Eye on Extremism September 29, 2016

Eye on Extremism September 29, 2016 New York Times: U.S. To Send 600 More Troops To Iraq To Help Retake Mosul From ISIS “President Obama has authorized sending an additional 600 American troops to Iraq to assist Iraqi forces in the looming battle to take back the city of Mosul from the Islamic State, United States officials said on Wednesday. The announcement means that there will soon be 5,000 American troops in Iraq, seven years after the Obama administration withdrew all American troops from the country. Donald J. Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, has criticized both Mr. Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee, for that decision.” BBC: Syria: US Tells Russia It Will End Talks If Bombing Continues “US Secretary of State John Kerry has warned his Russian counterpart that Washington will end Syria talks unless Moscow stops the bombing of Aleppo. In a phone call with Sergei Lavrov, Mr Kerry said the US held Russia responsible for the use of incendiary and bunker bombs against the city. The US state department said it was making preparations to suspend talks. Aleppo has come under heavy aerial bombardment since the end of a ceasefire a week ago. In response to Mr Kerry's phone call, the Russian Deputy Ambassador to the UN, Evgeny Zagaynov, said the ‘trend’ of Russia being blamed for the attacks in Syria must stop.” Associated Press: FBI Head: Extremism Apparent Influence In Minnesota Attack “FBI Director James Comey said Wednesday that the man who stabbed and wounded 10 people in a central Minnesota mall before he was shot and killed by an off-duty police officer appears to have been inspired, at least in part, by extremist ideology. While testifying for hours before the House Judiciary Committee in Washington, Comey was asked whether authorities had confirmed that the attack earlier this month in a mall in St. Cloud was an act of terrorism. Comey responded that the FBI is ‘still working on it,’ but that it looks like Dahir Ahmed Adan, 20, appears to have been motivated ‘by some sort of inspiration from radical Islamic groups.’ He said investigators are not yet sure which groups may have inspired Adan or how, adding that investigators still are reviewing Adan's electronics.” The Washington Post: Congress Thwarts Obama On Bill Allowing 9/11 Lawsuits Against Saudi Arabia “Congress voted to decisively overturn President Obama’s veto of a controversial 9/11 victims bill Wednesday, the first override of his presidency and a sharp setback for longtime U.S. ally Saudi Arabia. The bill clears the way for families of the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to file claims against Saudi Arabia for the kingdom’s long-rumored but unproven links to the 9/11 attackers. The Saudi government has consistently rejected those allegations. The overwhelming vote to override — 97 to 1 in the Senate and 348 to 77 in the House — reflects the extent to which Saudi influence in Washington has waned. And it comes just over a month before an election that makes it nearly impossible politically to oppose legislation long sought by thousands of aggrieved American families.” NPR: Parents Speak Out, Say FBI Arrest Saved Son On Verge Of Joining ISIS “Life changed as Sadiik Yusuf knew it about two years ago, when the FBI appeared at his front door in Minneapolis to tell him his son Abdullahi had been stopped at the airport, suspected of trying to board a flight that would take him to Syria to fight with ISIS. ‘My job has always been to drop Abdullahi off at school and to pick him up,’ Sidiik told a group of community leaders last week during a meeting at the U.S. Attorney's Office. ‘But that day, around noon there was a knock on the door. It was the FBI and I was asked if I was Abdullahi's father and the FBI agents held out a picture.’ That's how it all began for Sadiik Yusuf and his family: with a knock, a photograph, and the sudden realization that their son, now 20, was being lured to Syria by a shadowy group few at the time realized was targeting young Muslims in Minneapolis.” Times Of Israel: Hamas Calls For ‘Day Of Rage’ During Peres Funeral “The Hamas terror group urged Palestinians to hold a ‘Day of Rage’ on Friday, coinciding with the state funeral of former Israeli president Shimon Peres, which will be held in Jerusalem on that day. The call is meant to mark the one-year anniversary of the beginning of a wave of terror attacks, including stabbings and car-rammings throughout the West Bank and in Jerusalem, that launched in September 2015. Hamas’s call follows a Wednesday statement by the group’s spokesman in Gaza that expressed happiness at Peres’s death. A spokesman for the group, Sami Abu Zuhri, told AP on Wednesday that ‘the Palestinian people are very happy at the passing of this criminal who caused their blood to shed.’ He added, ‘Shimon Peres was the last remaining Israeli official who founded the occupation, and his death is the end of a phase in the history of this occupation and the beginning of a new phase of weakness.’” CNN: The Iraqi Housewife Who Cooked The Heads Of ISIS Fighters “Shut up and stay still,” the woman in black fatigues and a black headscarf snapped over her shoulder at the armed men behind her as she sat down for an interview. Immediately they went quiet, each adjusting his weapon and standing up straight as if he'd been called to attention. This is a woman who commands respect, I thought. She keeps a Beretta 9-millimeter pistol in a holster under her left arm. The area around the trigger was silver where the paint had worn off.” RT: ISIS Shares Information Of Belgian Military To 300 Contacts In Europe - Reports “The Islamic State’s (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) infamous French speaker, Rachid Kassim, was found distributing details, including pictures, of several Belgian soldiers to hundreds of his contacts in what authorities believed to be an incitement to terrorism. According to the Belgian La Dernière Heure and Het Laatste Nieuws newspapers, Kassim sent the information to his network of around 300 people through the encrypted messaging service Telegram. The message, entitled ‘orders to brothers of Belgium,’ also included soldiers’ details taken from their social networks. The authorities requested that the media refrain for 24 hours from publishing the sensitive information. A Belgian Ministry of Defense spokesperson confirmed that a ‘very serious’ inquiry was now taking place and ‘being closely monitored by army intelligence services.’” Voice Of America: Iranian Kurds Bolster Anti-IS Forces In Iraq, Syria “Hundreds of Iranian Kurds are bolstering Kurdish forces in Syria and Iraq as volunteers in the fight against the Islamic State, according to fighters and Kurdish sources in Iraq and Syria. ‘I decided to come to Syria to help my Kurdish brethren fight (IS),’ said Iranian Kurd Zanyar Rafaat, who joined the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Unit (YPG) after IS began a major onslaught on a Kurdish enclave in northern Syria in 2014. Rafaat, 27, still fights with YPG to combat what he calls ‘Kurdish oppression’ by the Islamic State. Thousands of volunteers from many nations – among them, Americans and Europeans — have been supplementing Kurdish forces over the past two years. Kurds train them, provide weapons and house and feed these volunteers. Several of them, including an American from Maryland, have died in battle.” Reuters: Turkey To Complete Syria Border Wall Within 5 Months, Official Says “A concrete wall being built to stop illegal crossings along the length of Turkey's 900-km (560-mile) border with Syria will be finished by the end of February, an official at a Turkish state institution with knowledge of the project said on Wednesday. Ankara has long been under pressure from its NATO allies to seal off the border with Islamic State-controlled territory in Syria and is also concerned by the presence of the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, which controls most of its Syrian border. Construction on a border wall to combat smuggling and illegal migration started as early as 2014 even as Turkey maintained an open-border policy that has seen nearly 3 million Syrians seek refuge in the country. ‘Construction will be completed within five months,’ the official told Reuters, declining to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the media.” Reuters: Hunger 'Deadlier Than Violence' In Boko Haram-Hit Northeast Nigeria “Living conditions for people uprooted by Boko Haram violence and seeking refuge in camps and towns across northeast Nigeria are more deadly than the conflict between the Islamist militants and the army, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said on Wednesday. Hunger and malnutrition is widespread among the displaced in Borno State, not just in remote, previously inaccessible areas, but also in the capital Maiduguri, the medical aid group said. Coordination of relief efforts must be drastically improved and food aid urgently delivered to people in need across Borno, where the humanitarian situation is reaching ‘catastrophic levels’, said MSF emergency program manager Natalie Roberts.” United States Reuters: U.S. Weighs Tougher Response To Russia Over Syria Crisis: Officials “Obama administration officials have begun considering tougher responses to the Russian-backed Syrian government assault on Aleppo, including military options, as rising tensions with Moscow diminish hopes for diplomatic solutions from the Middle East to Ukraine and cyberspace, U.S. officials said on Wednesday. The new discussions were being held at ‘staff level,’ and have yet to produce any recommendations to President Barack Obama, who has resisted ordering military action against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the country's multisided civil war. But the deliberations coincide with Secretary of State John Kerry threatening to halt diplomacy with Russia on Syria and holding Moscow responsible for dropping incendiary bombs on rebel areas of Aleppo, Syria’s largest city. It was the stiffest U.S. warning to the Russians since the Sept. 19 collapse of a truce they jointly brokered.” Reuters: U.S. Has Discussed Non-Diplomatic Responses To Syria Violence: State Department “The U.S. administration has discussed non-diplomatic options to respond to the violence in Syria after the collapse of a U.S.