Dilitas Weekly International Security Brief

This week's international security brief from Dilitas. We would also like to use this opportunity to wish all of you a very happy Christmas and a successful 2021.

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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

Afghanistan on Sunday [13th December] claimed to have killed at least 90 Taliban militants amid heavy fighting in Kandahar province.

The death toll from a suicide bombing aimed at Somali Prime Minister Mohamed Roble has increased to 14. Among those killed in the explosion were members of the prime minister’s security team and top army officials, including the commander of the 21st Division of the Somali National Army.

More than 300 schoolboys have been reunited with their families, a week after they were kidnapped from their school in north-west Nigeria.

Angry youths on Wednesday torched three police stations in Nigeria's south-eastern state of Anambra while protesting against the killing of a taxi motorcyclist allegedly by police.

Ethiopia's defence ministry has announced a reward of 10 million-birr ($256,000) for tips leading to the arrest of Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) figures that the government says are wanted.

A prominent critic of the Rwandan president who is in prison on terrorism charges says he is suing a Greek charter flight company for aiding his alleged kidnap and repatriation to Rwanda.

The number of civilians forced from their homes by conflict in northern Mozambique has quadrupled this year - to 420,000 - according to the United Nations.

ASIA

An explosion has killed 15 children and injured another 20 people in the east Afghan province of Ghazni, officials and police sources say. The reason for the explosion in the Gilan district is unclear with officials saying a bomb went off in the back of a rickshaw.

At least 25 people have been injured due to an explosion near the Ganj Mandi police station in Pakistan's Rawalpindi division on Sunday 13th December] .

Pakistan's counter-terrorism police on Monday raided a militant hideout in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, arresting three suspects linked to past bomb attacks. The men had also plotted to target the Islamabad Stock Exchange, police said.

The Chilean navy says it is closely monitoring 11 Chinese fishing vessels in its exclusive economic zone (EEZ). A Chinese fishing fleet has been accused by conservation group Oceana of "pillaging" the waters off the Galapagos Islands for squid.

Indian police have arrested more than 50 people in Delhi on suspicion of being involved in an international call centre scam. The group is accused of defrauding more than 4,500 people in the United States and other countries.

AUSTRALIA

Australian police said Friday they were treating the murder of an elderly couple in their Brisbane home as a terrorism incident. Police linked the murders to Raghe Mohamed Abdi, who had previously been investigated by counter-terrorism police, after he was shot dead in a confrontation with officers on a Brisbane highway Thursday morning.

EUROPE

French authorities have charged and detained four Pakistanis suspected of links to a meat cleaver attack by a compatriot outside the former offices of the Charlie Hebdo weekly that wounded two people, the national counter-terrorism prosecutor's office said Friday.

Armenians have protested after reports that as many as 100 soldiers were seized by Azerbaijani forces in Nagorno-Karabakh.

A Paris court has found 14 people guilty of involvement in a series of deadly militant Islamist attacks. The January 2015 attacks on Charlie Hebdo magazine, a policewoman and a Jewish supermarket left 17 people dead.

Eighteen foreign fisherman who were held in war-torn Libya for more than three months have been released after a visit by Italy's PM Giuseppe Conte. Libyan patrol boats loyal to Gen Khalifa Haftar arrested the men, who are based in Sicily, on 1 September. The group were accused of trespassing in Libyan waters.

A gang of fraudsters who won their way into women's hearts posing as pilots, sea captains, Interpol officials and military personnel has been broken up after a three-year operation, Italian police say.

Switzerland's federal prosecutor has filed criminal charges against Credit Suisse for allegedly facilitating money laundering 'on a grand scale' by former Bulgarian clients.

MIDDLE EAST

The Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) said Saturday that its commando forces killed a total of 206 militants of the extremist Islamic State (IS) group and captured 292 others across the country so far during 2020.

A well-known Iraqi activist has been killed in Baghdad, fellow activists and local media say. Salah al-Iraqi was reportedly shot dead by unidentified gunmen in the Baghdad al-Jadida area on Tuesday evening.

Saudi Arabia says an oil tanker was attacked by an explosive-laden boat while it was anchored at Jeddah's port.

UK & EIRE

Following an investigation led by Counter Terrorism Police South East (CTPSE) and supported by Counter Terrorism Police South West (CTPSW) and Devon and Cornwall Police, Khadidja Benboukhemis, pleaded guilty to two charges of dissemination of terrorist publications, contrary to section 2 of the Terrorism Act (2006) at Kingston Crown Court on 17 September 2020.

Counter terrorism police will be places on London buses in a bid to prevent an attack in the capital following a warning from the UK's senior counter terrorism officer that investigations are at a "record high".

Police have shot dead a young knife-wielding man on the Logan Motorway just hours after he cut off from his body a GPS tracking device he had been ordered to wear as a bail condition. The man has been identified as 22-year-old Calamvale man Raghe Abdi, known to counter-terrorism police, and had been under strict bail conditions.

The Government has announced a ￡15.8 billion funding package for policing over the coming year.

The home secretary has attacked the mayor of Greater Manchester as the area’s chief constable stepped down after the force was placed in special measures. Ian Hopkins said he was bringing forward his retirement in the wake of a damning report by inspectors that found the force had failed to record 80,000 crimes, a fifth of all offences, in the year to 30 June.

Six members of a "toxic" police unit have been found guilty of gross misconduct after their "offensive" conversations were secretly recorded. Investigators bugged the Northern Serious Organised Crime Unit's office in Basingstoke, Hampshire, and analysed messages over a 24-day period in 2018.

CYBER/CRYPTO

The US Department of Energy, with responsibility for managing nuclear weapons, has emerged as a victim of a major suspected Russian hacking campaign. A spokeswoman confirmed that the department was responding to a cyber breach but said that the security of the nuclear weapons had not been affected.

At least 200 organisations, including government agencies and companies around the world, have been hacked as part of a suspected Russian cyber-attack that implanted malicious code in a widely used software program, said a cybersecurity firm and three people familiar with ongoing investigations. The number of actual hacking victims has been one of many unanswered questions surrounding the cyber-attack, which used a backdoor in SolarWinds Corp.’s Orion network management software as a staging ground for further attacks.

UK security officials are trying to establish the extent of the impact on the UK of a major hacking campaign that threatened national security in the US. The attack, using US firm SolarWinds' Orion platform, was discovered last week but has been going on for months.

The company People's Energy has contacted all its 270,000 current customers, following a data breach. Co-founder Karin Sode t[said] an entire database had been stolen by hackers and included information on previous customers. Data stolen included names, addresses, dates of birth, phone numbers, tariff and energy meter IDs, she said.

AND FINALLY HO HO HO

A police drugs-squad in Peru have raided a house dressed as Santa Claus and an elf, detaining a suspected drug dealer. A police spokesman said the man was accused of selling drugs outside his house, near a school.