Deir al-Asafir, which lies east of Damascus in an area known as Eastern Ghouta. Four children and a civil defense worker were among the victims, the Observatory said. The Local Coordination Committees, another opposition activist group, put the death toll from the airstrikes at 17. It was not immediately clear who was behind the airstrikes. The government says al-Qaida's branch in Syria, the Nusra Front, operates in the eastern suburbs of Damascus. The militant group and its rival, the Islamic State group, are both excluded from a cease-fire that has been in place in Syria for a month. The Syrian opposition says the government of President Bashar Assad has been targeting civilians despite the truce. The Syrian National Coalition, an opposition group, denounced the ‘massacre’ in Deir al-Asafir, saying it threatened to derail the cease-fire and peace talks that are scheduled to resume in Geneva in two weeks.” Iraq Military Times: Iraqi PM Moves To Reshuffle Cabinet Amid Fight Against ISIS “Iraq's prime minister proposed a new Cabinet lineup to the country's lawmakers on Thursday, after weeks of pressure from supporters of a radical Shiite cleric who have staged rallies in the Iraqi capital and a sit-in next to the government headquarters to demand reforms. The political crisis has rocked Baghdad and put a significant burden on Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, threatening to become a more destabilizing factor — at least in the eyes of the domestic audience — than the authorities' battle against the extremist Islamic State group. Al-Abadi came before the parliament on Thursday to tell lawmakers that he has reduced the number of Cabinet ministers to 16, from the previous 21-member government. He submitted the names of nominees for 14 ministerial positions, but said he would not replace the current defense and interior ministers, ‘given the current hard situation.’ The parliament now has 10 days to confirm al-Abadi's nominees — or potentially gridlock the process further.” Turkey Reuters: Amnesty Says Turkey Illegally Sending Syrians Back To War Zone “Turkey has illegally returned thousands of Syrians to their war-torn homeland in recent months, highlighting the dangers for migrants sent back from Europe under a deal due to come into effect next week, Amnesty International said on Friday. Turkey agreed with the EU this month to take back all migrants and refugees who cross illegally to Greece in exchange for financial aid, faster visa-free travel for Turks and slightly accelerated EU membership talks. But the legality of the deal hinges on Turkey being a safe country of asylum, which Amnesty said in its report was clearly not the case. It said it was likely that several thousand refugees had been sent back to Syria in mass returns in the past seven to nine weeks, flouting Turkish, EU and international law.” CNN: 7 Police Killed In Latest Turkey Bombing “Seven police officers died and at least 27 more people were wounded by a car bombing close to a bus terminal in southeastern Turkey -- the latest such blast to rock the country. The bomb went off as a police vehicle was going past in the Baglar district of Diyarbakir, the capital of its namesake province, about 170 kilometers (100 miles) from the Syrian border, according to Turkey's semiofficial Anadolu news agency. The local prosecutor's office said the bomb was in a parked car, apparently timed to go off as a special operation police vehicle passed. The explosion damaged numerous cars, the bus terminal and other buildings in the area. The injured include 14 civilians and 13 police, and one of each is in critical condition, Turkey's development minister Cevdet Yilmaz said, according to Anadolu.” Voice Of America: Obama Stresses Commitment To Turkey Security In Meeting With Erdogan “President Barack Obama is expected to meet Thursday night with visiting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Washington, and the fight against terrorism will top the agenda for their talks, a White House official said. ‘We expect President Obama will be able to have a discussion with President Erdogan tonight on the margins of the dinner that’s taking place at the White House,’ said deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes. Rhodes said the U.S. wanted to ‘find the time to have a discussion tonight,’ given the many complex issues facing both countries. Erdogan is in Washington for the Nuclear Security Summit. Earlier Thursday, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden met Erdogan, where Turkish officials expressed disappointment about the two sides' disagreement on the issue of the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia.” Afghanistan Voice Of America: Pakistan, Afghanistan Return To War Of Words “Pakistan has rejected Afghan allegations its intelligence agency is behind the Taliban’s resurgence and that Islamabad is not helping in efforts to end the war in Afghanistan. In a speech to the Afghan parliament this week, acting spy chief, Massoud Andarabi, directly blamed Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence or ISI for ‘completely supporting and encouraging’ the Taliban to extend its influence and capture Afghan territory. ‘It is unfortunate. Such assertions are baseless and contrary to the facts. Pakistan is fighting terrorism and extremism with full resolve and determination,’ foreign ministry spokesman Mohammad Nafees Zakaria told a weekly news briefing in Islamabad Thursday. Top Taliban leaders, Afghan officials say, are sheltering in the neighboring country and directing insurgent attacks from their sanctuaries across the border.” BBC: President Ghani Calls For Afghans To Remain In Country “Afghanistan's President Ashraf Ghani has taken a tough and somewhat unexpectedly blunt stance on the tens of thousands of his citizens who are fleeing the country to make the dangerous journey to Europe. ‘I have no sympathy,’ the Afghan leader told me in his palace in Kabul. He is calling on his countrymen to remain in the war-ravaged nation and join in the effort to rebuild it. But do his words carry the weight they should, in a country that is increasingly feeling frustrated with the political elite, and a sense of hopelessness about their future? Convincing people to stay feels like an impossible task for what is perhaps one of the toughest jobs in the world, being Afghanistan's president. Ashraf Ghani was sworn in in September 2014 after controversial elections.” Saudi Arabia The New York Times: ISIS Turns Saudis Against the Kingdom, and Families Against Their Own “Saudi officials reject comparisons between their ideology and that of the Islamic State, noting that millions of non-Muslims live in the kingdom and that the government is closely allied with the United States and participates in the American campaign against the militant group. They also say that Saudi Islam does not promote the caliphate, as does the Islamic State, and that senior clerics condemn the terrorist attacks and have branded the group ‘deviant.’ But critics argue that many Saudi clerics have never renounced the aspects of the Wahhabi tradition that the Islamic State has adopted, especially with regard to Shiites, who make up an estimated 10 percent of the kingdom’s 20 million citizens. Many Saudi clerics consider Shiites heretics and accuse them of loyalty to Saudi Arabia’s regional rival, Iran. The jihadists have exploited this by repeatedly launching suicide attacks on Shiite mosques and then accusing Saudi clerics of hypocrisy for condemning the violence.” Egypt TIME: Egypt Orders A New Team To Investigate The Death Of Italian Student Giulio Regeni “Italian authorities and the victim's family have rejected the official explanation for his death. Under pressure from overseas security agencies demanding to know the truth behind an Italian student’s gruesome killing in Cairo on Wednesday announced the formation of a new investigation team to pursue further leads. Prosecutor General Nabil Sadek said the new team would be based in his office, Egyptian daily al-Ahram reported. The student, Giulio Regeni, was found dead beside a road on the outskirts of Cairo on Feb. 3, a week after his disappearance in the Egyptian capital. His body appeared to show signs of gruesome torture, with his mother saying in a news conference reported on by the BBC that she ‘only recognized him because of the tip of his nose.’ Regeni, a student at Cambridge University, had been researching trade unions in Egypt when he was abducted and killed. Egyptian authorities have blamed his murder on a criminal gang that targets foreigners while posing as policemen, and said the four main suspects were killed in a shootout with security forces a week ago. A bag containing the 28-year-old’s belongings, including his passport and university ID, has been found at the house of a sister of one of the suspects.” Middle East The Jerusalem Post: Israeli And Egyptian Ministers Meet For First Time In Years “National Infrastructure, Energy and Water Minister Yuval Steinitz met in Washington on Thursday with Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry for the first meeting between ministers of the two countries in a number of years. The meeting took place on the sidelines of the Nuclear Security Summit being held in the White House. According to Steinitz's office, the discussion focused on various regional issues, the possibility of Israel supplying Egypt with natural gas, and international cooperation in preventing nuclear terrorism. Israel's delegation to the summit also included the head of the Israel Atomic Energy Commission, Zeev Snir; the deputy head of the National Security Council, Yaakov Nagel; and representatives from the Foreign Ministry.” Defense News: Israel-Russia Brass Continue To Coordinate Over Crowded Skies In Syria “Despite Moscow’s declared mid-March drawdown of forces in Syria, Israeli experts say Russian military presence there remains considerable — and potentially more lethal — as to warrant continued talks aimed at preventing operational clashes between Israeli and Russian airpower and targeting systems. A delegation of Russian military officers is due here the week of April 4 for another unannounced round of so-called deconfliction talks, sources here say. The talks, led at the level of vice chief of staff, come amid beefed up operations by Russian Ka-52 Hokum and Mi-28 Havoc attack helicopters and unconfirmed reports of nuclear-capable Iskander short-range ballistic missiles (SRBMs) — known in NATO as SS-26 — deployed near the Syrian regime’s coastal stronghold of Latakia.” Nigeria Newsweek: Boko Haram Kidnapped 300 Schoolchildren In Damasak: Hrw “Boko Haram abducted at least 300 elementary schoolchildren