Terrorism Watch

The diocese of Bergamo northeast of Milan appears to have been ravaged the most by the stealth killer. At least 10 of its priests have died of COVID-19, the Catholic daily Avvenire reported Thursday. The deaths, whether of priests or members of their communities, are “so numerous that it is difficult to count,” the paper wrote. Five more fatalities were registered in the city of Parma. Still more virus-related deaths emerged among priests in Brescia, Cremona, and the northern industrial hub of Milan itself. All these parishes are clustered in Italy’s north, the virus’ target from the day the Catholic country’s first death was reported four weeks ago. More than 3,400 Italians have died of the virus since then. Italy has taken over the grim title of being the global epicenter of the pandemic from China, where COVID-19 was first reported in late December. Like doctors Like doctors, Italy’s priests come in contact with the disease’s most serious cases. And like doctors,

THREE DAYS of fighting between the military (Tatmadaw) and the Arakan Army (AA) have left at least 21 civilians dead and 27 others injured. According to the  Myanmar Times , civic groups and legislators said 12 civilians were killed and 15 injured in a military air strike on suspected AA hideouts between Paletwa and Sami towns in Chin State recently. Tatmadaw’s True News Agency secretary Brigadier General Zaw Min Tun said he could not confirm or deny the military air strikes, adding that the Tatmadaw had difficulty distinguishing AA fighters from civilians because AA fighters disguised themselves as civilians. “There are AA members in nearly every village in Paletwa township. Air attacks are not usually conducted without exact information. We don’t do such reckless things,” he said. More than 500 people from three villages had fled the air strikes to take shelter at monasteries and schools. Khumi Affairs Coordination Council chairman U Kyaw Nyein said people blamed both Tatm

Syria's war has killed hundreds of thousands of civilians and displaced millions. BEIRUT: Syria's brutal conflict enters its 10th year Sunday with President Bashar al-Assad's regime consolidating its hold over a war-wracked country with a decimated economy where foreign powers flex their muscle. When Syrians took to the streets on March 15, 2011, they could scarcely have imagined their anti-government protests would turn into a complex war entangling rebels, jihadists and outside forces. At least 384,000 people have since died, including more than 116,000 civilians, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said Saturday. The conflict has displaced more than 11 million people internally and abroad. "Nine years of revolution illustrate the extent of the suffering we have known, between exile, bombings and deaths," said Hala Ibrahim, a rights activist who now lives in the town of Dana, in Idlib province. "I left my university, my house w

ADEN  At least 80 Houthi rebels were killed and tens of others injured in clashes with government forces in Yemen, according to a statement from the press office of the Yemeni army Tuesday.   Sixty rebels were killed in clashes in the Qaniyah region in Al Bayda province. Another 20 rebels were killed in a Saudi Arabian-led coalition airstrikes in the district of Survah of Marib province. A Houthi drone was shot down in Al-Hudaydah province by Yemeni government forces, according to the press office of Amalika Brigade. Yemen has been beset by violence and chaos since 2014, when the Iran-backed Houthi rebels overran much of the country, including the capital of Sanaa. The crisis escalated in 2015 when a Saudi-led military coalition launched a devastating air campaign aimed at rolling back Houthi territorial gains. Tens of thousands of Yemenis, including civilians, are believed to have been killed in the conflict, which has led to the world’s worst humanitarian crisis as mi

TIMIKA, Indonesia (AP) — Four Papuan independence fighters were killed in an ongoing clash between security forces and a rebel group near the world’s largest gold mine in Indonesia’s easternmost Papua region, police and rebels said Monday. The clashes, which began Feb. 29 near the Grasberg copper and gold mine in Papua province, earlier killed two security personnel and injured three others. Police said the attackers are believed to be members of the West Papua Liberation Army, the military wing of the Free Papua Organization. Rebels in Papua have been fighting a low-level insurgency since the early 1960s, when Indonesia annexed the region, a former Dutch colony. Papua was formally incorporated into Indonesia in 1969 after a U.N.-sponsored ballot that was seen as a sham by many. Papua police spokesman Ahmad Musthofa Kamal said a joint military and police force killed four of the Papuan fighters, including a woman, in a battle with dozens of rebels armed with military-grade we

MANILA, Philippines — Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte declared a unilateral cease-fire with communist guerrillas on Wednesday to focus on fighting the coronavirus outbreak that prompted him to place the northern third of the country under quarantine. Duterte ordered the military and police to stop offensives against New People’s Army guerrillas during the cease-fire, which is to start Thursday and end April 15. Interior Secretary Eduardo Ano ordered the national police to shift to a defensive posture. He urged the Marxist guerrillas to respond with their own cease-fire. “We call on them to be a part of the solution in fighting our common enemy, the coronavirus,” Ano said in a statement. “Through this cease-fire, the Philippine government aspires that the swift provision of public health assistance goes unimpeded with the movement of health workers and medical supplies to communities,” presidential spokesman Salvador Panelo said. Duterte launched peace talks

UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. Security Council and the secretary-general on Monday strongly condemned the killing of a U.N. peacekeeper in the Central African Republic during an attack by members of the mainly Christian anti-Balaka group.  The U.N. peacekeeping mission in the country said the peacekeeper from Burundi was killed on Sunday when troops were trying to stop an attack in Grimari in the center of the country that began when anti-Balaka fighters under the command of Dimitri Ayoloma opened fire on the homes of the mayor and a regional official.  The mission said U.N. peacekeepers in Grimari, in Ouaka province, immediately intervened trying to end the assault, and the rebels deliberately opened fire against them, fatally injuring the soldier from Burundi. Mankeur Ndiaye, who heads the peacekeeping mission, condemned the “heinous act” that cost his life. “This attack on the city of Grimari and the peacekeepers is unacceptable and constitutes a serious crime under th

Abiy Ahmed’s crackdown in Oromia is bloody and lawless I N THE CORNER  of a restaurant in Nekemte, a town in western Ethiopia, Fisaha Aberra unfolds a piece of paper on which he has scrawled the names of 11 men he says were shot by soldiers last year. After this came mass arrests. Fisaha and two siblings fled their home in Guliso to Nekemte, leaving one brother behind who was arrested last month, for the second time in a year, and beaten so hard he cannot walk. Arrests and summary executions have become commonplace in the far-flung reaches of Oromia, Ethiopia’s largest region. The Ethiopian security forces are waging war on armed Oromo separatists. They are also treating civilians brutally. Accounts by witnesses suggest there is indiscriminate repression of local dissent in a country supposedly on the path from one-party rule towards democracy. Source:  https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2020/03/19/a-hidden-war-threatens-ethiopias-transition-to-democracy

Fatah Mohammed Abdullah also pleads guilty to buying explosive equipment Fatah Mohammed Abdullah was appearing via video link at Liverpool crown court. Photograph: Radharc Images/Alamy A  Newcastle  man has admitted inciting people to commit terror attacks in Germany, and buying explosive equipment. Fatah Mohammed Abdullah, 35, bought more than 8,000 matches, fireworks, fuses, explosives precursors – or substances that could be used to manufacture explosives – and a remote control detonator. His intention was to help Omar Babek and Ahmed Hussein commit acts of terrorism in  Germany , a video-link hearing at Liverpool crown court heard on Friday. The British-Iranian, from the Arthur’s Hill area of the city, pleaded guilty to inciting terrorism overseas and engaging in conduct in preparation for giving effect to an intention to assist others to commit terror attacks. Charges against the defendant state that between 9 April 2018 and 11 December 2018, he encouraged others to

THE HAGUE, Netherlnads — A Dutch court convicted a radicalized Muslim man Friday of murder with a terrorist motive and sentenced him to life imprisonment for opening fire on a tram and killing four people last year. The defendant, 38-year-old Gokmen Tanis, was not in court to hear the verdict due to restrictions imposed to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. Presiding Judge Ruud van Veldhuisen said Tanis carried out a “cold-blooded” terror attack that sent shock waves through the central city of Utrecht and the rest of the Netherlands. Tanis did not answer questions during his trial and was repeatedly removed from court for insulting judges, his lawyer and families of victims. Tanis walked onto a tram in Utrecht on March 18, 2019 and used a pistol with a silencer attached to shoot passengers at close range. He then jumped out of the tram and shot a driver sitting behind the wheel of a car.  Three people in the tram were killed and the man in the car died of his inj

Today marks the 16th European Remembrance Day for Victims of Terrorism. This year’s commemoration, under the title ‘Growing Stronger Together’, will bring together more than 100 victims from all over Europe, as well as their families, associations of victims of terrorism, pupils, emergency services and high-level European representatives, to stand united against terrorism and pay tribute to all EU citizens becoming victims of terrorism worldwide. The event, which will be held in Paris to coincide with the national French Day for Victims of Terrorism, will showcase the resilience of victims and their families. Commissioner Reynders and representatives of the EU and Member States will address the audience. Following a moment of silence, victims of terrorism will share personal stories and experiences. Inspiring initiatives supporting victims of terrorism will also be presented. Established to commemorate the Madrid bombings of 11 March 2004, the annual Remembrance Day is devot

Washington is the main funding source of the two terror groups that receive millions of dollars every year, not to mention the illicit oil revenues they extract from occupied territories. The US-backed SDF, which is dominated by the YPG, the Syrian wing of the PKK, controls one-third of Syria including the country’s two biggest dams, along with several of its oil fields.  The PKK, which is recognised as a terrorist organisation by the US, NATO, the EU and Turkey, has launched a three-decades-long terrorist campaign against Turkey, killing tens of thousands of people including children and women in the process.  The YPG/PKK has used the dams and oil fields to produce electricity and oil, which have been sold to the Syrian regime and Kurdish-run regional government in northern Iraq, generating massive amounts of illicit financial sources to the terrorist group.  Raed al Raqawi, a relief activist from Syria, told  TRT Arabi  in a previous interview : “The PKK/ PYD [the politic

