Eye on Extremism: April 9, 2026
Top Stories
A tentative ceasefire in the Iran war staggered Thursday under the weight of Israel’s bombardment of Beirut, Tehran’s continued chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz and uncertainty over whether planned peace talks can find common ground.
Time: Trump Threatens 'Bigger and Stronger' Attacks If Iran Doesn’t Comply With 'Real Agreement'
President Donald Trump warned of attacks that would be “bigger, better, and stronger than anyone has ever seen before” if Iran does not comply with what he described as the “real agreement” tied to the cease-fire.
CEP Mentions
ZDF Heute: The opposition in Iran is the "biggest loser"
While the regime in Tehran celebrates the ceasefire as a victory, the opposition remains weakened. This could have serious consequences for many people in Iran. The basis for the talks is the Iranians' 10-point plan, says Middle East expert Hans-Jakob Schindler. The US now has to negotiate down the Iranians' maximalist demands.
ABC News (Australia): Video: ‘Unique’ radicalization of German market attacker
Extremism expert Hans-Jakob Schindler says, while the perpetrator of the German Christmas market attack had been uniquely radicalised, they have been becoming more common since COVID-19.
ZDF Heute: Ceasefire in Iran: What happens next?
Iran and the US have agreed to a two-week ceasefire; now the countries want to negotiate. Both sides are calling it a success, but many questions remain unanswered. According to Middle East expert Hans-Jakob Schindler, Iran is demanding, among other things, reparations, control of the Strait of Hormuz, and the withdrawal of the United States from Iran. The lifting of harsh international sanctions and UN Security Council punitive measures is also being demanded, Schindler said on ZDFheute live.
Nau.ch: "It is in Iran's interest that the ceasefire holds."
Tehran and Washington confirmed a ceasefire between the US, Israel, and Iran – with an expiration date. Terror expert Hans-Jakob Schindler assesses the current situation for Nau.ch – and emphasizes: There is a clear calculation behind the gradual ceasefire. According to Schindler, the Iranian regime was therefore "defeated in the conventional military sense." Many leaders were killed, and isolation continued to grow. But one crucial goal was not achieved: The system itself persists. "The regime has survived as a system," Schindler emphasized to Nau.ch. Thus, it retains internal control.
Cicero: "The regime feels invincible today."
Militarily battered – yet politically strengthened: According to CEP Senior Director Hans-Jakob Schindler, the Iranian regime is emerging from the conflict with a sense of invulnerability. The US has made strategic concessions – with consequences for the entire region and Europe.
Analysis
Soufan Center: An Already Tenuous Ceasefire in Iran Hovers on the Verge of Collapse
Israel’s strikes across Lebanon immediately placed doubt upon the already tenuous ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran. After the ceasefire went into effect, missiles and drones continued to be fired at the Arab Gulf states, though it is unclear whether the continued attacks are a result of the decentralized nature of the IRGC command and control or whether these strikes have been the result of cells within the IRGC that disagree with the ceasefire agreement.
The aftermath of the recent war involving Iran has sparked significant debate among policymakers, intelligence analysts, and security scholars about how Tehran might respond. One new idea is that Iran could expand its use of newly formed or rebranded proxy groups designed to obscure attribution while enabling ongoing operations abroad. Among these, Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiyya has attracted particular focus.
United States
Wall Street Journal: Trump Team Explores Punishment for NATO Countries That Didn’t Support Iran War
The White House is considering a plan to punish some members of the NATO alliance that President Trump thinks were unhelpful to the U.S. and Israel during the Iran war, according to administration officials. The proposal would involve moving U.S. troops out of North Atlantic Treaty Organization member countries deemed unhelpful to the Iran war effort and stationing them in countries that were more supportive.
Pakistani national Muhammad Shahzeb Khan, also known as Shahzeb Jadoon, has pleaded guilty to "attempting to commit acts of terrorism... and carry out a mass shooting with automatic weapons at a prominent Jewish center in Brooklyn, New York.” The attack was inspired by ISIS and was planned for October 7, 2024, on the first anniversary of Hamas's October 7 massacre.