-backed ceasefire, a State Department spokesman said on Wednesday, but he declined to say what the options might be. State Department spokesman John Kirby said U.S. officials involved in the interagency process that deals with national security had discussed other options ‘that don't revolve around diplomacy’ to address the situation in Syria. Kirby also said Russia had an interest in stopping the violence in Syria because extremists could exploit the vacuum to attack Russian interests or Russian cities.” The Daily Caller: FBI Director Warns Of A ‘Terrorist Diaspora’ That Will Soon Hit The US “The impending collapse of the Islamic State will lead to a flood of hardened terrorists returning to their home countries in Europe and the U.S., the director of the FBI warned Tuesday. ‘There will be a terrorist diaspora sometime in the next two to five years like we’ve never seen before,’ FBI Director James Comey told the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs during his testimony. U.S. and Iraqi forces, along with other members of Operation Inherent Resolve, have rolled back the ISIS ‘parent tumor’ territory in Syria and Iraq in recent months, but that fact has not stopped the group from coordinating and inspiring terrorist attacks abroad. The U.S. fell victim to two such attacks Sept. 17, with a series of bombings rocking the New York metropolitan area and a knife attack on a mall in St. Paul, Minn.” Reuters: U.S. Strike On Islamic State In Afghanistan Kills 21, Maybe Some Civilians “A suspected U.S. drone strike against Islamic State in Afghanistan killed at least 21 people on Wednesday, most of them militants but possibly including some civilians, Afghan officials said. Civilians casualties in U.S. air strikes have long been a source of friction between the Afghan government and Western allies fighting the Taliban-led insurgency since 2001. The strike in Nangarhar province, on the eastern border with Pakistan, killed 21 people, at least three of them civilians, and wounded another 11, according to Malem Mashooq, the governor of Achin district where the attack occurred. Provincial police spokesman Hazrat Hussain Mashriqiwal said several Islamic State leaders had been killed, but he denied there were any noncombatants among the victims.” NPR: The U.S. Is Sending 600 More Troops To Iraq “U.S Secretary of Defense Ash Carter said the U.S. has agreed to send an additional 600 troops to Iraq, in anticipation of the major upcoming operation to retake the Islamic State-held city of Mosul. These additional troops ‘will increase the number of U.S. forces in Iraq to around 5,000,’ NPR's Tom Bowman told our Newscast unit. American troop levels in Iraq peaked at 170,000 in November 2007. Carter said the U.S. and Iraqi governments ‘have agreed that additional U.S. and coalition capabilities could help accelerate the campaign at this critical phase.’ As Tom reported, ‘the White House has insisted that the American troops are not in a combat role. But some of the U.S. troops in Iraq are special operators, who accompany Iraqi troops on combat missions.’ Two Americans have been killed in the country this year, Tom added.” Fox News: Obama Expected To Extend Airstrikes Against ISIS In Libya Another Month “President Obama is expected to extend the bombing campaign against the Islamic State (ISIS) in Libya for a second time, three U.S. military officials with knowledge of the request tell Fox News. The decision authorizes the U.S. military to launch a third month of airstrikes against ISIS in the Libyan coastal city of Sirte. Airstrikes began Aug. 1 following a request from the Uited Nations-backed government in Tripoli. At the time, the Pentagon said the Libya mission would likely last ‘weeks, not months.’ Extending the bombing campaign for another month in Libya means the Navy will have to keep two warships off the coast of Libya for up to a third consecutive month, according to defense officials. The initial plan called for the two warships to remain off Libya for one month only.” Syria Reuters: Syrian National Coalition: Political Solution 'No Longer Viable Option' In Syria “The opposition Syrian National Coalition (SNC) said on Wednesday a political solution was ‘no longer a viable option’ for the Syrian conflict. ‘The armed Syrian opposition will be considering all options to defend the Syrian people against the Russian aggression on Syria,’ Muwaffaq Nyrabiya, vice-president of the Turkey-based SNC, said in a statement. ‘The armed and political oppositions are working on closing ranks and arranging their priorities in light of the fierce military campaign waged by the regime and its allies and their violations of international resolutions,’ the statement said. His comments came amid heavy bombardment of the besieged eastern part of Aleppo city where the humanitarian situation is rapidly deteriorating.” Reuters: Warplanes Knock Out Aleppo Hospitals As Russian-Backed Assault Intensifies “Russian or Syrian warplanes knocked two hospitals out of service in the besieged rebel sector of Aleppo on Wednesday and ground forces intensified an assault in a battle which the United Nations said had made the city worse than a slaughterhouse. Two patients died in one of the hospitals and other shelling killed six residents queuing for bread under a siege that has trapped 250,000 people with food running out. The week-old assault, which could herald a turning point in the war, has already killed hundreds of people, with bunker-busting bombs bringing down buildings on residents huddled inside. Only about 30 doctors are believed to be left inside the besieged zone, coping with hundreds of wounded a day.” Reuters: Russia Says U.S. Syria Statement Shows Washington Supports Terrorism “Russia is outraged by the threatening tone of the latest U.S. statement on Syria, viewing it as tantamount to supporting terrorism, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Thursday, according to Russian news agencies. Ryabkov was referring to a statement made by U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby who said on Wednesday that Russia had an interest in stopping the violence in Syria because extremists could exploit the vacuum there and launch attacks ‘against Russian interests, perhaps even Russian cities. We cannot interpret this as anything else apart from the current U.S. administration's de facto support for terrorism,’ Ryabkov was quoted as saying. ‘These thinly disguised