The post Hezbollah uses ambulances, paramedic uniforms, as disguise for terrorist activity, IDF says first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Nigeria said it shared intelligence with the U.S. ahead of Christmas night airstrikes on ISIS targets in the country.

The Nigerian Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed on Friday that it was “engaged in structured security cooperation” with other nations, including the U.S., adding that the cooperation “led to precision hits on terrorist targets.” The ministry said that the joint security efforts include the sharing of intelligence and strategic coordination.

“Nigeria reiterates that all counter-terrorism efforts are guided by the primacy of protecting civilian lives, safeguarding national unity, and upholding the rights and dignity of all citizens, irrespective of faith or ethnicity. Terrorist violence in any form whether directed at Christians, Muslims, or other communities remains an affront to Nigeria’s values and to international peace and security,” the ministry wrote in a statement posted on X.

Continue reading HERE

Source: https://www.foxnews.com/world/nigeria-says-shared-intelligence-support-us-strikes-isis?fbclid=IwY2xjawO76pVleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEe3gkJXwqH1lvVATm8Z0x688pBQYcah-eS61Sh5XRX9YQEz9DSJFtvQkt3q1M_aem_76qkYGoWWqaPZKfG-5mmVw

The post Nigeria says it shared intelligence to support US strikes on ISIS first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The Israel Defense Forces said early Monday that security forces were conducting “an extensive counterterrorism effort” in the area of Jenin, a Palestinian city in the northern West Bank where Israel has conducted a series of recent raids and home to a refugee camp of more than 10,000 people that has been framed as a center of Palestinian resistance.

The officials said a “joint operations center” of militant group the Jenin Brigades within the camp was hit by the IDF and the Israel Security Agency, also known as Shin Bet.

The operational command center purportedly served as an advanced observation and reconnaissance center where accused armed terrorists would gather before and after conducting terrorist activities, the IDF said in a statement published to Telegram, adding that it is also a site where weapons and explosives were stored and was used as a coordination and communications hub.

Continue reading HERE

Source: https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2023/07/03/IDF-attacks-Jenin/7891688365276/

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The first explosion went off near a crowded bus stop on the edge of the city. The second took place 30 minutes later in the settlement of Ramot in the city’s north.

The victim who died in one of the attacks was identified as 16-year-old Aryeh Shechopek, who was on his way to a yeshiva when the blast went off.

Rabbi Aharon Kahana, head of the Harei Yehuda Yeshiva, described his slain student to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz as a “charming boy” and a “genius” who was beloved by all.

Continue reading HERE

Source: https://nypost.com/2022/11/23/twin-bombings-at-jerusalem-bus-stops-kill-teen-injure-26/

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The post Twin bombings at Jerusalem bus stops kill teen, injure 26 first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

(May 9, 2022 / JNS) Israel must adopt a more proactive approach if it is to deplete Hamas of its ability to incite Palestinians to terrorism, a senior security scholar has said, including a stepped-up cyber campaign to take down incitement material that is online and fueling violence against Israelis.

In recent weeks, the Israeli defense establishment has detected an unmistakable spike in Hamas’s online efforts to ignite terrorism and unrest, particularly on social-media networks. This is part of the strategy by Hamas’s leader in the Gaza Strip, Yahya Sinwar, to destabilize the West Bank and Jerusalem and inflict Israeli casualties while weakening his domestic rival, the Palestinian Authority—all without risking Hamas’s home turf of Gaza.

Ely Karmon, a senior research scholar at the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT) in Herzliya, told JNS that the time had come for an all-out offensive cyber campaign to disrupt and remove incitement to hatred and violence on Arabic social-media networks.

“The state has been doing almost nothing offensively on this front and has been waiting for the platforms, like Facebook, to act. The state should not wait; it should take this material down itself,” said Karmon.

In the information campaign sphere, he said, Israel has made a lackluster effort to deflate false Hamas claims that the Al-Aqsa mosque is in danger. “No one is showing footage from inside the mosque on how rioters prepare to attack security forces and what they’re entering the mosque with. No one is showing what the Waqf (the Jordanian Islamic trust in charge of the Temple Mount site) is telling worshippers. It is time for this material to come out,” Karmon said.

He proposed that the Strategic Affairs and Public Diplomacy Ministry take on this project in a focused manner.

