Tag Archives: isis

The Supreme Court hears two cases that could ruin the internet

Gonzalez v. Google and Twitter v. Taamneh seek to conscript big tech into the war on terror; the results could be disastrous.

By Ian Millhiser  Feb 16, 2023, 6:00am EST

In 2015, individuals affiliated with the terrorist group ISIS conducted a wave of violence and mass murder in Paris — killing 129 people. One of them was Nohemi Gonzalez, a 23-year-old American student who died after ISIS assailants opened fire on the café where she and her friends were eating dinner.

A little more than a year later, on New Year’s Day 2017, a gunman opened fire inside a nightclub in Istanbul, killing 39 people — including a Jordanian national named Nawras Alassaf who has several American relativesISIS also claimed responsibility for this act of mass murder.

In response to these horrific acts, Gonzalez’s and Alassaf’s families brought federal lawsuits pinning the blame for these attacks on some very unlikely defendants. In Gonzalez v. Google, Gonzalez’s survivors claim that the tech giant Google should compensate them for the loss of their loved one. In a separate suit, Twitter v. Taamneh, Alassaf’s relatives make similar claims against Google, Twitter, and Facebook.

The thrust of both lawsuits is that websites like Twitter, Facebook, or Google-owned YouTube are legally responsible for the two ISIS killings because ISIS was able to post recruitment videos and other content on these websites that were not immediately taken down. The plaintiffs in both suits rely on a federal law that allows “any national of the United States” who is injured by an act of international terrorism to sue anyone who “aids and abets, by knowingly providing substantial assistance” to anyone who commits “such an act of international terrorism.”

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How combating the mafia helped Italy fight ISIS:

How combating the mafia helped Italy fight ISIS:  Surveillance techniques and the help of organised crime are keeping extremists at bay, claim experts

  • Marco Lombardi believes Italian authorities are applying same methods to tackling terrorism as organised crime
  • He also told The Times that the mafia does not want ISIS operating in Italy
  • Berlin truck terrrorist Anis Amri was yesterday gunned down in Milan
  • It is not yet clear why he had travelled to Italy after Monday’s atrocity 

 

Italy’s battle against the mafia could be helping authorities tackle extremists – and organised criminals could be keeping ISIS at bay, it is claimed.

Yesterday Berlin truck killer Anis Amri was shot dead after opening fire on two police officers at around 3am in Milan.

When he was approached in the Sesto San Giovanni suburb, the officers had no idea they were dealing with Europe’s most wanted man.

Yesterday Marco Lombardi, a terrorism expert at the Catholic University in Milan, told The Times: ‘It’s no surprise that a new police unit has recently been formed in Italy which fights both the mafia and terrorism, bringing together officers who share surveillance techniques.’

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4063764/How-combating-mafia-helped-Italy-fight-ISIS-Surveillance-techniques-help-organised-crime-keeping-extremists-bay-claim-experts.html#ixzz4UI1vndo6
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FBI arrests Brooklyn Uber driver who joined ISIS in hopes of planning Nice-style terror attack in Times Square

An Uber cab driver from Brooklyn was arrested Monday on federal charges that he allegedly traveled to Turkey and Yemen last year to join ISIS and expressed support for a Nice-style attack with a garbage truck in Times Square, authorities said.

Mohamed Rafik Naji, 37, revealed his support of the terrorist organization on his Facebook page, including a photo of an ISIS flag, videos of jihadists engaged in fighting, and a YouTube link of an ISIS spokesman exhorting attacks on Western targets, according to court papers.

Last summer, Naji allegedly expressed support to an informant for carrying out a deadly attack in Times Square with a garbage truck crushing pedestrian just like the ISIS truck attack in Nice, France in July.

“They (ISIS) want an operation in Times Square,” Naji told the informant on July 19.

Read Full Article – http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/fbi-arrests-brooklyn-man-joined-isis-hoped-attack-nyc-article-1.2882425

Italian Newspaper Claims Mafia Is Trading Weapons with ISIS for Stolen Libyan Artifacts

The Italian newspaper La Stampa claims the Camorra and ‘Ndràngheta mafia groups in southern Italy are giving weapons to the terrorist organization ISIS in exchange for rare cultural artifacts stolen from Libya, writes Hannah McGivern of the Art Newspaper.

