Eye on Extremism: February 13, 2026
Top Stories
Afghanistan International: Taliban Criticises UN Sanctions Extension, Calls For Policy Shift
Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid has urged Western countries to reconsider their sanctions policy after the UN Security Council extended the mandate of the sanctions monitoring team related to the Taliban, describing the move as ineffective.
Reuters: Two men jailed in UK over IS-inspired plot to kill hundreds of Jews
Two men were jailed on Friday for plotting to kill hundreds in an Islamic State-inspired attack on the Jewish community in England, a plan prosecutors said could have been deadlier than December's mass shooting at Sydney's Bondi Beach. Walid Saadaoui, 38, and Amar Hussein, 52, were both convicted after a trial at Preston Crown Court, which began a week after an unrelated deadly attack on a synagogue in the nearby northwest city of Manchester.
CEP Mentions
Legal Tribune Online: Detention of many German IS returnees is expiring
Although the procedures were complex and resource-intensive, they led to a thorough reckoning in many places. This includes groundbreaking decisions such as the first conviction of an IS returnee for genocide against the Yazidis (Section 6 of the German Code of Crimes against International Law). In comparison to other European countries, Germany has done a good job in this area, particularly in international criminal law, says extremism researcher Sofia Koller of the Counter Extremism Project, speaking to LTO .
Analysis
New York Times: What It Means to Be a White ‘Race Traitor’
The response to the deaths confirmed a cold calculus made by Mississippi’s civil rights strategists when they decided to recruit elite white college students and young professionals to help in the struggle to democratize the state: In America, white lives matter. But in daring to risk their lives and fight on the side of Black Americans against racial apartheid, Goodman and Schwerner crossed a deadly line. To white supremacists, they were race traitors. And throughout American history, race traitors not only lose the protections of whiteness, but also often become the targets of a particular type of violence, one designed to warn other white people against the costs of fighting — and therefore, delegitimizing — white hegemony.
Times of Israel: Unpersuaded by Netanyahu, Trump insists on going ‘jaw-to-jaw’ with Iran and Hamas
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu famously sees Winston Churchill as his model of wartime leadership. A bust of Britain’s World War II prime minister keeps a stern and watchful eye over his office, and the premier regularly invokes Churchill in his landmark speeches, especially in his addresses to the US Congress. (Netanyahu surpassed Churchill as the world leader to give the most such speeches when he delivered his fourth in 2024).
United States
Wall Street Journal: How a Homeland Security Shutdown Would Affect ICE and TSA
On Thursday, Senate Democrats blocked a bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security, saying the Republican counteroffer made by the White House this week regarding immigration enforcement didn’t address many of their key concerns. With the deadline looming at 12:01 a.m. Saturday and many lawmakers already out of town, DHS funding is just hours away from lapsing and triggering a shutdown. Here’s what that would mean for the department, which includes transportation security, the Coast Guard and immigration enforcement.
Times of Israel: Epstein files source who alleged Mossad links is identified as Holocaust denier
An FBI source who claimed Jeffery Epstein was a Mossad agent in a document released last month was a fraudster and Holocaust denier, highlighting how the so-called Epstein files have fed into Israel-related conspiracies based on unreliable information. The document, dated 2020, based the allegations of Mossad links on the source’s relationship with the prominent pro-Israel lawyer Alan Dershowitz.
Afghanistan International: Trump Aide Urges Taliban to Release American Hostages
Sebastian Gorka, deputy assistant to the president of the United States, has called on the Taliban to release American hostages, warning that Donald Trump has made clear the group must stop detaining US citizens or face consequences.
New York Times: Homeland Security Hires Labor Dept. Aide Whose Posts Raised Alarms
The Department of Homeland Security has hired a social media manager from the Department of Labor for a key communications job, despite posts he made on Labor Department media accounts that raised internal alarms over possible white-nationalist messaging.
Reuters: Republican to oppose Trump nominee for senior diplomatic post over remarks on Israel, Jews
President Donald Trump's pick to be assistant secretary of state for international organizations hit a major stumbling block on Thursday when a Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said he would oppose the appointment. Republican Senator John Curtis of Utah said he did not believe Jeremy Carl is the right person to represent the country's best interests at international organizations. The position manages the U.S. relationship with international organizations including the United Nations.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and his team refused to condemn social media posts from the co-founder of the group ‘Hot Girls for Zohran’ that boosted antisemitic and pro-Iran voices and bashed police and leading U.S. politicians.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani faced questions about the city’s budget from lawmakers in Albany on Wednesday, but he was also grilled about antisemitism. Assemblyman Ari Brown, a Jewish Republican from Long Island, asked Mamdani a series of heated questions about his revocation of an Israel-related definition of antisemitism and antisemitic crime statistics in January.\
Washington Post: ‘We will not cower,’ rabbi says after antisemitic vandalism of Md. synagogue
Rabbi Jonah Layman was surprised to receive an 8 a.m. phone call from a Maryland state senator asking whether he was okay. Graffiti, he’d learn, had been spray-painted on the synagogue in Olney where Layman has served as rabbi since 1994.