On the military front, Karmon said that if Israel did opt for targeted assassinations of Hamas leaders, then it would also have no choice to but launch a significant military offensive designed to target and eliminate Hamas’s leadership.

“The timing is critical because if this government falls before making this decision, a transitional government will take over and then a new government will have to be formed, and the window of opportunity for ordering preparations for such a maneuver will be gone,” he noted.

A return to targeted killings of Hamas leaders clearly means war, said Karmon, adding that “Sinwar is just the symbol because he is the one now talking; he is the commander. Others will come after him. It has to be a succession of targeted killings to reinstall deterrence, and those from the leadership who survive would need to go into the deepest tunnels. They wouldn’t have time to appear in demonstrations or on television.”

Targeted killings played a key role in ending the Second Intifada (2000-05), pointed out Karmon, noting the assassinations of the late Hamas leaders Ahmed Yassin and Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi in March and April 2004. Several other Hamas and Palestinian Islamic senior members were killed by Israel during this time as well.

“Clearly, this will lead to conflict with Hamas. This is not something that has to happen today. But Israel will have to put an end to Hamas’s military wing in the near future,” he argued. “As long as this does not happen, we will remain trapped in this cycle of operations and rocket fire every three to four years, and there will be no chance for a diplomatic process with the Palestinian Authority to develop. Israel is allowing the P.A. to grow weaker.”

Ordering such a maneuver, said Karmon, would result in a fundamental strategic change—meaning that the idea of ordering a targeted assassination of only Sinwar would only be the start of such a transformation if the government ever chose such an option.

‘Calling for more and more violence’

In the meantime, Israel has limited its actions against Hamas to the civilian-economic sphere, sealing the Erez Border Crossing between Israel and Gaza, and preventing 12,000 Palestinian workers from access to work in Israel, thereby applying pressure to the Islamist regime in Gaza as a response to its incitement.

In the West Bank and in Israel, security forces are working around the clock to try and disrupt the wave of terrorism.

The joint command room opened in Nahshonim, a kibbutz in central Israel near Elad, inhabited by the Israel Police, the Israel Defense Forces and the Shin Bet intelligence agency led to the capture of As’ad Yousef As’ad al-Rifa’i, 19, and Subhi Emad Subhi Abu Shqeir, 20, from the Palestinian village of Rumana near Jenin, after a 60-hour manhunt that followed their deadly ax rampage through the city, claiming three lives.

At the height of the search, 800 members of the security forces from various units took part under police command. Units included the Maglan and Egoz special military forces, as well as the Miroul Unit, which specializes in tracking down people based on conducting field analysis.

Drones and radars were deployed throughout regions where security chiefs estimated the terrorists were hiding, feeding the command room with intelligence.

“All of this was done with the understanding that the terrorists were between Elad and Rosh HaAyin,” a military official said on Sunday. Police also obtained forensic evidence, helping the search efforts.

“This is an area with many caves and canals—all could be used as hideouts. We pinpointed the area between Route 400 and then up to the security barrier as the polygon we understood they were hiding in,” said the source.

“The initial capture was conducted by a combined team featuring Maglan, Miroul and the Shin Bet. They saw that a bush looked different, and when they got closer, in line with intelligence, they saw that the bush was moving in a breathing pattern. They then called out for the terrorists to surrender,” said the source.

The terrorists crossed into Israel on Independence Day, May 5, through the security barrier before entering the vehicle of one of their victims, Oren Ben Yiftah, riding with him to Elad and killing him. The IDF Central Command Chief, Maj. Gen. Yehuda Fox, and the commander of the Judea and Samaria Division, Brig. Gen. Avi Bluth, have distributed lessons learned to 11 brigade commanders who are actively protecting the area.

Security forces are continuously monitoring incitement directed at Palestinians and Israeli Arabs in mixed cities, the source added, warning that the material online is “calling for more and more violence.”

“The fact that they [the terrorists] entered is a failure of the IDF. We are in charge and were not able to protect in a hermetic way the 430-kilometer [barrier] area. We are debriefing continuously to learn how to do this better,” said the source.

Looking ahead, the military is set to upgrade the security barrier through a range of means, he added, stating that some of the work is already underway.

“We are all of the time balancing between civilian policy to allow civilian life to flourish and for stability, together with security and counter-terrorism operations. In the last month, 19 people have been killed, and the government decided to upgrade the security steps,” he said.

