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Eye on Extremism
January 20, 2017
Counter
Extremism Project
American
Military News: Counter Extremism Project Releases Updated Terrorist
Database
Yesterday, Counter Extremism Project, or (CEP), a non-profit
organization that partners with agencies and governments worldwide to
combat ideological extremists and terrorists, released a new and improved
database, along with a slew of updated profiles, including information on
dozens of well-known, high-level terrorists who are wanted around the world.
The database released an array of features, including the ability for
users to search through categorized information such as name,
organizational affiliation, and country of origin. According to their
website, users will be able to utilize a ‘searchable list and an
interactive map of detailed biographical information on more than 400 of
the world’s most dangerous extremist leaders, propagandists, operatives,
and financiers.’
New
York Times: U.S. Bombs ISIS Camp In Libya
“Two United States Air Force B-2 bombers attacked Islamic State
training camps in Libya overnight, killing more than 80 militants,
including some who were involved in plotting terrorist attacks in Europe,
the Pentagon said on Thursday. The attack, which also included strikes by
armed reaper drones flying from a base in Sicily, was a parting shot from
President Obama at the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, and one
of his final actions as commander in chief. “We need to strike ISIL
everywhere they show up,” Ashton B. Carter, the departing defense
secretary, told reporters. “We know that some of the ISIL operatives in
Libya were involved in plotting attacks in Europe.”
The
Wall Street Journal: Islamic State Steps Up Oil And Gas Sales To Assad
Regime
“Islamic State has ramped up sales of oil and gas to the regime of
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, U.S. and European officials said,
providing vital fuel to the government in return for desperately needed
cash. The regime’s purchases are helping sustain Islamic State amid
unprecedented military pressure on the militant group in both Syria and
Iraq. It is also helping the group despite the regime’s insistence that
it is dedicated to eradicating the militant group with the help of its
top allies Russia and Iran. Oil and gas sales to Mr. Assad’s regime are
now Islamic State’s largest source of funds, replacing revenue the group
once collected from tolls on the transit of goods and taxes on wages
within its territory, the officials said. Their information comes from
the monitoring of oil-truck traffic routes, which have changed from
carrying oil to Turkey and Iraq to transporting it to Syria.”
Reuters:
Most Islamic State Commanders In Mosul Already Killed, Iraqi General Says
“Most Islamic State (IS) commanders in Mosul have been killed in
battles with Iraqi government forces that raged over the past three
months in the eastern side of the city, an Iraqi general said on Thursday.
The fight to take the western side of Mosul, which remains under the
jihadists' control, should not be more difficult than the one on the
eastern side, Lieutenant-General Abdul Ghani al-Assadi told Reuters
before embarking on a tour of areas newly retaken. Assadi's
Counter-Terrorism Service announced on Wednesday that almost all of the
city's eastern half had been brought under government control. ‘God
willing, there will be a meeting in the next few days attended by all the
commanders concerned with liberation operations,’ he said, replying to a
question on when he expects a thrust into the western side of Mosul to
begin.”
Reuters:
Iraqi Sheep, Locals, Environment Suffer Islamic State Oil Fires
“Shepherds herd blackened flocks through the Iraqi desert. Locals
cough and wheeze under vast clouds of smoke, and NASA images show oil
threatening to encroach on the Tigris River, a major water source. Lit by
Islamic State as they fled Iraqi forces in August, huge oil fires are
still raging across northern Iraq, bringing a litany of problems in their
wake. A toxic cloud has hung for months over the town of Qayyara, just 60
km (40 miles) from Mosul where Iraqi forces are battling to defeat the
militant Sunni group. It is an eerie reminder of the group's rule of the
area as traumatized residents begin to rebuild.”