Beth Israel Congregation President Zach Shemper wrapped up a week on Capitol Hill Thursday feeling “confident” that sharing the story of the recent arson attack on his synagogue with lawmakers would bring increased security funding for houses of worship nationwide — including his own.
Missouri Independent: Missouri House shows support for bill aimed at antisemitism
A bill that aims to prohibit antisemitism within public schools and institutions of higher education won initial approval this week in the Missouri House. State Rep. George Hruza, a Republican from Huntleigh and the descendant of a Holocaust survivor, said sponsored the legislation because he feared for the safety of Jewish students in the years since the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel.
Olympics
The Telegraph: Nazi Olympics T-shirts sell out
T-shirts displaying the poster of the Olympic games hosted in Nazi Germany have sold out on the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) website. The 1936 Berlin Olympics, which took place when Hitler was in power, were used as a propaganda tool to promote the idea of Aryan supremacy and the Third Reich.
Canada
New York Times: Before Mass Killing, Mental Breakdowns and Online Violent Extremism
On Tuesday afternoon, Jesse Van Rootselaar, 18, grabbed two firearms from her home and, the authorities in British Columbia said, killed her mother and 11-year-old brother. Then she traveled a mile to the Tumbler Ridge Secondary School and killed five students and one educator before turning her weapon on herself.
Forward: ADL retracts Tumbler Ridge shooting antisemitism claim
The ADL published and then retracted a claim that the alleged mass shooter at a school in Canada maintained a social media account with antisemitic posts, a day after it posted the erroneous information on its website. The organization wrote Thursday at the bottom of an updated page about alleged Tumbler Ridge Secondary School shooter Jesse Van Rootselaar that it had incorrectly concluded that an X account containing the posts belonged to the alleged shooter. Nine people were killed in the shooting, including Van Rootselaar.
A federal government assessment examining trends in violent extremism from 2014 to 2024 describes a domestic threat landscape increasingly defined by young adult lone actors using everyday weapons, with radicalization unfolding over years but violence often erupting with little warning.
Bulgaria
Sofia Globe: Bulgaria’s Foreign Ministry calls for annual neo-Nazi ‘Lukov March’ to be prevented
Bulgaria’s Foreign Ministry said on February 13 that it categorically opposes the planned holding of the so-called “Lukov March” and called on the responsible institutions to take all statutory actions to prevent it. Sofia mayor Vassil Terziev issued an order banning the march, but the ban was overturned by the Sofia Administrative Court.
France
Reuters: Macron calls for stronger measures against antisemitism in France
French President Emmanuel Macron called for intensified efforts to combat antisemitism in France, as recent government data showed hostility toward Jews has remained high despite a decline in recorded incidents last year. France, which has the largest Jewish community in Europe, documented 1,320 antisemitic acts in 2025, accounting for 53% of all anti-religious incidents, according to a report released on Thursday by the Interior Ministry.
Germany
Reuters: Germany's far-right woos unhappy car workers
On a dark February morning at Mercedes-Benz's (MBGn.DE), opens new tab vast Untertuerkheim plant, workers arriving for the early shift are met by activists from Zentrum, a self-styled union affiliated with the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. "Game-changer," reads the pamphlet they are handing out ahead of elections to the factory's works council, at which Zentrum aims to challenge mainstream unions it says have failed to shield the automotive industry from thousands of job cuts.
Italy
AFP: 12 Italians convicted for trying to revive Fascist party
Twelve members of Italy's fringe group CasaPound have been jailed for seeking to revive the Fascist Party, which ruled from 1922 to 1943 under dictator Benito Mussolini. It is the first time a law which bans the "reorganisation of the dissolved Fascist party" has been applied to the neo-fascist group, the Repubblica daily said on Friday.
Netherlands
Jerusalem Post: Netherlands: The threat of ambient antisemitism
Unlike neighboring countries such as France or Belgium, antisemitism in the Netherlands has not yet fully manifested as a constant physical threat. There have been no mass casualty attacks on synagogues or Jewish schools. No routine armed guards at every institution. Instead, what has taken hold is something more diffuse and insidious. Many Dutch Jews describe it as ‘ambient antisemitism’: a pervasive social climate in which hostility toward Jews is normalized, excused, or reframed as political expression.
United Kingdom
Britain’s High Court ruled Friday that the government’s decision to outlaw the protest group Palestine Action as a terrorist organization was unlawful, but it kept the ban in place pending another hearing while the government prepares an appeal. Judges Victoria Sharp, Jonathan Swift and Karen Steyn said “the nature and scale of Palestine Action’s activities” did not meet the “level, scale and persistence” that would justify proscription.
The Ferret: Self-styled nightwatchmen patrol a Scottish village. Their leader is a Nazi
A self-described Nazi who has expressed racist, anti-Semitic and pro-Hitler views conducts late night “patrols” in a Scottish village, The Ferret can reveal. John Carroll walks the streets of Forth, South Lanarkshire, in the early hours, and claims his volunteer group is watching over the local community and deterring crime.
