• Bin 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.

  • U.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.

  • Scorecard 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.

  • Differences 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.

  • For 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.

  • Extremists’ 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.

  • Attacks 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.

  • 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.

  • Ricin 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.

  • Israeli media: Mossad gave Europeans critical intel to thwart Iranian terror attack in Paris

    The Israeli intelligence service Mossad helped thwart a major Iranian terrorist attack in a Parisian suburb last month. The Mossad gathered intelligence which was passed on to authorities in Germany, France, and Belgium that led to the arrest of a cell headed by an Iranian diplomat. The intelligence cooperation between Israel and European countries prevented a planned bomb attack on the annual National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) rally in the town of Villepinte on 30 June.

  • Labor leader Corbyn under fire from his own party, rabbis for anti-Semitism

    British Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn has been accused by his own MPs of being an “anti-Semite and a racist,” who turns a blind eye to anti-Jewish sentiments in the Party. Veteran Labor MP Dame Margaret Hodge on Tuesday labelled an “anti-Semite and a racist” three hours after Labor’s highest governing body ignored pleas of the Jewish community and rejected the internationally recognized definition of anti-Semitism by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA).

  • Extremist candidates appear on ballots around U.S.

    Far-right extremists – and at least one on the far left — are making their presence felt in mainstream American politics, and voters will find a record number of them on the ballot this fall. Around the country, in blue and red states alike, members of the extremist right – and their racist, anti-Semitic views – are enjoying more exposure today than at any time in recent history.

  • EU law enforcement, Google take on terrorist online propaganda

    Europol, the European law enforcement agency, conducted a 2-day gathering of European law intelligence and enforcement services, attended by representatives from Google, to improve the tracking and removal of online terrorist propaganda being disseminated on various Google platforms.

  • Argentina requests extradition of Iranian official implicated in AMIA attack

    An Argentine judge investigating the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires has requested that Russia extradite Ali Akbar Velayati, a close adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Velayati and seven other Iranian officials have been implicated for their role in the bombing, which killed 85 people and injured hundreds more.

  • Netanyahu sets out new Syria policy

    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu set out three specific demands regarding Syria when he met Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin on Wednesday. The three specific demands were the withdrawal of Iranian and Hezbollah forces from the border with Israel; the removal of all Iranian long-range missiles in Syria; and that Syrian civilians must not be attacked in the zone near the Israeli border.