industryterm:terrorist

Asia Times | Mysterious oil company a key player in Idlib | Article
▻https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/06/opinion/mysterious-oil-company-a-key-player-in-idlib

https://static.asiatimes.com/uploads/2018/08/Idlib_in_Syria.svg_-900x540.png

Watad, la très étrange société pétrolière active sur le marché d’Idlib, avec inévitablement la bénédiction de Daech et des Turcs...

Fuel and cooking gas are in very short supply in the parts of Syria controlled by the Assad regime. Yet in Idlib, the last rebel-held pocket of the country and currently the target of an intense military offensive, these and other essentials are not only available, but affordable. This is thanks to a company named Watad Petroleum.

But who or what is Watad? If suspicions are true, Watad – about which little is known – represents yet another way in which Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), an organization labeled a terrorist group by much of the world, is strengthening its grip on Idlib.

Life in this province of northwestern Syria has, without a doubt, been made easier by Watad’s presence. But with no information available publicly about who owns or runs it, there is a persistent suspicion about it.

The first that anyone had heard of Watad was in January last year, when it was granted a monopoly over the fuel market in greater Idlib, with exclusive rights to import oil and gas from Turkey and to regulate their sale, price and distribution. Ostensibly, the deal, which also eliminated any domestic competition, was struck with Idlib’s Salvation Government, but in reality it was with HTS, the de facto power in that area.

Before then, people in Idlib were reliant on motor fuel and gas transported from government-controlled areas and on crude oil brought in from northeastern Syria, which is now controlled by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces. But economic sanctions and the Turkish-led offensive to capture the predominantly Kurdish region of Afrin led to those supply lines being severed. Enter Watad Petroleum.

Some reports say the company was founded in Idlib in 2017, while others maintain it was established in early 2018 by a group of Syrian businessmen living in Turkey. What is certain is that the mysterious Watad Petroleum has become a key player in Greater Idlib.

#syrie #business

How we respond to racist hatred matters more than ever | Chitra Ramaswamy

▻https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/oct/22/i-have-been-racially-abused-no-one-intervened-ryanair-story-shows-why-t

Voilà #ryanair without any other comment

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/8c278fabd3263728f263d6f85dc54bc8fd0d3de4/0_187_5598_3360/master/5598.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-align=bottom%2Cleft&overlay-width=100p&overlay-base64=L2ltZy9zdGF0aWMvb3ZlcmxheXMvdGctb3BpbmlvbnMucG5n&s=2d731c015cdb509b0276cb01ec59b617

The outcome? The woman is moved. The man remains locked in his white privilege, his racist hatred, and his seatbelt. Ryanair, which once ordered five black musicians to leave a flight at gunpoint after a passenger complained they looked like terrorists, has referred the matter to Essex police. At the time of writing, the airline had not contacted the woman to apologise.

–------

Patrick Barkham meets the men ejected from a Ryanair flight for fear of terrorism | UK news | The Guardian
▻https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2008/feb/12/terrorismandtravel

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/static/sys-images/Travel/Pix/pictures/2008/02/12/steelband460.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-align=bottom%2Cleft&overlay-width=100p&overlay-base64=L2ltZy9zdGF0aWMvb3ZlcmxheXMvdGctZGVmYXVsdC5wbmc&s=6607e6a9ac2aea5364737b6758511b20

We’re the terrorist steel band," says Michael Toussaint with a laugh. “People have been calling us the Talipan,” chortles Jason Constantine. It is, they now admit, a funny story, but they weren’t laughing at the time. The four friends who formed Caribbean Steel International had been rapturously received when they played a world music festival in Sardinia at the end of 2006. “It was mind-blowing,” says Toussaint, the band’s cheerful tenor pan - the lead drummer - who also happens to be blind.

