This Week's Global Terrorist Attacks >20-15 - France, Egypt, Turkey, Rwanda, USA, Pakistan, UK

Two killed, several injured in Islamic stabbing attack
in French town of Romans-sur-Isère 

At least two people have been killed and multiple others injured after a man carried out a knife attack in the French town of Romans-sur-Isère, local media is reporting.

Emergency services rushed to the scene of the incident in the town in southeastern France after the man launched the frenzied attack on Saturday morning.

Two people died in the stabbing spree and at least five others were injured, Le Dauphine Libéré reports. Three of the injured people are in a critical condition.

The provincial newspaper reports that the assailant is a 33-year-old Sudanese national. He was subdued by authorities and arrested at the scene.

The assailant, an asylum seeker from Sudan, slit the throat of a 40-year-old man in front of his companion in the center of Romans-sur-Isere, just south of Lyon, French authorities said. The suspect then attacked two tobacco store workers and a customer and headed to a butcher's store. - UPI

France Bleu is reporting that the attack began in a butcher shop and the man is believed to have shouted “Allahu Akbar” while charging at his victims. 

France’s interior minister expressed his condolences with the victims of the attack and their families. He said that the Central Directorate of the Judicial Police is investigating the nature and circumstances of the “heinous” act.

France is in its third week of lockdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic. All non-essential trips outside the home are banned and everyone is required to have a signed, timed and dated permission form every time they go outside.

Why Egypt banned news about terrorist bombings in Sinai

Al-Monitor

Egypt has instructed media outlets in the country not to publish any news on the recent terrorist bombings of power lines in the northern Sinai Peninsula, which some consider unconstitutional.

Smoke billows following an explosion in Rafah in northern Sinai, as seen from the Gaza Strip, Feb. 26, 2020.
SAID KHATIB/AFP via Getty Images

CAIRO — An Egyptian security source told Deutsche Presse-Agentur March 28 that the Egyptian air force launched airstrikes against the strongholds of takfiri (extremist) and other terrorist groups south of the Egyptian city of Rafah, killing 16 of them and wounding six others. Three four-wheel-drive vehicles were also destroyed in the operation.

The source said the air raid came in response to the armed groups blowing up five electricity towers in al-Kharouba village in Sheikh Zuweid March 26.

Mustafa Sanjar, a journalist who specializes in Sinai affairs, explained in a phone interview with Al-Monitor that armed men affiliated with terrorist groups in Sinai bombed five electricity towers that transmit power from the provincial capital of el-Arish to the cities of Sheikh Zuweid and Rafah in the northern Sinai Peninsula. As a result, the electricity supply to the two cities was disrupted for three days in a row.

Sanjar said citizens informed the government-affiliated Sinai Electricity Department about the power outages March 26. A group of technicians accompanied by a security force headed to the site and found five destroyed electricity towers that had collapsed completely after their bases were bombed.

He added, "The security forces found, next to the destroyed electrical towers, warning messages from the bombers, threatening to pursue all technicians and security members involved in repairing the damage.” He said the bombed power line was new and became operational in February to solve the crisis of repeated power outages. The project had cost 65 million Egyptian pounds ($4.2 million).

He noted that the power outages in the Sheikh Zuweid and Rafah areas led to the interruption of water pumping from the underground wells that feed the city of Sheikh Zuweid. This has caused a major crisis for the residents in light of fears of an outbreak of the coronavirus and the need for water for personal hygiene, sterilization and hand-washing, among other preventive measures.

Following the power outage in Sheikh Zuweid and Rafah, the repair teams in the Sinai Electricity Department reconnected power to the two cities on March 28.

A source in the Egyptian Electricity Holding Company confirmed to the Egyptian newspaper Al-Shorouk that the repair teams managed to reinstall five current-carrying towers from el-Arish after their collapse March 26. The source indicated the completion of the repairs and the reconnection of power to Sheikh Zuweid and Rafah.

Mohamed Hajras, chairman of the Sheikh Zuweid Center Council in the northern Sinai Peninsula, said March 30 the state is implementing a plan to replace the overhead electrical power lines with ground lines. He said the plan would cover all parts of the city with ground lines instead since armed groups target overhead lines.