Security forces have also launched a new campaign to prevent Palestinians without work permits from entering Israel, and where possible, to provide more permits to those who pass security screening.

Source: https://www.jns.org/israel-must-wage-all-out-cyber-campaign-targeting-hamas-insists-counter-terrorism-pro/

The post ‘Israel must wage all-out cyber campaign’ targeting Hamas, insists counter-terrorism pro first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

“Many common interests and a shared culture in fact link the EU and Russia. That is why the EU strategy aims at engaging Russia in some specific issues,” the EU had been planning to say in its ‘Strategic Compass’, according to a previous draft dated 9 November.

But the latest version of the text, dated 6 January and seen by EUobserver, cut out the warm words.

“The European Union remains committed to a united, long-term, and strategic European approach [toward Russia],” it said instead.

The Strategic Compass, when it is finally agreed in March, will underpin EU thinking on defence for the next decade, French foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian noted on Friday (14 January) after having discussed it with his EU peers in Brest, France.

“Russia wants to go back in time to when the EU didn’t exist and Europe was subject to the spheres of influence of great powers,” EU top diplomat Josep Borrell also said.

They spoke after relations with Moscow nosedived during the past two months over Russia’s military build up around Ukraine and its increasingly aggressive rhetoric.

And they both warned of “massive” EU and US sanctions against Russia if it invaded its neighbour once again.

Borrell also pointed the finger at Russia over a cyber-attack on Ukrainian government websites the same day.

There was no hard “evidence” of Russia’s culpability, Borrell said.

“But I can imagine with a certain probability … where it [the cyber-attack] came from,” he added.

In a further nod to Russia’s malign activities, the new draft of the Strategic Compass also spoke of a “deconstruction of the security architecture in Europe inherited from the Cold War, from the Treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe, to the Open Skies Treaty, and the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty”.

It voiced fresh concern on Russia-type “hybrid tactics such as cyber-attacks and disinformation, direct interference in our elections and political processes, economic coercion and the instrumentalisation of irregular migration flows”.

It also added that countries such as Georgia and Ukraine faced “hostile interference by Russia and the extensive use of hybrid tactics, [which] compromise their stability and their democratic processes and have direct implications for our own security”.

And it alluded to Russia’s increasingly aggressive behaviour in Africa, such as deployments of Russian mercenaries in the Central African Republic and Mali.

“We are witnessing a growing presence of our strategic competitors from the Sahel to the Horn of Africa,” the new draft added.

In the meantime, Le Drian also noted that he and German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock will visit Ukraine’s front line in the near future.

But Baerbock will first go to Kyiv and Moscow on her own on Monday and Tuesday.

“Personally, it is very important to me that we intensively use the different channels of conversation,” she said in Brest.

The centerpiece of the Strategic Compass – to create a new EU rapid-reaction military force – remained unchanged.

But the latest draft also contained new warnings on China.

“Russia and China are expanding their nuclear arsenal and developing new weapon systems,” it added.

“China has been substantially developing its military means and aims to have the technologically most advanced armed forces by 2049, impacting regional and global security,” it also added.

Jihadism
It contained several extra paragraphs on counterterrorism – a special priority of the French EU presidency.

Threats included “a combination of home grown terrorists, foreign fighter returnees, attacks directed, encouraged or inspired from abroad, as well as the propagation of ideologies and beliefs that lead to radicalisation and violent extremism”, it added, for instance.

But it mentioned only jihadist groups in this context, even though far-right groups carried out more attacks than Islamist ones in Europe in recent times.

In other changes, the new draft accelerated a deadline for a new EU Single Intelligence Analysis Capacity from 2025 to 2023.

It spoke of Europe’s need to invest in “quantum computing, Artificial Intelligence, and Big Data”.

It mentioned as a “core interest” the need to “support Bosnia and Herzegovina as a single, united and sovereign country”, amid a mounting threat of secession by its Serb entity.

Iran was “likely to remain an important source of regional instability through its direct and indirect support to political and military proxies and through the proliferation and dissemination of weapons, including transfer of missiles”, it added

And the EU should “increase … investment in peace and stability of the Middle East and the Gulf”, it also added.

Source: https://euobserver.com/world/154094

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is warning Hamas on Friday that his military will respond with a “new level of force” if the terrorist group decides to start firing rockets into Israel again.

