Eye on Extremism - September 2, 2016

Eye on Extremism September 2, 2016 Counter Extremism Project CBS This Morning: Why ISIS No. 2's Death Would be a 'Temporary Win:" CEP President and former U.S. Homeland Security Advisor Fran Townsend discusses the ramifications of the reported death of ISIS Senior Strategist and Spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnani and Russia's claim of responsibility Vocativ: How The Internet Made A Suburban Kid A Terrorist “He was barred from using Facebook or Twitter, and had relinquished his right to freely surf the web. But Aaron Driver still had one last message he planned to share with his fellow countrymen — and the rest of the world. “Oh Canada, you received many warnings,” said Driver, a Muslim convert who had gained national notoriety for his unsettling, outspoken support of the Islamic State online and in the press, which led to his brief arrest last year. Peering into a video camera, the balaclava-wearing 24-year-old launched into a blistering rebuke against the Western “enemies of Islam” and warned that the only solution would be the “spilling of your blood.” After pledging allegiance to ISIS, Driver then threatened to strike Canada.” The Wall Street Journal: Militias Corner Islamic State In Libyan City “When Islamic State captured this Mediterranean port last year, fighters tagged walls and buildings with the group’s name. Now, pro-government forces are on the verge of driving the extremists out of Sirte and a new claim to power is spray-painted on homes and blast walls: ‘The State of Misrata.’ Dozens of militias from Misrata, another coastal city about 150 miles to the west, are spearheading the offensive, which is all but over. The battle for Sirte is as much about shoring up support for a Western-backed unity government in the capital, Tripoli, as defeating Islamic State. But the boastful graffiti show that victory won’t easily bring together the fragmented country.” Daily Beast: U.S. Looks To Beat ISIS Before Obama's Out “To hear members of the national security community tell it, ISIS is about to lose its grip on its Iraqi capital. In the last ten days alone, the two U.S. generals leading the war effort have promised that the city of Mosul will be out of ISIS hands soon. Telegraphing the military’s next move usually is considered strategically daft, but American commanders now are spelling out the dates of their operation within weeks. Meanwhile, those with a political bent are pushing for the U.S.-led coalition and the Iraqi forces to move into Mosul before the end of the Obama administration term so it can end on the cusp of a major battlefield win, one U.S. official told The Daily Beast.” Voice Of America: After Turkey's Syria Incursions, Questions Grow Over Exit Strategy “A week after Turkey's military launched an incursion into northern Syria, observers at home and abroad are wondering when it will end. But the stated objective of operation ‘Euphrates Shield’ — to remove ‘terrorists’ from the Turkish border — is vague, prompting growing speculation over Ankara’s long term intentions. Turkish forces backing elements of the Free Syrian Army are continuing their operations against both Islamic State and U.S. backed Syrian Kurdish militia (YPG), inside Syria. Ankara has given little indication when the operation will end. ‘The operation is aimed at fighting against Daesh [IS] and all other terrorist organizations, including the YPG, and cleansing our borders of terrorists and thus ensuring our border security,’ Ibrahim Kalin, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's spokesman, said on Wednesday.” Reuters: Bombs Kill At Least 12, Wound Dozens At Pakistan Court “Two bombs killed at least 12 people and wounded dozens outside a court complex in northwest Pakistan on Friday, a rescue official said, hours after militants killed two people in a Christian neighborhood in the same region. Both attacks were claimed by Jamaat-ur-Ahrar, a breakaway Pakistani Taliban faction believed to be behind some of the past year's deadliest attacks, including last month's bombing of lawyers in the city of Quetta that killed 74 people. The bodies of policemen, lawyers and other civilians were recovered, said Haris Habib, chief rescue officer in the city of Mardan in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. "First there was a small blast followed by a big blast," Habib told Reuters.” Reuters: U.S. Troops In Iraq Increasingly Active As Mosul Battle Nears “Kurdish Peshmerga forces retook a swath of northern Iraq late last month from Islamic State and days later American forces appeared in the area, the latest sign of increasing U.S. military activity in the country. The U.S. troops, numbering about a dozen, were still there this week and spent Wednesday supervising Iraqi army engineers repairing a bridge to help local forces cross the Great Zab river in their push towards Mosul, the militants' de facto capital in Iraq which Baghdad wants to retake this year. ‘We move around a lot. We've been all over the country,’ one of the U.S. servicemen told Reuters on the bridge, about 45 km (28 miles) southeast