Eye on Extremism December 5, 2016

Eye on Extremism December 5, 2016 Bloomberg: ISIS Victim Suit Ties Twitter Ads to Terrorist Propaganda “The family of a woman slain in the 2015 Paris attacks claims in a lawsuit that Twitter Inc., Facebook Inc. and Google profit from targeted advertising linked to terrorist propaganda promoting violence. The case is one of several complaints in U.S. courts alleging that the social media giants have played crucial roles in the growth of terrorist organizations in recent years. The biggest hurdle facing such claims is a federal law that insulates publishers from liability for the speech of others. The family of Nohemi Gonzalez, who was fatally shot in the Paris attacks, said Friday in a revised version of a lawsuit initially filed in June that the companies created “original content” by tying advertisements to ISIS-supported posts and generating revenue from them.” The Guardian: The Battle For Mosul Stalls: 'We Are Fighting The Devil Himself' “Heaving on a huge, scorched metal door and covered in engine oil, Sgt Hussein Mahmoud was deep into a morning’s work. Twisted hulks of wrecked army vehicles sat incongruously in the coarse dust that was kicked up by still-moving trucks as they crept around Mosul’s urban fringe. Two other soldiers with industrial wrenches joined in, trying in vain to dislodge the door from its hinges. “We need it for humvees that still work,” said one of them. “We’re under pressure to provide them with parts.” Impromptu salvage yards have appeared all around the Gogali neighbourhood in Mosul’s outer east, the immediate hinterland of the war with Islamic State and the most visible reminder of how destructive, difficult – and long – this fight is likely to be.” The Wall Street Journal: U.S. Syria Policy At Crossroads As Rebels Falter “Steep losses by antiregime rebels in Syria have scrambled U.S. policy calculations at a crucial moment in the country’s long-running war, with the election of Donald Trump already pointing to the possibility of a dramatic shift when he takes office in January. Mr. Trump hasn't detailed his plans for Syria, but has outlined a likely break from the Obama administration, which has supplied small amounts of arms and funding to militias attempting to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad and has separately fought the Islamic State extremist group. The recent gains by Mr. Assad’s forces have added impetus to calls among some of Mr. Trump’s closest advisers, as well as other top U.S. strategists, to cut back on support for the Syrian opposition.” Daily Beast: How ISIS Returned To Syria “In the spring of 2012, hundreds of militant Islamists crossed into eastern Syria from Iraq under the eyes of the Assad regime’s extensive security apparatus. As they arrived, Syrian intelligence services received two sets of instructions. One was in writing, and contained the names and details of the jihadists, along with the instruction to “arrest and kill them.” But that was the cover story. Even as it circulated a “kill” order, the regime sent out official messengers to convey the opposite message. “They came from command headquarters and held meetings of the intelligence offices,” said Mahmoud al Nasr, a former intelligence official in northern Syria who defected in October 2012. ‘They told us: ‘stay away from them. Don’t touch them.’” ABC News: Death Toll From Last Month's IS Bombing In Iraq Rises To 92 “Iraqi officials say the death toll from a Nov. 24 suicide bombing claimed by the Islamic State group has risen to 92, including about 40 Iranians. The hospital and police officials said Saturday that another 105 people were wounded in the bombing at a gas station near the city of Hilla, south of Baghdad. The latest death toll is an increase by 19 over the figure announced by officials a day after the attack, which targeted Shiite pilgrims returning home after marking a major religious occasion in the holy city of Karbala. The officials attributed the rise in the death toll to the completion of the identification of bodies burnt beyond recognition. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.” Daily Caller: ISIS Prepares To Retreat To Its Desert Fortress After Capital Cities Fall “Islamic State leaders are preparing to retreat to their fortress in the desert border regions between Syria and Iraq pending the loss of the group’s capital cities in both countries. U.S.