As Trump prepared for Riyadh visit, Saudis blocked U.S. on terrorist sanctions - The Washington Post

▻https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/as-trump-prepared-for-riyadh-visit-saudis-blocked-us-on-terrorist-sanctions/2017/05/19/3a91eedc-3cd4-11e7-a058-ddbb23c75d82_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table

By Joby Warrick May 20 at 3:42 PM
Saudi Arabia, the oil-rich kingdom touted by President Trump as a key ally in the fight against the Islamic State, has helped block a Trump administration proposal to impose sanctions against a Saudi branch of the terrorist group, documents show.

The plan to add the Islamic State’s Saudi affiliate to a U.N. list of terrorist groups was quietly killed two weeks ago in a bureaucratic maneuver at the U.N. Security Council, records show. U.S. officials familiar with the move said the Saudis objected to the public acknowledgment of the existence of a separate Saudi offshoot of the terrorist group inside the kingdom.

[Read the letters blocking the U.N. proposal to add ISIS in Saudi Arabia to the terror list]

“They don’t want to admit they have an issue in their back yard,” said a U.S official familiar with the events, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy.

The news of the maneuver comes as Saudi Arabia hosts Trump in Riyadh in his first visit to a foreign capital since becoming president. U.S. and Saudi officials are expected to use the visit to underscore close cooperation between the two countries in battling Islamist extremist groups. Riyadh has contributed money, arms and fighter jets to the international coalition fighting the Islamic State in Syria.

#OEI #ArabieSaoudite #Etats-Unis

See the Historic Maps Declassified by the CIA

▻http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/11/us-cia-maps-strategy-foreign-policy-display

signalé par l’excellent @lecartographe sur Twitter (que j’aimerai bien convaincre de venir sur seenthis d’ailleurs)

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/content/dam/news/2016/11/18/cia/09-Kennedy-Laos-1961.ngsversion.1480163414751.jpg http://news.nationalgeographic.com/content/dam/news/2016/11/18/cia/16-African-elephants-2013.ngsversion.1480163405744.adapt.352.1.jpg

Shortly after the attacks of September 11, 2001, U.S. President George W. Bush and several advisors gathered at Camp David to weigh the country’s options. On the table in front of them, as you can see in the photo below, was a map of Afghanistan created by cartographers at the Central Intelligence Agency. It was among the first of what would become thousands of maps the CIA produced after September 11 to track terrorist networks and support U.S. military operations, including the raid to capture Osama bin Laden in 2011.

#cartographie #cia #manipulation #éléphants cc @fil #sémiologie

US #drones hit Taliban more than terrorist networks despite end of Afghan war

The majority of US airstrikes in #Afghanistan in 2016 have been in support of ground troops including Afghan forces fighting the Taliban, rather than targeting suspected terrorists.

https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/160607-F-RN544-106A.jpg

(Attention, assieds-toi avant de lire ça.) Russian air strikes in Syria ’good thing’ : Del Ponte
▻http://www.france24.com/en/20160208-russian-air-strikes-syria-good-thing-del-ponte

Former war crimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte, who is currently probing rights abuses in Syria, on Monday backed Russia’s air strikes on “terrorist groups” in the war-torn country.

“Overall, I think the Russian intervention is a good thing, because finally someone is attacking these terrorist groups,” Del Ponte told Swiss public broadcaster RTS, listing the Islamic State group and Al-Nusra among the groups targeted.

But Del Ponte, a member of the UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria, quickly added that the Russians apparently “are not distinguishing enough between the terrorists and others, and that is not as good.”

Why did French Justice Minister #Christiane_Taubira resign?
▻http://africasacountry.com/2016/02/why-did-french-justice-minister-christiane-taubira-resign

Last week, #France’s Minister of Justice, Christine Taubira (known for introducing the 2013 same-sex marriage law in France) resigned from the government, contesting French President François #Hollande’s new ‘terrorist law.” Shortly after the Paris attacks, French President François Hollande, along with the Prime Minister Manuel Valls, pledged to conduct legal reforms that would allow taking […]

#FRONT_PAGE #citizenship #Europe #immigration #Nicolas_Sarkozy

The Isis papers: leaked documents show how Isis is building its state | World news | The Guardian

▻http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/07/leaked-isis-document-reveals-plan-building-state-syria

pour mieux choisir si il faut l’appeler Etat, organisation, proto-état ou encore truc.

