New York Times: Senior Islamic State Leader Killed in Joint Iraqi-U.S. Operation, Iraq Says
An airstrike killed a senior Islamic State leader believed to be the head of the group in Iraq and Syria on Friday, in a joint Iraqi and U.S. operation using intelligence from both countries, Iraq’s prime minister said. A senior U.S. military official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters, confirmed an American drone strike and said that special operations forces from both countries were in Anbar Province, in Iraq, gathering material from the strike site. The Islamic State leader, Abdallah Makki Muslih al-Rufay’i, who was also known as Abu Khadija, was “one of the most dangerous terrorists in the world,” the Iraqi prime minister, Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, said in a statement. Mr. Al-Rufay’i was thought to be one of the senior leaders in the Islamic State in the region and was believed to hold multiple jobs, according to the most recent report by the United Nations, including helping coordinate among fighters in Iraq, Syria, Turkey and elsewhere.
BBC: US launches wave of air strikes on Yemen's Houthis
The US has launched a "decisive and powerful" wave of air strikes on Houthi rebels in Yemen, President Donald Trump has said, citing the armed group's attacks on shipping in the Red Sea as the reason. "Funded by Iran, the Houthi thugs have fired missiles at US aircraft, and targeted our Troops and Allies," Trump wrote on his Truth social platform, adding that their "piracy, violence, and terrorism" had cost "billions of dollars" and put lives at risk. The Houthi-run health ministry said at least 15 people were killed and nine others injured in the strikes. The group - which began targeting shipping in response to the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza - said its forces would respond to US strikes. The Houthis reported a series of explosions on Saturday evening in Sanaa and in the northern province of Saada - the rebels' stronghold on the border with Saudi Arabia.
The EU needs to have its place on the list established by the UN Security Council Committee of the countries recognizing Samidoun as a terrorist organization, such as Canada (2024), Israel (2021), the Netherlands (2024) and the United States (2024). One of them, Dr Hans-Jakob Schindler (Senior Director of the Counter Extremism Project), addressed the situation of Samidoun in Germany, a country where administrative ban measures were taken in 2023.
New York Times: U.S. Arrests 2nd Person Tied to Pro-Palestinian Protests at Columbia
A second person who took part in pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University has been arrested by U.S. immigration agents, after overstaying a student visa, federal officials said on Friday, the latest turn in the crisis engulfing the Ivy League institution. The person, identified by the authorities as Leqaa Kordia, is Palestinian and from the West Bank. She was arrested in Newark on Thursday, officials said. Her student visa was terminated in January 2022, and she was arrested by the New York City police last April for her role in a campus demonstration, the Homeland Security Department said in a statement. The agency also released a video on Friday that it said showed a Columbia student, identified as Ranjani Srinivasan, preparing to enter Canada after her student visa was revoked.
A doctor and professor was deported after she returned from a trip to Lebanon despite having a valid U.S. visa, according to a court petition filed on her behalf. Dr. Rasha Alawieh, an assistant professor at Brown Medicine, held an H-1B visa when she traveled to her home country to visit her family, according to the petition, which was filed in federal court by a cousin who learned of her situation.
Daily Sentinel: CMU students plan protest event for same day and time as white nationalist's
The announcement that white nationalist Jared Taylor would speak at Colorado Mesa University later this month immediately sparked campus-wide and community-wide debate over free speech. Among the responses has been the organization of a protest event for CMU students and faculty taking place at the same time as Taylor’s event.
On the day Joe Biggs found out he was being released from a lengthy jail sentence by the newly inaugurated Donald Trump, a prison officer was on hand to dampen his mood. “You're still gonna get screwed,” Biggs recalls the guard warning him. “You're not getting pardoned. You're only getting your sentence commuted, so you're still a terrorist.” It would turn out to be a prescient parting shot. Days after returning to the White House for a historic second term, Trump overturned the biggest single prosecution in American history by issuing a mass pardon of 1,500 people for their role in the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. But a much smaller group of 14 people, Biggs included, had their sentences commuted without a pardon, meaning they were released from jail with their crimes still on the books.