of Mosul. He said the Iraqis were making quick progress in repairing the span, and that the American troops would leave the area within days.” Associated Press: Pakistan Says It Foiled IS Bid To Expand Network In Country “Pakistan has foiled a bid by the Islamic State group to expand its network into this predominantly Muslim country, with the military arresting 309 suspects, including IS members from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, a military spokesman said Thursday. The remarks by Lt. Gen. Asim Saleem Bajwa were a rare admission of IS presence in Pakistan, where officials have long insisted that the extremist group has no footprint. Earlier, Pakistani officials had insisted that IS has no presence in the country. Bajwa told reporters at a press conference in the capital, Islamabad, that among those arrested were 25 foreigners — all from countries where the Sunni militant group has an established presence. Pakistan had stepped up military operations across the country — and specifically in the northwestern tribal regions bordering Afghanistan — after the 2014 Taliban attack on a school in Peshawar that killed 156 people, mostly children.” Associated Press: Israeli Soldier Shot And Wounded At West Bank Shrine “An Israeli soldier was shot and wounded while guarding Jewish worshippers at a flashpoint West Bank prayer site on Thursday, the Israeli military said. Shots fired from the direction of a nearby Palestinian refugee camp wounded the soldier who was securing the entrance to Joseph's Tomb, according to the military. Worshippers were being escorted to the shrine, which is located in the Palestinian city of Nablus, by soldiers for protection. The army said Palestinians threw rocks and rolled burning tires at the troops as they approached.  Later Thursday, the military said Israeli forces detained a 21-year-old Palestinian woman at a West Bank checkpoint who was found to be carrying a knife. She told soldiers that she had intended to carry out a stabbing attack, the military said.” The Times Of Israel: Palestinian Woman Stopped At Checkpoint, Says She Planned Attack “A Palestinian woman was detained by security personnel at a West Bank crossing on Thursday night on suspicion that she planned to carry out a stabbing attack, police said. According to a police statement, the woman ‘raised the suspicions’ of security guards at the Qalandiya checkpoint, who stopped the 21-year-old for questioning and a further search. During the check, the woman ‘admitted that she planned to carry out an attack and had thrown [away] the knife,’ police said. A search of the area found the discarded knife nearby, and the woman was taken away for further questioning.” Newsweek: Boko Haram Has Just ‘Weeks Left’ Claims Nigerian Army Commander “Nigerian militant group Boko Haram has only ‘weeks left’ before it is ousted from its final few strongholds, according to the Nigerian army commander in charge of the counter-insurgency operation. Major General Lucky Irabor, who is heading up Operation Lafiya Dole—the Nigerian military mission against Boko Haram—told Reuters that Boko Haram now only controlled Abadan and Malafatori, two small towns near to Lake Chad, besides its main base in the Sambisa Forest, in the northeast Borno state. Boko Haram took up arms against the Nigerian government in 2009 and has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced more than 2 million in its bid to establish an Islamic caliphate in northeast Nigeria. At its peak, the group controlled territory that was cumulatively the size of Belgium, including major towns, such as Bama.” Business Insider: Meet The 29-Year-Old Who's Pivotal In Stopping Disillusioned Millennials From Joining Radical Terrorist Groups “Mimoun Berrissoun is only 29-years-old, but he is already the leader of one of the most important organisations in Germany that is trying to stop a wave of teenagers and young adults from becoming radicalised. Berrissoun, the co-founder of 180° Wende, spoke to Business Insider and told us about how he turned his Cologne-based organisation from a small volunteer project, into a potentially society changing group that the government uses to engage with young people affected by extremism. He is also one of the 10 people involved in Extremely Together, an initiative launched by the Kofi Annan Foundation and One Young World aimed at countering violent extremism within communities.” Newsweek: Has Isis Really Banned Football Referees In Syria? “The Islamic State militant group (ISIS) has reportedly banned football referees in one of the Syrian regions under its control. Its commanders took the decision to outlaw the authority figures in the eastern Syrian province of Deir Ezzor because the referees allegedly spread the rules of world football’s governing body FIFA ‘in violation of the commands of Allah and the Sunnah.’ It is the view of ISIS that referees ‘do not judge according to what Allah has revealed,’ according to the U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a monitoring group that has an extensive network of sources on the ground in the country. It remains unclear if the playing of football, let alone the presence of a referee, should even be permitted under ISIS’s form of conservative Islam.” United States Voice Of America: Pentagon: IS Down To 3 Neighborhoods In Former Libyan Stronghold “Islamic State forces have been reduced to just three neighborhoods in Sirte, Libya, a city once considered to be a stronghold for the group, a Pentagon spokesman said Thursday as the U.S. extended its air campaign over the city for up to another 30 days. The U.S. military estimates that IS forces in Sirte now number fewer than 200, Pentagon spokesman Navy Captain Jeff Davis told reporters. ‘They’re literally with their backs against the ocean at this point,’ Davis said. Libyan ships have secured the waters around Sirte in case IS fighters try to escape by sea, he added. The U.S. started conducting airstrikes in and around Sirte on August 1 at the request of the Libyan Government of National Accord (GNA). These strikes — 108 in total as of Thursday — have aided forces aligned with the U.N.-backed government in Libya as they push IS out of the city.” The Wall Street Journal: Security Debate Draws Attention To U.S. Border With Canada “The U.S. border with Canada is attracting greater scrutiny as debate rages in the U.S. presidential campaign about security on its southern border with Mexico, and concern grows over global terrorism and vulnerability to illegal crossings. The U.S. government has been steadily beefing up surveillance of the northern border with new technology designed to help monitor areas too remote for round-the-clock patrols by field agents. Much of the change comes from the gradual rollout of new technologies that were promised in the aftermath of a security reassessment following the 2001 terrorist attacks. Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D., N.D.) this year called on the Department of Homeland Security to pay closer attention to the northern border and not view it as an ‘afterthought.’ Last year, she co-sponsored a bill with Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R., N.H.) to step up funding for recruiting more border agents to specifically target more remote areas along the border with Canada.” The Daily Beast: Obama Is Outmaneuvered In ISIS War “Turkey’s week-old intervention into northern Syria, which began with the successful expulsion of the Islamic State terror group from the border town of Jarablus, could be the beginning of the end for the Islamic State terror group’s haven in northern Syria. But it may also be the beginning of the demise of the People’s Protection Units or YPG, the Kurdish militia that has been fighting ISIS with U.S. military support. The Turkish intervention revealed the outlines of a dramatic shift in the international landscape surrounding the world’s most deadly conflict. The picture now emerging was inconceivable just weeks ago: Russia, which has taken severe criticism for bombing civilian targets, has gained the initiative at U.S. expense. Faced with the passivity of the lame-duck Obama administration, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has emerged as the prime mover in the drama.” Syria Associated Press: Syria Strikes Kill 25 As Another Damascus Suburb Surrenders “Syria's government secured a deal to restore its authority over another rebellious Damascus suburb on Thursday while Syrian rebels captured new ground in a lightning advance on the central city of Hama and suspected government airstrikes killed 25 civilians in the surrounding province. The Syrian capital's western suburb of Moadamiyeh, which a U.N. report said was gassed with toxic sarin in 2013, has suffered a three-year government siege that left its estimated 28,000 residents with dwindling food and medical supplies. On Thursday, Moadamiyeh's residents agreed to let President Bashar Assad's government restore its security presence and political institutions in the suburb, according to Hassan Ghadour, a resident and leading negotiator of the deal.” Voice Of America: Efforts To Resume Syrian Peace Talks, Humanitarian Access Falter “Senior United Nations officials acknowledge that efforts to resume deadlocked Syrian peace talks and gain humanitarian access to besieged areas in that war-torn country remain unsuccessful, as fighting continues to escalate with no let up in sight. Senior U.S. and Russian military, security, and diplomatic experts are meeting in Geneva to try to finalize a cessation of hostilities agreement, which would make it possible for U.N.-mediated intra-Syrian peace talks to go ahead. The meeting is a followup to last week's day-long meeting between U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, aimed at sealing a deal. U.N. Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura said much hinges on the ability of experts to overcome the few remaining differences.” The New York Time: Kurds Fear The U.S. Will Again Betray Them, In Syria “For almost two years, Syrian Kurds, with American weapons, air cover and training, have fought and died in battle against the Islamic State. They have taken pride in their status as the United States’ most faithful proxy in the fight against the militant group, and they have hoped their effectiveness as warriors would lead to American support for Kurdish political gains inside Syria. So, many Kurds shuddered when Turkish tanks and soldiers recently rolled into northern Syria, with American support, to push back against Kurdish gains. They saw it, perhaps prematurely, as a replay of a century of betrayal by world powers, going back to the end of World War I, when they were promised, then denied, their own state in the postwar settlement.” BBC: Syria Conflict: Warplanes Bomb Hama Amid Rebel Offensive “Syrian government warplanes are reported to have bombed several areas in the central province of Hama in response to a major rebel offensive. The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 25 civilians had been killed in strikes on a road near the town of Latamina overnight. It also reported rebel gains to the south, near Maardis, 11km (seven miles) from the provincial city of Hama. But state media said army operations in the area had left 50 ‘terrorists’ dead. Troops and allied militiamen had been involved in heavy clashes near Suran and al-Buwaida - both just to the north of Maardis - and destroyed a number of tanks, a military source told the official Sana news agency.” Iraq The Jerusalem Post: Mass Graves With Thousands Of Islamic State Victims Found In Iraq And Syria “Journalists have found and mapped at least 72 mass graves in Iraq, the most comprehensive survey so far, and expect that many more will be uncovered as the territory that Islamic State controls in both Syria and Iraq continues to shrink.  In Syria, the Associate Press (AP) has obtained locations for 17 mass graves, including one that is believed to contain the bodies of hundreds of members of a single tribe who were killed when Islamic State took over their area. In at least 16 of the graves in Iraq, the territory is still too dangerous to excavate, and officials say they cannot even guess the number of dead. According to AP, which has spent months investigating the issue, the number of known victims ranges from 5,200 to more than 15,000. Many of these are in Sinjar Mountain, where Islamic State launched an assault against the Yazidi minority in 2014.” International Business Times: Iraq Recruiting Children To Fight ISIS? Teenagers To Battle Islamic State In Mosul: Report “Flouting international law, Iraqi security forces have reportedly recruited children as part of preparations for a planned assault on Islamic State group forces in Mosul, according to Human Rights Watch. In a report published Tuesday, the global rights group cited witnesses and relatives who said two tribal militias recruited and drove at least seven children from a large displaced persons camp to a town near the northern city of Mosul on Aug. 14 as it plans an assault against terrorist group also known as ISIS. While the ages of the allegedly recruited children are unknown, international law states soldiers should at least be 18 years old. Two trucks reportedly pulled into the Debaga camp, located roughly 25 miles south of Erbil, and left with 250 new recruits, seven of which were believed to be under 18.” Turkey Reuters: Turkey Removes About 8,000 Security Personnel In Latest Purge “Turkish authorities have removed about 8,000 security personnel from duty, the government's official gazette said on Friday, the latest purge of people suspected of having links to those behind a failed coup in July. Of the personnel removed, it said 7,669 were police and 323 were members of the gendarmerie. The gazette also said that retired judges and prosecutors would be allowed to return to work if they applied to do so in the next two months, after about 3,300 judiciary officials were dismissed since the July 15 putsch.” BBC: Turkey Coup Attempt: 543 More Court Officials Sacked “A further 543 judges and prosecutors have been sacked in Turkey, bringing the number of dismissals since July's failed coup to at least 3,288. The new dismissals were reported as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan celebrated the start of the new judicial year in Ankara. He told an audience the purge would ‘enhance’ the judiciary's independence. Meanwhile Turkey's prime minister appeared to accuse EU states of backing the coup as he received a delegation. At least 35,000 people have been detained for questioning since 15 July, over 3,000 of them judges or prosecutors.” Reuters: After Sweeping Into Northern Syria, Turkey Faces Hard Choices “Flashing victory signs and firing in the air, the young rebels who took this Syrian town from Islamic State a week ago may be jubilant, but their ability to hold territory will hinge on Turkey's appetite for keeping its forces inside Syria. Sweeping in to Jarablus may have been the easy part. Backed by Turkish tanks, jets and special forces, Arab and Turkmen fighters under the loose banner of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) drove out Islamic State in a matter of hours last Wednesday. It could prove more difficult for the rebels, who number only around 1,500 fighters, to push west and secure the 90 km (56-mile) stretch of Islamic State-held border territory that Ankara has touted as a potential buffer zone. They face not only the challenge of displacing the ultra-hardline Islamist group but of preventing Kurdish militia fighters, backed by the United States but viewed as a hostile force by Turkey, from filling the void.” Afghanistan Associated Press: Afghan Official: 2 Killed In Taliban Bomb Attack “Two people were killed in a bomb attack in front of the district governor's office in Logar province east of the capital, Kabul, on Thursday, Afghan officials said. Salim Sallhe, spokesman for the provincial governor, said that the Taliban were behind the massive explosion in front of the district governor's compound in Charkh district, 60 kilometers (about 40 miles) east of Kabul, that shook buildings in the area. The Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, claimed responsibility for the attack in an email sent to The Associated Press. He said the attack was a truck bombing.” Reuters: Clashes At Kabul Rally To Rebury Afghanistan's Bandit King “Clashes broke out at a rally in Kabul on Thursday to celebrate a Tajik bandit who briefly reigned as king of Afghanistan almost a century ago, fuelling tensions that could threaten government stability. The rally to rebury the remains of Habibullah Kalakani, a Tajik highwayman who ruled briefly in 1929, could exacerbate rivalry between ethnic groups and feed the instability that has dogged the unwieldy government of President Ashraf Ghani. Organizers had intended to remove the remains from an unmarked grave to Shahrara, a scenic hilltop in the city. But clashes broke out after a standoff between the mainly Tajik demonstrators and armed supporters of Vice President Rashid Dostum, an ethnic Uzbek, an Interior Ministry official said.” The New York Times: Gun Battle Between Ethnic Factions Roils Afghanistan’s Capital “Militia forces loyal to the Afghan vice president, the former warlord Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, fought a gun battle with a group of northern Tajik demonstrators in the heart of Kabul on Thursday, leaving at least one person dead and several wounded in a chaotic scene that shook the country’s civil-war fault lines from a generation ago. The standoff in the capital, a clear breakdown of law and order, continued late into Thursday night, and at once highlighted the fragility of Afghanistan’s factional and ethnic balance. Elite government security forces were deployed at the scene to control armed men from both sides, with some officers saying they had moved to disarm General Dostum’s forces, who are mostly ethnic Uzbeks.” Middle East The Jerusalem Post: Israeli Family That Joined Isis Attempts To Return To Israel “A family of five from northern Israel, that moved to Syria to join ISIS last year, has arrived in Turkey in an attempt to return to Israel, Channel 2 news reported Wednesday.  In June 2015, the family - a mother, father and their three children, traveled to Romania for the medical school graduation ceremony of a relative. The family announced later that they would be continuing their vacation in Turkey. Once they arrived in Turkey, communication with the family stopped. They were heard from again once they arrived to Syria. The woman's father has been working to bring the family back to Israel. He contacted his daughter in Syria and after convincing the family to return, he headed to Turkey to facilitate their entry.” Fox News: Robot Patrol: Israeli Army To Deploy Autonomous Vehicles On Gaza Border “Israel is planning to bolster its high-tech arsenal by deploying fully autonomous military vehicles along the country’s dangerous border with Gaza. ‘This is the future -- the border is a very dangerous place,’ an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) official told FoxNews.com, citing the threat of Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), snipers, anti-tank missiles and terrorist tunnels. ‘Sending unmanned vehicles to do these patrols means that troops lives’ are not at risk.’ Working with Israeli defense specialist Elbit Systems, IDF has equipped Ford F-350 pickup trucks with specialized remote driving technology. The trucks, dubbed Border Protector Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGVs), are also fitted with four driving cameras and a 360-degree observation camera to help operators identify threats. At the moment, the vehicles are unarmed.” Libya The Guardian: Libya Hands Over Last Stockpile Of Chemical Weapon Ingredients “Libya’s remaining stockpile of potential chemical weapons has been successfully transported abroad in an operation aimed at keeping them safe from militants, according to a watchdog. The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) said the stockpile – hundreds of tonnes of industrial chemicals – had been removed for destruction abroad with the help of several countries. Libya’s UN-brokered national unity government in July made a formal request for international assistance to have the chemicals removed. Libya had planned to destroy the chemicals itself but fighting with Islamic State and political