Iran-Sponsored Plots in the US | Boogaloo Bois Are Heading to Ukraine | Summer’s Strain on Energy Supply, and more

“It was on TikTok,” said Via, cofounder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism. “TikTok is the place, man.” So too is YouTube, and Twitter, and any number of mainstream platforms and websites where threatening, anti-government posts are now easily accessible, experts say. These days, experts note, you don’t have to venture into the unregulated, porn-laden corners of the internet — your 4Chans, 8Chans and openly-white-supremacist websites — to watch angry people flash assault weapons and talk about taking down the government. In fact, much of the surge in hate speech and anti-government threats that experts are seeing in the wake of the Mar-a-Lago raid are being posted on mainstream platforms.

An Attempted Attack on an FBI Office Raises Concerns About Violent Far-Right Rhetoric  (Tom Dreisbach, NPR)
Since the FBI search of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate on Monday, researchers who track extremism have sounded the alarm about an escalation of violent rhetoric from the far-right, including talk of another “civil war” and threats against federal law enforcement. By Thursday, an attempted attack on an FBI field office in Cincinnati appeared to underscore the real danger behind those threats, particularly given a digital trail of ominous posts that were left under the name of the suspect. The FBI said an armed man attempted to breach the building, but fled after an alarm went off and special agents responded. After a car chase, a nearly six-hour standoff, and unsuccessful attempts at negotiation, police shot and killed that suspect, according to an account from the Ohio State Highway Patrol. Law enforcement identified the man as 42-year-old Ricky Walter Shiffer, Jr. Shiffer is a veteran of the U.S. war in Iraq. He deployed to Iraq between 2010 and 2011 during his service as an infantryman with the Florida Army National Guard, before leaving the Guard in May 2011, the Guard confirmed to NPR. Shiffer also served in the U.S. Navy from 1998 to 2003, the Navy stated. During his service, he worked as a fire control technician on the USS Columbia, a Navy submarine.

Europe’s Scorching Summer Puts Unexpected Strain on Energy Supply  (Jason Horowitz, New York Times)
The dry summer has reduced hydropower in Norway, threatened nuclear reactors in France and crimped coal transport in Germany. And that’s on top of Russian gas cuts.

Belgium Received Over 200 Terrorist And Extremist Threats Last Year  (Luanna Muniz, Politico)
Belgium received 218 terrorist and extremist threats last year, according to the annual assessment of the country’s coordinating body for threat analysis (OCAM), published Thursday. According to the report, in 2021 the overall threat level remained on average at medium throughout the year. Just over 50 percent of threats were rated as low-level, and one-third as medium-level. One was deemed very serious and imminent. It related to an armed far-right extremist former military man, Jürgen Conings, who in May and June of last year, made threats against Belgian politicians and against virologist Marc Van Ranst. OCAM operates under the Ministries of Justice and the Interior, and works alongside Belgium’s National Crisis Center and the Public Prosecutor’s Office. According to the report, one-third of the threats were based on jihadist ideology, and one in 10 were right-wing extremist threats. Social networks and text messaging applications remain the preferred means of issuing threats. The majority of threat reports concerned a “lone actor” – someone having no structural link with terrorist or extremist groups.

Canada’s No-Fly List for Suspected Terrorists Survives Constitutional Challenge by Two Men Trying to Get Off It  (Adrian Humphreys, National Post)
The Federal Court upheld the constitutionality of Canada’s no-fly list, designed to stop suspected terrorists from boarding an airplane, and while there were problems with the way Ottawa handled the cases of two men on the list it was nonetheless deemed “reasonable” to keep them on it. Lengthy rulings Thursday on challenges to the no-fly list are the first appeals of the Secure Air Travel Act, the law under which the list has run since 2015. Bhagat Singh Brar, of Brampton, Ont., and Parvkar Singh Dulai, of Vancouver, B.C., learned the hard way they were on the no-fly list in 2018. Brar was secretly placed on the list in April 2018, the day before he tried to board a plane to return from Vancouver to Toronto. Both WestJet and Air Canada wouldn’t let him board, court heard. That June he complained of the designation. His requests were denied by Ottawa. He then appealed to the Federal Court in April 2019. Dulai, a business partner of Brar’s, was placed on the list in March 2018 and found out two months later when he tried to board a plane for a flight from Vancouver to Toronto. He similarly complained. Part of the evidence that is public says Brar is the son of Lakhbir Brar, who is the leader of the International Sikh Youth Federation, designated as a terrorist group in Canada.

