US social media networks, Microsoft join hands to fight against terrorism
SAN FRANCISCO – Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter and YouTube announced Monday the formation of a forum to help make their “consumer services hostile to terrorists and violent extremists.” The four technology giants said the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism will formalize and structure existing and future areas of collaboration and foster cooperation with smaller tech […]
The Arab vision for fighting terrorism
Merely six weeks after the deadly attacks of September 11, 2001, the US Congress passed an appalling law, the USA Patriot Act , which gave the US government under President George W. Bush a sweeping mandate to curtail civil liberties and carry out surveillance programmes against the American public. This was done in the name […]
Muslims Give Christians Hijabs To Help Them Escape ISIS
Muslims have been helping Christians to escape ISIS-affiliated Maute Group attackers in the devastated city of Marawi in the southern Philippines. More than three weeks after the fighting started, around 1,000 residents remain trapped in the besieged cities as fighting rages between the Philippine Army and Islamist rebels. Fighters from local groups including the Maute […]
Terrorism experts say Virginia shooting highlights disturbing increase in left-wing violence
Wednesday’s shooting in Virginia that appeared to target Republican lawmakers highlights a trend that terrorism experts have been monitoring in recent months: the ramping up of violence committed by the left. “This is something we’re very concerned about,” said Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism…
Tech firms could face fines in crackdown on online ‘extremism’
The UK and France, working hand in hand against terrorism, are launching a joint campaign to fight online radicalisation. British Prime Minister Theresa May and French President Emmanuel Macron want to get tech giants such as Facebook and Google to do more to remove extremist material from the internet. “Our discussions today have focused on […]
Qatar hosted Taliban ‘at request of US government’
Qatar hosted the Taliban at the request of the US government, the special envoy on counterterrorism for Qatar’s foreign minister told Al Jazeera. Mutlaw Al Qahtani said the Gulf country hosted the Taliban “by request by the US government” and as part of Qatar’s “open-door policy, to facilitate talks, to mediate and to bring peace”.
Pakistani Man Sentenced to Death for Anti-Islam Content on Social Media
An anti-terrorism court in central Pakistan on Saturday sentenced a man, aged 30, to death for posting blasphemous content on social media. The judge conducted the judicial proceedings in the high-security prison in the city of Bahawalpur, prosecutor Mohammad Shafiq Qureshi told VOA. The prosecutor explained that the court found Taimoor Raza guilty of using […]
VOA Exclusive: Dozens More US Troops Deployed to Somalia
Dozens of American soldiers have deployed to Mogadishu to train and equip Somali and AMISOM (African Union Mission in Somalia) forces fighting extremism in that country, U.S. military officials told VOA. The troops’ arrival marks the first presence of American military forces in Somalia, other than a small unit of counterterrorism advisers, since March 1994 […]
Most of Britain’s Islamist Terrorists Came From Highly Segregated Muslim Districts
British Islamist terrorists are getting younger and an increasing number had no prior convictions or previous criminal records before carrying out an act of terrorism or being arrested in the later stages of planning attacks, according to a major report to be published this week in London. The rising proportion of militants who are so-called […]
Lal Shahbaz Qalandar and Pakistan’s pluralistic history
There is a legend told through oral tradition in the sub-continent. There was a man who appeared before a great city, a wanderer seeking refuge in a new land. When the king found out about this person, he refused to allow him in. He sent this person a pot of milk, and with it a […]