invitations to use terrorism as a weapon against Russia show the political depths the current U.S. administration has stooped to in its approach to the Middle East and specifically to Syria.’” CBS News: Aleppo “Slaughterhouse”: 96 Kids Killed In 5 Days, Hospitals Flattened, Syrian Activists Say “Government shelling and airstrikes in Syria’s Aleppo landed near a bread distribution center and two hospitals Wednesday, killing seven people and putting at least one of the medical facilities completely out of service, activists and medics said. The U.N. children’s agency said Wednesday that at least 96 children have been killed and more than 220 wounded in eastern Aleppo over the last five days, in what is proving to be one of the deadliest moments for civilians in Syria’s five-year-old civil war. UNICEF deputy executive director Justin Forsyth said the military onslaught has left children ‘trapped in a living nightmare,’ adding that the shock and suffering among children ‘is definitely the worst we have seen.’ U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon described the conditions in eastern, rebel-held Aleppo as worse than a “slaughterhouse” at a Security Council meeting.” Iraq Reuters: Food Aid Reaches Besieged Iraqi Town For First Time In Two Years: U.N. Agency “Food aid has reached families in the northern Iraqi town of Shirqat for the first time since its capture by Islamic State militants more than two years ago, the World Food Programme (WFP) said on Wednesday. The Iraqi military retook Shirqat district last week, after surrounding it for months. Tens of thousands of civilians were thought to have been trapped in the town and nearby villages since 2014. WFP said they have been living under ‘very harsh conditions’, struggling to access water, food, medical services and local markets. ‘Families in Shirqat are in desperate need of humanitarian support after being cut off from the outside world for more than two years,’ said Sally Haydock, WFP's country director in Iraq. The U.N. agency has distributed rice, lentils, wheat flour, bulgur wheat, beans and vegetable oil for an initial 1,000 people, through its partner Muslim Aid.” Turkey Bloomberg: Turkey Risks Kurdish War On Two Fronts As Army Advances In Syria “Mustafa Denktas had twin sons. One of them, a Kurdish militant, was killed fighting the Turkish army in 2012. Denktas was still in mourning when news arrived three weeks later that the other son had met the same fate. Back then Turkey’s war with separatist Kurds, however bloody and protracted, was essentially a domestic issue. Now it’s an international conflict. When President Recep Tayyip Erdogan sent his army into Syria last month, he wasn’t just striking a blow against Islamic State: a second goal was to stop Kurds from creating a de facto state. That’s the element of Erdogan’s Syrian gambit that poses the biggest political risks. It threatens to ensnare his soldiers in a civil war that’s already lasted 5 1/2 years, and drive a wedge between Turkey and its NATO allies -- especially the U.S., which considers the Syrian Kurds an ally against Islamic extremists.” Reuters: Kurdish Militants Kill Three Turkish Militia Members: Sources “Kurdish militants killed three members of a state-backed militia in a firefight in southeastern Turkey on Thursday, security sources said. Members of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) fired on a ‘village guard’ unit patrolling a rural area of Hakkari province, which borders Iraq and Iran, the sources said. Village guards are local residents who are armed and funded by the state and sometimes fight alongside security forces in their battle against the autonomy-seeking PKK, which took up arms in 1984. A ceasefire in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast collapsed last year, and thousand of rebels, soldiers and police and civilians have died in the ensuing violence.” The Wall Street Journal: EU Migrant Deal With Turkey Largely Working, European Commission Says “The European Union’s deal with Turkey to prevent large flows of migrants entering the bloc continues to work, but Greece still has to do more to improve reception facilities for asylum seekers, the EU’s executive arm said Wednesday. In a set of reports on the bloc’s migration policy, the European Commission said that the ‘sharp and continued decrease of people crossing irregularly or losing their lives in the Aegean’ proves that the deal, struck in March between the EU and Turkey, is working. On average, some 85 people arrived every day since June, in comparison to over 1,700 a day in the month before the deal and 7,000 a day in October 2015.” Afghanistan Reuters: Mother, Brother Of NYC Bomb Suspect Held In Afghanistan: Report “The mother and a brother of New York City bombing suspect Ahmad Rahami have been detained in Afghanistan after trying to return to the United States and being taken off a flight, the suspect's father told ABC News. The father, Mohammad Rahami, said in an interview published on ABC's website on Wednesday that his wife, Najiba, and another of his sons, Qassim, were in Dubai when they were pulled from a flight and questioned for 16 hours by authorities there. Authorities then sent them to Kabul, he said. ‘Why send my son back to Afghanistan? He is a U.S. citizen. You have any questions? Bring him home, [don't] send him to a different country,’ Mohammad Rahami said of Qassim. Reuters could not immediately confirm that the two were being held.” The Washington Post: Afghanistan’s Shaky National Unity Government Approaches Its Second Anniversary “Afghanistan’s national unity government, which