UNITED STATES: Brett Holmgren got woken up early on New Year’s Day by alerts that a driver had plowed into a crowd of revellers in New Orleans.
The rampage, which killed 14 people, was the deadliest attack on US soil in years and was inspired by the Daesh group.
The National Counterterrorism Center, which Holmgren leads, sprang into action to help the FBI run down information on the culprit from Texas and his plot.
It was a rare recent example of a mass attack motivated by religious extremism to hit the US homeland. But it didn’t occur in a vacuum, coming at a time when a terror threat that has waxed and waned in the two decades since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks is decidedly on the rise around the world.
“We are in a period where we are facing an elevated threat environment,” Holmgren said in an interview with The Associated Press. “We faced that last year. We’re going to face it again in 2025.”
The NCTC emerged in the aftermath of 9/11 as a centralized US government hub to collect and analyze data and intelligence on the international terrorism threat, providing information to the White House and other agencies to shape policy decisions and protect against attacks.
A former counterterrorism analyst and assistant secretary of state, Holmgren was named its acting director last July and intends to step aside at the conclusion of the Biden administration.
At that point, new leadership under President-elect Donald Trump will grapple with managing some of the global hot spots like Syria that have vexed officials in recent months and that the NCTC has been tracking.
Holmgren cites multiple factors for why the threat is higher than before, including passions arising from the Israel-Hamas war — a conflict that he says has been a driving factor in some 45 attacks worldwide since October 2023. He also points to mass migration from the Russia-Ukraine war that has sent central Asians, some with ties to the Daesh group, to countries including Turkiye, Syria, Iraq and even the US
Around the world, officials are monitoring tensions in Africa, which Holmgren called potentially the greatest long-term threat to US security given that the Daesh group has a large footprint on the continent and is investing resources there.
He says the “most potent overseas threat facing the United States” right now is the group’s Afghanistan-based affiliate, known as Daesh-Khorasan, whose attacks include a March 2024 massacre at a Moscow theater and the August 2021 bombing that killed 13 US service members and about 170 Afghans in the chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan.
One ongoing spot of concern is Syria, where an insurgent group named Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, or HTS, led a lightning offensive last month that toppled the government of President Bashar Assad.
HTS is a Sunni Islamist group that formerly had ties with Al-Qaeda, although its leader has preached religious coexistence since taking over in Damascus. The group has not plotted against US interests in recent years and has been “the most effective counterterrorism partner on the ground,” Holmgren said.
HTS has been designated by the State Department as a foreign terror organization, a label that carries severe sanctions.
Asked whether that designation would remain, Holmgren said that was a policy decision, though he noted: “They want to be perceived as being on the right side of the international community at this time when it comes to (counterterrorism). But we will continue to evaluate not just their words but also the actions that they’re undertaking.”
In an indication of Syria’s continued instability, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told The Associated Press last week that the US needs to keep troops there to prevent the Daesh group from reconstituting, and intelligence officials in Syria’s new de facto government already have thwarted a plan by Daesh to set off a bomb at a Shiite shrine in a Damascus suburb.
US officials, meanwhile, remain concerned about the possibility of Daesh gaining strength by taking over weapons left behind by Assad’s government or through a mass release of fighters who are now imprisoned.
“A large-scale prisoner release in Syria could provide a real boost in the arm for IS at a time where they have been under significant pressure,” Holmgren said.
The counterterrorism center’s focus is on international terrorism, which includes cases in the US like the New Orleans rampage in which the attacker was inspired by a group from abroad. The culprit, 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Jabbar, pledged his allegiance to Daesh in videos he recorded just before he drove his speeding pickup truck into a crowd on Bourbon Street early on Jan. 1.
As of now, Holmgren said, there’s no evidence that Jabbar was communicating with any Daesh operatives overseas or guided by anyone, but given that he was a lone actor who was radicalized, “this symbolizes exactly the type of attack that we’ve warned about for some time.”
“And I think it illustrates that while we have been quite effective as a government and across administrations at disrupting plotting overseas and going after terrorist leaders, we have a lot more work to do when it comes to countering violent extremism at home, countering violent extremist propaganda abroad,” he added.
“That is ultimately what is going to be needed to prevent more attacks like the one in New Orleans,” Holmgren said.
By the same token, through vast intelligence collection, hardened defenses and overseas counterterrorism operations, the US has made the risk of another large-scale attack like Sept. 11 lower than it’s ever been.
“But if we get complacent as a country,” he warned, “it will come back to bite us.”