Daily Beast: Oath Keepers Leader Begs Trump to Go Bigger With His J6 Pardons
The founder of the Oath Keepers militia begged President Donald Trump to issue him a full pardon—not just a commutation—for his conviction over his key role in the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol. “I’m definitely, of course, appreciative and grateful for President Trump for getting me out of prison,” Stewart Rhodes said Sunday during an interview with Real America’s Voice. “But I was completely innocent like my co-defendants.”
BILD: New details on the Munich attack: “Anti-Israeli terror”
The attack on the Israeli Consulate in Munich on September 5, 2024 is classified by investigators as "anti-Israeli terror". This has now been announced by the Munich Public Prosecutor General's Office and the Bavarian State Criminal Police Office (LKA). At a press conference on Friday, the investigators also explained how the Austrian terrorist and Islamist Emrah Ibrahimovic (18) became radicalized - and how he had prepared the attack. The LKA reconstructed the attack in a 3D video. "The 18-year-old was an outsider," said senior public prosecutor Gabriele Tilmann. "He had no friends, not even on the internet. He had the feeling that he was disadvantaged because he was Muslim. His radicalization began at the start of the Gaza conflict in October 2023." Ibrahimovic failed at school and in his education. Since March 2024, he has searched the internet 116 times for live long guns. In July 2024, he wanted to buy a bolt-action rifle and a revolver from an official gun dealer - there was no notification to the authorities. The purchase failed because Ibrahimovic was banned from owning weapons. Reason: In July 2021, he attracted attention because he talked about weapons and explosives at school. He practiced executions and terrorist attacks on the computer in a game.
B.Z.: United Patriots" terrorist cell - Raid in Berlin over planned health minister kidnapping
Raid against possible members of the right-wing extremist terror cell "United Patriots". Heavily armed SEK police officers secured the search of an apartment in Berlin-Spandau on Friday morning. The background is the planned kidnapping of Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (62, SPD) in spring 2022, with which Reich citizens wanted to force an overthrow of the government in Germany. Three men (46 to 58) and one woman (77) were already sentenced for this on March 6 in Koblenz and received prison sentences of between five years and nine months and eight years. A fifth defendant got away with two years and ten months. But apparently not all members of this terrorist group have been caught. During a Germany-wide raid against the group on April 13, 2022, 22 firearms (including a Kalashnikov assault rifle) as well as ammunition, cash and gold bars, silver coins and foreign currency were seized. It later emerged that members of the extremist Telegram chat group "United Patriots" were planning "Operation Klabautermann". They wanted to use illegal channels to obtain ten Kalashnikov assault rifles, pistols and mines - they collected money for this and had already raised 12,000 euros. But the investigating authorities beat them to it. The public prosecutor's office in Koblenz tricked the terrorists: The sale of weapons was faked, then the investigators struck. For several weeks, plainclothes police were deployed to expose the organization. A total of 12 people were investigated in several federal states. The charges: preparation of a serious act of violence endangering the state and violations of the Weapons and War Weapons Control Act.
Reuters: Slovak prosecutors file terrorism charges against PM Fico's attacker
Slovak prosecutors have filed terrorism charges against the attacker who shot and seriously wounded Prime Minister Robert Fico last year, the general prosecutor's office said on Monday. The suspect, who was 71 at the time of the incident last May, shot Fico four times at close range in the abdomen. Fico, 60, a four-time prime minister, later recovered and returned to work months later.
Newsweek: Hamas Hits Back at U.S. Over Gaza Ceasefire
Hamas has hit back after the United States criticized its demands over extending the ceasefire in Gaza, saying the Americans should focus on pressuring Israel.
Times of Israel: Israeli negotiators returned from Cairo last night, Hamas to go there tomorrow
Israeli negotiators returned from Cairo last night, an Israeli official tells The Times of Israel. They met earlier in the day with senior Egyptian officials. “The team is prepared to head out to additional talks,” says the Israeli official, “in accordance with the updates that will be received by the mediating countries.”
mas said Saturday it will only release an American-Israeli and the bodies of four other hostages if Israel implements their ceasefire agreement, calling it an “exceptional deal” aimed at getting the truce back on track.
