Eye on Extremism November 23, 2016

Eye on Extremism November 23, 2016 Counter Extremism Project Voice Of America: Key Figure in Paris, Brussels Attacks Slapped With Sanctions “The U.S. is taking aim at an Islamic State terror group operative thought to have played a key role in launching the terror attacks on both Paris and Brussels. On Tuesday, the State Department sanctioned Abdelilah Himich, a Moroccan-born Frenchman thought to be based out of Syria. Himich, also known as Abu Sulayman al-Firansi, founded the Tariq Ibn Ziyad Battalion, a cell of up to 300 European foreign fighters that had been active in Iraq, Syria and elsewhere. The State Department also identified Himich as a key figure in the November 2015 Paris terror attack that left 130 dead, as well as the March 2016 bombing in Brussels that killed 32. According to the Counter Extremism Project, Himich joined the French Foreign Legion in 2008 and served in Afghanistan before deserting two years later.” Reuters: U.S. Strike Destroys Bridge, Restricts Islamic State In Mosul: Official “U.S. forces backing an Iraqi army campaign against Islamic State in Mosul carried out an air strike on a bridge spanning the Tigris river, restricting militant movements between western and eastern parts of the city, a U.S. official said on Tuesday. U.S.-trained Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service forces are pushing deeper into east Mosul, the last major city controlled by the Sunni hard-line group in Iraq, while army and police units, Shi'ite militias and Kurdish fighters surround it to the west, south and north. Militants have steadily retreated into Mosul from outlying areas. The army's early advances have slowed as militants dig in, using the more than 1 million civilians inside the city as a shield, moving through tunnels, and hitting troops with suicide bombers, snipers and mortar fire. Five bridges span the Tigris that runs through Mosul.” Wired: Long After ISIS Collapses, Its Empire Of Explosives Will Reign “IT DOESN’T LOOK like an improvised explosive device—at least, not the stereotypical kind. This one, from a part of northern Syria that ISIS used to control, looks more like a high-school science project volcano. Covered with a little dirt and some leaves, it’d probably pass for a rock, until someone tripped the hidden trigger and detonated the fragmentation device hidden inside. But the trickiest part of the bombs ISIS has left behind, across thousands of square miles of Iraq and Syria, isn’t just their looks. “The coverage area appears to be huge swaths of the territory and growing all the time. The density is high, as well” says Ed Rowe, a program manager for Norwegian People’s Aid, a humanitarian group putting together an IED clearance and risk education program in Iraq. “The level of sophistication seems to be increasing, and they’re definitely targeting the clearance teams.” Reuters: Pentagon Says Air Strike Killed 'Senior Al Qaeda Leader' In Syria “An air strike carried out by the United States last week killed Abu Afghan Al-Masri, a ‘senior al Qaeda leader,’ near Sarmada, Syria, on Nov. 18, Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said on Tuesday. Cook, speaking during a press briefing, told reporters that Al-Masri, an Egyptian, originally joined al Qaeda in Afghanistan and later moved to it's Syrian affiliate. ‘He had ties to terrorist groups operating throughout Southwest Asia including groups responsible for attacking U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan and those plotting to attack the West,’ Cook said.” The Washington Post: New Recruitment Drive Indicates Deep Manpower Problems In Syria’s Army “Syria’s army said Tuesday that it had formed a new volunteer corps to join its five-year war effort, an announcement that underscored the extent to which its once-sprawling armed forces have crumbled.  In a statement, the army encouraged men 18 and older to register for the newly minted Fifth Legion at recruitment centers across the country.  It said the volunteers would work alongside forces allied with the Syrian government, ‘eliminating terrorism’ and returning ‘security and stability’ to the country. As Syria’s war grinds on, President Bashar al-Assad’s army is increasingly reliant on conscripts and even prisoners. It also receives heavy support from Russian and Iranian forces and Iran-backed Shiite militias, as well as powerful Syrian paramilitary groups.” Reuters: Death Toll Among Iran's Forces In Syrian War Passes 1,000 “More than 1,000 soldiers deployed by Iran to Syria to back the government side in its civil war have been killed, an Iranian official said, underlining Tehran's increasing presence on front lines of the conflict. It was a major increase in the reported death toll from just four months ago, when the Islamic Republic announced that 400 of its soldiers had died on Syria's battlefields. Iran has been sending fighters to Syria since the early stages of the more than five-year-old war to support its ally, President Bashar al-Assad, against rebels and Islamist militants including Islamic State trying to topple him. Although many of the soldiers the Shi'ite Muslim Iran sends are its own