Eye on Extremism: February 27, 2026
Top Stories
Guardian: Pakistan declares state of ‘open war’ after bombing major Afghan cities
Pakistan has bombed major cities in Afghanistan including the capital, Kabul, with Islamabad’s defence minister declaring that the hostile neighbours were in a state of “open war” as a cycle of retaliatory attacks escalated further. Witnesses in Kabul and Kandahar, the southern Afghan city, reported explosions and jets overhead until dawn, while the Taliban government said later that Pakistani surveillance aircraft were still flying over Afghanistan.
New York Times: U.S. Says Staff Can Leave Israel, Urging Speed, as Possible Iran Strike Looms
With the threat of a U.S. strike on Iran looming, the United States embassy in Jerusalem has told its workers that they may leave Israel and warned them that if they want to, it is vital that they do so immediately. The directive came from Ambassador Mike Huckabee in an email to embassy workers at the U.S. mission on Friday, a copy of which was reviewed by The New York Times.
Analysis
The Media Line: Security Gaps in Syrian Camps and Prisons Raise Risk of ISIS Reemergence
Seven years after the geographical fall of the so-called “caliphate,” the issue of Islamic State (ISIS) detainees in northeastern Syria continues to pose complex security, legal, and humanitarian challenges at every level. Recent prison reorganizations and detainee air transfers point to an unusual level of coordination between the United States, Iraq, and Syria, reflecting growing concern over the risk of mass escapes and the possibility that thousands of fighters could reemerge in active conflict zones.
United States
The state of California, its Department of Education and officials were sued Thursday by two Jewish advocacy groups that alleged the state allowed antisemitic harassment of Jewish and Israeli students to go unchecked on campuses. The suit by Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights and StandWithUs — nonprofits focused on Jewish civil rights — was filed on behalf of at least 12 Jewish parents and students who say they have faced “pervasive anti-Semitism in their California public schools,” court documents said.
The shouting began minutes into a Wednesday news conference that Mayor Daniel Lurie and other San Francisco leaders hosted to discuss a new tax proposal. “Tax the rich! Tax the rich!” chanted a small group of protesters opposed to the mayor’s proposal, which would cut the city’s real estate transfer tax in half in a bid to jump-start housing construction. Then a woman — who protesters say was a passerby they did not know — began yelling antisemitic remarks, including “tax the Jews,” videos from the event show.
Canada
White supremacist groups are using issues of wider interest and disinformation to grow support — and that should be worrying, says a McMaster University professor in the wake of another demonstration by Hamilton-based group Nationalist-13. Understanding how these groups are recruiting should also inform how elected officials, police and others combat hate, Ameil Joseph, a McMaster University social work associate professor, said in an interview this week.
The National: Canada seeks consular visits for ISIS-linked detainees in Iraq
Canada is seeking consular visits for its citizens facing trial in Iraq for allegedly joining the militant group Islamic State for Iraq and Syria more than a decade ago. Five men were transferred from detention facilities in Syria in January where they had been held for years by the US-backed Kurdish armed group, the Syrian Democratic Forces.
Germany
Brussels Signal: German court allows outdoor prayer meetings of banned Islamist group
The Administrative Court of Hesse has allowed members of the Imam Ali mosque in Frankfurt to continue holding twice weekly outdoor prayer meetings. The ruling comes even though its congregation, the Centre for Islamic Culture (ZIK), has been banned as an extremist Islamist organisation. Since the ban in July 2024, the Muslim members of ZIK have met outside their closed mosque every Thursday and Friday to pray together – complete with pavilions, prayer rugs and loud recitations of the Quran.
Lithuania
Jerusalem Post: ‘In Lithuania, there is institutional and legal antisemitism’
In the forests surrounding the small Lithuanian town of Seduva, hundreds of Jewish men, women, and children were shot to death in the summer of 1941. Their names, once erased from memory, now line the walls of a new museum built to commemorate a world that vanished with them. Yet as Lithuania struggles to confront its past, antisemitism is once again finding legitimacy in the country’s present.