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/a3243a2dbec174777c3ea720a8ba2aa5b313e003/5_3_1401_841/master/1401.jpg?w=1200&q=85&auto=format&sharp=10&s=171ee98d1969273b5dfab6b397e3a9c2

A leaked internal Islamic State manual shows how the terrorist group has set about building a state in Iraq and Syria complete with government departments, a treasury and an economic programme for self-sufficiency, the Guardian can reveal.

The 24-page document, obtained by the Guardian, sets out a blueprint for establishing foreign relations, a fully fledged propaganda operation, and centralised control over oil, gas and the other vital parts of the economy.

Inside the surreal world of the Islamic State’s propaganda machine - The Washington Post

▻https://www.washingtonpost.com/rweb/world/inside-the-surreal-world-of-the-islamic-states-propaganda-machine/2015/11/22/051e997a-8ce6-11e5-acff-673ae92ddd2b_story.html?wpisrc=nl_draw2

http://tabletimages.washingtonpost.com/prod/Nic63818271447973531_tstmp_1448045428.jpg

Defectors reveal secrets of execution videos
By Greg Miller and Souad Mekhennet
November 20, 2015

RABAT, MOROCCO — The assignments arrive on slips of paper, each bearing the black flag of the Islamic State, the seal of the terrorist group’s media emir, and the site of that day’s shoot.

“The paper just gives you the location,” never the details, said Abu Hajer al-Maghribi, who spent nearly a year as a cameraman for the Islamic State. Sometimes the job was to film prayers at a mosque, he said, or militants exchanging fire. But, inevitably, a slip would come with the coordinates to an unfolding bloodbath.

His footage quickly found a global audience, released online in an Islamic State video that spread on social media and appeared in mainstream news coverage on Al Jazeera and other networks.

#ei #is #isis #daech

Report on the prevention of radicalisation and recruitment by terrorist organisations

A non-legislative report drafted by Rachida Dati was approved in European Parliament Committee. Amongst other things, it calls Member States to consider taking legal action against internet companies refusing to comply with requests to delete illegal content.

▻http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//NONSGML+REPORT+A8-2015-0316+0+DOC+PDF+V0//EN

This is described in the following paragraph of section III:

14. Recalls that internet companies and service providers have a legal responsibility to cooperate with Member State authorities by deleting any illegal content that spreads violent extremism, expeditiously and with full respect for the rule of law and fundamental rights, including freedom of expression; believes that Member States should consider legal actions against internet companies which refuse to comply with an administrative or judicial request to delete illegal content on their internet platforms; believes that refusal or deliberate failure by internet platforms to cooperate, thus allowing such illegal content to circulate, should be considered an act of complicity that can be equated to criminal intent or neglect and that those responsible should in such cases be brought to justice.

Contents of the report:
I. European added value in the prevention of terrorism
II. Preventing violent extremism and terrorist radicalisation in prisons
III. Preventing online terrorist radicalisation
IV. Preventing radicalisation through education and social inclusion
V. Stepping up the exchange of information on terrorist radicalisation in Europe
VI. Strengthening deterrents against terrorist radicalisation
VII. Preventing the departure and anticipating the return of radicalised European citizens recruited by terrorist organisations
VIII. Strengthening links between internal and external security in the EU
IX. Promoting the exchange of good practices on deradicalisation
X. Dismantling terrorist networks

Agreement Between Walid Jumblatt and Al-Nusra Front | Al Akhbar English
▻http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/agreement-between-walid-jumblatt-and-al-nusra-front

Walid Jumblatt’s declaration that ANF is not a terrorist group has not helped protect the Druze community in Syria and Lebanon, just as the support voiced by some Syrians for Daesh’s “other face” has not helped protect them from the ANF’s brutality, murder, and displacement. Indeed, Sunni Muslims have been targeted and tormented by the radical jihadi groups as much as — if not more than — other religious communities and tribes in Syria and Iraq.