nationals, it is casting its recruitment net wide, training and deploying Shi'ites from neighboring Afghanistan and Pakistan as well. Half of the death toll reported in August were Afghan citizens.” The Jerusalem Post: Palestinian Attempts To Stab Israeli Forces At Kalandia Checkpoint “A knife-wielding Palestinian man in his late 40s was shot dead on Tuesday morning while attempting to stab a private security guard at the Kalandiya checkpoint between Jerusalem and Ramallah. Police said that shortly after 10 a.m. the unidentified West Bank resident walked along a checkpoint lane designated for cars toward the guards on duty, with a knife concealed in his pocket. ‘When the security guard approached him and asked him to identify himself, the suspect took a large knife from his pocket and attempted to stab him three times,’ said police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld. ‘Fearing for his life, the guard pushed him back and opened fire, shooting and killing the terrorist, who we know is from one of the Palestinian areas in the West Bank.’ The guard was unharmed.” The Foreign Desk: U.S.-Iranian Citizen Convicted In U.S. Of Trying To Buy Missiles For Iran “A dual citizen of Iran and the United States was found guilty on Tuesday on charges that he tried to help acquire surface-to-air missiles and aircraft components for the government of Iran in violation of U.S. sanctions. Reza Olangian, 56, was convicted by a federal jury in Manhattan on all four counts he faced, including conspiring to acquire and transfer anti-aircraft missiles, prosecutors said. Olangian faces a mandatory minimum prison sentence of 25 years and a maximum of life. He is scheduled to be sentenced on March 13. Lee Ginsberg, Olangian's lawyer, said the verdict "was very disappointing and we do plan to appeal." Olangian, who became a U.S. citizen in 1999, was arrested in Estonia in October 2012 and subsequently extradited to the United States following a sting operation orchestrated by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.” Reuters: Houthi Missile Arsenal Holds A Key To Future Yemen Peace “A U.N. peace plan for Yemen seeks to deprive the country's armed Houthi movement of its missile arsenal which Yemeni security sources say includes scores and maybe even hundreds of Soviet-era ballistic missiles pointed at their foes in Saudi Arabia. But whether the Iran-allied group will abandon the missiles hidden in mountainous ravines which have given them regional clout despite 20 months of punishing war is an open question. The group possesses Scud missiles, shorter-range Tochka and anti-ship missiles, and unguided Grad and Katyusha rockets, the security sources told Reuters. It has even manufactured smaller home-made rockets with names like ‘Volcano’ and ‘Steadfast.” Reuters: Up To One Million People Cut Off From Aid By Boko Haram In Lake Chad: U.N. “Up to a million people around West Africa's Lake Chad are cut off from humanitarian aid by Boko Haram despite a regional military offensive against the Islamist militants, a United Nations official said on Tuesday. Boko Haram violence has uprooted more than 100,000 people across the swamplands of Lake Chad, where the borders of Chad, Cameroon, Niger and Nigeria meet, and disrupted the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of others, according to aid agencies. Security sources say a regional task force is wrestling back control of the lake - where Boko Haram controls part of the fishing industry in a labyrinth of waterways - with hundreds of militants having surrendered in the past month.” Wall Street Journal: Terror Finance Abroad Touches Thanksgiving At Home  “An American food producer that counts Butterball turkeys among its brands has done millions of dollars of business in Africa with a company blacklisted by U.S. authorities for supporting terror, The Wall Street Journal has found. The Justice Department, as part of a broad criminal probe, is investigating whether Kansas-based Seaboard Corp. tried to mask wheat-flour sales to firms linked to a Lebanese businessman and his family in the years after he and two brothers were put on the government’s terror blacklist in 2009 and 2010.” United States ABC News: Amid Holiday Fears And Increased Security, NY Man In Terror Arrest “With preparations underway for heavy security around this year’s Thanksgiving Day parade, a man residing in Brooklyn, New York was arrested on Monday and charged with attempting to provide material support to the so-called Islamic State after he expressed support for a terror plot in Times Square. The arrest comes as authorities send a clear message to would-be perpetrators to not even think about attacking this year’s Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade by stepping-up public security, after ISIS propaganda used a photo of the annual event in calling on supporters to attack large outdoor gatherings. That message lauded the July attack on Nice, France, in which 84 people were killed after an attacker ploughed a semi-truck through crowds attending a Bastille Day celebration.” International Business Times: Holiday Season Terror Threat In Europe? US State Department Issues Travel Advisory