News and Media

Law enforcement agencies around the globe are widening their efforts to dismantle the illicit activities and financial networks of Iran-backed proxy militias. In July, the United States and Paraguay moved to disrupt Hezbollah ’s infrastructure and terror-financing apparatus with the extradition of two key operatives and financiers, Ghassan Diab and Assad Ahmad Barakat .

Last week, the tech sector’s largest counterterror group, the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT) convened a forum of industry stakeholders to address ongoing extremist activity online in the wake of protests and civil unrest. The virtual gathering of stakeholders—which included representatives from 30 countries across government, industry, academia, and civil society groups—comes despite tech’s historical failures to deliver on its foundational commitment to establish clear and effective industry standards for the removal of extremist content online.

The U.S. Department of Commerce blacklisted 11 Chinese firms this week accused of human rights violations. The companies were involved in using forced labor by Uighurs and other Muslim minority groups—a practice actively promoted by Beijing and which the Commerce Department described as “reprehensible.” The move was made in response to resurfaced drone footage showing blindfolded and shackled Uighurs being led onto trains in Xinjiang. Similarly, the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate are considering bills that will ensure goods made with forced labor in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR) do not enter the U.S. market.

Leaders of the European Union (EU) last week received an unprecedented letter from 235 lawmakers representing 30 nations and 25 EU member states, urging the body to ban Iran’s Lebanese proxy Hezbollah and designate it in its entirety as a terrorist group. The letter, known as the Transatlantic Declaration on Hezbollah , was sent to Brussels ahead of the July 18 anniversary of the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish Cultural Center in Buenos Aires and the 2012 bombing of a passenger bus carrying Israeli tourists at the Burgas Airport in Bulgaria. Hezbollah was linked to both terrorist attacks.

According to a new report by the United Kingdom’s Commission for Countering Extremism (CCE), extremists of all spectrums, including neo-Nazis and the far right, have been exploiting the coronavirus pandemic to launch broad misinformation campaigns that aim to sow social discord. Extremists have promoted racist and xenophobic narratives on social media platforms to incite violence against minority groups, such as urging their supporters to intentionally infect Jewish and Muslim populations with the coronavirus. The CCE’s report highlights an alarming trend in which minority groups are increasingly targeted by extremist content online.

In an effort to stave off pending U.S. regulation, the tech industry has opposed widely-supported bi-partisan U.S. legislation—the Eliminating Abusive and Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies Act (EARN IT Act)—that would help mitigate the prevalence of child sexual abuse material online. The obstinate position is evidenced by the tech industry’s extensive lobbying campaign centered around protecting Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA), which provides tech with blanket liability protection from content posted by third parties on their platform. Tech’s behavior underscores the troubling, and expensive, lengths tech companies are going to in order to oppose meaningful regulations that aim to make the Internet a safer place for all.

European Union (EU) digital-policy and antitrust czar Margrethe Vestager took sharp aim at U.S. tech companies last week, detailing a comprehensive plan to regulate tech companies, including proposals to curb their anticompetitive behavior. The new measures aim to compel tech firms to pay more taxes and take more responsibility for illegal content on their platforms.

On June 25, Iraqi forces arrested 14 militants belonging to the Iran-backed Kata’ib Hezbollah (KH) in an anti-terrorism raid ordered by Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi. The KH members were allegedly planning an attack on Baghdad’s Green Zone, which houses the U.S. Embassy and other diplomatic compounds. Shortly after the arrest, a “show of force” from KH resulted in the detainees’ release to the Shiite Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF). The following week, prominent Iraqi security analyst Hisham al-Hashimi was assassinated . KH had reportedly threatened Hashimi in November and again two weeks ago.

(New York, N.Y.) – The Counter Extremism Project (CEP) reports weekly on the methods used by extremists to exploit the Internet and social media platforms to recruit followers and incite violence. Last week, a media group affiliated with the white supremacist group Rise Above Movement (RAM)...

Recent attacks by Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wal Muslimeen (JNIM) and the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara—local affiliates of al-Qaeda and ISIS—against one another is punctuating a security breakdown in West Africa, a region already challenged by ongoing violence. Extremists had held a loose alliance to fight Western-backed governments across the Sahel, but that has broken in recent months under the weight of the French-led and American-backed military campaign to eliminate the terror threat.