-backed Operation Inherent resolve forces are in the midst of retaking Mosul, Iraq’s second city and ISIS’s de facto Iraqi capital. Meanwhile, Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) are besieging Raqqa, the ISIS capital in Syria. The pending loss of both cities has forced ISIS to resort to a backup plan: a coordinated retreat to the Iraqi-Syrian border region, known as Wilayat al-Furat, or Euphrates province." The Times Of Israel: Dutch Police Arrest Jihadists Who Planned Synagogue Attack “Dutch police arrested several suspects in connection with jihadists’ unrealized plan to attack a synagogue in the country’s capital city a year ago, a local daily revealed. The main suspect belonging to the ring, which is connected to Amsterdam’s Arrayan Sunni mosque, is a man in his 40s of Moroccan descent with a goatee and a receding hairline who possesses considerable knowledge of Islamic writings and drives a white Audi, according to a police document obtained last month by the Telegraaf daily. The Dutch police’s TCI counterterrorism unit has been monitoring the suspect for month in connection with his alleged plans to strike, with accomplices, a synagogue in southern Amsterdam last January, according to the Telegraaf report.” Reuters: Iran Vows 'Firm Response' Unless Obama Stops Sanctions Renewal “Iranian President Hassan Rouhani demanded on Sunday that Barack Obama block an extension of sanctions passed by the U.S. Congress, saying Tehran would otherwise "firmly respond". In a speech to parliament, Rouhani denounced legislation passed by the U.S. Congress to extend the Iran Sanctions Act (ISA) for 10 years as a violation of Tehran's nuclear deal with six major powers. The deal curbs. Tehran's nuclear program in return for the lifting of international financial sanctions. "America's president is obliged to exercise his authority by preventing its approval and particularly its implementation ... and if this gross violation is carried out we will firmly respond," Rouhani said in the speech, carried live by state television.” Reuters: New Evidence Shows Deep Islamic State Role In Bangladesh Massacre “Before Tamim Ahmed Chowdhury orchestrated Bangladesh's worst militant attack, he sought and won approval for it from Islamic State. A Canadian of Bangladeshi origin, he was told by his contact in the militant group, Abu Terek Mohammad Tajuddin Kausar, to target foreigners, according to a senior police official who has seen communications between the two men. Chowdhury, located in Bangladesh at the time, proposed an attack on a Dhaka eatery frequented by expatriates. On July 1, a group of gunmen stormed the Holey Artisan café in the city's Gulshan neighbourhood, murdering 22 people, most of them foreigners, in an overnight siege that shocked the country.” Washington Post:: Found At An Islamic State Training Camp: Bunk Beds, Weapons Manuals, Steroids “The bunk beds that fill the rooms sleep more than 80 Islamic State recruits. On the walls, posters detail the components of Russian Kalashnikovs and American assault rifles. One sign reminds the trainees that victory comes from long fights and pain — rewards come later: “Remember that we didn’t come for this life, we came for the afterlife.” Spread across several large houses, the “Sheikh Abu Samaya Ansari Camp” was discovered this week by Iraqi forces as they pushed deeper into the northern city of Mosul, which Islamic State militants have been fighting bitterly to retain.” CNN: Russian Forces Kill ISIS Affiliate Cell Leader In Dagestan “The leader of a North Caucasus ISIS branch was killed in a special operation conducted by Russian Federal Security Service forces in collaboration with the Ministry of Interior, the security service said in a statement Sunday. Rustam Magomedovich Aselderov, known as Abu Muhammad, and four militants close to him were killed in an exchange of fire with government forces Saturday near Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan, the statement from the FSB said. Security forces surrounded a residence where the militants were hiding. During negotiations to surrender, the militants fired automatic weapons and government forces fired back. Officials seized automatic weapons, large quantities of ammunition and explosives from the site, the FSB said.” Los Angeles Times: In Nigeria, Schoolboys Turned Killed And Came After Their Ex-Teachers And Students “Killers came hunting their former teachers, gunning them down in their offices and in their classrooms. At the top of Boko Haram’s kill list: head teachers, examiners, primary school staff and science and geography teachers, whose curriculum contradicted the group’s flat-Earth ideology. The second lesson of the day was under way when terror came to Yagana Sanda’s school for primary and secondary students in Bama in northeastern Nigeria. Sanda ran for cover as screaming