What Is Behind the Rise in Iran-Sponsored Plots in the US?  (Joyce Karam, The National)
The rise in alleged assassination plots tied to the Iranian regime, which have been uncovered by the US government, has raised questions on Tehran’s threat and capabilities within America. Last month, the FBI said that Iranian-American activist Masih Alinejad was a target of a Tehran plot to kidnap her from the dissident’s Brooklyn home. Iranian authorities have rejected this claim, but the alleged assailant, Khalid Mehdiyev, is in US custody facing charges. Only last Wednesday, the US Justice Department charged Shahram Poursafi, identified by US officials as a member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, in a plot to assassinate former national security adviser John Bolton as well as former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in a separate mission. On Friday, Hadi Matar, a Lebanese-American man stabbed renowned author Salman Rushdie at an event in New York and now is facing charges. In an interview with the Daily Mail, his mother, Silvana Fardos, said her son had “changed” during a four-week trip to Lebanon in 2018. “I was expecting him to come back motivated, to complete school, to get his degree and a job. But instead, he locked himself in the basement. He had changed a lot, he didn’t say anything to me or his sisters for months,” she said.

Al-Qaeda and Islamic State Are on the Rise in Africa  (Washington Post)
As the world remembered the chaos and tragedy that surrounded the U.S. and allied withdrawal from Afghanistan a year ago, a quieter exit took place Monday. The last French troops left Mali for neighboring Niger, drawing to a formal close a near-decade-long mission in the sprawling West African nation of 21 million people. Their presence in Mali had begun in 2013 as part of an ambitious Paris-led effort to fight back an Islamist militant threat that was spreading across the vast region between desert and savanna known as the Sahel. But the mission ended incomplete despite billions of euros spent and thousands of Malian lives lost (as well as 59 French soldiers), leaving in its wake no shortage of geopolitical rancor and a worryingly deteriorating security situation. Militants from factions linked to both al-Qaeda and the Islamic State have entrenched themselves on a widening battlefield across the African continent. The French departure from Mali had been telegraphed months in advance amid a rupture in relations between the government of French President Emmanuel Macron and a Malian junta that seized power in August 2020 and carried out “a coup within a coup” — as Macron himself put it — against civilian officials nine months later.

More Boogaloo Bois Are Heading to Ukraine to Fight  (Tess Owen and Ben Makuch, Vice)
Joshua Fisher-Birch, an expert and analyst on the far-right at the Counter-Extremism Project, said some extremists may see the conflict as a chance to become battle hardened and gain military skills. “Some right-wing extremists have viewed the war in Ukraine as an opportunity to gain critical combat experience which would otherwise be unavailable to them,” said Fisher-Birch, pointing out that war experience can also help boost their cachet within the movement at home. “Combat experience not only serves the purpose of increasing their own capabilities but passing those skill sets along to others in their movement.” Dunn got his start in anti-government organizing in late 2019, when he latched onto anger simmering among pro–Second Amendment Virginians over proposed state gun control legislation and participated in efforts to form county-level militias in response. In 2020, Dunn tried to position himself as a kingpin of the surging Boogaloo movement.  But a year later, with the Boogaloo and its adherents under heavy government scrutiny, Dunn and others left the movement. Dunn deleted his social media accounts, changed his phone number, and retreated from the public persona he’d built around himself.