Posts

Showing posts from July 21, 2019

Counter-Terrorism: Guantanamo All Over Again

July 27, 2019: Europe is now facing the same situation the United States confronted in 2002 when hundreds of Islamic terrorists were captured in Afghanistan and it was unclear what could be done with them. By 2009 that was still an unresolved problem and ten years later the Americans are not the only ones forced to deal with it. European nations, after accepting millions of illegal Moslem migrants who refused to adapt to their new homeland, found that thousands of their Moslem residents went off after 2014 to join the “Islamic State” in Syria. Most of those European Moslems were killed, captured or, for the moment, are untraceable.  Many of these Islamic State zealots were known to have committed crimes, often gruesome ones that they made videos of the posted on the Internet. Most of those captured in Syria and Iraq want to return to Europe and Europe does not know how to handle those re

UK has world's best counter-terror machine, says Indian-origin Scotland Yard chief

The UK's Indian-origin chief of counter-terror policing, Neil Basu, praised his Scotland Yard team for having foiled 19 "murderous plots" since March 2017 in the wake on an inquest into the deaths of eight people killed in the London Bridge terror attack in June 2017. The Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner, in a statement following the inquest that concluded on Friday, welcomed a ruling by the Chief Coroner that found that the UK's police and investigative authorities had not missed clues that could have helped thwart the attacks led by Pakistani-origin ringleader Khurram Butt. With regards to the investigation itself, and with the benefit of hindsight, we know certain things could have been done differently. But after careful consideration, the Chief Coroner found that the pre-attack investigation was nonetheless thorough and rigorous, he was not persuaded that investigative opportunities were lost which could realistically have saved the l

Fight against money laundering and terrorist financing: Commission assesses risks and calls for better implementation of the rules

The European Commission is today adopting a Communication and four reports that will support European and national authorities in better addressing money laundering and terrorist financing risks. The Juncker Commission put strong EU rules in place with thefourth and the fifth Anti-Money laundering directives and reinforced the supervisory role of the European Banking Authority. The reports stress the need for their full implementation while underlining that a number of structural shortcomings in the implementation of the Union's anti-money laundering and counter terrorist financing rules still need to be addressed. Today's package will serve as a basis for future policy choices on how to further strengthen the EU anti-money laundering framework. Frans Timmermans, First Vice-President said : " We must close off all opportunities for criminals and terrorists to abuse our financial system and threaten the security of Europeans. There are some very concrete i

Facebook Takes Action As Terrorists Found Using Platform To Recruit And Campaign

"When terrorists misuse the internet," Facebook explained in a blog post on Wednesday, July 24, "they often upload the same piece of content to multiple platforms to maximize their reach." This has allowed the social media giant—along with Google , Microsoft and Twitter under the  Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism ( GIFCT ) alliance—to "more quickly identify and take action against potential terrorist content on our respective platforms." In 2018, the alliance reached its intended milestone of assembling 100,000 such hashes. In the first half of 2019, though, the number has already doubled. There are now "more than 200,000 unique hashes in the database," each of which is described as a digital fingerprint pointing to a known piece of terrorist content. The scale speaks for itself, as does news from the frontline. Israel's internal security agency Shin Bet accused Iran this week of sponsoring

Talking Europe - EU counter-terror chief on battling the virtual 'caliphate' and what to do with children of jihadists

Image
This week we're looking at something that has changed the way we live our lives in Europe: the terrorist threat. From Paris to Brussels, London, Manchester, Berlin, Strasbourg and Nice, the list of cities struck by terrorism sends a shiver down the spine. Preventing new attacks is the top priority for EU member states' security forces and intelligence agencies. Our guest is Gilles de Kerchove, the EU's Counter-Terrorism Coordinator. He is at the heart of that European cooperation. Source: https://www.france24.com/en/20190701-talking-europe-gilles-de-kerchove-counter-terrorism-threat-terror-attacks-eu-jihadists