US must not become complacent to a growing terrorism threat, a Counterterrorism Center official says
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US must not become complacent to a growing terrorism threat, a Counterterrorism Center official says
- “We are in a period where we are facing an elevated threat environment,” Holmgren said
- He also points to mass migration from the Russia-Ukraine war that has sent central Asians to countries including Turkiye, Syria, Iraq and even the US
Indians welcome spring with Holi, the world’s most colorful festival
- One of India’s biggest festivals, it is also among major homecoming seasons
- People visit, play music, dance, and pelt each other with powdered pigments
NEW DELHI: Millions of Indians celebrated on Friday the festival of colors, Holi, which marks the end of winter.
Symbolizing the triumph of good over evil, Holi is observed on the last full moon in the lunar month of Phalguna with bonfires, sweets, dancing to traditional music, and splashing others with colorful powders.
One of India’s biggest festivals, it is also among the major homecoming seasons, when people head to their native towns to reunite with family members.
“We start our morning by visiting other people’s houses and we meet people who we have not interacted with for a year. We apply colors on each other and then we sit together and eat. We play music and dance,” said Dr. Ashok Kumar Sharma, lecturer at Kurukshetra University in the northern state of Haryana.
“Holi is a festival to connect with the people and it’s a time when we embrace each other forgetting our differences and disputes.”
Holi derives its name from Holika, the demon sister of the evil King Hiranyakashipu in Indian mythology, who tried to forbid his son from worshiping the Hindu deity Vishnu and wanted to kill him with her help.
Hiranyakashipu ordered the two of them to sit on a burning pyre, lying to the son that his aunt, who was immune to fire, would protect him. But when the flames struck, it was Holika who burnt to death and the demon king’s son survived with the help of Vishnu.
The night before Holi, Hindus burn pyres to symbolize the death of Holika and the triumph of good over evil. As the next day arrives, they pelt each other with powdered pigments.
“This is a festival to enjoy without getting into formal dress and formal manner. We have nice food and also reflect how we should live together ... We connect with the people with (whom we) have fought. We try to connect by forgetting personal differences,” Ravi Kumar, an entrepreneur, told Arab News.
As president of a housing society in Vikaspuri, West Delhi, he made arrangements for celebrations in his area.
“This is a community festival where in our housing colony we seek collective opinion what they want to eat on this special occasion ... We have made arrangements for cooking special mutton and rajma (red kidney beans in tomato gravy) and people will contribute to that and all of them will enjoy them,” Kumar said.
“We also made a special arrangement for a DJ on the grounds of the housing society. People will play colors and dance and enjoy themselves.”
Those who enjoy Holi the most are children, as they can get away with various types of mischief and enjoy a day off from school.
“For kids, I think this is one of the most fun festivals in the year. Kids use a lot of watercolors and it’s the one time of the year they can spray colors on total strangers and get away with it. So, for kids this means having a lot of sweets, pranks and total liberty,” said Simran Sodhi, a media worker in Delhi.
For her, it was mainly a time for family and friends. “And a time to celebrate the bonds we have created in our lives,” she told Arab News.
“I feel it’s the time of the year when we welcome the spring season, and for me it means life continuing its cycle of colors and bonds.”
Ukraine drones hit Russian energy sites, Kyiv source says
- Drones dispatched by the Security Service of Ukraine had hit gas compressor systems in the western Russian regions of Tambov and Saratov
The Ukrainian and Russian drone barrages were less intensive compared to previous days and came after US-Ukraine talks in Jeddah proposed a 30-day ceasefire that the Kremlin on Friday said it was ‘cautiously optimistic” about.
The source said drones dispatched by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) had hit gas compressor systems in the western Russian regions of Tambov and Saratov.
It added that a Ukrainian drone also hit a warehouse storing missiles used for S-300 and S-400 Russian air defense systems.
“The SBU conducted another successful special operation on enemy territory, which caused significant losses to the Russian budget, reduced its ability to finance the war against Ukraine and the military potential of the Russian army,” the source said in written comments.
The mayor of Moscow meanwhile said Russian air defense systems had shot down four Ukrainian drones that were heading toward the capital.
The Russian defense ministry said Ukraine had launched 28 drones overnight against over 300 in the early hours of Tuesday, when three people were killed.
The governor of the southern Krasnodar region said a Ukrainian attack had sparked a fire at an oil refinery in the Black Sea resort town of Tuapse.
A fuel tank containing up to 20,000 tons of oil products was on fire at the refinery, officials said.
Kyiv said Russia had attacked Ukraine with 27 drones overnight, a fraction of the number it usually sends over, with some recent barrages comprised of more than 100 drones.
Authorities in the eastern Kharkiv region said eight people were wounded by the Russian attacks overnight.