BBC: Alleged far-right extremist in court on gun charge
A suspected far-right extremist has appeared in court accused of having a pistol. Szymon Zgierski, 21, from Morecambe, Lancashire, is charged with possession of a firearm on 17 January.
Afghanistan
Afghanistan International: Afghan Women Excluded From International Exhibition In Kabul
Women business owners say the Taliban prevented them from entering the third international construction exhibition in Kabul, which opened on February 12. The executions is scheduled to run until February 16. Several women told Afghanistan International that they had rented exhibition booths for 6,000 afghanis but were stopped when they arrived to participate. According to them, officials from the Taliban’s morality police were stationed at the entrance and refused to allow women to enter.
Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry says a new United Nations sanctions monitoring report supports Islamabad’s long-standing concerns about the presence of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and the Islamic State group in Afghanistan. In its latest assessment, the UN Security Council’s Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team said the Taliban supports the activities of militant groups including al-Qaida, the TTP and the East Turkestan Islamic Movement inside Afghanistan.
Afghanistan International: Multiple Extremist & Terrorist Groups Operating In Afghanistan, Says CSTO
The chief of staff of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) has warned that numerous international extremist and terrorist groups are operating in Afghanistan, posing a risk of instability across the region. Andrey Serdyukov, chief of the CSTO Joint Staff, said at a press conference on Thursday that the presence and activities of such groups in Afghanistan threaten regional security and could lead to the spread of terrorism to neighbouring countries.
Gaza Strip/West Bank
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas ordered the publication of the draft constitution for a Palestinian state earlier this week, the PA's official news agency WAFA announced. The full draft of the constitution, read by The Jerusalem Post, omitted Jewish ties to Jerusalem in Article III, claiming it as the "capital of the State of Palestine, and its political, spiritual, cultural, and educational center, as well as its national symbol," and committed to "preserving its religious character and protecting its Islamic and Christian sanctuaries."
Top Hamas official Basem Naim rejects the draft constitution that the Palestinian Authority published on Monday as it seeks to carry out reforms that would let it take the reins of Gaza under US President Donald Trump’s ceasefire plan.
Iraq
Reuters: Iraq hopes some Islamic State detainees to be repatriated soon amid transfers out of Syria
Iraq is in talks with other countries including Arab and Muslim states to repatriate Islamic State prisoners, its foreign minister said, and the U.S. military said it had completed a mission to transfer thousands of IS detainees to Iraq from Syria. Speaking in an interview with Reuters on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference, Fuad Hussein said Baghdad would need financial aid to deal with the influx and was worried about a rise in Islamic State activity just over the border in Syria.
Reuters: US military says it completed Syria mission to transfer ISIS members to Iraq
U.S. military forces have completed their mission in Syria to transfer Islamic State detainees to Iraq, U.S. Central Command said on Friday. "The 23-day transfer mission began on Jan. 21 and resulted in U.S. forces successfully transporting more than 5,700 adult male ISIS fighters from detention facilities in Syria to Iraqi custody," Central Command said in a statement.
Israel
The IDF said that two Israelis crossed the border fence near Yir’on on Thursday, and were handed to police; the Uri Tzafon movement called the action a “moral and historical step” aimed at protecting northern communities.
Syria
New York Times: U.S. Forces Leave Base in Syria Used in Fight Against ISIS
After more than a decade of fighting elements of the Islamic State, U.S. troops have left a small base in southeastern Syria as the military shrinks its presence in the country. U.S. Central Command, which oversees military forces in the Middle East and Central Asia, announced that the troops had completed an “orderly departure” from the Al-Tanf garrison on Wednesday.
Yemen
Yemen Online: Drone Strike Kills al-Qaeda Member in Yemen’s Al-Mahra
An al-Qaeda member was killed Thursday in Yemen’s eastern Al-Mahra province following a drone strike believed to have been carried out by the United States. According to Yemeni sources, the strike targeted a vehicle driven by a Somali national affiliated with al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).
Nigeria
Africa Report: Nigeria’s Kwankwaso and Fulani herders reject US ‘Extremist’ label in sanctions fury
Supporters of a Nigerian opposition leader targeted by a US sanctions bill on Thursday rejected claims he was a religious extremist who persecuted Christians. Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, a former governor of northwestern Kano state, is the only politician individually named in a bill put forward on Tuesday by Republican lawmakers in the US.
New Zealand
In a near-empty courthouse, in front of almost no one, the appeal by New Zealand’s most reviled killer was heard in muted fashion with little mention of the details of the country’s deadliest mass shooting. Such is New Zealand’s desire to smother the racist motivations of Brenton Tarrant, who murdered 51 Muslims praying at two mosques in the city of Christchurch in 2019. Tarrant, a self-professed white supremacist, referred to other perpetrators of hate-fueled massacres when he committed his attack and other mass shooters have cited his actions since.
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