boys and girls scrambled to jump the school’s fence, some of them falling and breaking limbs.” The Atlantic: Death Of An ISIS Ideologue “Last year, the Islamic State released a training video, one of a multipart series shot in Iraq. With its scenes of foot drills, target practice, and karate chops, it would have been entirely unremarkable were it not for a short classroom scene, in which an instructor walks viewers through the ideological curriculum forced upon new recruits to the ISIS cause. As he’s shown reeling off a list of some key topics in jihadist jurisprudence, one can glimpse a thick volume resting atop each of the 20 or so schoolroom desks—a manuscript that, while few would recognize it outside of jihadist circles, is instrumental to ISIS as a theological playbook that is used to justify the group’s most abhorrent acts. Recently, a Pentagon spokesman confirmed that the obscure author of this book, Abu Abdullah al-Muhajir, had been killed in a corner of northeast Syria by an American strike. Notably, at the time of his death, he was not affiliated to ISIS but, rather, its chief ideological rival in Syria, Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (formerly Jabhat al-Nusra), a group whose orbit he entered into sometime in the last few years.” United States Reuters: Recapture Of Mosul 'Possible' Before Next U.S. Administration: Pentagon Chief “While the fight to retake the Iraqi city of Mosul from Islamic State is going to be difficult, it is ‘possible’ it could be complete before President-elect Donald Trump takes office, U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said on Monday. Some 100,000 Iraqi government troops, Kurdish security forces and mainly Shi'ite militiamen are participating in the assault on Mosul that began on Oct. 17, with air and ground support from a U.S.-led coalition. The capture of Mosul, the largest city under control of Islamic State, is seen as crucial toward dismantling the caliphate which the militants declared over parts of the Iraq and Syria in 2014.” Fox News: Defense Secretary Ash Carter Says US, Partners Need To Stay In Iraq After ISIS Defeat “The American military, along with its international partners, will need to remain in Iraq even after the expected defeat of the Islamic State group, outgoing Defense Secretary Ash Carter said Saturday. Carter said the U.S. and its coalition partners must not stop after completing the current campaign to expel ISIS from Iraq's second largest city of Mosul. He said the militants are on a path to lasting defeat. ‘But there will still be much more to do after that to make sure that, once defeated, ISIL stays defeated,’ he said, using an alternative acronym for ISIS. ‘We'll need to continue to counter foreign fighters trying to escape and ISIL's attempts to relocate or reinvent itself. To do so, not only the United States but our coalition must endure and remain engaged militarily.’” The New York Times: In Harsh Terms, Kerry Says Israel Is Undermining Peace Efforts “Secretary of State John Kerry on Sunday accused right-wing Israelis of deliberately thwarting efforts to broker a peace deal with the Palestinians. In unusually stark terms, Mr. Kerry warned that the building of Israeli settlements was undermining any hope of an agreement to allow two states to live side by side. At the Saban Forum, an annual gathering of senior Israeli and American policy makers, Mr. Kerry said some members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government had made ‘profoundly disturbing’ statements. ‘And more than 50 percent of the ministers in the current government have publicly stated they are opposed to a Palestinian state and that there will be no Palestinian state,’ Mr. Kerry said.” Syria Reuters: Rebels Defiant As Syrian Army Nears Aleppo's Old City “Syria's army and allied militia advanced towards rebel-held areas of Aleppo's Old City on Sunday in an attack which a military source predicted would be over in a matter of weeks. Western and regional states backing the rebellion against President Bashar al-Assad appear unwilling or unable to do anything to prevent a major defeat for those fighting to topple the Syrian leader, whose campaign to regain all Aleppo has been backed by the Russian air force and foreign Shi'ite militias. Rebel groups in Aleppo have told the United States they will not leave their shrinking enclave, a senior rebel official told Reuters, after Russia call for talks with Washington over a full withdrawal of opposition fighters.” Reuters: Air Strikes Kill 73 In Rebel-Held Idlib Province - War Monitor “Air strikes killed at least 73 people in rebel-held