Reuters:
Iraq Counts On U.S. Advisers, Mostly Out Of Sight, In War On Islamic
State
“When Iraqi forces faced a fierce Islamic State counter-attack last month
at a hospital in Mosul they had stormed without enough troops to hold it,
U.S. advisers behind the front lines shepherded them to safety. And as
they punched through the city's northern limits a few weeks later, it was
again the Americans who counseled them how best to avoid roadside bombs
and head off Islamic State suicide car bombers. Washington, leading an
international coalition against the jihadists in Iraq and Syria, has
launched thousands of air strikes over the past 2-1/2 years and provided aerial
surveillance vital to pushing them back.”
Time
Magazine: Jeb Bush And Dennis Ross: Donald Trump Should Isolate Iran
Immediately
“Just days before Christmas, as U.S. policymakers were settling into
the holidays, Iran staged massive war drills, with one of its top military
leaders even boasting that the Persian Gulf was within “range” of its
fighting forces. At nearly the same time, Qassem Soleimani, the Commander
of the Qods Forces of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC),
surveyed the battered remains of Aleppo. Soleimani now appears
prominently wherever the Iranians deploy Shia militias to weaken existing
states and regimes in the broader Middle East. Whether threatening to
heat up the Persian Gulf or using Shia militias as an instrument of their
power, we are witnessing a pattern of Iranian aggression that has
accelerated in the year since the nuclear deal with Iran
was implemented.”
New
York Times: Jewish Centers Across U.S. Face New Wave of Bomb Threats
“On Wednesday, for the second time this month, someone called the
Jewish community center outside Wilmington, Del., and said a bomb was on
the property. For the second time this month, children were evacuated
from schools, gym patrons had their workouts interrupted and police dogs
searched the campus. And for the second time this month, it turned out to
be part of a frightening nationwide hoax targeting Jewish facilities.
“It’s concerning, it’s frustrating,” said Seth J. Katzen, the chief
executive of the Jewish Federation of Delaware, whose staff trains
several times a year for emergencies. “But as in any J.C.C. across the
country, safety and security is our primary concern.”
Newsweek:
ISIS Destroys Facade Of Roman Amphitheater N Syria's Palmyra
“Islamic State militant group (ISIS) fighters have destroyed part of
the Roman amphitheater in the ancient city of Palmyra, the Syrian
director of antiquities confirmed Friday. Maamoun Abdulkarim, speaking to
Newsweek by phone, said the extremist group had also destroyed the
tetrapylon, a cubic-shaped ancient Roman monument. He provided satellite
images, given to him by the Boston-based ASOR Cultural Heritage
Initiative and taken by satellite imagery company DigitalGlobe, that
displayed the destruction. “I am sure the future is very bad. It will be
dramatic,” he says. “We are sure that the coming times may be worse than
before.”
The
Indian Express: Osama Bin Laden Documents: Worry Over IS Tactics, ‘Ageing’
Al-Qaeda
“Months before his death, Osama bin Laden fretted about the Islamic
State group’s impatient, violent tactics and the fading of Al-Qaeda,
documents released by the CIA on Friday showed. The latest release from
the trove of documents found when Navy Seals stormed the Al-Qaeda chief’s
secret Pakistan compound and killed him in 2011 show bin Laden trying to
keep his jihadist followers around the world aligned in his war against
the United States. They also reveal a worried father warning his sons that
they could be injected with electronic chips to track them, and advising
Al-Qaeda soldiers in Northern Africa that it was okay to masturbate. He
also spent significant time trying to manage the handling of foreigners
kidnapped by far-flung affiliates of his radical Islamic group. And he
showed a strong focus on affairs in his family’s original homeland,
Yemen, where a powerful new branch –Al-Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula
(AQAP) — was having a strong impact.”
Washington
Post: Boko Haram Attacks Camp Bombed By Nigeria's Air Force
“Boko Haram extremists attacked a refugee camp in northeast Nigeria
just days after Nigeria’s air force bombed it, witnesses said Friday, as
reports emerged that the death toll from the bombing could be as high as
170. More than 100 Boko Haram fighters launched the attack Thursday
evening, and soldiers battled for hours trying to repel them, witnesses
said. One witness said eight Boko Haram fighters were killed and one
soldier was injured, though others said the toll was still being
determined. The witnesses, who included aid workers and camp residents,
spoke on condition of anonymity because of safety fears.”