Though Jumblatt has so far succeeded in averting the execution of the kidnapped Lebanese soldiers (the Druze soldiers) by exonerating ANF — which is proving adept at exploiting internal Lebanese political dynamics — the efforts of the head of the Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) have failed to dissuade the group from trying to forcibly convert the Druze in Jabal al-Summaq, northern Syria, to the Wahhabi brand of Islam.

Moussaoui Calls Saudi Princes Patrons of Al Qaeda - NYTimes.com
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/04/us/zacarias-moussaoui-calls-saudi-princes-patrons-of-al-qaeda.html?rref=world/middleeast

WASHINGTON — In highly unusual testimony inside the federal supermax prison, a former operative for Al Qaeda has described prominent members of Saudi Arabia’s royal family as major donors to the terrorist network in the late 1990s and claimed that he discussed a plan to shoot down Air Force One with a Stinger missile with a staff member at the Saudi Embassy in Washington.

The Qaeda member, Zacarias Moussaoui, wrote last year to Judge George B. Daniels of United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, who is presiding over a lawsuit filed against Saudi Arabia by relatives of those killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. He said he wanted to testify in the case, and after lengthy negotiations with Justice Department officials and the federal Bureau of Prisons, a team of lawyers was permitted to enter the prison and question him for two days last October.

Moussaoui Calls Saudi Princes Patrons of #Al_Qaeda
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/04/us/zacarias-moussaoui-calls-saudi-princes-patrons-of-al-qaeda.html

WASHINGTON — In highly unusual testimony inside the federal supermax prison, a former operative for Al Qaeda has described prominent members of Saudi Arabia’s royal family as major donors to the terrorist network in the late 1990s and claimed that he discussed a plan to shoot down Air Force One with a Stinger missile with a staff member at the Saudi Embassy in Washington.

The Qaeda member, Zacarias Moussaoui, wrote last year to Judge George B. Daniels of United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, who is presiding over a lawsuit filed against Saudi Arabia by relatives of those killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. He said he wanted to testify in the case, and after lengthy negotiations with Justice Department officials and the federal Bureau of Prisons, a team of lawyers was permitted to enter the prison and question him for two days last October.

#Saoud #Arabie_Saoudite

« L’Etat islamique est le 1er groupe terroriste dont les membres ont grandi sur Internet » (et ils savent parfaitement utiliser les réseaux pour se promouvoir) - FT

The writer is the director of GCHQ, a UK government intelligence and security organisation

▻http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/c89b6c58-6342-11e4-8a63-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz3I5NFMi6b

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isis) is the first terrorist group whose members have grown up on the internet. They are exploiting the power of the web to create a jihadi threat with near-global reach. The challenge to governments and their intelligence agencies is huge – and it can only be met with greater co-operation from technology companies.

Terrorists have long made use of the internet. But Isis’s approach is different in two important areas. Where al-Qaeda and its affiliates saw the internet as a place to disseminate material anonymously or meet in “dark spaces”, Isis has embraced the web as a noisy channel in which to promote itself, intimidate people, and radicalise new recruits.

The extremists of Isis use messaging and social media services such as Twitter, Facebook and WhatsApp, and a language their peers understand. The videos they post of themselves attacking towns, firing weapons or detonating explosives have a self-conscious online gaming quality. Their use of the World Cup and Ebola hashtags to insert the Isis message into a wider news feed, and their ability to send 40,000 tweets a day during the advance on Mosul without triggering spam controls, illustrates their ease with new media. There is no need for today’s would-be jihadis to seek out restricted websites with secret passwords: they can follow other young people posting their adventures in Syria as they would anywhere else.
The Isis leadership understands the power this gives them with a new generation. The grotesque videos of beheadings were remarkable not just for their merciless brutality, which we have seen before from al-Qaeda in Iraq, but for what Isis has learnt from that experience. This time the “production values” were high and the videos stopped short of showing the actual beheading. They have realised that too much graphic violence can be counter-productive in their target audience and that by self-censoring they can stay just the right side of the rules of social media sites, capitalising on western freedom of expression.

