Dilitas International Security Brief

This week's Dilitas international security brief.

Dilitas provides the following services:

INVESTIGATIONS

DUE DILIGENCE

SURVEILLANCE

CLOSE PROTECTION

SECURITY CONSULTANCY

The threat to the UK from International Terrorism is SEVERE

The threat to Great Britain from Irish Republican Terrorism is MODERATE

Threat levels are designed to give a broad indication of the likelihood of a terrorist attack.

LOW means an attack is unlikely

MODERATE means an attack is possible, but not likely

SUBSTANTIAL means an attack is a strong possibility

SEVERE means an attack is highly likely

CRITICAL means an attack is expected imminently

AFRICA

The Ethiopian government says it has arrested a key founding member of the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF).

Niger's prime minister says 100 people are now known to have been killed in Saturday's [2nd January] attacks by suspected jihadists on two villages. Brigi Rafini said 70 people were killed in the village of Tchombangou and 30 others in Zaroumdareye - both near Niger's border with Mali.

Six people, including two fighters from a Burkinabe civilian volunteer force, were killed in a suspected militant attack in the Nord Region on Monday.

Reports from Mali say more than 20 people, including children, were killed when an airstrike hit a wedding party in a remote village at the weekend.

Somalia's police spokesperson, Sadiq Adan Ali Dodishe, on Tuesday survived a roadside bombing in the capital, Mogadishu, privately-owned Radio Dalsan website has reported.

ASIA

The Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) in Lahore, Pakistan sentenced Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, leader of the terrorist organization Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), to five years in prison for terror financing on Friday.

Ethiopian troops have killed top officials of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) in an operation, according to an announcement late Thursday.

The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the killing of 11 coal miners in the western Pakistani province of Balochistan.

A radical Muslim cleric linked to the 2002 Bali bombings has been freed amid concerns over his ongoing influence on extremists. Abu Bakar Ba'asyir was picked up by his family from a jail outside Indonesia's capital Jakarta early on Friday.

The Punjab counter-terrorism department on Thursday arrested seven suspected terrorists after raiding a militant hideout in Sargodha.

Pakistan on Saturday [2nd January] arrested a man accused of being a leader of an Islamist militant group blamed by the United States and India for the 2008 Mumbai attacks, a counter-terrorism official said.

The United States on Tuesday welcomed the arrest of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operations commander Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi by Pakistani authorities on charges of terror financing but also called for his prosecution for his role in the 2008 Mumbai attacks.

A counter-terrorism unit raiding a militant hideout in central Indonesia on Wednesday killed two men suspected by police of involvement in twin bombings at a Philippine church in 2019 that killed more than 20 people.

Mali's government has denied allegations that a French air strike on Sunday killed guests attending a wedding. The country’s defence ministry said a joint operation with French forces had killed only Islamist militants.

Hong Kong has arrested dozens of pro-democracy activists and politicians, accusing them of trying to "overthrow" the city's government.

EUROPE

Pounded by the Turkish military, the terrorist PKK is hemorrhaging record numbers of members, and has great difficulty recruiting new ones, a Turkish government official said on Tuesday.

Some 150 Somali army soldiers are receiving special commando training in Turkey under a military cooperation pact between the two countries, the Turkish National Defence Ministry said on Tuesday.

MIDDLE EAST

At least 22 people have been killed and more than 50 wounded in an attack at the airport in the southern Yemeni city of Aden, officials say. There was at least one explosion shortly after a plane carrying the war-torn country's newly formed government arrived from neighbouring Saudi Arabia.

A bus has been attacked in eastern Syria, killing at least 28 people, reportedly soldiers.

South Korea says it will send a delegation to Iran "at the earliest possible date" to try to negotiate the release of an oil tanker seized by Iran's Revolutionary Guards on Monday.

Iran has resumed enriching uranium to 20% purity, in its most significant breach yet of the 2015 nuclear agreement with world powers.

The leader of Lebanon's militant group Hezbollah has denied accusations it is involved in amphetamine production.

UK & EIRE

Police arrest man, 47, on suspicion of 'Islamist terrorism' offences in Surrey.

Two gun-dealing brothers from Norfolk were among a series of crooks jailed for a total of more than 100 years after being caught by a regional crime group. It followed an investigation by the Eastern Region Special Operations Unit (ERSOU) into the supply of illegal firearms.

A man has been shot in the leg in the Southway area of Londonderry. Police said they are treating the shooting, which happened shortly before 19:30 GMT on Wednesday, as "a paramilitary-style assault".

HMRC issues record ￡23.8m fine for money laundering breaches

Money services business fined for flouting money laundering regulations.

USA

Biden victory confirmed after four die amid Capitol riot.

After the siege on the US Capitol building, the FBI is appealing to the public for help in bringing the assailants to justice.

An environmental activist has been shot dead by masked gunmen in Honduras. Félix Vásquez, a member of the Lenca indigenous community and an advocate for rural workers' rights, was killed in front of his family.

CYBER/CRYPTO

Ticketmaster will pay out a $10 million USD fee after admitting to illegally infiltrating the network of fellow ticket selling platform CrowdSurge.

T-Mobile, the third largest cell carrier in the U.S. after completing its recent $26 billion merger with Sprint, ended 2020 by announcing its second data breach of the year. The cell giant said in a notice buried on its website that it recently discovered unauthorized access to some customers’ account information, including the data that T-Mobile makes and collects on its customers in order to provide cell service.

Hackers have livestreamed police raids on innocent households after hijacking their victims' smart home devices and making a hoax call to the authorities, the FBI has warned.

[UK] An "extremely manipulative" man who hacked girls' Snapchat accounts and blackmailed them into sending him intimate images has been jailed. Akash Sondhi, 27, of Chafford Hundred, Essex, admitted to 65 offences between December 2016 and March 2020 ... hehas been sentenced to 11 years in prison for blackmail, voyeurism and cybercrimes by a UK court.

[UK] A cyber criminal group has posted what it claims are documents stolen from Hackney Council in a ransomware attack. The publication on the dark web of the personal details of council staff and residents follows "a serious cyber-attack" on the council in October.

A Russian hacker who was instrumental in one of the largest thefts in history of US customer data from a single financial institution has been sentenced to prison. Moscow resident Andrei Tyurin, also known as Andrei Tiurin, was part of an international hacking campaign that compromised the computer systems of major financial institutions, brokerage firms, news agencies, and other companies to steal data.

New Zealand’s central bank said Sunday that one of its data systems has been breached by an unidentified hacker who potentially accessed commercially and personally sensitive information.