instability had raised fears the stockpile would be taken by insurgents. The unity government asked for the help of the OPCW, which won the Nobel peace prize in 2013 for its work in eliminating chemical weapons.” Nigeria ABC News: Abducted Chibok Girl's Mother Pleads With Nigerian Government In New Video “Yakubu’s daughter was one of over 200 schoolgirls abducted by Nigerian terror group Boko Haram in the northern town of Chibok on April 14, 2014. Maida, who was known by her classmates as Dorcas, was 15 at the time. Last month, Boko Haram released a new video showing some of the missing girls. Dressed in Islamic garb with a patterned headscarf, Maida was one of them, her parents said. In the video, a masked militant dressed in camouflage and brandishing a gun says there have been no negotiations with the Nigerian government and that some of the kidnapped Chibok girls have died in airstrikes targeting Boko Haram. He says the remaining girls will be freed if the government releases imprisoned members of the group.” United Kingdom BBC: British Transport Police In Scotland To Carry Tasers "Officers who police Scotland's railways are to be armed with Tasers in a bid to increase security on the network. The British Transport Police said the move was a ‘proportionate response’ in the face of a mounting terrorism threat. Specially trained officers will begin carrying the stun weapons over the next few weeks. It brings the Scottish force into line with their counterpart in England, where Tasers have been used since 2011. The weapons are used to incapacitate suspects through the use of an electric current. ‘The current threat to the UK from international terrorism remains 'severe', meaning an attack is highly likely. Recent terrorist attacks across the world are a stark reminder that the threat from terrorism is a genuine risk, and it is important that we keep our security measures and operational tactics under constant review." The Wall Street Journal: U.K. Terror Suspects Will Be Held For Further Questioning “A British judge has granted police another week to detain and question five men suspected of planning to carry out acts of terrorism, police said Thursday. In cases of sufficient seriousness, U.K. law enforcement is allowed to hold suspects up to 14 days for questioning before any charges are filed. The five were taken into custody last Friday in arrests in Birmingham and nearby Stoke-on-Trent. Evidence uncovered during the raids prompted authorities to dispatch a bomb-disposal team to the center of Birmingham, and forensic specialists scoured a building in the Lee Bank area. The operation was described by the West Midlands Counter Terrorism unit as a precautionary measure.” Germany Reuters: Merkel, Under Pressure, Stresses Need To Deport Failed Asylum-Seekers “In a sharp change of tone, Chancellor Angela Merkel wants German authorities to accelerate the deportation of foreigners who are denied asylum, in response to growing public fears over the soaring numbers of migrants, members of parliament told Reuters on Thursday. Facing criticism from the public and within her own conservatives for allowing around a million migrants and refugees to enter the country last year, Merkel told her party's lawmakers that many foreigners were staying on even after their asylum applications had been denied. It was a significant shift of emphasis for Merkel, who has previously stuck to the mantra ‘We can do it!’ and steadfastly refused demands to introduce limits on the number of refugees.” France BBC: French Resorts Lift Burkini Bans After Court Ruling “The city of Nice has lifted a controversial ban on burkinis - the latest French seaside resort to do so, in line with a national court ruling. Bans on the women's full-body swimsuits have also been lifted in Villeneuve-Loubet, Cannes, Frejus and Roquebrune. French Riviera mayors imposed the bans, but they were overruled on Friday by France's top administrative court. Critics see burkinis as a symbol of Islam and potentially provocative after the July terror atrocity in Nice. But on Friday, France's Council of State ruled that the ban in Villeneuve-Loubet ‘seriously and clearly illegally breached fundamental freedoms’. The human rights lawyer who brought that case said he would take each town to court over their burkini bans.” Newsweek: After Attacks, Majority Of The French Want Security Agents At Schools “After enduring a spate of deadly extremist attacks a majority of the French people believe schools are not secure enough and that security agents should be deployed outside and inside academic establishments. According to a survey by pollster Odoxa, coinciding with the start of the school year in September, 57 percent of people in France said they believed schools were not safe enough. Last month, France’s Minister of Education Najat Vallaud-Belkacem and Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve sent a memo to regional law enforcement across France to implement new security measures near schools. The plan involved the mobilization of a patrol force and holding exercizes with pupils on how to respond to new attacks.”