Two Pennsylvania teenagers accused of instigating an ISIS-inspired terrorist plot outside New York’s Gracie Mansion last month watched “radical content” online and hoped to kill up to 60 people in the attack, according to new court documents. Emir Balat, 18, of Langhorne, and Ibrahim Kayumi, 19, of Newtown, were charged in federal court in New York with use of a weapon of mass destruction, attempting to support a foreign terrorist organization, and related crimes in connection with the failed March 7 attack.
Fox News: New Florida law targeting alleged 'jihad' puts state 'ahead of the curve,' DeSantis says
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis defended a new law that allows state officials to designate terrorist organizations and penalize universities that support them, saying the measure is necessary to block entities tied to radical Islamist groups from receiving public funds.
Financial Times: JD Vance to lead US talks with Iran as Israeli strikes imperil ceasefire
JD Vance will lead a US delegation to Islamabad for talks with Iran, the White House has said, as a massive Israeli bombardment of Lebanon threatened to jeopardise the day-old ceasefire. The vice-president on Wednesday tried to calm tensions over the Israeli offensive, saying there had been a “legitimate misunderstanding” by Iran about whether Lebanon was included in the agreement.
A man who has been charged with plotting to firebomb a pro-Palestine activist’s home is tied to a group whose leaders support violence against Palestinians and have platformed a convicted terrorist who fundraises for a violent settler movement in the occupied West Bank. Video recordings by the group, called JDL 613 Brotherhood, also feature the organization’s founder, Yisrael Yaacob Ben Avraham, describing New York’s mayor Zohran Mamdani as a “Muslim terrorist”, a “cancer”, and his election a “harbinger” of “a creeping Islamic takeover of America”.
Costa Rica
Jerusalem Post: Costa Rica designates IRGC, Hezbollah, Hamas, Houthis as terrorist organizations
Costa Rica designated late Wednesday night Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Hezbollah, Hamas, and Yemen's Houthis as terror organizations. It will "allow intelligence authorities and judicial bodies to strengthen their prevention, investigation, and prosecution capabilities, acting more decisively against any logistical and financial support networks that may be operating within the country to sustain these organizations.”
Russia
France 24: Russia's Nobel Prize-winning rights group Memorial branded 'extremist'
Russia's Supreme Court labelled the Nobel Prize-winning human rights group Memorial "extremist" on Thursday, making it easier to prosecute supporters and those who work with it. Memorial was founded in the late 1980s to document victims of Soviet-era political repression during which millions of people perished in the Gulag penal system.
United Kingdom
BBC News: Man in court charged with terrorist activities
A 43-year-old British man has appeared in court accused of playing a leadership role in the Somali militant Islamist group al-Shabab - an organisation that has been linked to both al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group. Jermaine Grant is charged with directing the activities of al-Shabab more than 16 years ago in the late 2000s.
BBC News: Teen tried to buy gun for terrorist attack, court told
A neo-Nazi was stung by MI5 in a Morrisons' car park while trying to buy a gun for a terrorist attack, a court has heard. The Old Bailey in London heard how supermarket worker Alfie Coleman, 21, from Great Notley, Essex, had spent the previous months messaging people who he thought were fellow extremists in 2023.
Afghanistan
Afghanistan International: Afghanistan Instability Threatens Central Asia, Says Regional Bloc
The ninth regional meeting of border chiefs from Commonwealth of Independent States countries was held in Guliston, Tajikistan, on Wednesday. Participants voiced concern over the impact of Afghanistan’s instability on Central Asian border security. These countries have previously warned about the risk of militant groups spreading into Central Asia and have repeatedly expressed concern over the situation in Afghanistan.
Gaza Strip/West Bank
New York Post: Hamas explosives expert Muhammad Dawad killed in Gaza strike, IDF announces
The Israel Defense Forces on Wednesday announced that it had killed Muhammad Dawad, an engineering and explosives expert in the Hamas terrorist organization, in a strike in the northern Gaza Strip on Monday. During the war, Dawad was responsible for the production of explosive devices and served as a key authority in the execution of terrorist attacks, the IDF said, adding that he posed an immediate threat to soldiers.
