Eye on Extremism August 2, 2016

Eye on Extremism August 2, 2016 Counter Extremism Project New York Times: How Does An Australian Town Of 100 Attract Tourists? A Music Festival And Camel Pie “Birdsville sits perched on the edge of the vast Simpson Desert, hundreds of miles from the nearest city, on the far reaches of the Australian outback. It is an unforgiving place, choked by swirling sandstorms and baked by summer temperatures that can reach 122 degrees Fahrenheit. Home to just 100 people, it has one primary school with six students, one tiny hospital and one police station, which are staffed by one nurse and one policeman.” Fox News: CEP Spokesperson Tara Maller, A Former CIA Analyst, Is Interviewed About Intelligence Briefings For President Candidates Wall Street Journal: U.S. Launches Airstrikes Against Islamic State in Libya “The U.S. conducted airstrikes against Islamic State’s primary stronghold in Libya for the first time on Monday, aiding the U.N.-backed Libyan government’s attempt to retake the area and deepening American involvement in efforts to defeat the group in North Africa. U.S. aircraft struck Islamic State vehicles and a tank in the coastal city of Sirte, a critical base for the extremist group outside its self-declared caliphate in Iraq and Syria, Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said.” Wall Street Journal: Russian Helicopter Shot Down in Syria “Syrian rebels downed a Russian helicopter, killing all five crew members and officers on board, the Kremlin and a Syrian opposition news agency said on Monday. The downed helicopter crashed in Idlib, near the southern border of Aleppo province, Russia’s Defense Ministry said, where rebels on Sunday launched a battle to break Syrian troops’ siege on the city of Aleppo. “Those who were on the helicopter, according to information coming from the Defense Ministry, have died,” state-run RIA news agency reported Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying.” CBS: Ohio ISIS Supporter Allegedly Planned State Of The Union Attack “Federal authorities say an Ohio man planned to attack the U.S. Capitol in support of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) during President Barack Obama's 2015 State of the Union address. That timing was disclosed Monday during a hearing in which Christopher Lee Cornell, 22, pleaded guilty to three federal charges, including offering material support to a foreign terrorist organization.” New York Times: As ISIS Posts in Portuguese, U.S. and Brazil Bolster Olympics Security “Worried about possible terrorist attacks at the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil’s government is working closely with American law enforcement and intelligence services to identify threats and thwart potential disasters at the Games. Despite its notorious battles with violent crime, Brazil has largely been spared the kind of brazen terrorist attacks that have rattled much of the world in recent years, with Brazilian officials long playing down the nation’s vulnerability to homegrown extremism.” Time: How ISIS Defectors Can Help Us Beat Terror “Michael Steinbach, executive assistant director for the FBI’s National Security Branch, said in a recent Senate hearing that the challenge for law enforcement is battling ISIS online. There, the volume of ISIS-related propaganda—videos, memes, photos and more—is so overwhelming that it’s difficult to predict who is moving from simply consuming the materials to becoming intent on violence. The Internet allows ISIS-inspired cadres in the West to mobilize quickly—actions can take place in a matter of days versus the weeks, months or even years it had previously taken to radicalize someone into a suicide mission. As Senator Rob Portman, the hearing’s sponsor, succinctly put it: “We are in crisis mode.”” Times of Israel: Egypt rankled by Hamas’s burgeoning ties to Islamic State “Cairo is fuming over increasing cooperation between the Palestinian terror group Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, and Islamic State-affiliated forces in the neighboring Sinai Peninsula, The Times of Israel has learned, despite attempts in recent months to alleviate the tension between Egypt and Gaza.” Fox News: ISIS Details 'Why We Hate You' In New Magazine “In the new edition of its full-color, glossy magazine, ISIS mocks those who claim Islam is a peaceful religion, and even wades into the controversy surrounding Donald Trump and the parents of a dead Muslim U.S. soldier. The 15th issue of Dabiq, published on July 31, is titled “Break The Cross” and appears to be primarily directed at those that ISIS considers its enemies, particularly Christians. One section is devoted to the words and actions of Pope Francis and is headlined “In The Words Of Our Enemies.” An editorial titled “Why We Hate You and Why We Fight You” takes aim at Westerners and “apostate ‘Imams’ in the West” who refuse to define ISIS’ motivation as being Islamic. ISIS calls this rhetoric purely political.” Reuters: Mother Of Nigerian Schoolgirl Rescued From Boko Haram