Philippine ex-President Duterte set to appear in Hague courtroom to face ‘war on drugs’ charges
- The hearing Friday afternoon comes days after his stunning arrest in Manila on murder charges linked to the deadly “war on drugs” he oversaw while in office
- The 79-year-old Duterte is the first Asian former leader arrested on an ICC warrant
THE HAGUE: Former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte is scheduled to make his first appearance before judges of the International Criminal Court on Friday, days after his stunning arrest in Manila on murder charges linked to the deadly ” war on drugs ” he oversaw while in office.
The 79-year-old Duterte, the first Asian former leader arrested on an ICC warrant, will be read his rights and formally informed of the charges of crimes against humanity that the court’s prosecutors filed against him after a lengthy investigation.
Estimates of the death toll during Duterte’s presidential term vary, from the more than 6,000 that the national police have reported up to the 30,000 claimed by human rights groups.
The court will also seek to set a date for a key pre-trial hearing — likely months from now — at which judges will assess whether there is enough evidence to proceed to a full trial, which could take years. If Duterte is convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
Duterte was arrested Tuesday amid chaotic scenes in the Philippine capital after returning from a visit to Hong Kong. He was swiftly put on a chartered jet and flown to the Netherlands. After a series of medical checks on arrival, he was taken to the court’s detention center, located behind the high brick walls of a Dutch prison complex close to the North Sea coastline.
Prosecutors accuse him of involvement as an “indirect co-perpetrator” in multiple murders, amounting to a crime against humanity for allegedly overseeing killings from November 2011 until March 2019, first while he was mayor of the southern city of Davao and later as president of the Philippines.
Duterte will not be required to formally enter a plea at Friday’s hearing.
According to the prosecution request for his arrest, as Davao mayor Duterte issued orders to police and other “hitmen” who formed so-called “Davao Death Squads” or DDS.
He told them “that their mission was to kill criminals, including drug dealers, and provided clearance for specific DDS killings,” prosecutors allege, adding that he recruited, paid and rewarded the killers and “provided them with the necessary weapons and resources, and promised to shield them from prosecution.”
The document seeking an ICC warrant for Duterte said that prosecutors built their case using evidence including witness testimony, speeches by Duterte himself, government documents and video footage.
Human rights groups and victims’ families have hailed Duterte’s arrest as a historic triumph against state impunity, while the former president’s supporters have slammed what they call the government’s surrender of a rival to a court whose jurisdiction they dispute.
“We are happy and we feel relieved,” said 55-year-old Melinda Abion Lafuente, mother of 22-year-old Angelo Lafuente, who she said was tortured and killed in 2016.
“Duterte’s appearance before the ICC is a testament to the courage and determination of the victims, their families, and Filipino activists and journalists to pursue justice no matter how long it takes,” said Bryony Lau, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Other leaders facing ICC arrest warrants, like Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu, should take note that even those who seem untouchable today can end up in The Hague.”
Duterte’s legal team said President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s administration should not have allowed the global court to take custody of the former leader because the Philippines is no longer a party to the ICC.
“Our own government has surrendered a Filipino citizen — even a former president at that — to foreign powers,” Vice President Sara Duterte, the ex-president’s daughter and a political rival of the current president, said Tuesday before her father was flown out of Manila.
Judges who approved Duterte’s arrest warrant said the court has jurisdiction because the crimes alleged in the warrant were committed before Duterte withdrew the Philippines from the court in 2019.
‘We are simply going to starve’: UN chief visits Rohingya refugees amid aid funding shortfall
- ’We are simply going to starve’: UN chief visits Rohingya refugees amid aid funding shortfall
COX’S BAZAR: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is visiting Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh as their food rations face drastic cuts amid a funding shortfall, threatening already dire living conditions in the world’s largest refugee settlement.
Guterres’ visit on Friday to the border district of Cox’s Bazar — his second to Bangladesh — is seen as crucial after the UN World Food Programme (WFP) announced potential cuts to food rations, following the shutdown of USAID operations.
The WFP has said it may reduce food rations for the Rohingya from $12.50 to just $6 per month starting in April because of a lack of funding, raising fears among aid workers of rising hunger in the overcrowded camps.
“Whatever we are given now is not enough. If that’s halved, we are simply going to starve,” said Mohammed Sabir, a 31-year-old refugee from Myanmar who has lived in the camps since fleeing violence in 2017.
The WFP said earlier this month that the reduction was due to a broad shortfall in donations, not the Trump administration’s decision to cut US foreign aid globally, including USAID. But a senior Bangladeshi official told Reuters that most likely played a role, as the United States has been the top donor for Rohingya refugee aid.