For Europe “The U.S. State Department issued an advisory for Americans traveling to Europe warning them of potential terrorist attacks — mainly during the holiday season. Countries like Belgium, France, Germany and Turkey had fallen prey to such attacks this year but the department warned that likely assaults may take place throughout Europe. ‘Credible information indicates the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or Daesh), al Qaeda, and their affiliates continue to plan terrorist attacks in Europe, with a focus on the upcoming holiday season and associated events. U.S. citizens should also be alert to the possibility that extremist sympathizers or self-radicalized extremists may conduct attacks during this period with little or no warning. Terrorists may employ a wide variety of tactics, using both conventional and non-conventional weapons and targeting both official and private interests,’ the advisory read.” Associated Press: US Airstrikes Top 1,000 Against IS In Iraq And Syria “One after another, fighter jets catapult from the flight deck of the USS Eisenhower, a thousand-foot (305-meter) American aircraft carrier, afterburners glowing amber above the blue Persian Gulf, on their way northwest to join the fight in Iraq and Syria against the Islamic State. The fighter jets refuel on the way before receiving from coalition partners targets like convoys, hideouts and mortar positions in IS-controlled territories such as Mosul and Raqqa, said Rear Adm. James Malloy, commander of the Eisenhower carrier strike group. From his office aboard the USS Eisenhower, Malloy described coalition success around Mosul while cautioning that victory is close at hand.” Voice Of America: US, Turkey At Cross-Purposes In Syria As Their Allies Clash “Fighting between Turkish-backed rebels in northern Syria and the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), earmarked by the United States to retake Raqqa from Islamic State (IS) militants, is escalating dramatically. The intensifying clashes are complicating Washington’s bid to use Kurdish-led forces to launch a full-scale assault on the jihadists’ self-proclaimed Syrian capital, and are maneuvering the U.S. and Turkey into ever greater cross-purposes in Syria, fear Western diplomats and analysts. More than 40 villages controlled by IS have fallen to the Kurdish-led forces since the launch on November 6 of Euphrates Wrath, a Washington-conceived operation involving the SDF pressing IS in the countryside north of Raqqa ahead of an assault on the city.” Syria BBC: Syria War: UN Resumes Aid To Syrians On Jordan Border “The UN has announced the resumption of aid to some 85,000 Syrian refugees stranded on Jordan's border - the first such deliveries in months. The UN says the aid includes food, winter clothing and blankets as well as hygiene kits. The refugees, mostly women and children, live in dire conditions in two makeshift camps in a desert area. Jordan shut the border in June after seven of its soldiers died in a bombing claimed by Islamic State militants. Since then only a single aid delivery was allowed when food rations were sent using cranes in August to the Rukban and Hadalat camps.” Voice Of America: Warring Parties In Syria Bombing Eastern Aleppo Into Oblivion “The United Nations is calling for an end to the violence and relentless air attacks against eastern Aleppo, warning that the ancient Syrian city is being bombed into oblivion. After a short pause, the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad, backed by its Russian ally, unleashed its fire power one week ago against eastern Aleppo. It since has been mercilessly pounding the city’s hospitals, schools and other civilian infrastructure. Spokesman for the U.N. Organization for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs Jens Laerke says the consequences for eastern Aleppo’s 275,000 civilians are devastating. ‘It is absolutely heartbreaking and unacceptable that we all are witnessing what is happening almost on direct television, direct transmitted what may amount to war crimes in eastern Aleppo,’ said Laerke. ‘We need the political actors and the actors on the ground to create a situation whereby we can implement the U.N. plan.’” U.S. News & World Report: Syrian Group: Rebels Preventing Refugees From Fleeing Aleppo “A Syrian monitoring group alleged Tuesday that rebels are preventing dozens of families from fleeing eastern Aleppo as Russian-backed government forces intensify their bombardment of the besieged quarter. Such claims are difficult to verify and often distorted owing to the propaganda value of the matter. Syrian and Russian state media maintain that rebels are holding the enclave's 275,000 remaining inhabitants hostage to use as human shields, even as the government's air force pounds the east's hospitals and first responder groups. Opposition outlets on the other hand want to show that civilians will never accept returning to the government's heavy-handed rule. Russia has backed Syrian President Bashar Assad with vast military support as he fights to put down an uprising that is approaching its sixth year. Over 300,000 people have been killed in the raging war.” Iraq