Idlib province, including 38 in the city of Maarat al-Numan, on Sunday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based group monitoring the war, reported. Russian war planes and Syrian military jets and helicopters have been conducting heavy strikes for months against rebels in Idlib, southwest of Aleppo. Insurgents had previously tried to get help and supplies to fellow rebels in the city from Idlib. The Observatory said the death toll in Maarat al-Numan included five children and six members of a single family. The bombardment included barrel bombs, improvised ordnance made from oil drums filled with explosives and dropped from helicopters, the monitor said. The Syrian military and Russia both deny using barrel bombs, whose use has been criticised by the United Nations.” The Washington Post: Fearing Abandonment By Trump, CIA-Backed Rebels In Syria Mull Alternatives “Three years after the CIA began secretly shipping lethal aid to rebels fighting against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, battlefield losses and fears that a Donald Trump administration will abandon them have left tens of thousands of opposition fighters weighing their alternatives. Among the options, say U.S. officials, regional experts and the rebels themselves, are a closer alliance with better-armed al-Qaeda and other extremist groups, receipt of more sophisticated weaponry from Sunni states in the Persian Gulf region opposed to a U.S. pullback, and adoption of more traditional guerrilla tactics, including sniper and other small-scale attacks on both Syrian and Russian targets.” BBC: Aleppo Siege: Syria Rebels Lose 50% Of Territory “Syrian government troops have gained control of 50% of rebel-held areas of east Aleppo, says a military spokesman. Gen Samir Sulaiman told the BBC he hoped all of Aleppo would be in government hands within weeks. Gen Sulaiman was speaking a day after the army seized another district, Tariq al-Bab, from the rebels opposing President Bashar al-Assad. Swathes of east Aleppo held by rebels have been seized by government troops and militiamen in the past three weeks. Earlier reports on Saturday had suggested as much as two-thirds of the rebel-held area had been recaptured. Some 250,000 people remain trapped in besieged areas of the city.” Iraq Reuters: Islamic State Strikes Back To Slow Iraqi Forces In Mosul “Islamic State fighters retreating in the face of a seven-week Iraqi military assault on their Mosul stronghold have hit back in the last two days, exploiting cloudy skies which hampered U.S.-led air support and highlighting the fragile army gains. In a series of counter-attacks since Friday night, the jihadist fighters struck elite Iraqi troops spearheading the offensive in eastern Mosul, and attacked security forces to the south and west of the city. On Sunday two militants tried to attack army barracks in the western province of Anbar. Police and army sources said the attackers were killed before they reached the base.” Associated Press: Chaos Erupts As Iraq Delivers Aid To Mosul “Chaos erupted in eastern Mosul on Sunday when hundreds of civilians overwhelmed aid trucks distributing food and water. The Iraqi government has called on Mosul's residents to stay in their homes during the operation to retake the city from the Islamic State group, hoping to avoid large-scale displacement, but as progress on the ground slows, hundreds of thousands are now stuck with dwindling food and water supplies. The Iraqi government sent truckloads of food, heating oil and drinking water to residents in areas retaken from IS on Sunday, but few of the trucks could make it to civilians trapped near front-line fighting. ‘There is no justice,’ Abu Ahmed said during a chaotic distribution in the Samah neighborhood on the eastern edge of Mosul. ‘Some people took so many bags of food and others got nothing.’ He asked that his full name not be used out of security concerns.” Associated Press: Under Dusty Fog Cover, IS Strikes Iraqi Forces Near Mosul “Under the cover of dust and fog, Islamic State group fighters launched a series of counterattacks on Iraqi positions to the south and west of the militant-held city of Mosul late Friday night and into Saturday morning, according to Iraqi military commanders and officials. The massive operation to retake Mosul was officially launched on Oct. 17, but after initially swift battlefield successes, the progress of Iraqi forces later slowed down in the face of fierce IS counterattacks and concerns over the safety of civilians still inside the city. IS has largely failed to push back Iraqi troops, but its counterattacks have inflicted high casualties on both civilians and security forces alike and, in some cases, shaken morale.” Associated Press: As Iraq's Kurds Eye Statehood, A Border Takes Shape “The sand berms and trenches that snake across northern Iraq stretch toward Syria, some accompanied by newly paved roads lit by street lamps and sprawling checkpoints decked with Kurdish flags. The fighters here insist it isn't the border of a newly independent state - but in the chaos of Iraq that could change. Construction began in 2014, when this marked the front line between U.S.