Top Jaish bomb maker killed in south Kashmir’s overnight operation

Image
Munna Bhai, 19, had crossed over to Kashmir from Pakistan last year and is reported to have led the terror group’s use of bombs in vehicles, a tactic that could let them carry out attacks without risking their lives. A top commander of Jaish-e-Mohammed Munna Bhai was killed on Saturday morning in an overnight gunfight with security forces in south Kashmir’s Shopian district. An associate of Munna Bhai, Zeenat-ul-Islam of Shopian, was also killed in the same operation. Munna Lahori, also known as Chhota Burmi, was from Pakistan and is accused of plotting several IED attacks in the south Kashmir region along with Ismail, another Pakistani Jaish commander. They were not only responsible for several bomb blasts attacks in Jammu and Kashmir but also for training and extending logistical support to the local terrorists in south Kashmir, a senior police officer said. Jaish had also used

Taliban vows future Afghanistan won't be terrorists' hotbed

WASHINGTON: America's longest war has come full circle. The United States began bombing Afghanistan after the attacks of Sept 11, 2001, to root out al-Qaida fighters harbored by the Taliban . Now, more than 18 years later, preventing Afghanistan from being a launching pad for more attacks on America is at the heart of ongoing US talks with the Taliban. President Donald Trump's envoy at the negotiating table says he's satisfied with the Taliban's commitment to prevent international terrorist organizations from using Afghanistan as a base to plot global attacks. There's even talk that a negotiated settlement might result in the Taliban joining the US to fight Islamic State militants, rivals whose footprint is growing in mountainous northern Afghanistan. "The world needs to be sure that Afghanistan will not be a threat to the international community," said the envoy, Zalmay Khalilzad , who was born in Afghanistan and is a former US ambassador to A

Over 120,000 displaced by conflict in Libya's Tripoli

Image
Photo taken on July 25, 2019 shows the view through a bullet hole in a building at a frontline during clashes between UN-backed government and Libya's eastern-based army near Tripoli international airport, Tripoli, Libya. Libya's eastern-based army on Thursday announced shooting down a drone belonging to the rival UN-backed government in central Libya. The army, led by Khalifa Haftar, has been leading a military campaign since early April to take over Tripoli from the government. The fighting so far has killed more than a thousand people, injured more than 5,700 others, and forced more than 120,000 people to flee their homes, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). (Xinhua/Amru Salahuddien) Libya's eastern-based army on Thursday announced shooting down a drone belonging to the rival UN-backed government in central Libya. The army, led by Khalifa Haftar, has been leading a military campaign since early April to take over Tripoli from the governmen

Family murder suicides in Yemen highlight depths of war-induced mental health crisis

Image
After more than four years of fighting, many of the dreams and livelihoods of those trapped in Yemen’s capital Sana’a have been dashed and hopes that the bloodletting will end anytime soon, have been laid to waste. “We’re all depressed, everyone is poor, everyone has lost their jobs,” Nasser, a 58-year-old, Sana’a-based father and former logistics coordinator from a medical company abroad which has had to stop working in Yemen, told Fox News. “Life was going well until the war came, now everything is suspended. The worst thing, is people have now lost their hope.” But beyond the physical decimation civilians are enduring – upwards of 100,000 people have been killed and 80 percent of the 29 million population are in need of humanitarian assistance nationwide – the psychological toll of the conflict is ravaging entire families. According to Nasser, their community was devastated by news last month that a father killed his three daughters – aged 7, 10 and 14 –

Boris Johnson to recruit 20,000 police officers amid knife problem gripping London, rest of UK

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said the recruitment of 20,000 new police officers will start within weeks as the new premier promises a crackdown on violent crime gripping London and the rest of the country. Johnson, who formally took office on Wednesday, has repeatedly stressed his intention to ramp up the numbers of police officers, which has declined by about 20,000 since the Conservatives gained power in 2010. UK KNIFE CRIME RISES BY 8 PERCENT TO RECORD HIGH AS LONDON MAYOR BLAMES ‘AUSTERITY’ FOR SHARP INCREASE In both his first speech as Prime Minister on the steps on Downing Street on Wednesday and to the Parliament on Thursday, the new premier said he will put thousands more officers on the streets. “People want to see more officers in their neighborhoods, protecting the public and cutting crime.” — Boris Johnson “People want to see more officers in their neighborhoods, protecting the public and cutting crime,” Johnson said Friday. The r

Opinion | Can Mr. Ravi in his new avatar as Governor bolster naga peace talks?