For years, the Egyptian army and police forces have engaged in deadly confrontations with armed groups in the Sinai Peninsula, especially in the northern Sinai area. Wilayat Sinai, which is affiliated with the Islamic State (IS), is the most prominent of these groups and has regularly bombed gas lines that extend between Egypt and Israel. The latest incident occurred Feb. 2 after the Egyptian government announced it would start importing gas from Tel Aviv. The group also blows up power lines in Sinai occasionally.

Turkey: Army ‘neutralizes’ 80 terrorists over past month

Dozens of shelters, cellars of terrorists also destroyed in anti-terror operations

Sarp Ozer   | AA

ANKARA
Turkish Ministry of National Defense on Sunday said a total of 80 terrorists were neutralized as part of cross-border and domestic anti-terror operations over the past month.

The ministry said 52 terror posts, shelters and cellars used by terrorists were also destroyed as part of operations.

Turkish authorities often use the word "neutralize" to imply the terrorists in question either surrendered or were killed or captured.

Although the statement did not mention any specific terrorist group, Turkish forces have been conducting operations against the PKK terrorist organization and its branches as part of cross-border and domestic anti-terror operations.

In its more than 30-year terror campaign against Turkey, the PKK -- listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the U.S. and EU -- has been responsible for the deaths of 40,000 people, including women, children, and infants. The YPG is the PKK's Syrian branch.

Officials find mass grave in Rwanda linked to 1994 genocide

By Clyde Hughes

Machetes and bullets are seen in Gisenyi, Rwanda, on July 26, 1994, during the mass Tutsi genocide.

File Photo by John Isaac/United Nations

April 6 (UPI) -- Rwandan authorities say they have uncovered what is believed to be a mass grave that contains perhaps the remains of 30,000 people killed during the infamous 1994 genocide.

Officials said the remains were exhumed in the Kayonza District Eastern Province at a man-made pond. An officer with genocide survivor organization IBUKA said more than 50 bodies have already been found.

One official said information reported last summer led them to start searching in the area, and that tens of thousands of bodies may be there.

"But because of the terrain we have been failing to exhume the remains until we managed to drain the pond," they said. Authorities said they expect it will take several months to uncover all the remains at the site.

Rwanda's National Commission for the Fight Against Genocide says more than 118,000 victims were found between 2018 and 2019. About 1 million people, mostly members of the minority Tutsi, were killed in the 1994 genocide. Rwanda officials exhumed 141 bodies in January at an airstrip in Rubavu.

The majority Hutus began the killings after Tutsi rebels were accused of shooting down a plane that killed Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana exactly 26 years ago, on April 6, 1994.

US labels white supremacist group as terrorist organisation

for first time

Justin Vallejo New York
The Independent

For the first time, the US has designated a white supremacist group as a terrorist organisation.

Trump administration officials said on Monday that the Russian Imperial Movement would be named a "Specially Designated Global Terrorist" organisation, which would result in sanctions against the group or any Americans that engage in transactions with its members.

The move reflects the administration's growing concern about white supremacist groups with links to foreign actors.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his counter-terrorism coordinator Nathan Sales said the designations were "unprecedented."

"This is the first time the United States has ever designated white supremacist terrorists, illustrating how seriously this administration takes the threat. We are taking actions no previous administration has taken to counter this threat," Mr Sales said in a teleconference with reporters.

"RIM is still very much in the business of providing training to like-minded Neo-Nazis and white supremacists across Europe. We know that they have recruited individuals from other countries in Europe and continue to do so."

The administration also placed individual sanctions on its leaders, Stanislav Anatolyevich Vorobyev, Denis Valliullovich Gariev and Nikolay Nikolayevich Trushchalov.

According to US officials, the Russian Imperial Movement is alleged to provide paramilitary training to neo-Nazis in camps it runs in St Petersburg, Russia. They are alleged to have trained two Swedes who bombed a café, and attempted to bomb a refugee campsite, in the Swedish city of Gothenburg in 2016.

The State Department also confirmed its awareness of reports the Russian Imperial Movement was among forces that fought in Ukraine on behalf of pro-Russian separatists.

Under the new sanctions, the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control can seize any American property or assets belonging to the group and ban its members from travelling to the US. The US Justice Department will also be able to bring terror-related charges against anyone engaging in financial transactions with the group or its members.

In its annual terrorism report released in November, the State Department said ethnically and racially driven terrorism had risen alarmingly around the world since 2018, including in the US with the Pittsburgh Synagogue shooting.