-backed Kurdish forces, known as the peshmerga, and the Islamic State group, which had swept across northern Iraq that summer, routing the army and threatening the Kurdish autonomous region.” Turkey Reuters: Turkish Authorities Arrest Four Over Fire That Killed Schoolgirls “Turkish authorities arrested four people on Sunday in connection with a fire at a dormitory in the southern Adana province that killed 11 schoolgirls and one other person, state media reported. The four, who were arrested pending trial, included the manager of the dormitory and the head of an affiliated foundation, Anadolu Agency reported, citing a judiciary source. Reuters was not immediately able to reach anyone for comment at the local court. The fire in the town of Aladag on Tuesday swept through the two-storey dormitory, causing the roof to collapse. Twenty-four people, many of them schoolgirls, were injured.” Reuters: Turkish Military Kills 20 Kurdish Fighters In Hakkari, Army Says “The Turkish military killed 20 fighters from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) after they tried to attack army bases in the southeastern Hakkari province, the military said on Saturday. The fighters crossed into Turkey from northern Iraq and attempted to launch attacks on military bases in the mountainous border region, the military said, without giving further details. Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast has been rocked by violence since a 2-1/2 year ceasefire between the government and the PKK broke down in July last year. The PKK, which is designated as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the European Union and the United States, first took up arms in 1984. More than 40,000 people, most of them Kurds, have died in the fighting since.” Afghanistan Voice Of America: Afghan President: Taliban Won't Last Without Pakistan Support “Afghan President Ashraf Ghani told an international conference held in the northern Indian city of Amritsar that the Taliban insurgency in his country would not survive without support from Pakistan and called for the setting up of a fund to combat extremism. Referring to an upsurge of violence in his country by militant groups, the Afghan leader said, ‘Some still provide sanctuary in support or tolerate these networks. As Mr. (Mullah Rahmatullah) Kakazada, one of the key figures in the Taliban movement recently said if they did not have sanctuary in Pakistan, they would not last a month.’” Voice Of America: Report: Taliban Hang Afghan Student In Public “Taliban militants hanged a university student in public in a village west of Kabul after accusing him of involvement in the death of a senior Taliban official, a local government spokesman said Saturday. Abdul Rahman Mangal said Faiz ul Rahman Wardak, a fourth-year student at Kabul Polytechnic University, was hanged in Sewaka village in Chak district, 60 km (37 miles) outside the Afghan capital. He said local Taliban insurgents accused him of being involved in the assassination of a Taliban intelligence official named Mullah Mirwais.” Daily Caller: Afghanistan More Dangerous Today Than 15 Years Ago “Nearly one in five terrorist organizations in the world are based out of Afghanistan, U.S. Army Gen. John Nicholson told reporters Friday. ‘This is the highest concentration of the numbers of different groups in any area in the world,’ he elaborated. Nicholson’s comments come as the Taliban now controls more ground than at any time since the U.S. invasion in 2001. U.S. Army Gen. Joseph Votel estimated Thursday that the Taliban controls approximately 40 percent of the entire country. ‘We have to be concerned about this — about the Taliban pulling together and cooperating and collaborating with other terrorist organizations,’ Votel lamented.” Egypt Reuters: Egypt's Top Constitutional Court Upholds Law Restricting Street Protests “Egypt's Supreme Constitutional Court upheld on Saturday a law that effectively bans protests, settling a years-long court battle and protecting the law from further challenges. The law was passed in 2013 amid persistent demonstrations