The announcement on 20 July of R.N. Ravi taking over as the next governor of Nagaland leaves interesting possibilities on the chessboard that is the process of peace, formal reconciliation and rehabilitation of various Naga rebel groups. Ravi was the interlocutor for peace talks with National Socialist Council of Nagalim (Isak-Muivah), or NSCN (I-M), the largest Naga rebel group; a collective of six smaller rebel groups; and a major breakaway faction of NSCN’s Khaplang, or K, faction. Besides, he was chair of the joint intelligence committee, and was last year re-designated deputy national security adviser. To my mind, Ravi the governor will remain Ravi the driving force of the Naga peace process. Let’s take a brief look at the man and the systemic method the peace process is. For someone who has been in the security establishment as long as Ravi has, he’s a curious piece of work. He isn’t known to be heavy-handed. He’s polite to a default. In the Naga theatre he has

Federalism: a doorway into building better understanding of the peace process - Myanmar

The Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) of 2015, a document ratified by Myanmar’s parliament, has established federal union as the end goal of Myanmar’s peace process. Many in Myanmar’s Regions, which lie outside of the areas of conflict, however, know little about the peace process because it does not seem to concern them. But a federal system would touch the lives of everyone in Myanmar, not just those whose lives have been shaped by decades of conflict. With this in mind, the Centre for Development and Ethnic Studies (CDES), with the support of the Joint Peace Fund, has designed a series of trainings and forums for communities from both Regions and States to learn and discuss what federalism means in more depth as well as increase understanding about the peace process itself. Overall, these events seek to create a better understanding of federalism as a tool to build peace in Myanmar. So far, they have been held in Ayeyarwaddy, Bago, Magway, Sagaing, Ta

Afghanistan peace talks: U.S. pushes toward “face-saving way out"

The ongoing negotiations between the U.S. and the Taliban are a “charade” designed simply to provide the U.S. a “face-saving way out of Afghanistan,” former CIA deputy director Michael Morell tells Axios. Why it matters: The Trump administration wants to move quickly toward a deal to end the war in Afghanistan. But Morell, who now hosts the Intelligence Matters podcast, is one of several experts and former officials warning that such a deal won’t secure peace. “The president has said the Taliban is tired. That’s not true. The Taliban controls more territory than at any time since the 9/11 attacks and it seeks what it has always sought: to fully control Afghanistan as a one-party state,” Morell contends. He says a recent Taliban video that justifies the 9/11 attacks based on “interventionist” U.S. policies — and threatens “vengeance” against Afghan security forces — “represents [the Taliban's] true views” more clearly than anything told to U.S. negotiat

Hopes Dashed as Ethiopia-Eritrea Peace Process Stagnates

ZALAMBESSA , ETHIOPIA - In the heady days after longtime foes Ethiopia and Eritrea signed a peace deal a year ago, Teklit Amare's Peace and Love Cafe near the newly-opened border overflowed with customers. Now, he paces among empty tables, wondering aloud how to keep his business open as optimism fades, with borders again sealed and hopes of progress dashed. The Zalambessa border crossing closed at the end of last year without explanation as leaders have remained silent. Others crossings followed suit. "When they shut the border so soon after opening it, that was the saddest moment," said Teklit, a former teacher who now struggles to pay his rent. The feeling is widely shared in Zalambessa, a town where battered buildings highlight the damage wrought by the Ethiopia-Eritrea border war, which erupted in 1998 and left tens of thousands dead. During the stalemate that followed the end of active ho

Trump’s Mideast envoy blasts UN Security Council over peace process

Image
UNITED NATIONS – President Trump’s Middle East envoy lashed out Tuesday at the United Nations Security Council over its handling of peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians, taking aim at what he called “the constant drumbeat of tired rhetoric that is designed to prevent progress and bypass direct negotiations. It is time to retire that rhetoric.” The envoy, Jason Greenblatt, pointed out that the Israelis and Palestinians must agree to any final peace settlement. He urged members to accept fresh thinking. “Peace will require honesty and a willingness to consider new ideas, as well as courage and hard compromises. This is a time for us to speak to each other candidly, not in stale slogans and talking points.” Greenblatt told the council that while Trump was not yet ready to announce the political portion of his plan for Mideast peace, he said, “We hope to make that decision soon.” Raising eyebrows from the chamber, he took a swipe at the many resolutions the