Bangladesh is sheltering more than 1 million Rohingya, members of a persecuted Muslim minority who fled violent purges in neighboring Myanmar mostly in 2016 and 2017, in camps in the southern Cox’s Bazar district, where they have limited access to jobs or education.
Roughly 70,000 fled to Bangladesh last year, driven in part by growing hunger in their home Rakhine state, Reuters has reported.
Sabir, a father of five children, said: “We are not allowed to work here. I feel helpless when I think of my children. What will I feed them?”
“I hope we are not forgotten. The global community must come forward to help,” Sabir said.
The WFP has emphasized that it requires $15 million in April to maintain full rations for the refugees. But fears are growing about the impact on food security during the holy month of Ramadan, which this year ends in the last days of March.
Bangladesh’s interim government, which took power in August 2024 following mass protests that ousted former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, is hoping that Guterres’ visit will help draw international attention to the crisis and mobilize aid for the refugees.
Guterres is scheduled to take part in a fasting break on Friday afternoon with refugees during Iftar, accompanied by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, the head of Bangladesh’s interim government.
“Without work or income, this will have catastrophic consequences,” 80-year-old refugee Abdur Salam said of the food ration cuts. “What kind of life is this? If you can’t give us enough food, please send us back to our homeland. We want to return to Myanmar with our rights.”
Driving ban puts brakes on young women in Turkmenistan
- There is no legislation specifically outlawing women under 30 from obtaining a driving license in Turkmenistan
- But it is one of many informal prohibitions that is universally followed, so women that do drive must do so without a permit
ASHGABAT, Turkmenistan: Mekhri feels “a sense of freedom and self-confidence” when she’s behind the wheel of a car – despite being forced to drive illegally because of an unwritten rule preventing women getting a license.
In Turkmenistan, the reclusive Central Asian state where she lives, young women are effectively banned from driving.
“I know the rules of the road. I drive calmly, don’t overtake anyone and know how to park,” the 19-year-old said.
Like other women interviewed by AFP in Turkmenistan – ranked by rights groups as one of the most closed and repressive countries in the world – she withheld her surname.
There is no legislation specifically outlawing women under 30 from obtaining a driving license.
But it is one of many informal prohibitions that is universally followed, so women that do drive must do so without this precious permit, which is indeed against the law.
“When my daughter wanted to enroll at the driving school, we were told that she could take lessons but that she would probably not pass the test,” said Guzel, Mekhri’s 57-year-old mother.
So instead of paying for lessons, Guzel assumed the role of instructor and now takes Mekhri outside the capital, Ashgabat, to practice.
“Where there are few cars, police officers and cameras, I let my daughter take the wheel and I teach her,” Guzel, who started driving when she was 40, said.
Among the other transport-related diktats imposed by father-and-son duo Gurbanguly and Serdar Berdymukhamedov – who have ruled the country one after the other since 2006 – are a ban on black cars.
Owners have been forced to paint the vehicles white, the favorite color of Gurbanguly, whose official titles are “Hero-Protector” and “leader of the Turkmen nation.”
Many young women share Mekhri’s frustration.
“I wanted to take my test at 18. At the driving school, the instructor immediately warned the many girls there: ‘You’ve come for nothing. You won’t be able to take it,” said Maisa, a 26-year-old saleswoman.
“But up to the exam, driving schools take both boys and girls, because they pay,” she said.
Goulia, 19, said her parents had wanted to buy her a car when she went to university so she could be more independent, do the family shopping and take her grandmother to hospital and the chemist’s.
“But because of the difficulties that girls like me face getting a driver’s license, my mother said she would have to postpone the decision,” she said.
“I’ve just turned 19 and I can’t get a license but the boys can and I don’t understand why,” she added.
Turkmenistan’s motor transport agency did not respond to an AFP request to comment.
Contacted via phone by AFP, one driving school said “women have the right to enroll in the course and take the exam” before abruptly hanging up.
But another instructor from Ashgabat acknowledged the informal ban.
“It is due to a sharp increase in accidents involving female drivers,” the instructor said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“After an investigation by the authorities, it turned out they were simply buying driving licenses,” the instructor said – a claim AFP could not verify.
Rules have also been tightened for women over 30 who are not covered by the informal ban.
To register a car in their own name, they have to show a marriage certificate, family record book and a report from their employer.
Authorities routinely reject accusations that they are restricting women’s rights.
Responding to a recent United Nations report criticizing the country, the government said: “The motherland treats mothers and women with great respect.”
Ahead of International Women’s Day on March 8, President Serdar Berdymoukhamedov gifted every woman the equivalent of $3 – enough to buy a cake or six kilograms (13 pounds) of potatoes.