calling for the reinstatement of Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Mursi after the military overthrew him following mass protests against his rule. It requires would-be protesters to notify the interior ministry of any public gathering of more than 10 people at least three days in advance, imposes jail sentences of up to five years for those who violate a broad list of protest restrictions, and allows security forces to disperse illegal demonstrations with water cannons, tear gas and birdshot.” Times Of Israel: Four Gazans Killed In ‘Flooded’ Tunnel To Egypt “Four Palestinians have been found dead in a smuggling tunnel linking the Gaza Strip to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, local officials said Sunday, accusing the Egyptian military of flooding it. The four men aged 22 to 45 ‘were found dead after the tunnel they were working in was flooded nine days ago by the Egyptian army,’ local authorities in the Gazan city of Rafah near Egypt’s border said in a statement. Earlier Sunday it had been reported that two bodies had been found, while another two Palestinian men remained missing.” Jordan Reuters: In Jordan Hospital, Mental Trauma Scars Children Blown Apart By Bombs “As soon as the bombs exploded outside his house in the Iraqi town of Falluja, Rachid Jassam rushed onto the street to rescue the injured. As the teenager ran out, another plane swooped overhead and dropped more bombs, the shrapnel tearing his right leg so severely local doctors wanted to amputate it. His father refused the amputation to spare his son from a life of disability, and opted for basic surgery instead. ‘When I got injured, I didn't lose consciousness. I witnessed the whole thing when the people came and took me to the hospital. I remember everything,’ 15-year-old Jassam said through an interpreter at a Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) hospital in Amman in Jordan.” Middle East Associated Press: Hamas Radio: 3 Bodies Recovered From Flooded Gaza Tunnel “Emergency workers have recovered the bodies of three Palestinians who went missing in a smuggling tunnel between Gaza and Egypt. Search efforts were still ongoing Sunday for a fourth who is still missing. The Al-Aqsa Radio, run by Gaza's Islamist Hamas rulers, reported that the tunnel caved in after the Egyptian military flooded it with water. There was no comment from the Egyptian army, which had swamped the tunnels last year but has rarely done so in 2016. Cross-border smuggling, which kept Hamas buoyed for years, has come to a near-total halt after Egyptian forces destroyed most of the tunnels as part of its clampdown on mounting insurgency in the northern Sinai Peninsula. Hamas overtook Gaza by force in 2007 after routing troops loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.” Libya Reuters: Women, Children Leave Islamic State Holdout In Sirte: Libyan Forces “Libyan forces said at least 10 women and children left the last cluster of buildings controlled by Islamic State in the group's former stronghold of Sirte on Sunday, adding that they had edged closer to taking full control of the city. Forces led by brigades from Misrata and backed by U.S. air strikes have surrounded Islamic State fighters in a small patch of ground close to Sirte's Mediterranean sea front. Several groups of women and children, as well as male civilian captives, have either escaped or been released from the shrinking area held by Islamic State in recent weeks. The presence of civilians has complicated the effort to dislodge militants from their holdout, and several women have walked from the area only to carry out deadly suicide attacks.” United Kingdom BBC: Racial Segregation 'Growing In UK', Dame Louise Casey Warns “Segregation, deprivation and social exclusion in some areas of Britain have coincided with a growth in ‘regressive’ ideologies, a report has found. Public bodies in the UK had too often ignored or condoned divisive or harmful religious practices for fear of being called racist, the Casey Review said. Immigrants should take an ‘integration oath’ and there should be more emphasis on British values in schools, it said. Communities Secretary Sajid Javid said he would study the findings ‘closely’. Dame Louise Casey's review into the integration of minorities was commissioned by former prime minister David Cameron as part of the government's efforts to tackle extremism.” Telegraph.Co.Uk: Terror Suspect Dodges Deportation By Refusing To Reveal His Real Identity For 23 Years “A foreign-born terror suspect has won the right to stay in Britain by keeping his name secret for 23 years. The man, despite