Iran
Associated Press: Pro-Iran groups have used AI to troll Trump and try to control the war narrative
Pro-Iran groups have used artificial intelligence to create slick internet memes in English to try to shape the narrative during the war against the U.S. and Israel and foster opposition to it. Analysts say the memes appear to be coming from groups linked to the government in Tehran and are part of a strategy of leveraging its limited resources to inflict damage on the U.S., even indirectly. That includes how Iran has used attacks and threats to control the flow of traffic through the Strait of Hormuz and maintain a stranglehold on the world’s economy.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Thursday that Israeli strikes on Lebanon are violations of the two-week ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran and “render negotiations meaningless.” “The repeated aggression by the Zionist entity against Lebanon is a flagrant violation of the initial ceasefire agreement and a dangerous indicator of deceit and lack of commitment to potential accords,” Pezeshkian wrote on social platform X.
Iraq
The National: Rocket attack in Basra raises tension between Iraq and Kuwait
As mediators pushed through a ceasefire agreement between Iran, the US and Israel on Wednesday night, tension was raised between Iraq and Kuwait after a rocket attack Iraqis claimed was launched by its neighbour. Hours later, protesters gathered outside the Kuwaiti consulate in Basra. They waved flags of the Popular Mobilisation Forces, an umbrella group of mostly Iran-backed paramilitary groups, as well as flags of the powerful Kataib Hezbollah militia.
Israel
Times of Israel: Haifa man suspected of making explosives to ‘harm’ ex-PM Bennett on Iranian orders
A young man from Haifa and three others suspected of manufacturing explosives at an Iranian agent’s behest as part of a plot to “harm a senior figure” are to be charged in court in the coming days, police said Thursday, after a gag order was lifted on the case.
Telegraph: Israeli ‘terrorism’ in West Bank is putting country at risk, warn ex-IDF chiefs
Netanyahu’s government is supporting settler violence against Palestinians, say former heads of intelligence. In a letter to Benjamin Netanyahu, multiple former heads of Mossad, Shin Bet and the Israeli defence forces (IDF) said that settler violence had turned into terrorism and could bring down the state.
Lebanon
Middle East Eye: Lebanon PM seeks support from Pakistan for inclusion in ceasefire talks
Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam has asked the Pakistani prime minister to confirm the country’s inclusion in the Iran war ceasefire with the US, after Israeli strikes killed more than 250 people in Lebanon. In a statement, Salam’s office said he called Pakistan’s prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, to praise his efforts in brokering a truce and “confirm that the ceasefire includes Lebanon to prevent a recurrence of the Israeli attacks witnessed yesterday”.
Israel said it wiped out the Hezbollah chief’s top secretary in targeted strikes on Lebanon overnight — as it ramped up attacks Thursday despite the risk of throwing President Trump’s Iran war cease-fire into turmoil. Ali Youssef Kharshi, the secretary and nephew of Hezbollah honcho Naim Qassem, was killed in Beirut amid the fresh wave of bombings, the Israel Defense Forces said.
Israeli strikes hit busy commercial and residential areas in central Beirut without warning on Wednesday, hours after a ceasefire was announced in the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran. Lebanon said at least 182 people were killed and hundreds were wounded, making it the deadliest day in the latest Israel-Hezbollah war.
Financial Times: Israel vows to continue war on Hizbollah despite Iran ceasefire
Israel launched its largest wave of strikes on Lebanon since the start of the latest war against Hizbollah on Wednesday, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office insisted that the ceasefire between the US, Iran and Israel would not cover its neighbour.
Pakistan
Defense Post: Afghanistan, Pakistan Agree to Avoid Escalation: China
Pakistan and Afghanistan have agreed to avoid any escalation in their armed conflict, during talks hosted by China in recent days, Beijing said Wednesday. The neighbors and one-time allies have been locked in violent confrontation over claims from Islamabad that Afghanistan is harboring militants responsible for cross-border attacks, which the Taliban government denies.
Niger
Reuters: Fighting between Sahel-based jihadist rivals spills into Niger
The West African affiliates of al Qaeda and Islamic State have clashed in Niger for the first time, according to a statement from one of the groups, a development that analysts said signals an intensification of their years-long rivalry.
Nigeria
The Sun Nigeria: Group urges Sultan to issue Fatwa against terrorism
A civic group, One Nation One Law, has called on the Sultan of Sokoto, Muhammadu Sa’ad Abubakar, to issue a strong religious declaration condemning terrorism as part of efforts to tackle Nigeria’s lingering insurgency. In a statement signed by its President, Benson Sunday, the group said the country’s counter-terrorism strategy must move beyond military operations to include decisive ideological engagement.
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