Deutsche
Welle: IS 'Headhunting' Minors Online, Warns Domestic Intelligence Chief
“At a special Q&A session with foreign media in Berlin on
Thursday, Germany's president of the Federal Office for the Protection of
the Constitution (BfV), Hans-Georg Maassen, highlighted teenage and even
younger Islamic radicals as a growing problem in the country. Maassen
compared the ‘jihadist movement’ with both communism and National
Socialism as totalitarian ideologies that specifically targeted young
people. He said that groups like the so-called ‘Islamic State’ (IS) were
trying to exploit the immature personality traits of adolescents by going
after ‘narcissistic young people searching for black-and-white truths,
underdogs who want to be top dogs and part of the social avant-garde, and
people who rebel against their parents and the system.’ To illustrate his
point, the BfV chief invoked a 15-year-old girl from the city of Hanover
who attacked a policeman with a knife in February, seriously wounding
him.”
United
States
The
Wall Street Journal: Tight Security Planned For Donald Trump’s
Inauguration
“Along with about 28,000 security personnel to protect the city on
Inauguration Day will be dozens of trucks, dumpsters and buses to fortify
the edge of events that are projected to draw up to 900,000 people.
Security along a so-called hard vehicle perimeter, within which only
official cars may operate, reflects a renewed focus on the threat posed by
trucks after deadly terrorist attacks using such vehicles last year in
Nice, France, and Berlin. ‘This year in particular the hard vehicle
perimeter will be heavily fortified,’ said Homeland Security Secretary
Jeh Johnson. He added: ‘We know of no specific, credible threat directed
toward the inauguration.’”
Reuters:
U.S. Air Strike Killed An Al Qaeda Leader In Syria: Pentagon
“A U.S. air strike killed an al Qaeda leader in Syria on Tuesday, the
Pentagon said in a statement on Thursday. Mohammad Habib Boussadoun
al-Tunisi, a Tunisian who was involved in ‘external operations and has
been connected to terrorist plots to attack Western targets,’ was killed
in the strike near Idlib in Syria, the statement said.”
The
Wall Street Journal: U.S. Bombers Hit Islamic State In Libya
“American B-2 bombers and drones struck Islamic State training camps
and other targets in Libya on Wednesday evening, killing dozens of
militants, according to Pentagon officials, in a broadening of the U.S.
war against the extremist group in northern Africa. Two training camps
approximately 30 miles southwest of the city of Sirte were hit in the
operation, Pentagon officials said. Non-U.S. forces on the ground were
assessing the impact of the strikes, but Defense Secretary Ash Carter
said according to initial estimates more than 80 Islamic State militants
were believed killed in the operation. Mr. Carter, who briefed the media
at the Pentagon on his last full day in office, said the strikes were
necessary because the militants were known to be actively plotting
against targets in Europe.”
Deutsche
Welle: Obama Leaves Behind A Mess In Afghanistan
“The outgoing US president, Barack Obama, is leaving behind a mixed
legacy in Afghanistan. In 2009, during his first term in office, Obama
ordered a drastic increase in the number of US troops in Afghanistan to
tackle the Taliban insurgency. After coming to power in 2008, Obama
reviewed Washington's war strategy in Afghanistan and concluded that the US
troops in the country - around 68,000 at the time - were well below the
strength that was needed to quell the Afghan insurgency. Thus, he ordered
a surge and deployed an additional 33,000 US troops to Afghanistan in the
hope to restrain Taliban militants and train the Afghan security forces.
But he later decided to prematurely reduce a significant number of US
soldiers from the war-torn nation that led to a spike in terrorist
attacks in the country.”