will complete two troubled years in power Thursday, has set aside its internal differences and prepared an upbeat report of its achievements and goals to present to international donors in Brussels next week, hoping to secure their renewed commitment to long-term support. By highlighting their efforts to combat public corruption and waste, and outlining a five-year plan to develop agriculture, private investment and regional ties, President Ashraf Ghani and his aides hope to prove that Kabul deserves the trust of a skeptical world community that has paid Afghanistan’s bills for the past 14 years. Abdullah Abdullah, Ghani’s governing partner and chief executive, has embraced the initiative and dropped the sharp public criticism he leveled last month at Ghani, calling him ‘unfit’ to lead. This week, Abdullah said that the government will remain ‘legitimate’ after the two-year power-sharing agreement expires Thursday, and that it will continue for Ghani’s full five-year presidential term.” The New York Times: Airstrike In Eastern Afghanistan Kills At Least 13 “At least 13 people were killed by an airstrike in the eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar on Wednesday, with officials describing the victims as members of the Islamic State, while some residents claimed the dead were civilians. A United States military spokesman, Brig. Gen. Charles H. Cleveland, said that a ‘counterterrorism airstrike’ had taken place in the area on Wednesday but that he could not discuss details. He added that the military ‘takes all allegations of civilian casualties very seriously’ and that a review of the strike was underway. Afghan officials said the victims of the strike, in the Achin district, were members of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL. The district has long been a hotbed of Islamic State activity, one of the few in Afghanistan.” Yemen Reuters: Yemen's Houthis Must Disband Militias Under Any Peace Deal: Saudi-Led Coalition “A Saudi-led coalition will not accept a Yemeni peace deal unless it requires the Houthi movement to disband its armed wing, a spokesman said on Wednesday, in effect rebuffing an offer by the Iran-allied group for a truce made three days earlier. The Arab alliance has been fighting the Houthis in Yemen since March 2015 after the group took over the capital Sanaa and forced the internationally-recognized President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi into exile. The war has killed at least 10,000 people and has pushed impoverished Yemen towards famine. On Sunday a top Houthi official offered to stop attacks on Saudi Arabia and an amnesty for Yemeni fighters opposing the group if the kingdom stopped air strikes and lifted a near blockade.” Saudi Arabia Associated Press: Saudi Arabia Has Ways To Hit Back At 9/11 Lawsuit Effort “Saudi Arabia and its allies are warning that U.S. legislation allowing the kingdom to be sued for the 9/11 attacks will have negative repercussions. The kingdom maintains an arsenal of tools to retaliate with, including curtailing official contacts, pulling billions of dollars from the U.S. economy, and persuading its close allies in the Gulf Cooperation Council to scale back counterterrorism cooperation, investments and U.S. access to important regional air bases. ‘This should be clear to America and to the rest of the world: When one GCC state is targeted unfairly, the others stand around it,’ said Abdulkhaleq Abdullah, an Emirati Gulf specialist and professor of political science at United Arab Emirates University. ‘All the states will stand by Saudi Arabia in every way possible,’ he said.” Egypt Associated Press: Suspected IS Militants Kill 3 Police, 1 Civilian In Egypt “An Egyptian police statement says three policemen and a civilian have been shot dead by suspected Islamic State group militants who ambushed their taxi in the coastal city of el-Arish in the Sinai Peninsula. The statement by the el-Arish police headquarters says three militants riding a car cut off the taxi, got out and sprayed the three policemen and the driver with gunfire before fleeing the scene. The driver was seriously wounded and later died in hospital. Wednesday's attack is the latest in a war of attrition waged by militants led by an Islamic State group affiliate in the turbulent north of Sinai, where security forces have battled insurgents for years. The insurgency by Islamic militants in Sinai grew deadlier after the 2013 ouster of an Islamic president, Mohammed Morsi.” Associated Press: Egypt Sentences 40 Suspected IS Members To Life In Prison “An Egyptian court has sentenced 40 people to life in prison over alleged ties to the Islamic State group and for helping recruit youth to join the extremists in Syria and Iraq. The Criminal Court of Zagazig issued its verdict on Wednesday against the alleged militants, who were also convicted of plotting attacks against the police and Christians. Twenty of the suspects were sentenced in absentia. Prosecutors say the group's alleged ringleaders were arrested at Cairo international airport on their way to Syria through Turkey, and later gave detailed confessions. Rights groups have accused the Egyptian authorities of using torture and physical abuse to extract confessions.” CNN: Children Among More Than 200 Bodies Recovered From Capsized Migrant Boat “A total of 204 bodies have been recovered from the migrant boat that capsized off the coast of Egypt last week, a local official was quoted by state media as saying. Ali Abelsattar said 33 people, including the body of a four-year-old boy, were recovered from the Mediterranean Sea on