"We know that white supremacists and other racially motivated terrorist organisations or networks communicate across international borders," Mr Sales said in November.

"We know that they are in a sense learning from their jihadist predecessors in terms of their ability to raise money and move money, in terms of their ability to radicalise and recruit, and so the State Department has been trying to mobilise international partners who see this threat the same way we do to take decisive action against these networks."

Pakistani courts go shamefully easy on terrorist who helped murder Jewish American journalist

by Farahnaz Ispahani
 | April 06, 2020
Washington Examiner

As Passover approaches and Jews in America and around the world gather for the high holy days, Ruth and Judea Pearl still await justice for the brutal killing of their son in Pakistan 18 years ago.

Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was beheaded in 2002, and his killers recorded the atrocity on video. Pearl was made to “confess” that he was an American and a Jew — the so-called crimes for which his captors executed him.

One of Pearl’s killers, al Qaeda leader Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, is in prison at Guantanamo Bay for this and many other terrorism-related crimes. But his associates, including British Pakistani Ahmad Omar Saeed Shaikh, had their sentences reduced by a Pakistani court last week — yet another instance reflecting Pakistan’s leniency toward jihadi extremists.

Soon after Pearl’s murder, Pakistan’s vast jihadi underground circulated the video of Mohammed beheading the young journalist as Pearl said, “My name is Daniel Pearl. My father’s Jewish, my mother’s Jewish, I am a Jew.” The video became very popular in Pakistan, reflecting the deep roots of anti-Semitism in the country.

Pearl had gone to Karachi, Pakistan, a few months after 9/11 to investigate alleged links between al Qaeda and Pakistan’s premier spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI. Mohammed pretended to be a source and lured Pearl into the trap that led to his kidnapping and murder.

But Mohammed’s own history highlights Pakistan’s failure in controlling and possibly even abetting terrorists. Mohammed, a graduate of the London School of Economics, had been arrested in India in 1994 for kidnapping an American tourist on behalf of a Pakistani terrorist group backed by the ISI. He was released in exchange for passengers on an Indian Airlines plane hijacked to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan in 1999.

Given his track record, Mohammed should have been under observation by Pakistani authorities, but successive Pakistani governments have supported terrorism against India as a means of drawing attention to Pakistan’s position in its dispute with India over Kashmir. Instead of being detained or observed in Pakistan, Mohammed continued to operate on behalf of Pakistani terrorist group Jaish-e-Muhammad, or JeM for short and maintained links with al Qaeda.

After being arrested and convicted in the Pearl kidnapping and murder, Mohammed faced a death sentence and remained defiant. But as is often the case in Pakistan with terrorists, his appeals dragged on while he enjoyed considerable comfort in prison and even managed to stay in touch with his jihadi colleagues and friends.

Last week, the High Court in Sindh province reduced his sentence to seven years imprisonment, offering Mohammed a chance for release fairly soon, given that he has been in prison for several years already.

The Pakistani government, responding to international outrage at the court decision, has announced that it will go into appeal and will not free Mohammed. But those who know how things in Pakistan really work know that the stage has likely been set for another murderer’s freedom.

The appeals process will help the Pakistan government get through threats of financial sanctions by the United Nation’s Financial Action Task Force, which periodically questions Pakistan’s failure to meet international obligations in cracking down on terrorist financing and operations in the country.

But Pakistan’s deeper problem, of state-supported religious extremism, continues to grow, notwithstanding its government’s statements and the willingness of U.S. and European diplomats to accept them at face value.

Of course, the country is full of fanatical Muslims, but don't worry, there are only a little over 200 million of them.

Newcastle, UK, teenager, 16, charged with right-wing terrorism offences after online investigation

By Kathryn Riddell Multimedia Journalist
6 APR 2020 Chronicle Live

A 16-year-old boy from Newcastle been appeared in court accused of right-wing terrorism offences.

The boy has been charged with 11 offences including inviting support for banned group National Action, encouraging terrorism, inciting racial hatred and inciting religious hatred, Counter Terrorism Policing North East said.

He appeared before Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Monday but cannot be named due to his age.

He was originally arrested by officers from Counter Terrorism Policing in October 2019 as part of an intelligence-led investigation into suspected right-wing terrorism online.

Among the charges, the boy faces four counts of inviting support for the banned organisation in social media posts on four occasions between July and September last year.