The weapons are being smuggled into Italy from Ukraine and Moldova by Russian criminals. The artifacts––taken from Sabratha, Cyrene, and Leptis Magna in Libya, all UNESCO World Heritage Sites—are being shipped from the Libyan city Sirte, a former ISIS presidio, to Gioia Tauro in Calabria, a port that ‘Ndràngheta members have used for pumping cocaine into Europe.

La Stampa journalist Domenico Quirico posed as an antiquities dealer to infiltrate ‘Ndràngheta-controlled trade around Naples. He was offered a carved head from what seemed to be a second-century Roman statue for nearly $66,000 and saw pictures of a Greek god figure available for about $1.1 million. Objects from Italian necropolises were also being sold. The clientele for the mafia groups appear to be located in China, Japan, Russia, and the UAE.

Italy’s interior minister, Angelino Alfano, said in a recent interview, “The criminal turnover of the so-called Islamic state comes from a series of factors, including the sale of works of art that have escaped the iconoclastic fury of the militants.” But Syria’s antiquities chief, Maamoun Abdulkarim, told the Art Newspaper that seventy percent of the artifacts taken from anti-smuggling operations in Lebanon and Syria have proven to be inauthentic.

From – http://artforum.com/news/id=64056

The Italian Mafia is Funding Terrorism By Buying Smuggled Hash From ISIS

Italian prosecutor claims that the Italian Mafia is buying hash that was smuggled by ISIS through Libya.

The Italian Mafia and an Islamic terrorist group meet up at a hash-smuggling operation… It sounds like the start of a bad joke, but unfortunately, according to the anti-Mafia and antiterrorism prosecutor, Franco Roberti, it’s the grim reality in the country of Italy. The Italian prosecutor claims that hash is being purchased by the Italian Mafia from Libya, which is being smuggled in by the Islamic terrorist sect ISIS.

The North African hash is being used a major source of income for the Islamic State, and the Italian Mafia is apparently a loyal customer. It’s quite profitable for the Mafia as well, which earns about 32 billion euros ($36.10 billion) a year through their illegal drug trades, a sizable portion of which is made up of hash and cannabis. It’s seems reasonable for Roberti to assume that ISIS is heavily involved. According to Ahmad Moussalli, a political science professor at the American University in Beirut, territorial expansion by ISIS on the Syrian border has put them in control of a vast amount of cannabis fields.

Instead of trying to crack down even more viciously on Italy’s use of cannabis and hash, which the government already spends millions on combating, Roberti has come forth with a much more level-headed approach. Instead, the prosecutor believes that the time has come for Italy to rescind their harsh marijuana laws, citing that decriminalization would negatively affect both the Mafia and the Islamic State.

The decriminalization of marijuana in Italy could help land a potentially critical blow to the funding of ISIS, which according to a recently published IHS Conflict Monitor report, has already dropped from $80 million in monthly revenue to $56 million since the middle of 2015. According to Roberti, a major portion of the terrorist cell’s revenue comes from drug trafficking, and decriminalization of marijuana in Italy could help put a major dent in that.

To Roberti, it makes sense to persecute the Mafia and the Islamic State in a similar manner, seeing as that Italian Mafia families, particularly in the south, have been long proponents of terrorist activities. The Mafia and ISIS could be more intertwined than it would seem at first glance, as both are heavily dependent on drug trafficking as a revenue source. But does Roberti have a sound argument for decriminalization? I would have to argue that he does.

“We spend a lot of resources uselessly. We have not succeeded in reducing cannabinoid trafficking. On the contrary, it’s increasing,” said Roberti. “Is it worth using investigative energy to fight street sales of soft drugs?”

Full Article – https://www.merryjane.com/news/the-italian-mafia-is-funding-terrorism-by-buying-smuggled-hash-from-isis