The
Wall Street Journal: U.S. Military Moves To Clear ‘Ghost Soldiers’ From
Afghan Payroll
“The U.S. military has wiped more than 30,000 names of suspected ghost
Afghan soldiers from its payroll, as part of a widening corruption
crackdown that a top American general estimates will save the U.S.
millions of dollars each month. Major General Richard Kaiser said that as
of this month, the U.S. military would pay only Afghan soldiers who were
biometrically enrolled in their country’s army and had matching identity
cards. The U.S. military removed from its payroll those it couldn’t prove
existed. ‘Step one is knowing who you have, step two is whether they show
up for work or not,’ he said.”
The
Hill: Obama's Last Gitmo Transfers Sent To Saudi Arabia, UAE
“One of the Guantanamo Bay detainees transferred in President Obama’s
last effort to shrink the facility was sent home to Saudi Arabia, and
three others were sent to the United Arab Emirates, the Pentagon said
Thursday evening. Saudi citizen Jabran Said Wazar al Qahtani returned to
the kingdom from military prison in Cuba on Thursday night, the Saudi
state news agency SPA reported. Qahtani will be reunited with his family
and will be subject to the kingdom’s regulations, including participating
in Saudi Arabia’s rehabilitation program for extremists, according to
SPA.”
Syria
Newsweek:
ISIS Territory Shrinks By Almost A Quarter In 2016
“The Islamic State militant group (ISIS) lost almost a quarter of the
territory it held across Syria and Iraq in 2016 including areas ‘vital’
for its bid to form a caliphate, according to research. The group’s
domain shrunk by 23 percent, following on from a smaller contraction in
2015 of 14 percent, analytics firm IHS Markit reported. This means ISIS
lost control of almost 18,000 square kilometers (6,900 square miles) over
the last 12 months, bringing the totality of the landmass it holds in the
region to 60,400 square kilometers (23,320 square miles)—slightly smaller
than Florida.”
Reuters:
Syria's Assad Hopes For 'Reconciliation' Deals From Astana Talks
“Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said he believed peace talks in
Kazakhstan would lead to local ‘reconciliation’ deals with rebels, a sign
of his confidence in a process launched by his Russian allies after the
opposition's defeat in Aleppo. Assad told a Japanese TV station he hoped
the conference would be a platform to discuss ‘everything’ but that it
was unclear if there would be political dialogue ‘because it is not clear
who will participate’. Russia set the new diplomatic process in motion
after its air force helped the Syrian government and allied, Iran-backed
militia defeat rebels in Aleppo city's east last month - the diverse opposition's
biggest defeat of the war. Rebels due to attend the talks say they will
discuss only shoring up a ceasefire brokered by Turkey and Russia last
month - and which the rebels say has been widely violated by the
government and its allies - as well as humanitarian issues.”
The
New York Times: Despite Syria Cease-Fire, U.N. Says, Aid Isn’t Reaching
Besieged Areas
“Deliveries of lifesaving aid to Syrian civilians trapped in besieged
areas are at their lowest level in almost a year, despite a cease-fire
that has curbed fighting across much of the country, the United Nations
said on Thursday. In Idlib Province, residents of some towns are dying
for want of medical care. Armed opposition groups and government forces
‘are routinely doing what they can, all of them it seems, to avoid us
helping women, children, wounded on the other side,’ Jan Egeland, the
United Nations adviser on humanitarian affairs, told reporters in
Geneva.”
Haaretz:
Islamic State Executes 12 In Palmyra, Syria
“Islamic State militants put at least 12 people to death in
execution-style killings in the ancient city of Palmyra, which they
recaptured from the government for a second time in December, the Syrian
Observatory for Human Rights reported on Thursday. The jihadist group
beheaded four of the people - state employees and teachers - outside a
museum, the group said. The eight others - four of them government
soldiers and four of them rebel fighters captured elsewhere in Syria -
were shot. Some of the killings took place at an ancient Roman theatre in
Palmyra, where Islamic State last year put at least 25 government
fighters to death, the Observatory said.”