Tuesday. The vessel had set off from Egypt carrying around 450 people and was heading for Italy when it overturned last Wednesday 12 nautical miles northeast of Rashid -- also known as Rosetta -- in El Beheira governorate. Many of those on board were from Egypt, Eritrea and Somalia, according to survivors. The Egyptian military has regularly announced efforts to combat illegal immigration.” Deutsche Welle: Will Security Deals With Egypt Ignore Torture, Human Rights Abuses? “Human Rights Watch published an 80-page report on Wednesday detailing the torture of prisoners, many of them political, in Egypt's Scorpion Prison. It said inmates are confined in overcrowded cells without beds, not allowed to see their families and subjected to physical beatings and mental abuse. The report echoes a similar study published by Amnesty International in July. And independent journalists like Cairo-based Sofian Naceur confirm to DW that conditions in Egyptian jails are ‘catastrophic.’ Despite the reports by rights groups detailing abuses in Egypt, the German and Egyptian interior ministries have been negotiating a security cooperation agreement since 2014. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has also recently floated the idea of a deal between the EU and Egypt, along the lines of the pact reached by the bloc and Turkey, to stem the number of refugees trying to enter Europe.” Middle East NBC News: Peres' Funeral Presents Huge Challenge For Security Conscious Israel “Security officials will face one of the most challenging events of recent years when a host of world leaders descend on Jerusalem for the funeral of Shimon Peres on Friday. President Barack Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau are expected to attend, while Bill Clinton and the U.K.'s Prince Charles have already confirmed they will be among the mourners. The sheer number of guests combined with Israel's tense security situation presents a daunting task for security officials — but Israel is up to the challenge, according to experts. ‘They will have had time to go through every possible contingency and every possible plan with every leader attending,’ according to Christopher Hagon, who was personal protection officer to Britain's Queen Elizabeth in the 1980s. ‘The Israelis will be working with the security details of every world leader who is going.’” USA Today: French Jews Feel They Can Give Their Children A Better Future In Israel “The number of French Jews immigrating to Israel rose from 1,900 in 2011 to nearly 8,000 last year, said Jacques Canet, president of La Victoire, the great synagogue of Paris. He said the country’s 500,000 to 600,000 French Jews — the third largest Jewish population in the world — ‘feel threatened.’ ‘Increasingly, Jews in Paris, Marseilles, Toulouse, Sarcelles feel they can’t safely wear a kippah (yarmulke, or skull cap) outside their homes or send their children to public schools, where Muslim children bully Jewish children,’ Canet said. A poll by the French Institute of Public Opinion in January showed 43% of France's Jewish Community are considering a move to Israel, and 51% said they have ‘been threatened’ because they are Jewish. Those with enough money have moved to more upscale areas within France or to Canada, England or the United States, Canet said. The wealthy, staunch Zionists and those who can’t afford to send their children to private Jewish schools go to Israel.” The Washington Post: Israel Loses A Lion “With the passing of Shimon Peres, who died Wednesday at age 93, Israel suffers the loss of a lion, the last of the founding generation of leaders. Mr. Peres came to Palestine from a village in what is now Belarus when he was 12. He became a young kibbutznik, a lieutenant to founding father David Ben-Gurion, a Knesset member, a deputy defense minister, an acting prime minister, and minister of defense, foreign affairs, transportation, communications, immigrant absorption, information and finance. He was twice prime minister and, near the end, the nation’s president. Through a career that spanned this tumultuous period — through years of siege, bloodshed and building a nation — Mr. Peres never abandoned hope that, with enough sweat and tears, Israel would live in peace.” Libya The Washington Times: Libya Once Again Braces For Chaos As Islamic State Retreats “The last holdouts of the jihadi group are clinging to a square half-mile area of this strategic coastal city, the Islamic State group’s ‘capital’ in Libya and once its most formidable outpost outside of its base in Syria and Iraq. Misrata fighters, part of the U.N.-backed Government of National Accord Forces, continue to make advances against the surrounded group. Although the GNA forces expect to capture Sirte within the next month, the Misrata fighters say they are bracing for a wider war over who will rule Libya. U.N. officials and private analysts anticipate that clash soon and are not sure Libya, as a functioning state, can survive it.”  