Isis also differs from its predecessors in the security of its communications. This presents an even greater challenge to agencies such as GCHQ. Terrorists have always found ways of hiding their operations. But today mobile technology and smartphones have increased the options available exponentially. Techniques for encrypting messages or making them anonymous which were once the preserve of the most sophisticated criminals or nation states now come as standard. These are supplemented by freely available programs and apps adding extra layers of security, many of them proudly advertising that they are “Snowden approved”. There is no doubt that young foreign fighters have learnt and benefited from the leaks of the past two years.

GCHQ and its sister agencies, MI5 and the Secret Intelligence Service, cannot tackle these challenges at scale without greater support from the private sector, including the largest US technology companies which dominate the web. I understand why they have an uneasy relationship with governments. They aspire to be neutral conduits of data and to sit outside or above politics. But increasingly their services not only host the material of violent extremism or child exploitation, but are the routes for the facilitation of crime and terrorism. However much they may dislike it, they have become the command-and-control networks of choice for terrorists and criminals, who find their services as transformational as the rest of us. If they are to meet this challenge, it means coming up with better arrangements for facilitating lawful investigation by security and law enforcement agencies than we have now.

For our part, intelligence agencies such as GCHQ need to enter the public debate about privacy. (…)

La coalition veut étendre au web la lutte contre les jihadistes - Libération

▻http://www.liberation.fr/monde/2014/10/27/la-coalition-veut-etendre-au-web-la-lutte-contre-les-jihadistes_1130606

How the West buys ‘conflict antiquities’ from Iraq and Syria (and funds terror)
▻http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2014/10/27/how-the-west-buys-conflict-antiquities-from-iraq-and-syria-and-funds-

...experts have shown a 145 percent increase in American imports of Syrian cultural property and a 61 percent increase in American imports of Iraqi cultural property between 2011 and 2013, which suggests that the illicit trade is reaching American consumers by ‘piggybacking’ on the legal trade. Furthermore, archaeologists Jesse Casana, Mitra Panahipour and Michael Danti have found evidence that looters are specifically targeting Classical antiquities in order to supply what is mostly a Western demand for Greek and Roman art.

An investigative report by the German broadcaster NDR documented evidence that antiquities looted by terrorist groups were being sold through German auction houses. The report revealed how Syrian conflict antiquities were smuggled as handicrafts, laundered with obscuring or outright false documentation, and then sold on the open market. It also exposed the transfer of antiquities to Gulf States, where they were laundered for resale in Western markets.

We must not be misled by antiquities collecting lobbyists’ insinuation that Syria or Iraq’s antiquities are better smuggled than burned by the various groups of militants – the smuggling pays for the burning. Paramilitary profits from looting and smuggling underwrite the cost of war, ethnic cleansing and genocide .

Former deputy PM defends ISIL in tweet, says ISIL does not torture
▻http://mobile.todayszaman.com/_former-deputy-pm-defends-isil-in-tweet-says-isil-does-not-tortu

Former Deputy Prime Minister Emrullah İşler defended the terrorist group the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), which is known for its brutal treatment of people in every place it has taken over, in a tweet he posted to his Twitter account late on Wednesday, stating, “ISIL also kills, but at least doesn’t torture.”

İşler’s tweet, seen as supportive of the terrorist ISIL, which has been attacking the Syrian Kurdish border town of Kobani with heavy artillery for over three weeks, drew ire on Wednesday.

İşler wrote: “What was the crime of the youth who died after he was struck by stones in the head? Even ISIL cannot hold a candle to those who did this. ISIL also kills, but at least does not torture.”