Fears For Her Future “Held for months by the Nigerian government and confined to a house in the capital for the foreseeable future, Amina Ali, a schoolgirl who was rescued after two years in Boko Haram captivity, may never be the girl she once was, her mother fears. Amina, one of more than 200 girls abducted from a school in Chibok in April 2014, and her four-month-old baby were rescued in May near Damboa in the remote northeast, by soldiers working together with a civilian vigilante group.” Syria Wall Street Journal: Aleppo Conditions Worsen Under Siege “The Syrian regime and its Russian allies are heavily bombarding hospitals, markets, utilities and aid warehouses in the besieged, rebel-controlled half of Aleppo, according to opposition officials and aid workers who said it was a concerted effort to force rebels and residents to surrender quickly. The regime succeeded last month in encircling and cutting off the rebel-held eastern side of Aleppo after more than two years of attempts. The bombardment of infrastructure since has led to deteriorating humanitarian conditions for an estimated 300,000 people under siege, the officials and aid workers said.” Afghanistan CNN: Kabul's Northgate Hotel Bombed, Attacked “The Taliban took credit for an explosion that targeted a Kabul, Afghanistan, hotel early Monday, the latest in a series of bombing attacks seeking to destabilize the nation. After the explosion, three armed suicide attackers tried to gain entry into the hotel, but were engaged by police, Sediq Sediqqi, a spokesman for the Afghan Interior Ministry, told CNN.” Egypt New York Times: A Gloomy Egypt Sees Its International Influence Wither Away “For Egypt, it is a sharp reversal, with no immediate prospects of reclaiming the country’s former status. Since it made peace with Israel in 1979, Egypt has served as the fulcrum of American influence in the Arab world. The Egyptian and American militaries have cooperated closely for decades, and Egypt went to war against Saddam Hussein alongside United States forces in 1991. Cairo long served as an important mediator between Israel and the Palestinians (and among Palestinian factions), though it began to abdicate that role by backing Israel against Hamas in 2014.” United Kingdom Wall Street Journal: Islamic State London Subway Slasher Jailed for Life “An Islamic State sympathizer received a life sentence Monday for a frenzied knife attack at a London subway station in December in which a commuter’s throat was slashed. A jury in June had found 30-year old Muhaydin Mire guilty of attempted murder in relation to the attack at Leytonstone station, in London’s northeastern suburbs. Footage filmed by onlookers and played to jurors showed the assailant slashing and lunging at passengers near the station turnstiles.” Europe Business Insider: The Islamic State is now calling for its members to carry out jihad in Russia “Islamic State called on its group members to carry out jihad in Russia in a nine-minute YouTube video on Sunday. "Listen Putin, we will come to Russia and will kill you at your homes ... Oh Brothers, carry out jihad and kill and fight them," a masked man driving a car in the desert yelled while wagging his finger in the last couple of minutes of the video.” NPR: Pope Francis Says It Is Wrong To Identify Islam With Violence “Pope Francis says it is wrong to equate violence with Islam, adding that "I do not believe that it is true or right that Islam is terrorist." On a flight back to the Vatican after a five-day visit to Poland, Francis was asked by a reporter about remarks he made following last week's attack on a church in northern France in which an elderly priest was brutally murdered. The reporter asked the pope why he refers to terrorists but never to Islam when talking about such violent incidents.” The Guardian: We should relegate terrorists to the obscurity of their own infamy “There are at least three reasons why we should stop publicising the names of violent jihadists who commit acts of terror. The first is that by doing so – by publishing and republishing their faces, living or (especially) dead – they become globally recognised characters in the showbusiness side of this terrorist war, thus fulfilling one of their keenest desires. Consider how during the Bataclan siege in Paris the killers demanded that their hostages call news channels in the moments before the massacre. The radical Islamist who attacked the kosher supermarket the day of the Charlie Hebdo murders took time to phone one of those channels to demand that it correct the banner it was using to identify him. And is it by chance that the mass murderer in Nice left his identity card in his truck for all to see?” BBC: Leytonstone Tube Attacker Muhiddin Mire Jailed For Life “Muhiddin Mire, 30, targeted people at random during the attack inspired by so-called Islamic State at Leytonstone station on 5 December. He grabbed musician Lyle Zimmerman, 57, and attempted to murder him in the ticket hall by cutting his throat. A man shouted: "You ain't no Muslim, bruv" after