Netanyahu made the comment hours after a cease-fire between the two sides went into effect, ending an 11-day conflict that left at least 243 Palestinians and a dozen Israelis dead, according to The Associated Press.

“If Hamas thinks we will tolerate a drizzle of rockets, it is wrong,” the Israeli leader said, adding that his military would strike back with “a new level of force against any expression of aggression against communities around Gaza and any other part of Israel.”

Thousands reportedly took to the streets in Gaza early Friday morning to celebrate the cease-fire, which went into effect around 2 a.m. local time (7 p.m. ET Thursday).

Young men waved Palestinian and Hamas flags while honking horns and setting off fireworks, as other celebrations erupted in east Jerusalem and the West Bank, The Associated Press reports.

Source: https://www.foxnews.com/world/live-updates-palestinian-minister-contends-cease-fire-in-gaza-is-not-enough

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Police officers stay in front of a building of the Ansaar International association in Duesseldorf, Germany, Wednesday, May 5. 2021. The German government on Wednesday banned the Muslim organization. Buildings in 10 German states were raided, according to German news agency dpa, which said that the donations Ansaar collected were donated to welfare projects but also to groups such as Al-Nusra in Syria, the Palestinians’ Hamas group, and Al-Shabaab in Somalia. (Marcel Kusch/dpa via AP)

BERLIN (AP) — The German government on Wednesday banned a Muslim organization that it accused of supporting “terrorism globally with its donations.”

Police raided buildings associated with Ansaar International in 10 German states, the German Interior Ministry said in a statement. The ministry alleged the money the organization collected ostensibly went into welfare projects as a ruse to help finance groups such as the Syrian al-Qaida affiliate known as the Nusra Front, the Palestinian group Hamas and al-Shabab in Somalia.

“The organization Ansaar International and its sub-organizations were banned. The network finances terrorism globally with its donations,” an Interior Ministry spokesperson tweeted.

More than 1,000 police officers raided buildings and office spaces across Germany and confiscated about 150,000 euros ($180,000).

“When wanting to fight terrorism, one needs to dry out its money sources,” German Interior Ministry Horst Seehofer said. He alleged that Ansaar International “spreads a Salafist view of the world and is financing terror around the globe under the disguise of humanitarian help.”

A man who answered a phone call to the organization’s headquarters in the western German city of Duesseldorf immediately hung up when The Associated Press called seeking comment.

Source: https://apnews.com/article/europe-germany-02413d69ad205c1139acf2d55e078a91

The post Germany bans Muslim group over alleged terror donations first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

A U.S. Air Force base in Texas has taken the first steps to guard against an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack. But what, exactly, is an EMP, and how big is the threat?

Officials at the Joint Base San Antonio in Lackland, Texas, issued a request for bids to carry out a survey of a facility called the Petroleum, Oil and Lubrication Complex. The survey will identify any equipment that could be vulnerable to an EMP ahead of more detailed vulnerability testing, according to the request. After that, officials would figure out ways to keep that equipment safe in the event of an EMP attack.

What is an EMP?

An EMP is a massive burst of electromagnetic energy that can occur naturally or be generated deliberately using nuclear weapons. While many experts don’t think EMPs pose a big threat, some people argue that these types of weapons could be used to cause widespread disruption to electricity-dependent societies.

“You can use a single weapon to collapse the entire North American power grid,” said defense analyst Peter Pry, who served on the Congressional EMP Commission, which was set up to assess the threat of EMP attacks but shut down in 2017.

“Once the electric grid goes down, everything would collapse,” Pry told Live Science. “Everything depends on electricity: telecommunications, transportation, even water.”

According to the request, the testing at Lackland comes in response to a 2019 executive order issued by then-President Donald Trump for the federal government to strengthen its infrastructure against EMPs. Pry, who has consulted on the project, said the survey and resulting upgrades are part of a broader initiative by the U.S. Air Force to beef up its defenses against this type of threat.

Why EMPs are so dangerous

An EMP releases huge waves of electromagnetic energy, which can act like a giant moving magnet. Such a changing magnetic field can cause electrons in a nearby wire to move, thereby inducing a current. With such a huge burst of energy, an EMP can cause damaging power surges in any electronics within range.