Iraq
The
Guardian: Kurdish Trench In Iraq Stakes Out Claim For Bigger Territory
“On the plains north and east of Mosul, far from the battle in the
city centre, a new frontline is taking shape. Mounds of earth have been
heaped above a trench gouged out of the ground along about 650 miles
(1,050km) of northern Iraq, which before the war with Islamic State was
in Arab hands. The berm runs from Sinjar, in the north-west, to Khanaqin,
near the Iranian border, following the line of Kurdish military control.
Woven into it are peshmerga positions, and on top flies the Kurdish flag,
a clear statement of the Kurds’ hope that their role in fighting the war
has already secured them a bigger slice of Iraq.”
Turkey
Reuters:
Commentary: Islamic State Lashes Out As Turkey Flirts With Russia
“For years, as an insurgency raged against the regime of Syrian
President Bashar al-Assad, Turkey turned a blind eye while rebels groups,
including Islamic extremists, moved weapons and fighters across the
Syrian-Turkish border. Jihadist groups like Islamic State established
strong networks in Turkish towns to smuggle recruits and supplies into
Syria. Despite pleas from Western allies concerned about militant plots
emanating from the border areas, the Turkish government felt that it
could contain the jihadists and saw the toppling of Assad’s regime as its
priority. But after Turkey was targeted with a series of bombings in
mid-2015 linked to Islamic State, Turkish President Recep
Tayyip Erdogan began cracking down along the southern border and
granted the United States access to military bases that would be used for
air strikes against jihadist groups in Syria.”
The
Guardian: Turkey's Parliament Set To Approve Sweeping New Powers For
President
“A sweeping bill that will alter the Turkish constitution and grant
broad powers to the president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, is on track to pass
in parliament, paving the way for a historic spring referendum that could
transform the country’s politics and strengthen the ruling party. The
parliament passed amendments to seven articles in the constitution in a
second round of voting in the early hours of Thursday, and is expected to
continue voting on the remaining articles on Friday. Legislators have so
far approved amendments that increase the number of MPs from 550 to 600,
lower the minimum age for serving in the assembly to 18, mandate holding
presidential and parliamentary elections every five years, and allow the
president to maintain his affiliation with his party.”
The
Guardian: Democracy In Turkey Is Now Under Threat
“Owen Jones accurately describes the circumstances in Turkey (What I
saw in Turkey is an assault on democracy itself, 18 January). However,
the development of challenges to democratic principles in Turkey predates
Trump. These have intensified since the AKP government lost its
parliamentary majority in the June 2015 general election. The most
valuable part of any democratic governance, namely public contestation of
political authority through free speech, right to public demonstrations,
freedom of expression and press, have gradually eroded under various
government measures initiated under the claims to security. These have
accelerated since the attempted coup in July 2016. A series of legal
cases against public intellectuals, academics and journalists has
severely curtailed practice of these freedoms. Continued charges against
these people and their imprisonment are leading to self-censorship.”
The
Washington Post: Turkey Expects Improved Relations With The Trump
Administration
“Turkey is confident that its relations with the United States will
improve significantly under President-elect Donald Trump and expects
positive responses to concerns it believes the Obama administration
played down, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Thursday. At
the top of Turkey’s list of issues, he said in an interview, are its
request for U.S. extradition of Fethullah Gulen, the Pennsylvania-based
Turkish cleric charged with orchestrating last summer’s coup attempt, and
U.S. dependence on and support for Syrian Kurdish fighters that Turkey considers
terrorists.”
Afghanistan
Reuters:
Taliban Seeks To Reassure UAE Over Afghanistan Attack
“Afghan Taliban has sought to reassure the United Arab Emirates that
it was not behind an attack in the southern city of Kandahar that killed
five UAE diplomats and injured the ambassador, senior Taliban officials
said on Thursday. More than a dozen Afghan and foreign officials were
killed last week by a bomb hidden under a couch in the Kandahar
governor's residence in an attack Afghan authorities have blamed on the
Taliban and Pakistani intelligence services. However the Taliban has
denied responsibility, instead accusing ‘covert intelligence circles’
close to the government of carrying out the attack to damage relations
between the insurgents and a friendly Arab government. No claim of
responsibility has been made.”
