Eye on Extremism: February 26, 2026
Top Stories
BBC: Afghanistan launches 'retaliatory' attack on Pakistan, Taliban says
Afghanistan has launched a "large-scale" military operation on Pakistani army positions in response to recent strikes carried out by Islamabad, Taliban officials have said. "Numerous" Pakstani soldiers have been killed and some captured in the offensive launched late on Thursday along their shared border, the group's chief spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said. Pakistan's information ministry said the "unprovoked fire" was being met with "immediate and effective response by Pakistan's security forces" and also claimed heavy casualties on the Afghan side.
Guardian: Trump attack threat looms as nuclear talks between US and Iran go to wire
High-stakes talks between the US and Iran over a permanent end to Tehran’s nuclear programme were to continue late into the night on Thursday, with apparent gaps between the two sides leaving open the possibility that Donald Trump will launch an unprecedented punitive military assault on Iran. Iran’s foreign ministry tried to dampen suggestions that the talks in Geneva had broken down, insisting new ideas had been raised requiring more consultation in both capitals.
CEP Mentions
Guardian: Far-right Base group claims murders in Ukraine amid questions over Russia ties
“The assassination claim from the Base’s Ukraine operation shows that they want to be seen as operational, an ongoing threat, and, based on their statement, firmly opposed to the Russian government,” said Joshua Fisher-Birch, an extremism analyst at the Counter Extremism Project who has been tracking the group for several years. “This last point is important because of the strong appearance, while still officially not proven, of the Base and their Ukrainian affiliate to be connected to Russian sabotage operations and have ties to the Russian intelligence services.” Fisher-Birch pointed out that the Ukrainian cell, for example, has “only publicized harming Ukrainian individuals, buildings, and infrastructure” and not of Russian servicemen invading the country.
In this conversation with Danish Shaikh, Editor, The International Wire, Dr. Hans Jakob Karl Schindler, Senior Director at the Counter Extremism Project and former Coordinator of the UN Security Council’s ISIL, Al-Qaeda and Taliban Monitoring Team, reflects on the evolution of counterterrorism policy, the enforcement of international sanctions, and the growing intersection between terrorism financing, compliance frameworks and geopolitical risk. From emerging financial technologies to extremism prevention, the discussion examines how governments and the private sector must recalibrate strategies in an era where security threats are increasingly transnational, decentralized and financially sophisticated.
RBB Inforadio: Iran expert: US position somewhat unclear
The US and Iran are currently negotiating the controversial Iranian nuclear program in Geneva. The US has probably abandoned the idea of regime change, says Hans Jakob Schindler from the think tank Counter Extremism Project.
RTL Nachtjournal: Broadcast on February 25, 2026
CEP Senior Director Dr. Hans-Jakob Schindler speaks about Chinese cyber espionage.
Welt: Schindler warns of conflagration in Iran conflict
[CEP Senior Director] Terrorism expert Hans-Jakob Schindler analyzes the Geneva negotiations on Iran: The US is not taking a clear stance, and Israel may prefer a preemptive strike. “The danger of a conflagration remains,” says Schindler.
Analysis
Middle East Forum: Iran’s Terror Pipeline at America’s Border
Washington still clings to a convenient fiction: Cartels move narcotics, while terrorism happens elsewhere. However, that divide has never existed in practice. The Western Hemisphere has already paid the price for believing it did. The 1992 bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires and the 1994 attack on the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina—Argentina’s deadliest terrorist incident—were not anomalies. In fact, Argentinian prosecutors have concluded that senior Iranian officials approved the operation and that Hezbollah executed it.
Eurasia Review: From Mumbai To Colombo: South Asia’s Shared Terrorist Threat – Analysis
Transnational terrorism continues to cast a long shadow over South Asia, reminding the region that extremist violence is never confined within national borders. The recent attack in Pahalgam, Kashmir—where Pakistan-sponsored terrorists killed twenty-six civilians—followed by India’s counter-terrorism operation, Operation Sindoor, underscores this grim reality. The threat is not isolated; it reverberates across the subcontinent. Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) has already signaled the possibility of another 26/11-style strike via sea routes, rekindling memories of the 2008 Mumbai attacks. Terrorist organizations in South Asia remain ideologically aligned, sharing targets and enemies. Sri Lanka, too, has come under their gaze, most tragically during the ISIS-backed Easter Sunday bombings of 2019.