Newsweek: ISIS Used Chemical Weapons At Least 52 Times In Iraq And Syria, Analysis Shows “In its bid to hold on to its self-declared caliphate in Iraq and Syria, the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) has used chemical weapons at least 52 times against enemy forces on the battlefield, according to an analysis released Tuesday. The group captured large swathes of territory in both countries in a lightning-fast offensive that began in 2014, capitalizing on instability in Syria because of the six-year civil war and sectarian dissatisfaction in northern and western Iraq. It has used weapons fitted with hazardous materials predominantly against Kurdish forces, both in northern Syria and in northern Iraq. Of the 52 times it has used chemical weapons, 19 of those attacks came in and around the Iraqi city of Mosul, according to the London-based defense consultancy IHS Janes.” CBS News: Group Warns ISIS May Hit Advancing Troops With Chemical Weapons “Iraqi troops moved on Tuesday to retake another neighborhood in the eastern sector of the northern city of Mosul but were facing stiff resistance from Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militants, according to a top Iraqi commander. A new analysis, meanwhile, has found that there was high risk that ISIS would deploy chemical weapons against Mosul civilians or Iraqi troops fighting to retake the city. According to IHS Markit, the extremist group has used chemical weapons at least 52 times in Iraq and Syria since its fighters swept across much of the two countries in 2014, including 19 times in the Mosul area alone.” Turkey Reuters: Trial Of Islamic State Suspects Shows Turkish Security Flaws Before Bombings “For two years, Haci Ali Durmaz says he used to cross the Turkish border into Syria, join the ranks of Islamic State for a few months, and then return to Turkey to work in construction. Now on trial for involvement in Turkey's deadliest suicide bombing, an attack last year that killed more than 100 people in Ankara, his testimony has highlighted flaws in border security and intelligence which lawyers say has allowed parts of Turkey to become a rear base for jihadists. The Turkish government has improved border security since the bombing and a spate of other attacks, but the consequences of such breaches are potentially far-reaching.” The New York Times: 15,000 More Public Workers Are Fired In Turkey Crackdown “The Turkish government on Tuesday expanded its crackdown on political opponents, dismissing an additional 15,000 civil servants from their jobs and shutting down 375 organizations, including nine more news outlets. More than 100,000 public workers, including police officers, teachers, soldiers and others, had already been fired for what the authorities said were connections to a failed coup on July 15 or to terrorists. The new wave of dismissals came on a morning when the European Parliament was scheduled to debate freezing accession talks for Turkey to join the European Union. It was one of several recent indicators that the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was abandoning hope of success in that process, which has dragged on for 11 years.” Yemen Reuters: Intense Fighting Traps Yemenis In Taiz, Bodies In Streets - ICRC “Civilians in the southwestern Yemeni city of Taiz are trapped by intense fighting, with dead bodies lying in the streets and 200 people wounded in the past three days, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Tuesday. Houthi fighters and government forces backed by a Saudi-led military coalition are battling for control of Taiz, the country's third largest city with an estimated pre-war population of 300,000. ‘Sniper fire and indiscriminate shelling has trapped civilians. Dead bodies are in the streets and people are unable to attend to their most basic needs. The situation is desperate,’ Alexandre Faite, head of the ICRC in Yemen, said in a statement.” Reuters: 'Factory Scale' Use Of Homemade Mines Pushes Global Casualties To 10-Year High: Study “The number of people killed or injured by landmines across the world reached a 10-year high last year, driven by a spike in improvised devices planted by militant groups like the Islamic State, researchers said on Tuesday. Casualties caused by landmines, victim-activated explosive devices and unexploded weapons left behind after war totaled 6,461 in 2015, a 75 percent increase on the previous year, according to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL). More than three quarters of victims were civilians, 38 percent of them children, the Nobel-prize-winning lobby group said in its annual report. An overwhelming majority of casualties were recorded in just five conflict-ridden countries - Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Syria and Ukraine - according to the report.” Daily Mail: ISIS Release Sickening Video Game-Style First Person Shooter Footage Of Yemeni Colonel's Assassination  “Islamic State has released chilling video game-style footage of the assassination of a Yemeni colonel, who was gunned down by masked killers. Airport security Col. Abd Al-Rahim Al-Dale'i was executed by ISIS militants as he climbed into a car