Mire said he would "spill blood" for his "Syrian brothers". Hezbollah Arutz Sheva: Cloak-and-dagger: Hezbollah 'hoodwinks' IDF “In a chain of cloak-and-dagger moves, terror organization Hezbollah managed to "interview" ex-Defense Minister Amir Peretz, MK Tsipi Livni, General (Reserves) Eyal Ben-Reuven, and Tomer Weinberg, who was wounded while patrolling with captured soldiers Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser. The interviews were aired on Saturday night on Hezbollah's new's channel Al-Miadin.” Arutz Sheva: Study finds Arabs fear Hezbollah more than Jews do “A new study put out by the University of Haifa, which assessed the level of fear among Israeli Jews and Arabs during the Second Lebanon War and Operation Cast Lead, found an interesting result: Arabs generally feared more from the rocket attacks of fellow Arabs, than Jews did.” ISIS Elwatan News: Senior ISIS Financial Offical Flees With Stolen Money “Iraqi sources from inside the city of Mosul reported that the so-called "Finance House" chief together with three other employees fled in possession of assets from ISIS's coffers. The sources said that the "Finance House" Wali (governor) and three of his aides vanished together with ISIS's funds, spoils, antiquities and valuables. The sources added that the so-called "security committees" of the terror organization arrested and interrogated its members who had been assigned to protect the "Finance House". The sources disclosed that six of them were executed.” Muslim Brotherhood Alwafd: License Of The Brotherhood-Affiliated "Namaa" Company Revoked Following Clients' Complaints The Egyptian Financial Regulatory Authority revoked the license of "Namaa Securities Brokerage Company" after clients sent letters to the Financial Control (Authority) claiming receivable balances the company has refused to repay its customers. The Brotherhood Asset Freeze Committee has already seized the funds owned by the company and the chairman of its board of directors. Sherif Samy, Chairman of Egyptian Financial Supervisory Authority (EFSA), stressed that EFSA conducted a thorough examination of these complaints and found them to be true. The Seventh Day: Brotherhood Dissident: Muslim Brotherhood Embezzlements Are Not New Mukhtar Noah, dissident Muslim Brotherhood leader, stated that the embezzlement of Brotherhood funds has been taking place for several years. However, the group was able to keep them under wraps. He claimed that Muslim Brotherhood Deputy Supreme Guide Khayrat al-Shater bought the loyalty of the group's members using Brotherhood's funds under his control. Noah explained that the Brotherhood leadership has always controlled the Group's funds and membership fees. The dissident leader stated that the recently worsening embezzlement crisis is being fueled by the internal crisis inside the group. The Seventh Day: Egyptian Media Personality Demands Appropriation Of Muslim Brotherhood Currency Exchange Companies Many of us know that prominent currency dealers and smugglers of the dollar come from the ranks of the Muslim Brotherhood. They didn't start this trade today, but back in the 1970s. They managed, through members working abroad, to establish an extensive network of foreign currency smuggling to and from the country, based on their interests. This sometimes included setting up companies for the import of arms and financing of terrorist groups, while at other times attempting to harm the national economy. And if this information is known to the relevant security services, why are they waiting to take the necessary steps to end the hard currency crisis? Why don't we see decisive resolutions against Brotherhood currency dealers and their cronies? Why do we limit ourselves merely to shutting the doors of money exchange companies and giving the dealers the chance to re-enter through the window? I am not demanding capital punishment for those dealers who are taking the daily slice of bread out of the mouths of ordinary citizens, even though they deserve the death penalty. I am just calling, for the sake of the State, to immediately appropriate all funds, assets and property owned by currency dealers. Houthi Yemen 24: Houthi Group Sources Of Funding Economic analyst Abdul Karim Al Shuaibi claimed that dozens of Houthi leaders have transferred vast amounts of money to private bank accounts outside Yemen. In addition, the group has been obtaining financial support from Iranian entities via mediators that sought to "filter" the transfers in accordance with money laundering practices [used by Iran]. Numerous methods and means are used by the Houthis in raising money to finance their war. These include disabling the country's institutions, taking over operational and service-providing resources from the (Yemeni) budget, eliminating Chapter 2 on wages, adopting Chapter I on wages only for a portion of the employees' rights, halting and confiscating salaries of thousands of employees opposed to the group as well as deducting money from their salaries under fake clauses.