GNET: An ‘Ode to Violence’: Extremist Exploitation of Viggle AI
New and unique online platforms are seemingly constantly cropping up, often ripe for extremist exploitation even if moderation policies are in place. One platform, Viggle AI, launched in March 2024 and already boasts over 40 million users, with a rapid rise among both legitimate and malicious users. While monitoring three different online extremist ecosystems – extreme right, True Crime Community (TCC), and Salafi-jihadi – there was recurrent and common use of Viggle, a generative AI platform, to spread propaganda. Across ecosystems, Viggle features have been exploited to produce videos of famous attackers dancing, while highlighting the number of victims killed in attacks perpetrated by them. Although the three detected ecosystems differ in their ideologies, they use Viggle AI for the same purpose: creating appealing, catchy content that glorifies violence and death. The latter content has been observed to be disseminated both through the Viggle AI app and on social media platforms, particularly those popular with young users, such as TikTok.
United States
Free Press: EXCLUSIVE: The First Antisemitism Lawsuit Against a U.S. State
A coalition of Jewish parents and civil rights organizations have filed the first antisemitism lawsuit against a U.S. state, accusing the California government of failing to protect Jewish students from a surge of antisemitic harassment, violence, and propaganda in the state’s public schools. The filing accuses the state of offering only “toothless remedies” to the scourge of antisemitism through a “glacial and opaque administrative process.”
Cuba
Cuban authorities said Wednesday a Florida-registered speedboat intercepted in its territorial waters was carrying 10 armed people who planned “a terrorist infiltration” of the island and identified some of the people who were injured or killed in a gunfire exchange with a Cuban coast guard vessel.
France
JNS: France indicts five for sending Hamas $47 million disguised as ‘aid’
Prosecutors in France have indicted five people for financing Hamas to the tune of at least $47 million through at least two associations described as focused on humanitarian aid, according to French media reports. The suspects, who have not been named, are linked to the Humani’Terre and Soutien Humani’Terre associations, Le Journal du Dimanche newspaper reported. Last year, France’s Interior Ministry said it was freezing the funds of that association and people linked to it, including a Jordan-born attorney named Khaled al-Shouli, 60.
French prosecutors have opened an investigation into whether the disbanded far-left group La Jeune Garde has reformed under satellite structures, months after authorities dissolved the organisation. In a statement sent to Euronews, the Paris prosecutor’s office said it had been notified on Tuesday of a report from the ministry “denouncing the group’s revival, in the form of satellite structures, of La Jeune Garde.”
Germany
New York Times: German Court Temporarily Removes an Extremist Label for the AfD
Germany’s domestic intelligence agency must temporarily stop categorizing the leading far-right, anti-immigration party as “confirmed extremist,” a court ruled on Thursday, handing the party a win ahead of state elections this year. The injunction, by an administrative court in Cologne, is in place until the court decides whether the label applied to the party, the Alternative für Deutschland, or AfD, is legal. The process could take months or years. The intelligence agency announced the designation in May.
Russia
Russia will repatriate its citizens who are ISIS members held in prisons in Iraq, Rudaw Media Network, a Kurdistan Region-based news channel, reported Thursday. Iraq took in about 6,000 male ISIS members over the past month as US Central Command transferred them from Syria to Iraq.
Ukraine
Kyiv Post: Ukraine Hit in Sweeping Russian Missile and Drone Attack, Dozen Injured
Russia launched another massive drone and missile attack across Ukraine early Thursday morning, Feb. 26, striking multiple regions and damaging residential buildings and infrastructure. According to the Ukrainian Air Force, large numbers of drones were detected over Ukraine shortly after 1 a.m. At 3:52 a.m., Russia launched ballistic missiles toward Kyiv and Kharkiv.
Gaza Strip/West Bank
The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) does not consider Hamas a terror group, rejects demands to disarm it, and will let it run in the Palestinian Authority’s municipal elections in April, PLO Secretary General Azzam al-Ahmed said this week. “All talk of disarming Hamas and their being a terrorist organization is unacceptable to us,” Ahmed told Egyptian outlet Shorouk News in an interview published Monday.
Times of Israel: Senior PLO official: Hamas in talks to sell its arms, raze its tunnels
Senior PLO official Ahmed Majdalani says Hamas is engaged in talks with Israel and the US about selling off its arms and dismantling its military infrastructure in Gaza. In an interview published today by Saudi network Al-Arabiya’s Mazeej podcast, Majdalani accuses Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of using the disarmament issue as an “excuse” to keep the war in Gaza alive.
Iran
Protos: US senators call Binance ‘repeat offender’ over $2B Iran transfers
US senators have labeled Binance a “repeat offender” as they prepare to launch an inquiry into nearly $2 billion worth of crypto that was sent to Iran, raising doubts over the exchange’s commitment to a plea deal agreement with the Department of Justice … The letter reads: “Binance appears to have ignored warnings and recommendations to prevent Iranian money laundering schemes on its cryptocurrency exchange, allowing $1.7 billion in transfers to Iran. These transactions have helped prop up Iranian-linked terrorist organizations and illicit Russian oil sales.”