in war-torn Aden, a port city in the south of Yemen. Although no group initially claimed responsibility, Islamic State later released the first person footage of the callous attack. The sickening film shows the gunman approaching Mr Al-Dale'i with his weapon raised, as the colonel steps into his car. He then pulls the trigger and the airport security boss is seen lying sprawled on the ground. ISIS militants have taken advantage of 19 months of civil war in Yemen to expand their presence in the city, which has become Yemen's temporary capital.” Egypt The Washington Post: Egypt Leader Voices Support For Syrian President’s Military “Egypt’s president has expressed support for Syrian President Bashar Assad’s military in remarks likely to irk Saudi Arabia and Gulf Arab allies who back Syrian rebels in the civil war. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi said in an interview with the Portuguese TV network RTP that Syrian government forces are best positioned to combat terrorism and restore stability in the war-torn nation. Asked if he’d send Egyptian peacekeepers to Syria under a peace deal, el-Sissi said that ‘it is better that the national army take responsibility’ and that his priority is to ‘support the national army’ of Syria. Cairo and Riyadh are at odds over the war in Syria. Egypt angered its top financial backer last month when it backed Russian and French draft resolutions on Syria at the U.N. Security Council.” Libya Associated Press: Un Agency: Most Migrants In Libya Don't Want To Reach Europe “The U.N. migration agency says a new survey shows that most migrants who cross the Mediterranean from Libya, and increasingly die trying, actually don't want to reach Europe. International Organization for Migration spokesman Joel Millman says human smugglers have forced out many migrants - at times at gunpoint - after extracting ransoms from their families. An IOM survey of migrants in Libya released Tuesday found 56 percent had intended it to be their final destination. Fewer than 30 percent combined said they wanted to reach the other top destinations: Italy, France and Germany.” Nigeria CBS News: Boko Haram Reportedly On Rampage Near Site Of Girls' Abduction “Boko Haram fighters are overrunning villages near the northeastern Nigerian town of Chibok, forcing hundreds of people to flee as the insurgents loot and burn in the area where nearly 300 schoolgirls were kidnapped in 2014, local leaders said Tuesday. ‘Chibok is now under Boko Haram siege,’ the chairman of the Chibok local government area, Yaga Yarkawa, told journalists Tuesday in Maiduguri, the birthplace of Nigeria’s homegrown Islamic extremist group some 80 miles northeast of Chibok.” United Kingdom PBS Newshour: After Her Son Joined ISIS, This Mother Fights Radicalization At Home “As the wars in Iraq and Syria continue, Europe is on a high state of alert, on guard against fleeing foreign fighters attempting to slip back into their home or adoptive countries. With Britain’s state of alert severe, the mother of one young British fighter killed in Syria has launched a deradicalization project as part of her personal war against the Islamic State. Almost exactly a year ago, Rasheed Benyahia’s father received a call to say his son had been killed in a drone strike on the Syrian-Iraqi border. In the run-up to his death, the teenager had been clingy in Internet conversations with his mother, which she has preserved in a small book. Both sensed the end was near.” Germany Deutsche Welle: Right-Wing Populism Poses New Problem For German Intel “A report leaked from a meeting of Germany's domestic intelligence agencies has revealed some uncertainty about how to deal with the rise of the populist far-right in the country. All 17 agencies of the domestic intelligence service, Verfassungsschutz (representing Germany's 16 states plus their federal counterpart, the BfV), met in Cologne late last week to discuss the threat presented by the new populist far-right movement in the country - embodied on a political level by the Alternative for Germany (AfD). But it soon became clear that the officials were unsure about the best strategy. According to a report in the ‘Süddeutsche Zeitung,’ the federal agency's 12-page guide to the state agencies was withdrawn at the last minute by BfV chief Hans-Georg Maassen on the grounds that it was not yet ready.” Europe Reuters: European Lawmakers Call For End To Turkey EU Membership Talks “The leaders of the European Parliament's two largest groups called on Tuesday for the European Union to halt membership talks with Turkey because of its post-coup purges. ‘Our message to Turkey is very clear: accession negotiations should be frozen immediately,’ said Manfred Weber, the head of the largest faction in the European Parliament, the center-right European People's Party. He was echoed by Gianni Pitella, the leader of the socialist group, the parliament's second biggest: ‘We want to freeze the accession talks.’ More than 110,000 people in Turkey - including soldiers, academics, judges, journalists and Kurdish leaders - have been suspended from their positions or dismissed over their alleged backing for the plotters of a failed military coup in July. Some 36,000 have been arrested and media outlets have been shut.” The Times Of Israel: Belgium Frees Suspected Accomplice In Jewish Museum Attack “The Belgian authorities have freed on bail a Frenchman suspected of helping in the May 2014 attack at the Brussels Jewish Museum, which left four people dead, prosecutors said on Tuesday. Nacer Bendrer was released against a 50,000-euro bond, ordered to stay at his home in France and make himself available to investigators, the Belga news agency reported. A spokesman for Belgian federal prosecutors declined to comment when contacted by AFP. Bendrer, arrested in December 2014 near the southern French city of Marseille, was sent to Belgium to face charges of ‘complicity in a terrorist attack.’” Terrorist Financing Afrigatenews: Tunisian Minister: Disbandment Of 157 Societies Suspected Of Financing Terrorism “Permission was granted in Tunisia for final disbandment of 157 associations suspected of terror financing. Tunisian Minister of Relations with Constitutional Authorities, Civil Society and Human Rights, Mehdi Ben Gharbia, responding to questions by Parliament members during a plenary session to discuss his ministry's budget in the late hours of Monday night (November 21st), confirmed that governmental authorities had sent out 721 alerts to a large number of associations. These included demands to suspend the activities of 150 societies and to dissolve {another} 38 societies on terrorism-related suspicions.” ISIS RC Arabic: Iraq's Diyala Province: ISIS Suffers Severe Lack Of Funding “The governor of Diyala province in Iraq claimed that "confessions made by ISIS detainees indicated that the organization is suffering from a very severe shortage of funding after being cut off from most of its major sources." He added that "ISIS activity in the province is based on a kind of banditry in some areas and it no longer has any real foothold.” Muslim Brotherhood Mansheet: Egypt: Halt Of Implementation Of Decision To Seize Funds Owned By Three Plaintiffs Belonging To Muslim Brotherhood “The First Circuit of the Administrative Court in Mansoura ruled to halt implementation of the decision to seize funds owned by three Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated plaintiffs. The original decision called to confiscate all the money in bank accounts registered under their names and prevent them from disposing of it. The court based its latest rule on the fact that the appeal claims an {illegitimate} assault on, and contravention of, their constitutional and legal property rights. The appeal stressed that the original seizure decision was issued by the Brotherhood Asset Freeze Committee without evidence to support it. The appeal added that the Committee had assumed the plaintiffs' behavior constituted a criminal act, but this was deemed insufficient evidence. Thus, the Committee's decision, based on the plaintiffs {allegedly} belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood, to seize their assets and prevent them from disposing of them, was unjustified. A decision of this kind, however, such as listing terrorists or terrorist entities, cannot be issued without a court order.” Aswat Masriya: Egypt: Ruling On Abou-Treika's Appeal Of Refusal To Cancel Seizure Of His Assets Scheduled For January 10th “On Tuesday, the First Circuit of {Egypt's} Court of Administrative Justice at the State Council set a hearing for January 10th, 2017, to announce the verdict in the appeal filed by former soccer star Mohammed Abou-Treika. He demands continuation of the implementation of a {previous} ruling to invalidate the appropriation of his property. His appeal urges the court to compel the Brotherhood Asset Freeze Committee to continue the implementation of the ruling and respect the provisions of the Constitution. Mohammed Othman, Abou-Treika's lawyer, stressed that the Committee refrained from implementing the ruling to cancel its {original seizure} decision by claiming it plans to submit its own {counter-}appeal. It should be noted that the Brotherhood Asset Freeze Committee issued a decision, in April of 2015, to seize Abou-Treika's funds and his company, Ashab Tours. He was also removed from the company's board of directors, due to the seizure decision. The Committee claimed that the co-partner in his company, Anas Mohammed Omar El-Kady, is a jailed Brotherhood member.” Houthi Al Jazeera: Houthis Punish Opponents Through Salary Cuts And Termination “Salary is life” – this is the slogan that Yemeni public servants and army employees have started using to protest against the Houthi militias. Their protest stems from the growing hunger they are suffering after not receiving their salaries for four months. The Houthis stopped paying salaries by firing their opponents from their jobs over a year ago. Since conquering Sanaa, the Houthis have dismissed employees and replaced them with their loyalists. The government's decision to move the Central Bank's headquarters to Aden {further} pushed the Houthis to cut off salaries to hundreds of thousands of employees, a step that has brought more than one million government employees into the cycle of {poverty and} hunger.”