United Kingdom
BBC: TikToker accused of posting terror attack videos
A man has appeared at the Old Bailey, accused of posting videos and images of terrorist attacks on social media site TikTok. Sardar Shahid, 20, from Dudley, in the West Midlands, is charged with four counts of distributing a terrorist publication on dates between December 2024 and February 2025. He is further charged with possessing a document containing information useful to terrorism. Material was allegedly shared on TikTok to encourage terrorism and included images of perpetrators of well-known attacks, the court was told.
Express: Teenager who killed herself after terror charges was groomed by neo-Nazi
An inquest has heard a teenager who killed herself after being charged with terrorism offences had been groomed by a neo-Nazi. Chesterfield Coroner’s Court was told that Rhianan Rudd, who was 16 when she died, developed an “obsession with Hitler” and spoke about wanting to “blow up” a Jewish place of worship after being exploited by an extremist.
Afghanistan
Reuters: Women at risk as Taliban curbs hit Afghan healthcare, UN expert warns
Restrictions imposed by the Taliban are jeopardising the lives of women and their children who are sometimes denied emergency treatment, a U.N. human rights expert said on Friday. Regulations require sick or injured women to adhere to a dress code, be accompanied by a male guardian and be treated by male medics, Special Rapporteur on Afghanistan Richard Bennett told a press briefing.
DW News: Afghan Taliban attacks met with Pakistani strikes on Kabul
Both Afghanistan and Pakistan acknowledged fighting in border areas on Thursday, albeit disagreeing markedly on exact developments on the ground and the extent of each other's losses and gains. It's the latest escalation of violence between the uneasy neighbors in tensions that can ultimately be traced all the way back to the Taliban reclaiming control of Afghanistan in 2021, but which were most recently evident last Sunday with Pakistani airstrikes inside Afghanistan.
Residents in Khost Province, Paktia Province, Paktika Province, Logar Province and Kandahar Province told Afghanistan International that some mosque imams declared what they described as jihad against Pakistan during Friday prayers. According to residents, the clerics called on anti-Pakistan militant groups to carry out attacks on Pakistani military bases.
Gaza Strip/West Bank
Agence France-Presse: Hamas civil defense raises toll in overnight Gaza strikes to 5
Gaza’s civil defense ministry says Israeli strikes killed at least five people overnight. The civil defence agency, which operates as a rescue force under Hamas authorities, tells AFP that an air strike in the early hours of Friday morning killed at least two people and seriously injured one in central Gaza.
Middle East Eye: Internal Fatah rifts surface after senior leader backs Hamas
Recent remarks by senior Fatah leader Azzam al-Ahmad expressing support for Hamas have sparked controversy within his party, exposing deep internal divisions, analysts say. Al-Ahmad, secretary-general of the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), declined to describe Hamas as a terrorist organisation in an interview with the Egyptian outlet Shorouk News published earlier this week.
Iraq
Asharq Al-Awsat: Iraq’s Kataib Hezbollah Tells Fighters to Prepare for Long Iran-US War
The Iran-backed Iraqi Kataib Hezbollah told its fighters to prepare for the scenario of a long war in neighboring Iran should the United States launch strikes. It warned the US on Thursday of "immense losses" were it to start a war in the region, while a commander in an armed faction told AFP his group was "highly likely" to intervene in case of strikes.
Israel
Former Gaza hostage Matan Angrest told Channel 12's 'Uvda' that he was tortured, including by electrocution, during his time in Hamas's terror captivity, in an interview broadcast on Thursday evening. Angrest, who was serving in a specialized tank unit with classified equipment under the 7th Armored Brigade near Nahal Oz during the October 7 massacre, was the only member of his tank crew who survived the terror attack. His crewmates, Capt. Daniel Perez, St.-Sgt. Itay Chen, and Sgt. Tomer Leibovitz, were all murdered, with their remains taken by terrorists into the Gaza Strip.
Times of Israel: IDF says it struck Hamas operatives in Gaza who emerged from Rafah tunnel
The IDF says it carried out airstrikes against Hamas operatives in the Gaza Strip overnight, after several Palestinian gunmen emerged from a tunnel on the Israeli side of the ceasefire line in Rafah. According to the military, troops of the Golani Brigade who are stationed in the eastern Rafah area spotted a number of armed operatives emerging from a tunnel yesterday.