These pulses can occur deliberately or naturally. Natural EMPs occur when the sun occasionally spits out massive streams of plasma, and if they come our way, Earth’s natural magnetic field can deflect them. But when the sun spits out enough plasma at once, the impact can cause the magnetic field to wobble and generate a powerful EMP. The last time this happened was in 1859 in the so-called Carrington Event, and while electronics were still rare then, it knocked out much of the recently built telegraph network.

Then, there’s the possibility of deliberate EMPs. If a nuclear weapon were to be detonated high in the atmosphere, Pry said, the gamma radiation it would release could strip electrons from air molecules and accelerate them at close to the speed of light. These charge-carrying electrons would be corralled by Earth’s magnetic field, and as they zipped around, they would generate a powerful, fluctuating electric current, which, in turn, would generate a massive EMP. The explosion could also distort Earth’s magnetic field, causing a slower pulse similar to a naturally occurring EMP.

Setting off a nuclear weapon about 200 miles (300 kilometers) above the U.S. could create an EMP that would cover most of North America, Pry said. The explosion and radiation from the bomb would dissipate before reaching ground level, but the resulting EMP would be powerful enough to destroy electronics across the region, Pry said. “If you were standing on the ground directly beneath the detonation, you wouldn’t even hear it go off,” Pry said. “The EMP would pass harmlessly through your body.”

A small EMP with a radius of under a kilometer can also be generated by combining high-voltage power sources with antennas that release this energy as electromagnetic waves. The U.S. military has a prototype cruise missile carrying an EMP generator. Called the Counter-Electronics High Power Microwave Advanced Missile Project (CHAMP), it can be used to target specific enemy facilities, and Pry said it would be within the capabilities of many militaries, or even terrorist groups, to build an EMP generator.

“We’ve arrived at a place where a single individual can topple the technological pillars of civilization for a major metropolitan area all by himself armed with some device like this,” he said.

The technology required to protect against EMPs is similar to what is already used to prevent damage from power surges caused by lightning, Pry said. These technologies would have to be adapted to deal with higher voltages, but devices such as surge protectors, which divert excess voltage into the Earth, or Faraday cages, which shield devices from electromagnetic radiation, could do the job.

Pry said the EMP Commission estimated it would cost $2 billion to $4 billion to protect the most important pieces of equipment in the national grid, but ideally, he would like to see standards changed so that EMP protection is built into devices.

EMP: Should you worry?

The threat posed by EMPs is far from settled, though. A 2019 report by the Electric Power Research Institute, which is funded by utility companies, found that such an attack would probably cause regional blackouts but not a nationwide grid failure and that recovery times would be similar to those of other large-scale outages.

Frank Cilluffo, director of Auburn University’s McCrary Institute for Cyber and Critical Infrastructure Security, said that, while an EMP attack would certainly be devastating, it’s unlikely that the United States’ enemies would carry out such a brazen assault.

“There are other ways that adversaries can achieve some of the same outcomes, some of which would be cheaper and some of which would be less discernible,” Cilluffo told Live Science.

Such alternatives might include cyberattacks to take out critical infrastructure, including the electric grid, or even efforts to disrupt space-based communications or the GPS system that modern society is so reliant on. Work to protect against EMPs makes sense, particularly given the possibility of another Carrington-like event, but these upgrades shouldn’t distract from efforts to shore up defenses against more probable lines of attack, Cilluffo said.

Original article on Live Science.

Source: https://www.livescience.com/air-force-emp-attacks-protection.html

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The Russian authorities are confused about how to respond to spontaneous public actions. A protest of Islamic activists in front of the French embassy in Moscow, on Thursday (October 29) was allowed, but another one, on Friday, was forcefully dispersed (Kommersant, October 30). The fiercest excoriation of the hard stance taken by Macron in the wake of the wave of Islamist-motivated violence came from Ramzan Kadyrov, who finds it necessary to justify his brutal rule over Chechnya with staunch defenses of Islamic values (Republic.ru, October 28). The Kremlin implored the country’s regional leaders not to interfere in foreign policymaking, which is the prerogative of the president (RBC, October 28). But Kadyrov dared to reject this reprimand and demanded an apology from maverick Russian politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who found it convenient to elaborate on the disapproval expressed by the Kremlin (Moscow Echo, October 30). Despite Kadyrov’s embrace of the Islamic cause, the resistance against his dictatorial rule continues, and in a recent “special operation” in Grozny, three police officers were killed while storming a hideout of suspected terrorists (Kavkazsky Uzel, October 13; see EDM, October 26).