Radio
Free Europe: Afghan Group Says 2016 Was Deadliest For Journalists On
Record
“Last year was the deadliest year on record for Afghan media, with 13
journalists killed, the Afghanistan Journalist Safety Committee said in a
report on January 18. The press group documented at least 101 incidents
of killings, assault, intimidation, abuse, and other physical attacks, a
38 percent increase over numbers recorded in 2015. Although the Taliban
was blamed for 10 of the 13 deaths, half of the overall increase in
violence toward journalists was attributed to the Afghan government.
‘This is an ugly, worrying, and serious trend, and if certain actions are
not taken, 2017 could be worse,’ said committee head Najib Sharifi.”
The
Washington Post: Deadly Insurgent Attacks Dim Hopes For Talks, Spur
Regional Worries
“Just one month ago, Afghanistan’s moribund peace process seemed to be
sputtering to life. Taliban leaders had welcomed delegations from Kabul
to their offices in Qatar, and the governor and police chief of Kandahar
province had hosted a large regional gathering, declaring that the
16-year conflict had to be resolved through talks and offering a haven
for Taliban negotiators and family members. Today, that hopeful moment
has been eclipsed by a one-day blitz of terrorist attacks in Kabul and
two other cities on Jan. 10 that left 50 people dead. Two attacks were
claimed by the Taliban. The third, an explosion at another gathering
hosted by top officials in Kandahar, took the lives of five visiting
Emirati diplomats.”
Middle
East
The
Jerusalem Post: Training For The Next Missile Attack Or Earthquake To Hit
Israel
“The building had been hit by a missile and was completely destroyed,
trapping over 20 people inside. The IDF’s Home Front Command’s search and
rescue unit made it to the scene in record time from their bases in the
West Bank, and set up command posts where they assessed the situation
from as many angles as possible before climbing onto the rubble to begin
their lifesaving work. Right away, one man was pronounced dead at the
scene, but less than a meter away, another was found alive. The unit’s
engineers were on hand, advising the soldiers which piece of rubble to
move and at what angle in order to save the man’s life. With his okay,
the soldiers began using an air-lifting bag to move the large slab of
concrete off of the injured man.”
Nigeria
CNN:
Nigeria's Fight Against Boko Haram Is Going To Be Long And Messy
“The admission by Nigeria that its air force accidentally targeted a
camp for people who have been internally displaced represents a
significant change in attitude by the forces fighting the terrorist
insurgency known as Boko Haram. In what the Nigerian officials have
described as a ‘regrettable operational mistake,’ fighter jets on Tuesday
bombed the camp as part of an operation against Boko Haram in Rann in the
northeastern Borno state. Mistakenly believing that a gathering of
Boko Haram terrorists was in Borno, Nigerian Maj. Gen. Lucky Irabor says
his forces ‘got the coordinates and I directed that the air (force)
should go and address the problem.’ As we now know, the jets hit innocent
civilians who had been fleeing Boko Haram attacks, killing at least 70 --
including some members of Red Cross staff -- and injuring many more.”
United
Kingdom
RT:
London University ‘Monitoring’ Emails To Stop Students ‘Being Drawn Into
Terrorism’
“King’s College London is warning staff and students their computer activity
could be monitored as part of the British government’s
counter-radicalization strategy, Prevent. The prestigious
university, home to one of the world’s foremost centers for
radicalization studies, published a notice on its email login section
warning users that by accessing the page they consented to ‘monitoring.’
Middle East Eye reports the message also cautions users they must not
“download, store, or transmit unlawful material, or material that is
indecent, offensive, defamatory, threatening, discriminatory or
extremist.”
