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FBI, DHS Warn Faith-Based Communities Will Likely Remain Targets for Violence  (Monique Beals, The Hill)
A Monday letter from top officials in the FBI and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) warned that faith-based groups are likely to remain targets of violence. “Faith based communities have and will likely continue to be targets of violence by both domestic violent extremists and those inspired by foreign terrorists,” FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate and John D. Cohen, who is the top intelligence official at DHS, said in the letter, which was obtained by CNN. The letter also said online platforms linked with domestic violent extremism had discussed Jewish targets in connection with conspiracy theories about the pandemic, the results of the 2020 election and “even the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan and resettlement of Afghans to the United States,” according to CNN. The letter comes shortly after several hostages were held for hours at Congregation Beth Israel, a synagogue in Colleyville, Texas, over the weekend before one was released and the other three escaped. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas also said on Sunday that DHS would work alongside Congress to increase funding to allow faith-based groups to enhance their security and provide more protection against terrorism, hate crimes and targeted violence, CNN reported.

Houthi Terror Attack: What Drones Do the Terrorists Have?  (The National)
After Monday’s terrorist attack against the UAE, which killed three people and wounded six, international attention is once again focused on low-cost drones: how to stop them, and how to prevent their acquisition by terror groups. This follows the UAE’s announcement that drones were a suspected method behind the attack, but an investigation is ongoing. Explosive drones, or the “loitering munitions” suspected in this case, have become a challenge to advanced militaries around the world. But what exactly are these weapons, frequently used by the Houthis and other Iran-backed groups to attack Saudi Arabia and Iraq? Iran has proliferated unmanned aircraft originally designed for target practice in the 1980s. They typically have a rear-mounted “pusher propeller” system and are constructed from cheap material, sometimes including wooden components. As cameras evolved, drones such as Iran’s Ababil were used for reconnaissance, but in recent years the flimsy looking planes have been rigged with bombs and are sometimes referred to as “Kamikaze drones”. Notoriously, they were used in an attack that shocked the world at Abqaiq in Saudi Arabia in September 2019, when critical oil infrastructure was destroyed.

Slain Officer’s Sister Sues Facebook in ‘Boogaloo’ Murder, Alleging It Pushed Extremist Content  (Faiz Siddiqui, Washington Post)
The sister of a slain federal officer is suing Facebook’s parent company Meta, alleging it bears responsibility for her brother’s killing during racial justice protests in 2020. Facebook facilitated the hateful far-right “boogaloo” movement, leading an adherent to murder officer Dave Patrick Underwood, the lawsuit filed in a California Superior Court late Wednesday alleges. The Homeland Security protective security officer was fatally shot in May 2020 when a van pulled up outside the Ronald V. Dellums Federal Building in Oakland and a gunman inside the vehicle sprayed bullets at Underwood and his partner, who was wounded in the shooting. Federal authorities identified the shooter as Steven Carrillo, an adherent of the “boogaloo boys,” an online extremist movement that has sought to capitalize on racial justice protests to usher in a race war. Underwood was killed as racial justice protests were underway nearby following the murder of George Floyd. An officer was gunned down. The killer was a ‘boogaloo boy’ using nearby peaceful protests as cover, feds say. Now Underwood’s sister, Angela Underwood Jacobs, is accusing Facebook of “knowingly promoting extremist content” and connecting individuals who “planned to engage in acts of violence against federal law enforcement officers,” according to the suit.

How Oath Keepers Are Accused of Plotting to Storm the Capitol  (Denise Lu and Eleanor Lutz, New York Times)
In laying out the sedition charge against Stewart Rhodes, the founder and leader of the far-right Oath Keeper militia, and 10 others, federal prosecutors have built a timeline of events as evidence of a conspiracy to storm the Capitol on Jan. 6 last year.

Biden Official Endorses Effort to Move Pipeline Cybersecurity Regulation to DOE  (Miriam Baksh, Nextgov)

An emergency directive from the Transportation Security Administration following the Colonial Pipeline attack faced opposition from Senate Republicans after the industry complained they weren’t sufficiently consulted beforehand.

Employer Appeals for Temporary Worker Visas Meet Union Pushback  (Bloomberg Law)
As the Biden administration pursues the expansion of temporary work visas to meet employer demands during ongoing labor shortages, it’s facing pushback from key allies in organized labor who say those programs harm both American and foreign workers.
Employers and business groups have clamored for the administration to expand availability of temporary worker visas, while organized labor—a major base of support for President Joe Biden—has raised alarms that those programs will undermine U.S.-born workers. The administration, meanwhile, has signaled repeatedly that it views temporary work programs as part of the solution to migration from Central America and the Caribbean that has fueled a surge of border entries.