Lebanon
Naharnet: Lebanon 'can do without' Iran support after 'Gaza adventure' failure, PM says
Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, who had visited earlier this month several war-hit southern cities and towns, said that the state has returned to south Lebanon "to stay". He vowed, in a televised interview Thursday, to visit the south again and to secure all means of subsistence for its residents. Salam warned Hezbollah against supporting Iran in the event of a war with the U.S., blaming the group for previously triggering a war with Israel in support of Gaza. "We can do without support for Iran. We need years to recover from the consequences of the 'Gaza Support' adventure — and if only it had actually supported Gaza," he sarcastically said.
Naharnet: Israel says struck 8 Hezbollah compounds in Baalbek district
Israeli military strikes in eastern Lebanon killed a Syrian teenager on Thursday, the Lebanese health ministry reported, while the Israeli army said it had struck eight compounds belonging to an elite Hezbollah unit. "Israeli enemy air strikes on the Bekaa this evening resulted, according to an initial toll, in the killing of a 16-year-old Syrian boy and the injury of another person," the Lebanese health ministry said in a statement.
Seventeen Lebanese men affiliated with ISIS are currently imprisoned in Syria, a high ranking security official in Beirut has said. He was speaking after several women and children, who escaped ISIS camps in Syria recently, crossed into the neighbouring country through official and illegal entry points. “As ISIS prisoners are being moved to Iraq, Lebanese authorities have been informed by the Syrian Democratic Forces that there are currently 17 Lebanese ISIS members imprisoned there,” explained the source.
Burkina Faso
Agence France-Presse: Deadly jihadist offensive sweeps northern and eastern Burkina Faso
Al-Qaeda-affiliated Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) has claimed to have inflicted heavy losses in Burkina Faso as a surge in deadly jihadist attacks sweeps across the Sahelian state. Burkina Faso, ruled by a military junta led by Ibrahim Traoré since September 2022, has faced more than 10 years of raids by groups linked to Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, including JNIM.
Nigeria
Free Press: On the Ground in Nigeria’s Religious Killing Fields
Dirt tracks slice through rivulets of trash. Stagnant water pools in open gutters and bakes in the sun. The stench is thick in the air, both sour and sickly sweet. It catches in the back of my throat, making me gag. And everywhere you look, there are the children: playing in the dirt, kicking half-deflated soccer balls, laughing in groups, and begging for food. Women carry babies in their arms or strap them to their backs, their bellies swollen with yet more children, or malnutrition, citizens of a young country that is itself swelling and growing.
Australia
Police in Western Australia have charged a 20-year-old man with preparing a terrorist attack, with Anthony Albanese describing the allegation as “deeply shocking”. Jayson Joseph Michaels, from Bindoon, appeared at Perth magistrates court on Friday charged with acting in preparation for a terrorist act, possessing a prohibited weapon, two firearms offences and using a carriage service to menace or harass.
Australian Broadcasting Corporation: Islamic State claims credit for Bondi massacre
Islamic State has embraced Sajid and Naveed Akram as "soldiers" and urged other supporters to continue attacks on Jews and Christians, as they claimed credit for the Bondi massacre. The claim has been made by the group's spokesman, Abu Hudhayfah al-Ansari, in a sermon-like speech and newsletter glorifying the incident and describing attackers as "brave lions".
NCA NewsWire: ‘Wherever they like’: ISIS brides storm
NSW Police will seek to speak with a cohort of women and children linked to ISIS fighters when they arrive in Australia, but a senior officer admits “they can go wherever they like”. Thirteen women and children from NSW are among a cohort of so-called ISIS brides from the al-Hol refugee camp who are understood to be attempting to return to Australia from Syria.
China
China expressed concern over escalating border tensions between Pakistan and the Taliban, while reaffirming its support for efforts to combat terrorism in all its forms. A spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs called on the parties to implement an immediate ceasefire. The remarks were made on Friday, 27 February, during a regular press briefing following an intensification of armed clashes between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Pakistan
Afghanistan International: 274 ‘Afghan Terrorists’ Killed In Strikes, Says Pak Army Spokesperson
Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, spokesperson for the Pakistan Army, said at least 274 Afghan militants were killed in Pakistan’s strikes inside Afghanistan. Speaking at a news conference on Friday, Chaudhry said Pakistani forces destroyed 73 Taliban posts and seized control of 18 others. He added that more than 400 militants were wounded in the attacks.
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