Eye on Extremism December 23, 2016

Eye on Extremism December 23, 2016 Counter Extremism Project MSNBC: Germany Launches New Raids in Search for Attacker: CEP spokesperson Tara Maller comments on the ongoing investigation of the Berlin truck attack New York Times: Anis Amri, Suspect in Berlin Truck Attack, Is Shot Dead Near Milan “Anis Amri, the chief suspect in the deadly terrorist attack on a Christmas market in Berlin this week, was killed by the police in a shootout outside Milan around 3 a.m. Friday, ending a brief but intense manhunt across Europe, Italian officials announced. Stopped in the suburb of Sesto San Giovanni, north of central Milan, Mr. Amri was asked to show identification papers, Italian officials said. He pulled out a pistol and shot the officer who had asked for the papers. A second officer then opened fire, killing Mr. Amri.” The Washington Post: Suspect In Berlin Market Attack Was Radicalized In An Italian Jail “He was the man nobody wanted. When Anis Amri washed up on European shores in a migrant boat in April 2011, he landed on the windswept Italian island of Lampedusa already a fugitive. Sought in his native Tunisia for hijacking a van with a gang of thieves, the frustrated Italians would jail him for arson and violent assault at his migrant reception center for minors on the isle of Sicily. There, his family noted, the boy who once drank alcohol — and never went to mosque — suddenly got religion. He began to pray, asking his family to send him religious books. The Italian Bureau of Prisons submitted a report to a government ­anti-terrorism commission on Amri’s rapid radicalization, warning that he was embracing dangerous ideas of Islamist ­extremism and had threatened Christian inmates, according to an Italian government official with knowledge of the situation. The dossier was first reported by ANSA, the Italian news service.” USA Today: ISIL Issues Hit List Of U.S. Churches For Holiday Attacks “The Islamic State is urging its followers to attack U.S. churches and has published names and addresses of thousands of prospective targets, according to a report in the news website Vocativ. Messages posted in Arabic to the group’s ‘Secrets of Jihadis’ social media site called ‘for bloody celebrations in the Christian New Year.’ The post, under the name Abu Marya al-Iraqi, said the Islamic State, also known as ISIL, hopes to tap lone wolf attackers to ‘turn the Christian New Year into a bloody horror movie,’ Vocativ reports. The series of messages appeared on Telegram, a messaging app that allows users to send encrypted messages to one another. The group also uses social media to provide instructions on constructing and igniting explosives.” Associated Press: Virginia Man Charged With Trying To Aid Islamic State Group “The investigation began six months ago after a Virginia man allegedly pledged allegiance to Islamic terrorists on Facebook. It ended Wednesday with his arrest on charges he gave $250 to FBI informants pretending to buy weapons for the Islamic State group in Iraq, federal prosecutors said Thursday. Lionel Nelson Williams, 26, of Suffolk, also owned an AK-47 assault rifle and was expressing the desire to carry out his own ‘martyrdom operation’ in the days before his arrest, according to court documents filed by the U.S. Attorney's Office in eastern Virginia.” Politico: Pentagon: Drone Strikes Took Out 28 Al Qaeda Suspects In Yemen “Signaling the U.S. drone war against Al Qaeda in Yemen is as hot as ever, the Pentagon on Thursday revealed that U.S. forces killed 28 suspected militants linked to the terrorist group in nine separate strikes from Sept. 23 to Dec. 13. The U.S. Central Command announced the strikes shortly before the anniversary of the attempted bombing of a commercial airliner in 2009 carried out by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the especially virulent Yemen offshoot of the terrorist group that committed the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.” The Times Of Israel: Israel Busts Hamas Cell Planning Suicide Bombings In Jerusalem, Haifa “Israeli security agents busted a 20-member Hamas cell that was plotting suicide bombings and shootings against Israeli citizens in major Israeli cities, including Jerusalem and Haifa, the Shin Bet disclosed on Thursday. The internal security agency didn’t specify when the sting took place, only saying it occurred in recent months, incorporated various IDF units, and that the Hamas cell was in a state of ‘high readiness to carry out deadly suicide attacks.’ The Shin Bet said it arrested over 20 Hamas operatives from across the West Bank, many of whom had previously spent time in Israeli prisons for terrorism charges. The cell was ‘hierarchical and organized,’ the Shin Bet said, with various members involved in different aspects of planning the attacks.” Reuters: Australia Makes Arrests Over 'Imminent Threat' Of Christmas Day Attacks “Australian police said on Friday they had foiled a plot to attack prominent sites in the city of Melbourne with a series of bombs on Christmas Day that authorities described as ‘an imminent terrorist event’ inspired by Islamic State. Police laid terrorism charges against one man, and were expected to charge at least three others, after authorities conducted overnight raids on homes in the suburbs of Australia's second-largest city. Six men and a woman, all Australian citizens in their 20s, were arrested during the raids, which were conducted by about 400 police and members of Australia's domestic spy agency.” BuzzFeed News: Social Media Reportedly Blocked In Turkey After Horrific ISIS Video “Access to Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube has reportedly been blocked in Turkey. The move comes after a group known as the Aleppo Province of the Islamic State reportedly posted a video Thursday showing two Turkish soldiers being burned alive near Aleppo. Some Internet users in Turkey say they still have access to the social networks, however, and it’s possible they’re using VPNs as a workaround. Turkey’s government is known for restricting its citizens’ internet access during times of crisis; it most recently throttled access to these sites earlier this week, after a Turkish police officer assassinated Russian Ambassador to Turkey Andrey Karlov in an art gallery in Ankara, claiming to want revenge for the Syrian Civil War.” Newsweek: Nigerian Army Frees Almost 2,000 Civilians From Boko Haram In A Week “The Nigerian army freed almost 2,000 civilians from Boko Haram-controlled areas in the past week, according to the officer commanding operations against the militant group. Troops rescued 1,880 civilians from enclaves of the militant group in Sambisa Forest, north-east Nigeria between December 14-21, Major-General Leo Irabor said at a press conference in the group’s former stronghold of Maiduguri on Wednesday. The military also arrested 564 suspected members of Boko Haram during the same period. Boko Haram launched an armed insurgency against the Nigerian government in Maiduguri in 2009, seeking to establish a hardline Islamic caliphate in the country’s majority-Muslim north.” Los Angeles Times: Malta Says 2 Hijackers Are Threatening To Blow Up Libyan Plane With 118 Passenger “Hjackers who claimed to be armed with grenades took control of a domestic flight in Libya on Friday, threatening to blow up the plane and forcing the pilot to land in Malta with 118 people aboard, officials said.  The two hijackers identified themselves as supporters of deposed Libyan strongman Moammar Kadafi, but it was not clear what their demands were, according to Magda Magri Naudi, mayor of the Maltese city of Lija. “Unless their requests are met, they will blow up the plane,” said Naudi, who has been talking with Maltese and Libyan hostage negotiators. She said the passengers included 83 men, 28 women and a baby. It was not clear what their nationalities were, she said, or if they were any injured, because “no one has approached the plane.” United States Reuters: U.S. Drone Pilots Defend Tactics As Afghans Question Civilian Toll “They are speaking about the same deadly drone war that the United States has been waging this year, but talk to the U.S. military and Afghan civilians and their conclusions about who is targeted are often starkly different. To the Americans, only enemy combatants were killed by missiles fired from unmanned aircraft in Afghanistan in 2016. Eyewitness accounts, however, along with United Nations reports, suggest dozens of civilians were among the casualties. The certainty expressed by drone operators often contrasts with the chaos described by witnesses on the ground.” Fox News: US Placed Berlin Terror Suspect On No-Fly List Months Ago, Report Says “The Berlin terror suspect who repeatedly slipped through the fingers of German authorities was reportedly on the U.S. no-fly list months before Monday's deadly attack. German officials on Thursday continued to hunt Anis Amri, who is considered armed and dangerous. A fingerprint in the cab of the truck used in Monday's attack was found on Thursday to belong to Amri. Amri piqued the interest of U.S. officials after it was discovered he had researched the construction of explosive devices and communicated with ISIS leaders on at least one occasion via the group’s Telegram Messenger, officials told The New York Times.” ABC News: Prosecutors: Man Amassed Weapons Cache For Islamic State “Federal prosecutors say a Detroit man accused of amassing weapons and buying explosives did so on behalf of the Islamic State and is backed by a group of supporters in Maryland. The U.S. Attorney's Office made the claim in a court filing Thursday opposing a defense request to free Sebastian Gregerson from jail pending trial. The Detroit News reports ( http://detne.ws/2i6ZXAQ ) it's the first time prosecutors have alleged publicly that the 30-year-old Gregerson was part of a broader group of Islamic State supporters.” Syria The Wall Street Journal: Syrian Army Says Government Has Full Control Of Aleppo “Aleppo returned to full government control for the first time since 2012, the Syrian army said Thursday, a major victory for President Bashar al-Assad and a crushing blow for the fractious armed opposition. The Syrian army declared the city had been ‘liberated’ and security restored, according to state-run SANA news agency. As the last convoy