in an unreported kidnapping in the town of Damasak in northeast Nigeria, an investigation by Human Rights Watch (HRW) claims. The Nigerian militant group is infamous for abducting and indoctrinating young people and children, most notably the 276 schoolgirls kidnapped from their dormitories in Chibok , Borno state in northeast Nigeria in April 2014. But despite eclipsing the Chibok kidnapping in terms of scale, the abductions in Damasak—which took place after Boko Haram seized the town in November 2014—have received little attention as residents claimed they were silenced by the Nigerian government.” United Kingdom Daily Mail: ISIS Fanatic, 23, Pleads Guilty To Trying To Recruit Support For The Terror Group With Thousands Of Tweets “An ISIS fanatic has admitted sending thousands of tweets glorifying acts of terror and encouraging extremism. Mohammed Mohsin Ameen, 23, used 42 Twitter handles with names including 'Anti-coconut-01' to glorify terror atrocities from his bedroom in Dagenham, Essex. The vile tweets included celebrations of the 9/11 attack on New York's Twin Towers as well as tributes to 'martyred' ISIS fighters. Ameen is now facing jail after pleading guilty at the Old Bailey to five counts of encouraging the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism on Twitter. The messages via various different accounts on the social media site were sent by Ameen in the six months between May and October last year. He admitted a further charge of inviting support for Islamic State, as a proscribed organisation, between October 4 and 6 2015, and also pleaded guilty to disseminating a terrorist publication relating to a link to a video entitled For The Sake Of Allah posted on Twitter in September last year.” France Politico: Where Is The French Plan To Halt Radicalization? “A week after a French minister accused Belgium of being ‘naïve’ about jihadism in the wake of the Brussels terrorist attacks, France entered its own anguished debate about the prevalence of violent ideology in tough immigrant neighborhoods and the best ways to address it. The debate this past week also speaks to the underlying anxiety – both political and real – about a long-standing and dangerous shortcoming in French policy: Despite a robust security apparatus and a state of emergency in place since November, the country lacks a workable approach to dealing with violent Islamist indoctrination and recruitment.” Europe Politico: Why Belgium Is Not Europe’s Jihadi Base “An attack on Belgium was not a matter of ‘if’ but ‘when,’ experts and officials warned. And still, the tragic events of March 22 came as a shock to us all — the counter-terrorism community included. These were the first large-scale suicide bombings coordinated in our country. Now the question on everyone’s mind is: How could this have happened? It is still too early to give an answer, but we know that we will inevitably discover mistakes were made. In the meantime, international experts and journalists have resorted to Belgium-bashing and finger-pointing. They call Belgium a ‘failed state,’ our police and intelligence services ‘incompetent.’ But such accusations are overly simplistic, and essentially misplaced. Brussels is not the jihadi base they claim, nor is Belgium’s counter-terrorism track record unsuccessful.” Telegraph: EU Prepares To Deport Migrants To Turkey “Europe is planning to press ahead with the return of hundreds of migrants from Greece to Turkey on Monday in a show of force aimed at ending uncontrolled migration into Europe and drawing a line under the worst migration crisis in Europe since the Second World War. Greek government officials told The Telegraph that plans were in place to begin shipping Syrian and other migrants back to Turkey as part a controversial repatriation deal signed between the EU and Turkey last month. A European official told the AFP news agency that 500 migrants comprising ‘Syrians who have not requested asylum, Afghans and Pakistanis’ would be the first to be returned.” USA Today: Belgium Oks Extradition Of Paris Terrorism Suspect “Terrorism suspect Salah Abdeslam, who has promised to cooperate with French authorities over his role in the Nov. 13 Paris attacks, has been cleared for extradition to France, Belgian authorities ruled Thursday. The 26-year-old Belgian citizen was captured in a Brussels suburb on March 18, four days before terrorist attacks killed 32 people at Brussels airport and a downtown metro stop.” Technology The Wall Street Journal: Fight To Unlock Phones In Terror Cases Persists In Europe “The biggest legal battle between Apple Inc. and the U.S. government came to an abrupt halt this week, but the fight between law enforcement and technology firms over encryption, privacy and security is heating up in Europe. European police have more than 40 encrypted phones that they have been unable to access in recent investigations, a senior law-enforcement official said. And some legislators in Europe are pushing to compel companies to cooperate. The devices that investigators can’t open include an Apple iPhone seized as part of the probe of the Nov. 13 terrorist attacks that killed 130 people in Paris, and a phone used by a man who allegedly plotted to attack a church outside Paris last spring, said another official, Cyril Gout, head of the technology-forensics unit for France’s national police.”