What complicates Putin’s position yet further is the forceful and emotionally charged attack on Macron’s defense of democratic values by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who seeks to claim the leadership role for the cause of political Islam (Russiancouncil.ru, October 25). Disagreements between Moscow and Ankara over the Syrian and Libyan conflicts remain barely manageable, and Putin still cannot find a convincing response to Turkey’s massive support for Azerbaijan in the latter’s already-five-week-long war with Armenia over Karabakh (The Insider, October 23). In a recent phone conversation with Putin, Erdoğan announced that he had drawn a “red line” for Russia in the Caucasus, thus undercutting Moscow’s support for Yerevan and rendering the ongoing Russian diplomatic maneuvers ineffectual (Nezavisimaya Gazeta, October 28). Russia tried to counter by delivering an airstrike against a pro-Turkish militia camp in Syria’s Idlib province, but Erdoğan raised the stakes further by threatening a new offensive in Syria (Kommersant, October 29). Putin could have chosen to try to condemn Turkey’s alleged backing of terrorists and extremists of various sorts, from al-Qaeda offshoots to the Muslim Brotherhood; but he is reluctant to confront his increasingly difficult “strategic partner” (Carnegie.ru, October 30).

Russian nationalists who used to rally around Putin’s flag planted in annexed Crimea are now upset with his failure to cut Erdoğan down to size. However, their anti-Islamic fervor threatens to destabilize the Kremlin leader’s broader regime-entrenching course (Svobodnaya Pressa, October 30). A major challenge to this course keeps growing in Belarus, where embattled President Alyaksandr Lukashenka is now promising to treat the peaceful mass protests as a “terrorist threat” (Newsru.com, October 27). Putin may not be quite ready to subscribe to this definition and may disapprove of Lukashenka’s pledge to “take no prisoners”; but the Russian president has committed to supporting the fellow-autocrat who has relied on brutal violence to prolong his reign (Nezavisimaya Gazeta, October 28). Police power, among other methods, already gained Belarus’s leader nearly three months of extra time since the falsified elections in early August. But the unexpected resilience of Belarusian society in rejecting Lukashenka and withstanding his regime’s violent attacks signify the inevitable near end of this rule by repression (Rosbalt, October 30).

Lukashenka may act as a cornered despot, but Putin is more aware of the grim legacy of state terror in Russia, where October 30 is annually marked to remember the victims of political repressions (Rossiiskaya Gazeta, October 30). The traditional action of reading randomly selected names of people who were executed or perished in Joseph Stalin’s GULAG was organized virtually this year, but it reached millions of Russians via online social networks, which remain uncensored despite many efforts to establish state control (October29.ru, October 29). Tragic family stories thus gain traction with the new generations who have grown up knowing only Putin as the irreplaceable leader and are now experiencing the maturing of his corrupt autocracy (Znak.com, October 30). Putin yearns to ensure the stability of his illiberal regime by branding opposition activists as “extremists,” expecting that selective punishments will suffice to dishearten mass support for these “radicals.” But as some observers note, the ugly shadow of Stalinism grows deeper under his power vertical (Riddle, October 27).

The radicalization of Islamist-indoctrinated youth is a much lesser concern for Putin than the deepening disappointment in his self-serving rule among the increasingly propaganda-resistant populace. He may even find glee in Macron’s troubles and seek to benefit from France’s problems with the Muslim world. Yet his own inability to restrain the arrogant Kadyrov or to confront the ambitious Erdoğan may undercut his residual support even deeper than his courtiers dare to assess. The multiple escalating tensions caused by the unrelenting COVID-19 pandemic is certainly apparent in many societies; but in Russia, it is aggravated by the crisis of a long-underfunded health care system and the failure in leadership caused by the protracted self-isolation of the presumably omnipotent guarantor of stability. Belarus is a striking example of the determination in society to stay the course of peaceful resistance to a regime’s attempts to terrorize it into submission. In Russia, however, the accumulated discontent is so combustible that even an utterly senseless, random terrorist attack could become a trigger for a sequence of violent explosions of anger—a recurrent feature of Russia’s tragic history.

Source: https://jamestown.org/program/new-wave-of-islamic-extremism-adds-to-putins-troubles/

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