left eastern Aleppo, meanwhile, the weeklong evacuation of tens of thousands of civilians and rebels from the final remaining opposition-held areas of the city drew to a close Thursday night.” The New York Times: Turning Point In Syria As Assad Regains All Of Aleppo “The evacuation of civilians and fighters from the last rebel-held part of Aleppo concluded on Thursday after long delays because of frigid weather, putting all of Syria’s industrial capital back in the hands of President Bashar al-Assad’s forces for the first time since 2012. The last buses carrying residents from eastern Aleppo left the city late Thursday night, according to the Syrian state news agency.Tens of thousands of people have been removed from eastern Aleppo since Dec. 15. Before the last buses left on Thursday, the Red Cross said that 34,000 people had left the city, including 4,000 fighters who had left in their own vehicles the previous night.” Reuters: Russia Says Syria Ceasefire To Be Discussed At January Talks In Kazakhstan: Ifax “Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov said on Friday he expected new Syria peace talks backed by Moscow, Ankara and Tehran to take place in the middle of January, the Interfax news agency reported. It cited Gatilov as saying he expected they would focus on discussing what needs to be done to get a nationwide ceasefire for Syria in place. The foreign and defense ministers of Russia, Iran and Turkey held talks on Syria in Moscow on Tuesday after which they said they were ready to help broker a Syrian peace deal. The United States sought to downplay its absence from the talks, saying it was not a ‘snub’ and did not reflect a decline of U.S. influence in the Middle East.” Reuters: Russia Says Its Air Strikes In Syria Have Killed 35,000 Rebels “Russian air strikes in Syria have killed 35,000 rebel fighters and succeeded in halting a chain of revolutions in the Middle East, Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Thursday. Speaking at a gathering of top military officials that appeared designed to showcase Russia's military achievements, Shoigu said Moscow's intervention had prevented the collapse of the Syrian state. ‘We are now stronger than any potential aggressor,’ President Vladimir Putin said at the same event at the Defence Ministry in Moscow. Shoigu said Russian aircraft had flown 18,800 sorties in Syria since the start of the Kremlin's operation there last year, destroying 725 training camps, 405 sites where weapons were being made and killing 35,000 fighters.” Reuters: Vehicles Still Leaving Aleppo After Overnight Evacuation - U.N. In Syria “Vehicles were still streaming out of eastern Aleppo on Thursday morning after an evacuation overnight monitored by the U.N., a United Nations official in Syria told Reuters on Thursday. Snow, bad weather and the poor condition of some cars appeared to have slowed the operation on Wednesday in east Aleppo, where only a small number of rebels are still waiting to leave under an agreement with the Syrian government. ‘The evacuation is still ongoing, monitors are still on site. About 300 private vehicles left overnight and this morning,’ the U.N. official said.” Iraq Reuters: Islamic State Claims Suicide Car Bombs That Killed At Least 23 East Of Mosul “Islamic State claimed three suicide car bombs that killed at least 15 civilians and eight Iraqi policemen on Thursday in an eastern suburb of Mosul, according to a military statement. The attacks targeted Kokjali, a suburb that the authorities said they had retaken from the jihadists almost two months ago. A military spokesman said the car bombs went off in a market. The U.S.-backed assault on Mosul, the jihadists' last major stronghold in Iraq, was launched by a 100,000-strong alliance of local forces on Oct. 17. It has become the biggest military operation in Iraq since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.” Turkey The Wall Street Journal: Violence Bolsters Erdogan’s Plan For More Presidential Power In Turkey “Turkey is moving toward a referendum that if approved would give President Recep Tayyip Erdogan near absolute power—and every new terrorist attack is likely to increase his chances of winning the vote. This nation of nearly 80 million people, a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, is targeted by Kurdish separatists and radical Islamists alike. Over just the past two weeks, it witnessed two major bombings, in Istanbul and the central city of Kayseri, and the assassination of the Russian ambassador in the capital, Ankara.” The Daily Caller: Gulen Says Turkish Government Could Have Been Behind Assassination “Fethullah Gulen said on Thursday that the Turkish government may have been behind the assassination of Russian ambassador Andrey Karlov earlier this week and that the Turks could ‘facilitate’ other murders and blame them on Gulenists, the followers of the U.S.