An Iranian-born Sydney councillor has expressed fears to a parliamentary committee that Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) officials, or those with links to the entity, may have entered Australia as part of a delegation of individuals travelling with Iran’s national side for next month’s Women’s Asian Cup. It comes as Iranian Australians exposed to Tehran's savage transnational repression are now pleading for more protection as the Islamic regime brutally cracks down on protesters.
Lebanon
DW News: Lebanon on edge over potential US strike on Iran
As tensions between the US and Iran threaten to bring a major military conflict to the region, Lebanon's situation is particularly precarious. Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam has repeatedly said that his country will not interfere in foreign disputes. Earlier this week, he urged Hezbollah to not drag Lebanon into "another adventure."
The Israeli Air Force struck eight military compounds belonging to Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force in eastern Lebanon a short while ago, the military says. According to the IDF, the sites in the Beqaa Valley were used by Hezbollah to store numerous weapons, including rockets, as well as for training by the Radwan Force for planned attacks against Israel.
Naharnet: Reports: Hezbollah reassures state, Presidency threatens Hezbollah
The past 24 hours witnessed a “dramatic development” in Hezbollah’s stance regarding possible intervention in any war involving Iran, senior sources said. Hezbollah sent reassuring messages to the Lebanese state through the open communication and dialogue channels, saying that it will abide by “combat neutrality” and will not engage in a confrontation should the situation descend into a war on Iran, the sources told the Nidaa al-Watan newspaper in remarks published Thursday.
Syria
For years, Hezbollah moved through Syria like a second army: thousands of fighters, open supply lines, and bases visible on satellite imagery. The group helped keep Bashar Assad in power and made no effort to hide it. Now Syrian authorities say what Hezbollah left behind looks different: a small group operating near Damascus with drones, Katyusha rockets, and, according to officials, confessions that the weapons came from Lebanon.
Yemen
Long War Journal: Houthis escalate attacks against Yemeni government-aligned forces
The Houthis are redeploying forces along major frontlines in Hodeidah and Marib Governorates and have increased attacks on the coalition of anti-Houthi groups aligned with the Yemeni government in recent weeks. The Houthis also appear to be preparing for an emergency, and it is uncertain if this effort is related to domestic activity or potential US strikes on Iran.
West Africa/Sahel
Reuters: Al Qaeda, Islamic State ramp up violence in West Africa’s tri-border region, report shows
Terrorists linked to al Qaeda and Islamic State are rapidly increasing their attacks on the borderlands between Niger, Benin and Nigeria, turning remote transit corridors into active conflict zones, according to a crisis monitoring group. Violent incidents involving Islamist groups in the tri‑border area rose 90% between 2024 and 2025, and deaths more than doubled to over 1,000 as attacks intensified, the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED) project said in a report published on Thursday.
Terrorists linked to Al Qaeda and the Islamic State are ramping up their attacks on the borderlands between three West African nations: Niger, Benin and Nigeria. The revelation was made in a report by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED) project, which was published on Thursday. The report argued that the terror groups operating in these nations are turning transit corridors into active conflict zones. It noted that violent incidents involving Islamist groups in the tri‑border area rose to 90 per cent between 2024 and 2025.
Andalou: West African bloc plans 2,000-troop force to fight terrorism
West African military chiefs meeting Thursday in Freetown, Sierra Leone, emphasized close coordination between the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) as they advance plans to operationalize an ECOWAS standby force. The talks, chaired by Sierra Leone President and ECOWAS Chair Julius Maada Bio, focus on mobilizing an initial 2,000 troops by the end of 2026 to respond to the spread of terrorism, including threats to coastal states.
Nigeria
Asharq Al-Awsat: At Least 25 Killed in Extremist Attacks in Northeast Nigeria
At least 25 people were killed in two separate extremist attacks in northeastern Nigeria's Adamawa state, local sources told AFP on Thursday. The attacks in the towns of Madagali and Hong in the border region with Cameroon, were attributed to Boko Haram extremists, whose fighters have been active in the area since the group began its violent insurgency in 2009.
Australia
In a dimly lit tent, half a dozen young girls sit on a rug reading brightly coloured children's books. Among them are classics familiar to most Australian families — such as The Very Hungry Caterpillar. As they excitedly discuss what's laid out in front of them, their unmistakable Australian accents cut through the din, as well as a sense of sorrow, and uncertainty, about the situation they are in. "We just want to go back to our countries, to our family [in Australia], and be with our family and like spend time with them," one young girl said. "But we couldn't because we needed to come back."
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