United Kingdom The Guardian: ISIS Supporter Anjem Choudary Seeks Appeal Against Terror Conviction “The extremist preacher Anjem Choudary has applied for permission to appeal against his conviction for drumming up support for Islamic State. Choudary, 49, was jailed for five and a half years this month after posting a series of talks on YouTube in which he urged Muslims to support the terrorist group and argued that a caliphate had been created in June 2014. He finally fell foul of the law after spending two decades as a thorn in the side of British authorities. A string of former supporters went on to be convicted of terrorism. The judicial office confirmed that Choudary had applied for permission to appeal.” The Guardian: Academics Criticise Anti-Radicalisation Strategy In Open Letter “Confidential research used by the government as the basis for identifying radicalisation in the controversial Prevent programme relies on flawed science, a group of academics has claimed. The study, conducted by psychologists at the prison service, identified 22 ‘risk factors’ for gauging whether individuals are vulnerable to engaging with terrorist groups or posing a security risk. The risk factors, which have become known as the Extremism Risk Guidance 22+, form the basis for the ‘vulnerability assessment framework’ carried out under Channel, a strand of the Prevent programme that aims to identify and engage with people believed to be at risk of radicalisation. Referrals to Channel can come from teachers, social workers, healthcare workers and police. Last year, nearly 4,000 people were referred for assessment, including children younger than nine.” Germany BBC: Berlin Refugee Shot Dead In German Knife Drama “A 29-year-old refugee has been shot dead by police after a row at a Berlin asylum centre involving claims that his daughter had been sexually abused. Police were called to the shelter in the Moabit area amid reports that the girl had been abused in a nearby park. A suspect aged 27 had just been put in a police car in handcuffs when the girl's father is said to have lunged at him with a knife. Witnesses said the father had shouted out: ‘You won't survive this.’ Police responded by opening fire and the man, of Iraqi origin, was taken to hospital where he later died. Witnesses reported hearing two or three shots. An investigation into the shooting will be carried out by Berlin police's homicide division.” Deutsche Welle: German Woman And Baby Kidnapped In Syria Are Freed “A woman who gave birth while reportedly being held captive by Islamist fighters in Syria has been freed, the foreign ministry says. It is unclear whether the woman is a freelance journalist who disappeared last October. The mother and child are in good condition following their release on Wednesday, the ministry said in a statement. It added that the pair, who were not identified, were safely under the care of German consular officials in Turkey. ‘The German citizen and her child are doing well, under the circumstances,’ a spokesperson for the foreign ministry told the German news agency dpa. The spokesperson said a unit of the federal government had ‘made considerable efforts to solve the case.’ Embassy officials were helping the woman and toddler to prepare to return to Germany.” Europe Daily Caller: Five ISIS Operatives Across Three Countries Busted In Euro Terror Cell “Five suspected Islamic State operatives were arrested in Spain, Belgium, and Germany, which could represent the tip of the iceberg for ISIS’s European network. Four of the detained men were Spanish citizens, and the other was from Morocco. The five men were not discrete, using a Facebook page (Islam En Espanol) with 32,000 followers to disseminate ISIS propaganda. Spanish authorities accuse the group of commissioning attacks, radicalizing other youth, and acting as facilitators for other terrorists across Europe. The shared nationality of the group, and their dispersion across Europe represent a troubling security challenge for European counter-terrorism authorities.” Sputnik: EU Security Services Need to Prioritize Surveillance of Returning Daesh Fighters “Monitoring the flow of fighters returning to Europe after fighting alongside Daesh should become one of the most important tasks for the European intelligence agencies in the nearest future, August Hanning, former head of the German Federal Intelligence Service (BND), told Sputnik on Wednesday. On Tuesday, FBI Director James Comey told the US Senate Committee on Homeland Security that the United States and Europe would face in the next two-to-five years an exodus of terrorists returning from fighting alongside Daesh when the terror group is defeated. ‘We need to be very cautious, we need a closer surveillance of all foreign fighters returning from Syria. That is the most important task for the EU security forces. We also need a closer exchange of information with our allies to confront this threat,’ Hanning said.” Voice Of America: EU Stands By Emergency Border Checks Even As Migration Eases “The European Union's executive said Wednesday that emergency border checks introduced within Europe's passport-free travel zone by countries including Germany and Sweden to stem a migrant influx are justified even though arrival numbers have eased. In a blow to European integration, the EU partly suspended the Schengen Area arrangement as member states were overwhelmed by the arrival of 1.3 million refugees and migrants in 2015. ‘The border controls have been necessary,’ said EU Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos. ‘The current controls remain within the conditions set by the Schengen rules.’ He said, however, this did not mean the five states, which also include Norway, Denmark and Austria, would be allowed to extend the measures once they expire Nov. 12.” RT: ‘Terrorists Need To Be Lucky Once, Intelligence Has To Be Lucky Always’ “Despite the great deal of work intelligence and security agencies are doing to counter terrorism, luck is also a big factor when it comes to providing the safety of our countries, says Chris Hunter, a retired British Army bomb disposal officer. A leading EU security official has warned Islamic State could be about to change its style of terror in Europe, possibly involving chemical weapons. ‘We’ve seen a number of incidents where terrorists, especially the lone-wolf terrorists basically have been off the radar, they’ve not got previous backgrounds or not enough criminal background or links with other terrorists to warrant persistent surveillance.’” Technology International Business Times: Dark Web Cybercrime Services Could Be Used By Terrorists To Attack Europe, Warns Europol “Sophisticated hackers providing ‘crime-as-a-service’ are increasingly turning to the Dark Web to offer their skills and hacking products to the highest bidder, while a drive towards this shady – and often anonymous – underground world could leave Europe at heightened risk of terror attacks. That's one of the major findings from Europol, the top law enforcement agency that collects intelligence and combats crime and terrorism across countries in the European Union. In its 2016 Internet Organised Crime Threat Assessment (IOCTA), the agency revealed a number of alarming findings. The spike in terrorist activity online has been defined by groups such as the Islamic State (Isis/Daesh) which routinely spread propaganda via clear-net social media channels such as Facebook and Twitter. Meanwhile, the group has also used the web to disseminate so-called ‘kill lists’ on a number of occasions.” ISIS Iraq Akhbar: ISIS Loses Its Last Oil Well In Iraq “The Iraqi Ministry of Oil on Wednesday said that the ISIS terrorists are no longer in control of any oil wells in Iraq after being expelled by security forces last week from an area near Kirkuk. Iraqi security forces, backed by the international coalition, managed to defeat the terrorists and expel ISIS from Al Shirqat last Thursday. Last month, ISIS lost al-Qayyarah oil field south of Mosul, which Iraqi forces managed to restore control as part of a northward offensive aimed at liberating Mosul.” ARA News: Syria: ISIS Prevents Civilians From Buying Boats In Rural Areas Of Deir Al-Zour “The Islamic State organization, on Wednesday, banned residents of the town of Alhawwaij and the city of Mayadeen, situated in the rural areas of Deir al-Zour, from purchasing boats to cross the Euphrates River. The organization seized the boats to be used as ferries owned by its militants, and imposed a fee on anyone wishing to cross the Euphrates River. Media activist Samer el-Khalaf said, "The organization informed civilians on both banks of the Euphrates River that they are forbidden from buying boats, since the organization got its hands on all the boats, placed its militants on them [and designated them] to serve as ferries for transporting civilians from the Alhawwaij bank in the Al-Jazira region to the Mayadeen bank in the vicinity of Al Shamia. The organization has imposed a fee of 50 Syrian pounds ($ 0.25) on each passenger.” Muslim Brotherhood Elfagr: Expert: Muslim Brotherhood Has Always Focused On Infiltrating Media And Education “Tharwat el-Kherbawy, former Muslim Brotherhood member and currently a researcher of Islamic groups, asserted that the state does not control all of the Brotherhood schools {in Egypt}. He noted that the daughters of Muslim Brotherhood Deputy Supreme Guide Khayrat al-Shater are still in control of many schools' educational activities, despite being subject to the Muslim Brotherhood Asset Freeze Committee. He underscored the need for tighter controls [and oversight] of the educational process in Brotherhood schools. El-Kherbawy claimed that a Brotherhood leader named Abdul Salam Bashandi had obtained housing units in a raffle initiated by the {Egyptian} Ministry of Housing, which confirms [suspicions] that the ministry has been infiltrated. In addition, there are other state agencies that have been infiltrated including {Cairo's} Maspero district (location of the Egyptian Radio and Television Union headquarters). El-Kherbawy stressed: "The Brotherhood has always focused on penetrating the media and education.” Albawabh News: Source: Muslim Brotherhood Mosques In Austria Recruit Young People “Bahgat al-Bibah, head of the Islamic Center in Austria, disclosed {important} information concerning the Muslim Brotherhood's mosques on Austrian soil. He said, "Brotherhood mosques in Austria, like other Brotherhood mosques in {other parts of} the European continent, have been working on attracting new recruits, especially from the younger generation. This is being done through various activities and events, mainly teaching Arabic, the memorization of the Koran and the teaching of religion. Then come the social activities, including tours which, like the educational activities, are exploited to promote the group's ideology and principles in the hearts of young people." He continued, "The Austrian State has identified these trends and adopted legislation to prevent foreign funding for Islamic associations in Austria. This is one of the mechanisms [being employed] to control the role played by Turkey – a Brotherhood role – inside the Austrian Muslim community.” Houthi Abarah Press: Houthis Compel Telecom Operators To Send Messages Urging Donations To Central Bank Of Yemen “The Houthi group continues to compel telecommunications companies to send text messages calling for donations to the Central Bank of Yemen, following an initiative launched by the group's leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi. Citizens complained about receiving a huge number of SMSs calling on them to donate 50 riyals ($ 0.25), 500 riyals ($ 2.3) or 1000 riyals ($ 4.6) to the Bank. This comes after the Houthi group [already] exhausted the money belonging to Central Bank employees to finance their wars.”