Recently released hostage Tal Shoham warned in an interview aired Saturday that the Hamas terror group has continued to expand its vast underground tunnel network in Gaza unabated, despite the long months of war with Israel inside the Palestinian enclave. Shoham was returned to Israel on February 22, after having been abducted from Kibbutz Be’eri on October 7, 2023, while visiting his wife’s parents. His wife Adi was also taken hostage, along with their two children Yahel, then 3, and Naveh, 8. The three were released during the weeklong truce in November 2023.
Reuters: Israeli war spending in Gaza, Lebanon tops $30 billion in 2024 -Finance Ministry
Israel spent 112 billion shekels ($31 billion) on its military conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon in 2024, the Finance Ministry said in a report on Monday. Between October 7, 2023 - when Palestinian militant group Hamas attacked Israel to trigger the war in Gaza and subsequent missile fire from Hezbollah in Lebanon - and the end of 2024 spending reached 141.6 billion shekels.
Washington Post: Syria strikes Lebanon after troop deaths, sparking new tensions across border
The Syrian army fired rockets and artillery into northern Lebanon overnight after it said three of its soldiers were kidnapped, brought to Lebanon and killed by Hezbollah militants, in a violent escalation of simmering cross-border tensions. Residents fled as Lebanese border towns came under attack and Syrian troops exchanged fire with local armed groups and Lebanese soldiers. Tensions across the two countries’ porous border have been brewing since Syria’s new Islamist leaders ousted Bashar al-Assad, a key ally of Hezbollah and Tehran, in December.
Katz confirms Lebanon strike: ‘Our policy is clear: Zero tolerance for violations’
The IDF and Defense Minister Israel Katz confirm carrying out a drone strike in southern Lebanon a short while ago, targeting Hezbollah operatives. The army says it struck a pair of Hezbollah operatives who were carrying out surveillance operations and were directing “terror activity” in the Yohmor area.
Reuters: Exclusive: US weighing in on Lebanon's next central bank chief, sources say
The U.S. is weighing in with Lebanon's government on the selection of the country's next central bank governor in a bid to curtail corruption and illicit financing for the armed group Hezbollah through Lebanon's banking system, five sources familiar with the issue said.
A CNN investigation zeroes in on the events in Sanobar, or the “Pine Village” in English, a town of several thousand members of Syria’s minority Alawite community in Latakia governorate. The attacks on the village, where swathes of farmland surround small clusters of buildings, reveal fresh details about the intensity of some of the sectarian violence that swept Syria’s coast.
Reuters: 'Pray for us. They've arrived': How Syria descended into revenge bloodshed
Dozens of messages posted by various armed factions on social media, and shared with hundreds of thousands of Syrians, called for a "general mobilization" - or "al nafeer" - to help crush a fledgling insurgency by supporters of deposed and widely hated leader Bashar al-Assad.
Reuters: Syria's new rulers face likely aid drop at EU conference
The interim government in Damascus will take part on Monday in a conference to gather aid pledges for Syria, facing the prospect of diminishing assistance as it struggles with humanitarian and security problems after the fall of Bashar al-Assad. The annual conference has been hosted by the EU since 2017 - but took place without the government of Assad, who was shunned for his brutal actions in a civil war that began in 2011.
International donors gathered on Monday in a show of support for Syria hoping to encourage the new leaders of the conflict-ravaged country toward a peaceful political transition following the ouster of President Bashar Assad in December. Ministers and representatives from Western partners, as well as Syria’s regional neighbors, other Arab countries and U.N. agencies were taking part in the one-day meeting in Brussels chaired by European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas.
Ordnance from Syria’s 13-year conflict exploded in the coastal city of Latakia, collapsing a building and killing more than a dozen people, the Syrian Civil Defense said Sunday. The paramedic group known as the White Helmets said it worked overnight, searching through debris and recovered 16 bodies, including five women and five children, and that 18 others were injured. The group and residents said the explosion occurred in a metal scrap storage space on the ground floor of the four-story building.
