Terrorism expert Dr. Hans-Jakob Schindler [CEP Senior Director] describes the Solingen terrorist attack as a "classic IS attack scenario." A considerable number of ideological extremists have carried out attacks over the past year—Schindler assesses the danger as "quite high."

CEP Senior Advisor Edmund Fitton-Brown writes: As British Ambassador from 2015 to 2017 I saw up close and was involved in negotiating the international response to the Houthi takeover of large parts of Yemen that began in earnest in 2014. I then continued to observe Yemen from a counterterrorism perspective with the United Nations after 2017. The story that has not been adequately told is how the international community got its response right in 2014; but then progressively lost its way over the following four years, ending in the shameful Stockholm Agreement of December 2018.

The Berlin-based think tank "Counter Extremism Project" (CEP) also reports on the case in a recent policy paper on the situation of detainees in north-east Syria. According to the paper, the man had been married to a German woman who has since returned to Germany and been convicted according to Islamic rites. Analyst Sofia Koller, one of the authors of the paper, told SWR: "The fact that a second German apparently died in Kurdish captivity not only shows the poor prison conditions on the ground, but also the extensive inaction of German authorities." For example, Mohammad A.'s family was apparently only informed of his death a year later. The first death in prison in north-east Syria had already become known in 2020 thanks to a report in the Bild newspaper.

CEP Senior Director Dr. Hans-Jakob Schindler interviewed about the threat to Israelis and Jews abroad, and Israeli and Jewish institutions, in the context of the terror attack in Washington, D.C.

CEP Senior Advisor Ambassador Edmund Fitton-Brown writes: "I worked at the United Nations in New York for five years as a co-ordinator for counterterrorism. I cherish those years at the UN, an organisation capable of doing great things for the world and full of brilliant people. But it has lost its way. Now I hear of recriminations between colleagues, disenchantment with the leadership and a belief that serious reform is needed to break the UN out of its malaise."

CEP Senior Director Dr. Hans-Jakob Schindler interviewed about the arrest of a right-wing extremist terror cell in Germany. 

CEP Senior Director Dr. Hans-Jakob Schindler interviewed on the start of a trial against Russian saboteurs in Munich. “Three suspected Russian spies are on trial before the Munich Higher Regional Court. They are accused of spying on military facilities and plotting sabotage.”

House 88 is the former residence of the Commandant of Auschwitz Rudolf Höss recently acquired by the Counter Extremism Project supported by The Fund to End Antisemitism, Extremism, and Hate. It has been converted from a house of horror to ARCHER – the Auschwitz Research Centre on Hate, Extremism and Radicalization. For years to come, ARCHER will fight antisemitism through research, policy development, and education.

House 88 is the former residence of the Commandant of Auschwitz Rudolf Hoss. It was recently acquired by the Counter Extremism Project with vital support from The Fund to End Antisemitism, Extremism, and Hate. It has been converted from a house of horror to ARCHER - the Auschwitz Research Centre on Hate, Extremism and Radicalization. For years to come, ARCHER will fight antisemitism through research, policy development and education.

The senior director of the Counter Extremism Project, Hans-Jakob Schindler, cautions that the opening of the banking system runs the risk of becoming “entangled with terrorism financing as there are still multiple terrorist groups operating in Syria apart from ISIS.”

“It will be difficult to ensure that funds are not flowing to these individuals if sanctions are relieved without conditionality,” he said.