-based cleric. Gulen, who is considered a terrorist by Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, raised that possibility in a video statement released on Thursday. ‘The most dangerous possibility, in my humble opinion, as I alluded before, is that it appears that [the Turkish government] will facilitate other assassinations and will attempt to blame them on Hizmet movement,’ Gulen said in the video, which was released by the Alliance for Shared Values, a non-profit that serves as the exiled imam’s PR shop.” Reuters: Monitoring Group Says Islamic State Video Shows Two Turkish Soldiers Burned Alive “Islamic State in Syria released a video on Thursday purporting to show two captured Turkish soldiers being burned to death, according to the U.S.-based SITE Intelligence Group which monitors militant groups online. Reuters was not able to verify the report and no comment was immediately available from Turkish officials. Late last month, Turkish military officials said they had lost contact with two soldiers in northern Syria, where the army is waging an offensive against Islamic State.” Afghanistan The Daily Caller: 13,000 Afghan Interpreters Await US Visas Under Taliban Threat “Nearly 13,000 Afghan families who assisted U.S. troops between 2001 and 2014 are waiting for a U.S. visa, The Associated Press reports. Many interpreted for U.S. soldiers in dangerous areas, and face repeated death threats from the Taliban. Some of the interpreters were even wounded on combat missions with U.S. forces and have been in visa limbo for nearly five years. ‘I’m living my days in hell. Even if someone is not really looking at me, I feel so paranoid, like this guy is going to kill me,’ a former U.S. interpreter told the AP. Another elaborated, ‘There’s a lot of other interpreters who were shot, hurt, are crazy disabled, and all of them are stuck in Afghanistan.’” Saudi Arabia Reuters: Saudi Arabia To Raise Military Spending 6 Pct -Budget “Dec 22 Saudi Arabia, at war in Yemen and competing for regional influence with arch-rival Iran, projects a 6.7 percent rise in defence spending in 2017 to 191 billion riyals ($50.8 billion), according to official budget figures released on Thursday. The kingdom, one of the world's biggest military spenders, forecasts a decline in Security and Regional Administration, a separate spending category that is military-related, to 96.7 billion riyals from 102.3 billion. Military spending was originally projected at 179 billion riyals in 2016 but actual military spending has been around 205.1 billion. Security and Regional Administration spending will be 100.6 billion in 2016, according to the budget's preliminary estimates.” Egypt The New York Times: Egypt’s Cruelty To Christians “The Dec. 11 bombing of a church in the Cairo cathedral complex — the seat of the Coptic pope — has been claimed by the Islamic State, although the Egyptian government has blamed the Muslim Brotherhood. Whoever planted the bomb that killed 27 people, including a 10-year-old girl, when it ripped through a church full of Sunday worshipers understood well how endemic bigotry in Egypt has left Christian lives at the whim of a regime that pays lip service to protecting them, armed Islamists who actively seek them harm, and a public that largely does not care. To gauge the enormity of what happened at the church of St. Peter and St. Paul, imagine a bombing in a church within the Vatican complex.” Middle East The New York Times: In Israel, Arrest Of Arab Lawmaker Stokes Debate On Loyalty “An Arab member of Israel’s Parliament was arrested on Thursday after being accused of smuggling cellphones to Palestinian prisoners, capping days of fractious debate that raised questions about the nature of loyalty and identity in a predominantly Jewish state. Basel Ghattas, 60, a magazine publisher who joined the Knesset in 2013, was taken into custody by the police just hours after agreeing to surrender his legislative immunity. Such a move is extremely rare in Israel, although in recent years a former prime minister and a president have been charged with corruption and rape and later sent to prison.” The Wall Street Journal: Israel Lobbied Trump To Help Derail U.N. Resolution “Israeli government officials requested that U.S. President-elect Donald Trump intervene in deliberations at the United Nations focused on passing a new resolution on the Arab-Israel conflict, thrusting him into the center of one of the world’s most intractable conflicts even before taking office, according to Israeli officials briefed on the discussions. Top Israeli officials had come to believe that the Obama administration wasn’t going to block a U.N. resolution that seeks to define Israeli construction in disputed territories as ‘illegal’ when the measure came up for a scheduled vote by the Security Council on Thursday, according to the officials.” Nigeria International Business Times: Nigerian Army Arrests 560 Boko Haram Fighters As Sambisa Forest Offensive Continues “The Nigerian army has claimed it arrested 564 members of Boko Haram terror group as the offensive against the Islamist outfit continues in north-eastern Nigeria. Soldiers also freed 1,880 civilians held captive by the terrorists. The military operation was conducted in the Sambisa forest, Borno state, believed to be Boko Haram's last stronghold. Major General Leo Irabor said: ‘Five hundred and 64 Boko Haram terrorists were arrested while 19 others surrendered to our troops. Also, seven