Eye on Extremism - April 22, 2016

Eye on Extremism April 22, 2016 Washington Post: Well-Known ISIS Operative Instructed Americans To Kill Organizer Of Muhammad Cartoon Contest, Prosecutors Reveal “The Justice Department on Thursday revealed that a well-known Islamic State operative instructed a Boston-area man to kill Pamela Geller, the organizer of a controversial Muhammad cartoon contest in Texas last year. In court documents, prosecutors said that Junaid Hussain, a British militant, had been communicating with Usaamah Abdullah Rahim, 26, who along with two friends discussed beheading Geller. Rahim, however, changed his mind and instead decided to target a police officer. He was shot and killed in June 2015 in Roslindale, Mass., after he attacked members of an FBI-led surveillance team while wielding a large knife, officials said.” USA Today: U.S.-Led Coalition Blows Up $500 Million In Islamic State Cash “The U.S.-led coalition air campaign has incinerated about $500 million of the Islamic State’s cash stockpiles and cut its oil revenues by an estimated 50%, according to a senior defense official. The Islamic State has been forced to ration fuel in some areas and cut pay by half to its fighters and government officials in regions it controls, according to the official, who asked not to be named in order to discuss intelligence issues. U.S. officials have said the air campaign combined with local ground forces in Iraq and Syria have dealt the Islamic State setbacks in recent months, saying the terror group has lost 40% of the territory it once controlled in Iraq. ‘We've got the momentum,’ Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said last week. The statistics for the first time quantify the impact the air campaign and U.S.-backed local ground forces have had on the Islamic State’s finances and its military capabilities.” The New York Times: Kurds And Syrian Forces Clash, Adding Wrinkle To War “Amid renewed fighting across Syria on Thursday, clashes broke out between Kurdish militias and Syrian government forces, potentially opening a new front in the already complex conflict. The skirmishes — in Syria’s northeastern tip, where the government controls just a small enclave within a de facto Kurdish autonomous region — disrupted Qamishli, one of Syria’s calmer, safer cities. Before this, Kurdish and government forces had largely avoided clashes as Kurdish militias largely focused on holding off Islamic State militants, with help from the United States and Russia. But tensions have been brewing since the Kurds formally declared their autonomous zone this year. The new fighting added to a sense that Syria risked slipping back into all-out war, as a partial truce and an effort at political talks collapsed in tandem.” Reuters: U.N.-Sponsored Yemen Peace Talks Begin In Kuwait “Talks aimed at ending Yemen's war opened in Kuwait on Thursday, with Kuwait's top diplomat appealing to both sides to ‘turn war into peace’ after more than a year of conflict which has killed more than 6,200 people and caused a humanitarian crisis. Yemen's foreign minister warned against high expectations from the U.N.-sponsored talks, which brought together the Houthi group and its General People's Congress party allies with the Saudi-backed government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi. The talks, originally scheduled to start on Monday, were delayed over accusations by the Houthi group of truce violations and disagreements over the agenda for the negotiations.” The Guardian: Libya UN Envoy Calls For West's Help In Anti-Isis Fight Ahead Of Summit “The United Nations envoy to Libya, Martin Kobler, has called for western forces to help combat Islamic State in partnership with the country’s new government. With Barack Obama due to meet four European leaders in Germany on Monday for a summit that is likely to focus on Libya, Kobler said foreign powers should offer training and military support, combined with an end to the UN arms embargo. ‘The Daesh [Isis] expansion can only be stopped militarily,’ he said. ‘There is a consensus that a united Libyan army needs training; the lifting of the weapons embargo is very important. We need the most modern weapons to finish Daesh.’ Isis has been stepping up its offensive against Libya’s oilfields. An assessment circulating in foreign missions reports that in the last two weeks the group has broken out of its base in the coastal town of Sirte in three thrusts.” CNN: Boko Haram Luring Young People With Loans, Nigerian Military Says “Boko Haram is luring young people by giving them loans as a bait for membership, the Nigerian military warned. As part of the ‘clandestine dispensation,’ the terror group is offering loans to young entrepreneurs in the country's troubled northeast as part of recruitment, the military said in a statement Wednesday. Butchers, traders, tailors, beauticians and other vocational entrepreneurs are major targets of the ‘unholy business engagement,’ it said. ‘After such loans, the beneficiaries are given the option of either joining the group or risk being killed if they fail to pay the loan as at when due,’ the military said. ‘The payment has been surreptitiously programmed to fail by the benefactor, the Boko Haram.’Authorities urged residents to avoid loans or financial assistance from nonconventional sources.” CNN: FBI Paid More Than $1 Million To Hack San Bernardino Shooter's Iphone, Comey Says “The FBI paid more than $1 million to the company that gained access to San Bernardino terrorist Syed Farook's iPhone for their hacking services, FBI Director James Comey said Thursday. When asked how much the agency spent on gaining access to the device, Comey, who was speaking at the Aspen Security Forum in London, said, ‘A lot. Let's see, more than I will make in the remainder of this job, which is seven years and four months, for sure.’ The FBI director's annual salary is $181,500, so that's roughly $1,331,000. With all the attention the FBI's litigation of Apple garnered, Comey remarked that the court case ‘stimulated a bit of a marketplace around the world which didn't exist before then.’ Earlier this month, Comey revealed that the FBI had purchased ‘a tool’ from a private company but would not elaborate on the company or the services provided.” The International Business Times: UK Terror Threat: 70 'High-Threat' Returning Isis Jihadists Plan Attack On British Shores “Great Britain could be attacked by 70 ‘high threat’ jihadists who have returned from fighting with Islamic State (Isis), a senior Home Office official has warned. An estimated 350 British jihadists have returned from fighting in the extremist's self-declared caliphate that bridges Syria and Iraq. German and Italian intelligence chiefs believe that Daesh (Isis) is planning an imminent attack on holidaymakers on European beaches this summer. And according to Scott Wilson, the national co-ordinator of the Protect and Prepare counterterrorism programmes, up to a fifth of the returning jihadis could be planning attacks on UK landmarks.” RT: Putting ISIS To Sleep: 12yo Yazidi Girl Uses Sleeping Pills To Escape Terror Group “A 12-year-old Yazidi girl secretly slipped sleeping pills into her Islamic State captor’s tea to escape. The girl and her aunt were being held as slaves by the jihadist group west of Mosul, before they were able to escape to Kurdish-controlled areas. The escape was confirmed by Vian Dakhil, a Kurdish Yazidi member of the Iraqi parliament, who told the Kurdish BasNews agency that a 12-year-old girl and her 17-year-old aunt had managed to escape from their Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) captives by spiking their captors tea with sleeping pills.” United States Reuters: Commentary: Islamic State Has Erased The Line Between Foreign And Domestic Policy “Not since the Vietnam War has a foreign-policy issue transformed Western domestic politics in the way the threat from Islamic State has. Neither the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, nor the subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq — however costly and corrosive of national purpose — so profoundly reset the playing field of politics. Across the West, domestic policy debates — ranging from immigration to law enforcement to education — are now refracted through the lens of the new terrorism. Because of the Islamic State-related attacks in the United States and Europe, the line between foreign and domestic policy is gradually being erased.” Reuters: White House Concerned By Russia's Military Moves In Syria “The United States said on Thursday it was concerned about reports that Russia is moving more military equipment into Syria to bolster President Bashar al-Assad, with a truce in tatters and peace talks in meltdown. Asaad Zoubi, chief negotiator for the main Syrian opposition, the High Negotiations Committee (HNC), said all its members will leave the peace talks in Geneva by Friday, with little prospect of a resumption unless the situation on the ground changes radically. U.N. special envoy Staffan de Mistura will decide on Friday whether talks to end the five-year war that has killed at least 250,000 people can go on without the HNC, and with combatants accusing each other of breaking a February ceasefire deal. Two Western diplomats said it looked like de Mistura would continue the talks until next Wednesday given the late arrival of the Syrian government delegation.” Syria USA Today: As Syria Talks Falter, Signs Point To Ugly Next Phase “The White House expressed concern Thursday about Russia moving equipment into Syria, a possible sign that the war is entering a violent new phase. President Obama said if the Syrian cease-fire fails, ‘none of the options are good.’ ‘The problem with any Plan B that does not involve a political settlement is that it means more fighting, potentially for years,’ Obama said, while in Saudi Arabia for a security summit with Gulf state leaders. ‘Whoever comes out on top will be standing on top of a country that's been devastated and that will then take years to rebuild.’ Ben Rhodes, Obama’s deputy national security adviser, said, “The movement of any additional Russian military support into Syria would be inconsistent with our shared objective of getting a political process moving.’” BBC: Syria Conflict: Largest Aid Convoy Reaches Besieged Rastan “The largest aid convoy so far in Syria has reached a besieged rebel-held town in the centre of the country. Sixty-five lorries are delivering food and medicine to about 120,000 civilians in and around Rastan, in Homs province. The International Committee of the Red Cross and Syrian Red Crescent convoy is the first to reach Rastan since 2012. A key aim of the fragile cessation of hostilities that has been in place for nearly two months was to allow aid to be delivered more widely across Syria. On Wednesday, hundreds of sick and wounded people were evacuated from four besieged rebel- and government-held towns as part of a deal overseen by the Syrian Red Crescent.” Iraq Associated Press: Iraq Identifies 6 Victims From Mass Graves In IS-Free Ramadi “Six bodies have been identified so far from two mass graves unearthed this week in the western city of Ramadi, nearly four months after Iraqi forces routed Islamic State militants from the Anbar provincial capital, officials said Thursday. Arrested Islamic State militants had led authorities on Tuesday to the mass graves inside the city's soccer stadium, believed to contain up to 40 bodies. Some of the victims were blindfolded and had their hands tied, Iraqi officials had said earlier. The city's mayor, Ibrahim al-Osag, told The Associated Press that the six identified victims included a policeman, his wife and son, two security personnel and a civilian. Al-Osag said the bodies, and those of some two dozen other people were reburied after DNA samples were taken.” CNN: ISIS Is Struggling To Fund Its War Machine “It's getting harder for ISIS to finance its war machine, due to its shrinking territory and crippled oil business. ISIS' monthly revenue has fallen by 30% in recent months, according to information and analysis firm IHS. In March, the group collected only $56 million, a significant reduction from estimated monthly revenue of $80 million in mid-2105. The decline in revenue is now seriously constraining the ISIS' ability to fund its reign of terror, according to the U.S. State Department and several scholars who track the group. It's a major change for a group that became the world's richest terrorist organization by taxing the people on its territory, selling oil on the black market, smuggling stolen archeological artifacts, and demanding kidnapping ransoms.” Al Bawaba: Iraq Frees 200 People Imprisoned By Daesh Near Mosul “On Thursday, the Iraqi Army Brigade 72 and Division 15 of Nineveh Operations Command liberated 200 people, including families and children, in the villages of al-Haj Ali and Mahana, which lie around 70 kilometers (45 miles) southeast of Mosul and in the vicinity of the town of Makhmour. The development came on the same day as Iraqi fighter jets struck Daesh positions west of al-Siniya district in the northern province of Salahuddin as well as the outskirts of the oil-rich city of Baiji, killing scores of the extremists and destroying their explosive-laden vehicles. Separately, Iraqi army troopers backed by fighters from the Popular Mobilization Units thwarted a Daesh offensive against the city of al-Saqlawiyah, located 50 kilometers (31 miles) west of the capital. Several Daesh militants were reportedly killed and a car bomb destroyed in the process.” Turkey Associated Press: Turkey: 3 Soldiers Killed In Attack On Military Vehicle “Turkey's state-run news agency says three soldiers were killed in a bomb attack on a road in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast region where the security forces are battling Kurdish rebels. Anadolu Agency says the bomb exploded Friday on a highway linking the cities of Tunceli and Elazig as an armored personnel carrier was passing by. The agency said the military sent reinforcements and attack helicopters to the area to attempt to catch the assailants whose escape routes were placed ‘under intense fire.’ Violence in the southeast region has surged since July when a fragile peace process between the state and the rebels of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, collapsed. Hundreds of people, including more than 350 security force members, have died in the renewed conflict.” Daily Mail: Turkey Threatens To Rip-Up Migrant Deal With The EU Unless They Get Visa-Free Travel Telling Officials: 'You Need Us More Than We Need You' “Turkey has threatened to rip-up its migrant deal with the EU claiming it will stop letting migrants across its border unless Brussels implements a pledge to grant Turks visa-free travel. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned the European Union that it needs Turkey 'more than we need you' as tensions grew over promises for visa liberalisation in a crucial deal on stemming the flow of migrants to Europe. Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu had earlier bluntly told the EU that Ankara would no longer abide by the March migrant accord if Brussels fails to implement the visa-free travel by June.” Middle East Times of Israel: Israel Nabs Suspect In 2015 Hebron Stabbing Attack “Israeli security forces on Thursday arrested a Palestinian suspected of stabbing and seriously injuring an Israeli in a West Bank terror attack last October. The stabbing attack occurred on October 8, 2015, one of four such attacks that day in which a total of nine people were injured. The attacks came near the beginning of a wave of terror assaults which have included stabbing, shootings, car-rammings and, most recently, a bus bombing in Jerusalem in which 20 people were injured. The bomber was the only casualty in the attack. Twenty-nine Israelis and four non-Israelis have been killed in the recent terror wave. More than 180 Palestinians have also been killed, some two-thirds of them while attacking Israelis, and the rest during clashes with troops, according to the Israeli army.” The New York Times: Israel Names Palestinian As Bomber In Jerusalem Bus Attack “Israeli officials named on Thursday the Palestinian who they say carried out the first bus bombing in Jerusalem in years. The attack on Monday rattled a country on edge after months of violence. Even as the Israeli domestic intelligence agency identified Abdul-Hamid Abu Srour, 19, his family praised him for the act, and relatives distributed posters of the clean-shaven young man, praising him as a ‘hero.’ The bombing, in which nuts and bolts were packed into an explosive device, wounded more than a dozen people, including Mr. Abu Srour, who died of his injuries in an Israeli hospital on Wednesday, said his parents. One girl, 15, was badly burned.” The Jerusalem Post: Hamas Bolsters Forces On Gaza-Egypt Border At Cairo's Request “The Hamas-run government in Gaza on Thursday redeployed its forces along the border with Egypt in a move allegedly intended to increase security on the volatile frontier, Palestinian news agency Ma'an reported. According to Hamas's Interior Ministry, the maneuver was enacted in order to ‘find points of collaboration with Egyptian forces on the border.’ Ma'an cited Hamas General Hussain abu-Aadrah as saying ‘the border forces were increased at Egypt's request in order to emphasize positive neighborly relations.’ He said four battalions were deployed to the border in order to improve security, apparently alluding to the deterrence of cross-border terror activities.” Libya BBC: Islamic State 'Forced Out' Of Key Libyan City Of Derna “Militants from so-called Islamic State (IS) have been pushed out of the key eastern city of Derna, a rival Islamist group has said. IS ‘have all left Derna - they have no presence here anymore’, Hafeth al-Dabaa, a spokesman for Derna Mujahideen Shura Council (DMSC), told the BBC. The al-Qaeda linked DMSC is an umbrella group for local militias. Derna has seen a three-way conflict between IS, DMSC and forces loyal to Libya's eastern government. Since 2014, Libya has had two competing governments - one in the capital Tripoli, and another in the eastern city of Tobruk. A new UN-brokered unity government is trying to restore peace in the country, which has been ravaged by conflict since the fall of Col Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.” Germany Reuters: Germany Arrests Two Teenagers Suspected Of Bombing Sikh Temple “Three people were injured in a bomb attack at a Sikh temple in western Germany, police said on Thursday, adding that two 16-year-olds arrested after the attack appeared to have Islamist backgrounds. ‘We must act on the assumption that it was a terrorist attack, religiously tainted terrorism of the Islamist scene,’ said Frank Richter, police chief in the city of Essen, where the attack took place last weekend. One of the suspects handed himself in after police released footage showing two young men carrying backpacks in which investigators believe they hid explosives used in the attack. The second suspect was arrested in a police raid. Both teenagers were born and raised in Germany, German media reported. One of the three people injured was in a serious but not life-threatening condition, police said.” France The Wall Street Journal: France To Call International Meeting To Revive Israel-Palestinian Peace Talks “France plans to convene a meeting of international powers at the end of May to restart peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, seeking to head off an escalation in tensions that resonate across the Middle East and Europe. French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said he is inviting foreign ministers from Europe, the U.S., the Middle East and Asia to Paris on May 30 to lay the groundwork for a new round of peace talks. The goal is for major world powers to forge a common strategy for the negotiations without the presence of either Israeli or Palestinian officials, Mr. Ayrault said.” Europe Politico: Belgium Wants EU Foreign Fighter Agreement With Turkey “The EU and Turkey should agree to new rules to prevent foreign fighters slipping through the net on their return to Europe, Belgian Interior Minister Jan Jambon said Thursday, according to the Associated Press. Jambon said the European Commission has agreed to ‘come up with an arrangement or a convention with the Turks to resolve this.’ Brahim el-Bakraoui was deported by Turkey to the Netherlands last July and disappeared before blowing himself up at Brussels airport on March 22. Jambon told the Belgian parliament last month that a Belgian official was ‘negligent’ in not acting on a warning from Turkey about El-Bakraoui being a suspected foreign fighter from the Syrian conflict, but Jambon said the incident did not reflect an overall system failure.”