#Homs #car_bomb kills seven: Syrian state TV
▻http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/homs-car-bomb-kills-seven-syrian-state-tv

At least seven people were killed when a car bomb exploded in the central Syrian city of Homs Thursday, Syrian state media reported. “Seven killed and others injured according to a first toll in a terrorist car bomb explosion in Wadi Dahab in Homs,” state television said. In May, Syrian government forces retook control of almost all of Homs, once dubbed the “capital of the revolution,” after a deal allowing the withdrawal of rebel fighters trapped under siege. read more

#syria

Court designates Ansar Beit al-Maqdes a terrorist group | Mada Masr

▻http://madamasr.com/content/court-designates-ansar-beit-al-maqdes-terrorist-group

The Cairo Court for Urgent Matters has declared Ansar Beit al-Maqdes a terrorist organization on Sunday, state-owned Al-Ahram reported

Saudi Arabia designates Muslim Brotherhood terrorist group | Reuters

▻http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/07/us-saudi-security-idUSBREA260SM20140307

Saudi Arabia has formally designated the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization, in a move that could increase pressure on Qatar whose backing for the group has sparked a row with fellow Gulf monarchies.

#Egypt threatens to revoke citizenship of 13,000 #Hamas members
▻http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/egypt-threatens-revoke-citizenship-13000-hamas-members

Egypt plans to revoke the citizenship of 13,757 Hamas members for being “affiliated to an offshoot of the terrorist group the Muslim Brotherhood,” Egyptian media reported on Thursday. According to Youm7 news website, Egyptian security sources have started to collect information about thousands of Hamas members who were granted Egyptian citizenship under ousted president Mohammed Mursi. The Egyptian government is investigating Hamas members for their alleged involvement in “terrorist attacks,” Ma’an news agency reported. read more

#gaza_strip #Palestine #Top_News

Bahrain puts groups on terrorism list after bomb kills three police | Reuters
▻http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/04/us-bahrain-unrest-idUSBREA231FC20140304

he cabinet, meeting in emergency session in Manama, put the “so-called February 14 movement, Saraya al-Ashtar (Ashtar Brigade) and Saraya al-Muqawama (Resistance Brigade) and any group associated or allied to them on lists of terrorist groups”, BNA said.

The decision effectively outlaws these groups and makes their members subject to imprisonment. Bahrain listed Lebanon’s Shi’ite Hezbollah as a terrorist organization last year.

BNA said 25 suspects in Monday’s bombing in the village of Daih, west of the capital Manama, had been rounded up. It did not say if they were members of any of the blacklisted groups.

Egypt court confirms Brotherhood terrorist label - Ahram Online
▻http://english.ahram.org.eg/News/95119.aspx

The interim government declared the Brotherhood a terrorist group in December but the decision had not been approved of by a court until now.

Dutch journalist escapes Egypt - NL Times

▻http://www.nltimes.nl/2014/02/04/dutch-journalist-escapes-egypt

Dutch journalist Rena Netjes is on her way back to the Netherlands after being accused by Egypt for aiding a terrorist network tied to news channel Al Jazeera.
Netjest works for het Parool, BNR News radio and as an on site producer for the NOS. She is now on a plane back to the Netherlands following mediation from the Dutch Embassy in Egypt.
This is the second time that Netjes has been accused by Egypt. One year ago, she was arrested and had to spend a night in a cell.
Since President Morsi was deposed, it has become more difficult for journalists to work in Egypt. Critical television stations have been closed, and foreign media has been blacklisted. Especially Al Jazeera, with HQ in Quatar, has been affected.

Egypt govt declares Muslim Brotherhood ’terrorist group’ - Politics - Ahram Online

▻http://english.ahram.org.eg/News/90037.aspx

An anticipated step against Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood materialises as the government officially brands the Islamist group as ’terrorist’

Lebanese security forces arrest three suspected of bomb plots
▻http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/lebanese-security-forces-arrest-three-suspected-bomb-plots

#Lebanon's General Security agency said Tuesday it had arrested three people on suspicion of planning bomb attacks and assassinations. “General Security held three people of Syrian and Lebanese citizenship belonging to a terrorist network that was planning to carry out... security violations in Lebanon by using explosives and conducting assassinations,” the statement said. Lebanon’s National News Agency said two of those arrested were Syrians and a third was Lebanese. read (...)

#Top_News