Terrorism and counterterrorism | Homeland Security Newswire

  • TerrorismCorbyn pressed on wreath laying at the grave of a Black September terrorist

    In 2014, Jeremy Corbyn, now leader of the Labor Party but then a back bencher, was invited to Tunisia to attend a conference on the Middle East. He used the occasion to visit the cemetery where several PLO terrorists are buried (the PLO had moved its headquarters from Beirut to Tunisia in 1982). Corbyn claims that he laid a wreath at the grave of a PLO leader who was killed in an Israeli commando raid in 1985 – but pictures show that he laid a wreath about 20 meters away, at the grave of a Black September terrorist who took part in the killing of 11 Israeli athletes in the 1972 Munich Olympics.

  • TerrorismUN: Up to 30,000 Islamic State extremists in Syria, Iraq

    Despite the military defeat of the Islamic State (IS) in Iraq and most of Syria, the extremist group still has around 20,000 to 30,000 militants in the two countries, according to a United Nations report. The report says that Al-Qaeda’s global network also “continues to show resilience,” with its affiliates and allies much stronger than the IS group in some spots, including Somalia, Yemen, South Asia, and Africa’s Sahel region.

  • TerrorismMan arrested in London for “terrorist offenses” after crashing car near Parliament

    The London police have arrested a man on suspicion of “terrorist offenses” after he crashed a car into security barriers outside Britain’s Parliament, injuring several pedestrians. London’s Metropolitan police said that they are treating the car crash as a terrorist attack, and that the Met’s Counter-Terrorism Command was leading the investigation.

  • Terrorism & social mediaEU develops legislation to tackle online terrorism-promoting content

    The EU is planning to take legal measures to control online content which supports and promotes terrorism. The EU Security Commissioner, Julian King, said voluntary agreements, which are currently in place, had not provided European citizens enough protection against exposure to terrorist-promoting content.

  • The Russia connectionU.S. imposing new sanctions on Russia for spy poisoning in U.K.

    The State Department says it will be implementing new sanctions on Russia as punishment for the March 2018 poisoning of former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia on British soil. The new sanctions, which will go into effect on 22 August, target export licenses of sensitive U.S. technologies and industrial equipment, such as electronics, calibration equipment, and gas turbine engines. Russia will also be given 90 days to comply with other demands, including allowing international inspectors into the country to ensure that no chemical or biological weapons exist there. If Moscow does not comply with the demands, a second round of sanctions could further downgrade diplomatic relations with Russia, or even restrict flights by Russian air carrier Aeroflot.

  • TerrorismTerrorist violence decreases worldwide in 2017, but remains historically high

    With 10,900 terrorist attacks killing more than 26,400 people in 2017, the numbers of terrorist attacks and deaths worldwide have declined for the third consecutive year, according to new data released last week. Despite recent decreases in terrorist violence, the number of attacks in 2017 is 28 percent higher than in 2012, and deaths 71 percent higher. Terrorist violence peaked in 2014 at nearly 17,000 attacks and more than 45,000 total deaths.

  • TerrorismBin Laden’s mother says al-Qaeda leader was “brainwashed”

    The mother of the late al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has said in her first interview with Western media that her infamous son was “brainwashed” into a life of extremism. She appeared to blame Abdullah Azzam, a Muslim Brotherhood member who became bin Laden’s spiritual adviser at the university. The bin Laden family confirmed that Hamza bin Laden, the son of the late al-Qaeda leader, has married the daughter of Mohammad Atta, the lead hijacker in the 9/11 terror attacks.

  • ExtremismU.K. Labor Party leader Jeremy Corbyn compared Israel to Nazi Germany

    The British Labor Party has been embroiled in a bitter dispute over anti-Semitism in Labor ranks, and what many critics of Labor leader Jeremy Corbin see as his tolerance of hate-speech, and his own “insensitivity” (his words) to issues dear to British Jews. The London Times yesterday reported that in 2010, when he was a backbencher, Corbyn hosted an event on Holocaust Memorial Day at the House of Commons, where he likened Israeli government policy to that of the Nazis.

  • ExtremismScorecard on hate crimes in 57 OSCE nations released

    Against a backdrop of rising reports of hate crimes, Human Rights First and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) on Wednesday released their annual analysis of hate crime reporting by the 57 participating states of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), a security- and human rights-focused intergovernmental organization comprising governments from North America, Europe, and Central Asia. The report notes that many OSCE governments remain unwilling or unable to meet even basic standards concerning the reporting of hate crimes.

  • Conspiracy theoriesDifferences in social status, politics encourage paranoid thinking

    Paranoia is the tendency to assume other people are trying to harm you when their actual motivations are unclear, and this tendency is increased when interacting with someone of a higher social status or opposing political beliefs, according to a new study.

  • Kite terrorismFor first time, arson balloon lands in Be’er Sheva, raises concerns of increased terror

    An arson balloon landed in the major southern Israeli city of Be’er Sheva for the first time on Monday evening, raising fears that the range of terror devices employed by Palestinian terrorists, which have caused numerous fires in Israeli border communities, is increasing.

  • ExtremistsExtremists’ crimes in Germany down, but number of extremists rising

    Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, the BfV, in a new report says extremists’ criminal activity in Germany has declined, but that the numbers of potential extremists has risen. The BfV’s annual report especially noted a sharp increase in members of the radical far-right Reichsbürger movement.

  • Terrorism & the mediaAttacks by Muslim terrorists receive far greater press attention than attacks by non-Muslims

    Terrorist attacks committed by Muslim extremists receive 357 percent more U.S. press coverage than those committed by non-Muslims. The findings, based on all terrorist attacks in the United States between 2006 and 2015, show that terrorist attacks committed by non-Muslims (or where the religion was unknown) received an average of 15 headlines, while those committed by Muslim extremists received 105 headlines. The disparity in coverage is out of sync with reality, given that between 2008 and 2016 white and rightwing terrorists carried out nearly twice as many terrorist attacks as Muslim extremists.

  • Guns vs. butter Military spending did not “crowd out” welfare investment in Middle East prior to Arab Spring

    New findings dispute “guns versus butter” narrative as a major factor behind the Arab Spring. Researchers caution against uncritically applying lessons from Western nations to interpret public policy decisions in the Middle East.

  • TerrorismRicin attack plotters in Germany tested biological weapon on a hamster

    German prosecutors have arrested the wife of a Tunisian man who was detained last month for plotting a biological attack. The couple bought a hamster to test a chemical substance before they were going to use it in a planned terrorist attack.