RT:
Britain Now At ‘Greater Risk Of Terrorist Attack Than 6yrs Ago’
“The growing number of jihadists returning to the UK from Syria means
Britain is now at greater risk of suffering a terrorist attack than it
was six years ago, the government’s independent reviewer of terror
legislation, David Anderson QC, has warned. Anderson says the pervading
sense of the country being ‘over the worst’ when he started his role in
2011 was a ‘false dawn.’ Speaking to the Press Association, he said there
is now a ‘wider range’ of dangers than there has been before, and despite
having the skills to fight terrorism, ‘we need a bit of luck as well.’ He
said rather than sophisticated plots to bomb transport hubs and shopping
centers, jihadists already in the UK are being groomed, often online, to
carry out ‘lone wolf’ attacks using knives, machetes, and vehicles.”
Germany
Deutsche
Welle: Terror Cell Had 'Advanced Plans' For Düsseldorf Attack
“A suspected terrorist cell of the jihadist group ‘Islamic State’ (IS)
already had more detailed plans than previously thought for an attack in
the western city of Düsseldorf when its members were arrested more than
half a year ago, the German Federal Court of Justice (BGH) said in a
ruling on Thursday. According to the ruling on extending the period of
investigative custody for the four Syrian men, they had planned to carry
out the attack on a Friday or Saturday, ‘because the old city center of
Düsseldorf is particularly busy on these days.’ Their plans envisaged
having two suicide bombers blow themselves up in the city center on two
parallel streets, the ruling said. Two other terrorists were then to take
up position at the four exits from the old part of the city to ‘shoot as
many fleeing people as possible before also blowing themselves up when
their magazines were empty.’”
Deutsche
Welle: Bundestag Holds Minute's Silence In Remembrance For Berlin Terror
Attack Victims
“One month on, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, President Joachim
Gauck and state premiers joined parliamentarians in Berlin Thursday to
observe a minute's silence remembrance for the victims of the Berlin
terror attack. Speaking exactly one month the day after the attack
on Berlin Christmas market, which killed 12 and injured around 50 people,
Bundestag President Norbert Lammert praised the country's ‘sober’
reaction. ‘The aim of terrorism is to shatter, paralyze and destabilize
democratic societies,’ Lammert told parliamentarians. ‘This goal has not
been achieved by the terrorists in Germany. The population reacted to
terrorism with a remarkable sense of calm.’”
Europe
The
Wall Street Journal: Europol Says Data Sharing On Potential Terrorists
Rises Significantly
“Terrorist attacks in France and Belgium spurred greater cooperation
among European security services, with Europol reporting a 10-fold
rise in information sharing about suspected terrorists over the last two
years. The law-enforcement coordination arm of the European Union said
Thursday that the amount of data EU countries shared via a database that
tracks suspected foreign terrorist fighters rose fivefold in the year
after the January 2015 Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris. The figure doubled
again last year after attacks in Paris in November 2015 and in Brussels
and Nice in 2016.”
Sputnik
News: European Commission Praises EU-US Cooperation On Counter-Terrorism
Efforts
“The European Commission has published reports praising the increased
cooperation between the United States and the European Union on two key
agreements on preventing and combating terrorism, the EU-US Terrorist
Finance Tracking Programme (TFTP) Agreement and the EU-US Passenger Name
Records (PNR) Agreement. The report on the TFTP found that the
agreement had been utilized in terrorist attack investigations
in the European Union, including the January 2015 Charlie Hebdo
attack and the November 2015 Paris attacks. Under its provisions,
progress has also been made in uncovering EU-based recruiting and
financing of terrorist fighters.”
Reuters:
Seven Kosovo Men Jailed For Helping Islamic State
“A court in Kosovo sentenced seven men to jail for fighting for
Islamic State and recruiting on behalf of the militant group, the court
said on Thursday. The men, all Kosovo citizens, were sentenced to between
2-1/2 and 4-1/2 years in jail, the court in Pristina said in a statement.
Police say around 300 Kosovars have joined Islamic State and more than 50
have been killed. More than 200 people in Kosovo have been arrested,
jailed or are under investigation for recruiting on behalf of Islamic
State or fighting in Syria and Iraq.”
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