suspected kidnappers and 37 foreigners were equally arrested.’” United Kingdom The Guardian: The UK Is At High Risk Of A Terror Attack – But How Has It Avoided One So Far? “London or any other part of the UK presents an obvious target for Islamic terrorists, more so than Germany given the UK’s high-profile involvement as the closest military ally of the US. UK intelligence agencies repeatedly warn that it is just a matter of time before a British target is hit. In a rare speech earlier this month, Alex Younger, the head of the UK’s overseas intelligence agency MI6, described the threat posed by groups such as Islamic State or its sympathisers as ‘unprecedented’. One of the most alarming warnings came last year from Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, a former British army officer and chemical weapons expert, who raised the risk of Isis mounting a chlorine attack in the London Underground, similar to the sarin attack on the Tokyo subway in 1995.” The Hill: Prince Charles: Anti-Immigrant Populism Echoes 'Dark Days Of The 1930s' “Britain's Prince Charles says the new wave of anti-immigrant populism worldwide has parallels with the ‘dark days of the 1930s.’ ‘We are now seeing the rise of many populist groups around the world that are increasingly aggressive towards those who adhere to a minority faith,’ he said of discrimination against the world’s refugees on BBC 4 Radio’s ‘Thought for the Day’ Thursday. ‘All of this has deeply disturbing echoes of the dark days of the 1930s.’ ‘I was born in 1948, just after the end of World War II, in which my parents’ generation had fought and died in a battle against intolerance, a monstrous extremism and an inhuman attempt to exterminate the Jewish population of Europe,’ added Charles, the heir to the United Kingdom's throne.” Germany The Daily Caller: Former Intel Chief: Germany Finding It Near Impossible To Keep Tabs On 7,000 Potential Terror Suspects “MI6’s former head of counter-extremism Richard Barrett said Thursday that German authorities are finding it virtually impossible to keep track of the 7,000 potential terror suspects roaming around the country. Intelligence failings have been at the forefront of the public’s mind following Monday’s devastating truck terror attack on a Christmas market in Berlin, leaving 12 dead and 48 injured. Not only did German authorities arrest the wrong suspect, but they determined that the actual suspect, Anis Amris, a known supporter of the Islamic State and recruiter for the terror group, had been arrested three times in 2016 alone and should have already been deported. Amris is a 24-year-old Tunisian asylum seeker.” BBC: Germany Arrests Two On Terror Charges “Two men have been arrested in Germany on suspicion of planning an attack on a shopping centre in Oberhausen near the Dutch border, police say. The brothers, aged 31 and 28 and born in Kosovo, were detained early on Friday in Duisburg. Germany is on high alert after Monday's attack in Berlin, which left 12 dead. A Europe-wide manhunt continues for Anis Amri, the Tunisian man suspected of driving a lorry into the Breitscheidplatz Christmas market. Police said the Oberhausen attack had been intended to target the CentrO shopping centre. Officers dressed in civilian clothing had been sent to patrol the centre and a nearby Christmas market after a tip from intelligence services, police said in a statement. It is not yet known how advanced the preparations for the attack were, or if others were involved, the statement said.” Newsweek: Germany Is In Denial About Its Ineffective Counter-Terrorism Structure “On December 19, Germany was hit by its first major Islamist terror attack, when a man steered a huge tractor-trailer truck into a Christmas market next to the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in the center of former West Berlin. The debate triggered by the event first focused on why the main suspect, the Tunisian Anis Amri, had been able to plan, organize and perpetrate the attack although he had been on a German terrorism watchlist and should have been deported to his home country months ago. Although this might seem a particularly scandalous blunder on the part the German security authorities, many Germans have grown accustomed to the erratic performance of their police and intelligence services in recent years. In fact, the case of Anis Amri is paradigmatic for the weakness of the German security architecture, which is not ready to cope with the threats of the 21 st century.” Europe The Daily Caller: European Officials: There’s ‘Nothing You Can Do’ To Stop Christmas Market Attacks “European officials grappling with the Monday Christmas market attack by a likely Islamic State-inspired Tunisian refugee, say there is only so much you can do to prevent such terrorism. Despite ISIS propaganda specifically calling for attacks on Christmas markets, there were limited security measures throughout the country. France’s largest Christmas market is reportedly a prized target of ISIS, and authorities say they may have to close it if threats continue to proliferate. German officials responded to Monday’s attack by closing all Christmas markets in Berlin Tuesday.”