At least two dozen Afghan security forces and policemen have been killed and several others are missing after “Taliban infiltrators” attacked them in an army base in southern Afghanistan. The attack on a joint police and army headquarters near Kalat, the provincial capital, killed at least 14 Afghan army forces and 10 policemen, Zabul provincial council chief Ata Jan Haq Bayan said on Friday. Four other members of the Afghan security forces were also missing, he added. Bayan said that the attackers, who “had connections with the Taliban,” fled in two military Humvee vehicles, along with a pickup truck, weapons and ammunition. Zabul governor Rahmatullah Yarmal, who also confirmed the death toll, described the attackers as “infiltrators." The attack has become the deadliest since the Taliban signed a deal with the United States in the Qatari capital, Doha, late last month. Under the deal, the Taliban have agreed to sever ties with al-Qaeda and other terror groups and s

Huge amounts of money was being transacted from the accounts of the LeT operative and handler Tania Parvin. Investigations are on for terror financing, inciting Muslims, sedition and fomenting religious hate.   The  Kolkata police STF has arrested a college student , Tania Parvin, from Bashirhat on Thursday on suspicion of being a handler for the dreaded Islamic terrorist organisation Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). The suspected handler Tania Parvin was arrested by the STF from her house in Baduria and was taken to the ACJM court in Basirhat the same day. The judge sent her to police custody for six days. Tania Parvin is said to have been associated with the LeT for over two years and was under the watch of the security agencies. She is also accused of spreading communal hate in the garb of Islamic preaching and provoking Muslims through her speeches at several locations. She has been accused of terror funding, sedition, fomenting religious hatred and inciting Muslim youth to wage a

Rebels often portray themselves as state-like to legitimize their rule, yet little is known about their on-the-ground relations with the administrators of state power—official bureaucrats. Drawing on internal armed group records from the Democratic Republic of Congo, this article argues that rebels’ state-like image is more than a simple veneer: Bureaucrats actively sustain state institutions and recruit rebel support during war.  It develops a theory of the sources of leverage that bureaucrats use to negotiate with rebels. These interactions entail dual struggles to sustain the structures and symbols of state power and to shape the distribution of control over these institutions during war.  On first front, bureaucrats can use their official status to market the symbols of state legitimacy—official certificates, codes, and paperwork—to rebels. On a second, to recruit protection for administrative posts. Pre-existing routines of noncompliance, like parallel taxes and sabotaged inf

After more than 20 years of fighting, the war between the Ugandan government and ex-rebels from the West Nile region ended in 2002. Today, former fighters look back on their reintegration into civil life. The main street of Yumbe is bustling with workshops, food stalls and small shops. The restaurants are full at lunchtime. In this city of 50,000 in north-western Uganda, only a few ruins still serve as a reminder of the war that raged through this community. In 1979, Tanzanian troops, alongside the Ugandan National Liberation Army made up of exiled Ugandans, finally ended dictator Idi Amin's reign of terror. Amin, who was originally from the West Nile region, subsequently fled to Libya. But the self-proclaimed liberation forces also blamed the people in the region for his crimes. Many fled into exile  to what is now South Sudan  and formed the Ugandan National Rescue Front II (UNRFII). For more than 20 years, they fought against Uganda's changing governments. A

The PKK terror group is about to disappear, a senior terrorist figure who was recently captured by Turkish security forces confessed during his interrogation. Şahabettin Toprak, code-named “Abdurrahman,” was caught in a joint operation of security forces and the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) in the eastern province of Van on March 9 when he was trying to cross the border between Turkey and Iran with his wife Meryem Dündar, code-named “Kurdistan.” Toprak was one of the close aides of the terror group’s leading figure Murat Karayılan, who is in the red category of the country's most-wanted terrorists list. The Interior Ministry's most-wanted list is divided into five color-coded categories, with red marking the most wanted, followed by blue, green, orange and gray, depending on the sensitivity of their criminal activity. In his interrogation, Toprak said the terrorist group's downfall is near, and they cannot prevent it despite efforts. Toprak said

International rights groups on Wednesday condemned a bomb attack the day before on a Thai government office in Yala province, where officials were meeting to discuss COVID-19, as clashes between soldiers and insurgents in the Deep South claimed more lives. Thai officials said a soldier was killed and two others were injured Wednesday while pursuing militants near Pattani Dam in Yala province. On Tuesday, three militants were killed hours after the attack at the Southern Border Province Administration (SBPAC) office. “Entering the seventh day of pursuit beginning on March 12 … a new clash resulted in one soldier killed and two others wounded,” said Col. Watcharakorn Oanngern, a spokesman for the military command in Thailand’s heavily militarized southern border region, ISOC-4. Col. Pramote Prom-in said the militants killed Tuesday were members of a group responsible for attacks on Nov. 5, 2019 on a village in Yala that killed 15 officials, defense volunteers and civilians.