The Hill: Waltz: All options ‘on the table’ to ensure Iran does not have a nuclear weapon
National security adviser Mike Waltz said Sunday that all options are “on the table” to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. In an interview on ABC News’s “This Week,” anchor Martha Raddatz asked the president’s top adviser to elaborate on President Trump’s warning to Iran a week ago that they would not be allowed to have a nuclear weapon and that something would happen very soon “that will solve the problem if there is no peace deal,” Raddatz said, referring to nuclear weapons.
Washington Post: Iran rejects Trump’s ‘bullying’ on nuclear talks, as threats ratchet up
Days after a letter from President Donald Trump reached Iran’s supreme leader, giving him a choice between negotiating a deal to end Iran’s nuclear program or U.S. military action to destroy it, the two sides remain far apart on the conditions that would allow such a conversation, let alone an agreement.
Fox News: Iranian general responds to Trump threats against Houthi rebels
An Iranian general vowed to respond "decisively and destructively" to any threats after President Donald Trump said he ordered American forces to launch military action against Houthis in Yemen. "We warn our enemies that Iran will respond decisively and destructively if they carry out their threats," Gen. Hossein Salami, the leader of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, told state media following U.S. strikes over the weekend against the Tehran-backed terrorist group, according to Reuters.
Reuters: New US airstrikes on Yemen increase pressure on Iran-aligned Houthis
The United States carried out new airstrikes on Yemen on Monday, the Houthis' Al Masirah TV said, increasing pressure on the Iran-aligned group and expanding the biggest U.S. military operation in the Middle East since President Donald Trump returned to the White House. Responding to the Houthi movement's threats to international shipping, the U.S. launched a new wave of airstrikes on Saturday. On Monday, the Red Sea port city of Hodeidah and Al Jawf governorate north of the capital Sanaa were targeted, Al Masirah said.
Reuters: US vows to keep hitting Houthis until shipping attacks stop
The United States will keep attacking Yemen's Houthis until they end attacks on shipping, the U.S. defense secretary said on Sunday, as the Iran-aligned group signaled it could escalate in response to deadly U.S. strikes the day before. The airstrikes, which the Houthi-run health ministry said killed at least 53 people, are the biggest U.S. military operation in the Middle East since President Donald Trump took office in January. One U.S. official told Reuters the campaign might continue for weeks.
NBC News: Houthi militia unsuccessfully retaliates after it said U.S. strikes on Yemen killed 53
Yemeni Houthis have twice attempted to attack the USS Harry S. Truman after at least 53 people have been killed and 98 injured after the U.S. launched a series of airstrikes on Yemen on Saturday, according to the Houthi health ministry. A U.S. defense official told NBC News on Monday that the militia had launched two retaliatory attacks against the USS Harry S. Truman that had both been unsuccessful
Financial Times: Ethiopia fighting threatens return to civil and regional war
An outbreak of factional fighting in northern Ethiopia has led Africa’s second most populous country back to the brink of civil war and threatens to reignite a conflict with neighbouring Eritrea, regional officials have warned. A dissident faction of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the ruling party in the state of Tigray, has seized parts of the regional capital Mekelle and taken control of the area’s second-largest city Adigrat, in what regional officials and experts said amounted to a “coup”.
ProPublica: The Rise and Fall of Terrorgram: Inside a Global Online Hate Network
The Terrorgram story is part of a much larger 21st century phenomenon. Over the past two decades, massive social networks like X, Facebook and Telegram have emerged as a powerful force for both good and evil. The ability to connect with like-minded strangers helped fuel uprisings like the Arab Spring and Iran’s pro-democracy movements. But it has also aided extremists, including brutal jihadist organizations like the Islamic State group and white supremacists around the world.
Extremists: Their Words. Their Actions.
Fact:
On October 7, 2023, Hamas invaded southern Israel where, in the space of eight hours, hundreds of armed terrorists perpetrated mass crimes of brutality, rape, and torture against men, women and children. In the biggest attack on Jewish life in a single day since the Holocaust, 1,200 were killed, and 251 were taken hostage into Gaza—where 101 remain. One year on, antisemitic incidents have increased by record numbers.
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