being twice ruled a threat to national security, has defeated repeated attempts to deport him by illegally keeping his true identity secret. Incredibly, the courts have even granted him anonymity even though his actual identity is not known. The man has used at least two false names, ‘Nolidoni’ and ‘Pierre Dumond’, since illegally entering the UK in 1993 and claiming asylum. Court documents refer to him only as suspect ‘B’. The Home Office first took action to deport him after the security services found that in 2000, while living in the UK, he was supporting terrorism abroad. In 2002 he was detained for three years in a British prison over allegations of terrorism.” Syria Dar Alakhbar: New Funding Sources Of The Regime's Militias In Deir Al-Zour “Arrests and acts of extortion in neighborhoods under the control of the Syrian regime forces in the city of Deir al-Zour have become a financial resource for Assad regime-affiliated militias. Militia-members obtain {ransom} money from the detainees' relatives by extorting them in exchange for their release. While militias accumulate funds, the suffering of civilians trapped in the city by the regime and ISIS for over three years, is on the rise. City activist, Amer al-Huwaidi, claims that the arrests are not carried out by militias only for the purpose of compulsory recruitment into the ranks of the {Syrian} regime forces, but also to compel young people to do forced labor in the construction of barricades and digging of trenches on the fronts with ISIS. In addition, arrests have become a constant wellspring of funding for mercenaries affiliated with the regime.” Muslim Brotherhood Veto: Egypt: Cell Charged With Financing Muslim Brotherhood “Central Cairo Prosecution's Attorney General, Wael Shebl, ordered a 15-day detention of a teacher, a veterinarian and a salesman, along with five other fugitives. They are all suspected of forming a "Motadarereen wa Takaful" (Damaged and Solidarity) cell, which is affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood. Detainees are suspected of endorsing Brotherhood ideology and financing terrorist acts.” Innfrad: Egypt: 65 Societies Belonging To Muslim Brotherhood In Minya Closed Mustafa Abdullah, Undersecretary of the Egyptian Ministry of Social Solidarity in Minya, stated that after declaring the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist group, the local branch of the Social Solidarity Ministry shut down over 65 associations belonging to the group. He explained that this move came to protect citizens from exposure to ideas which run counter to their religion and homeland. Innfrad: Egyptian Companies Unwittingly Support Muslim Brotherhood News Websites “Those who follow news websites operated by the Muslim Brotherhood and other extremist groups find them offering advertising space to leading {and respected} Egyptian companies and institutions. This is stirring a great deal of controversy regarding the views {and values} of the companies {that are buying the advertising space}. They are publicly perceived as being financial backers of terrorist organizations, acting against the Egyptian state, killing Egyptians in Sinai and seeking to provoke internal crises. The truth is that Egyptian companies advertising through Google's service are not interested in directly supporting Brotherhood websites. Nonetheless, at the same time, they are not demanding that Google refrain from using their ads in support of websites related to terrorism or pornography. The same applies to websites slandering the Egyptian state and its strategic interests. This allows Google to place a large portion of the ads paid by Egyptian companies on terrorist, pornographic and slanderous websites." Houthi Almashhad-Alyemeni: Anger After Houthis Killed Three Guards Employed By The French "Total" Company “Social media platforms on Sunday generated angry reactions after Houthis killed three security guards employed by French company "Total" on Saturday night. The incident started when six security guards, who had been fired by the company on Saturday, held a sit-in at company headquarters to demand their salaries. However, the company contacted the public security office in the south of the capital Sanaa after the guards insisted on staying and resisted attempts by security forces to evacuate the headquarters. Total then contacted a Houthi leader named Abu Karar, asking him to disperse the sit-in, by force if necessary. The Houthi leader sent several militants; one of them, a sniper, shot three of the guards in the head. They died on the spot. Another guard was arrested while the others managed to escape."