The Saudi Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology (Etidal) found 6,004,218 extremist content on the social media platform Telegram between January 1 and March 30 this year. Furthermore, the two platforms have assisted in the closure of 1,840 channels that disseminate and promote extremist ideology and are affiliated with three terrorist groups (ISIS [Daesh], Al-Qaeda and Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham), reports Saudi Gazette. Read More: Never flagged as a danger, Nice attacker traveled unimpeded The Etidal team identified and monitored the three terrorist organizations' activity on Telegram in Arabic, it said. It discovered 2,773,902 pieces with extremist content on 477 Hayat Tahrir al-Sham channels, 1,807,215 such pieces on 1,040 Daesh channels, and 1,423,101 pieces on 323 Al-Qaeda channels. The Etidal monitoring team observed a peak in broadcasting activity on Telegram on January 9 this year, with 451,911 pieces of content shared and referenced to, and a peak in account creation on March 27, with over 101 channels launched in a single day, the report also said. Read More: Shamima Begum who joined ISIS as a teen loses UK citizenship appeal The cooperation between Etidal and Telegram continues for the second year in a row, increasing the total number of items deleted from February 2022 until now to 21,026,169; these included extremist content and 8,664 terminated terrorist channels.

A British woman whose U.K. citizenship was revoked after she traveled to Syria as a teenager to join the Islamic State group has lost an appeal in her fight to have her citizenship restored. Shamima Begum, now 23, was 15 when she and two other girls from London joined the extremist group in February 2015. Authorities withdrew her British citizenship on national security grounds soon after she surfaced in a Syrian refugee camp in 2019. The Special Immigration Appeals Commission, a tribunal which hears challenges to decisions to remove someone’s British citizenship on national security grounds, ruled there was a “credible suspicion” that Begum was trafficked to Syria for “sexual exploitation.” It said there also were “arguable breaches of duty” by state bodies in allowing her to travel to the country. But Judge Robert Jay said that evidence was “insufficient” for Begum to win the argument that the deprivation of her British citizenship failed to respect her human rights. Given that she remains in Syria, UK authorities are not compelled to facilitate her return, the judge said. Also Read: Shamima Begum and Mueen Uddin: Academics, international affairs experts in Bangladesh decry UK’s double standards  “Reasonable people will differ as to the threat she posed in February 2019 to the national security of the United Kingdom, and as to how that threat should be balanced against all countervailing considerations,’’ Jay said in delivering the decision of the tribunal. “However, under our constitutional settlement, these sensitive issues are for the secretary of state to evaluate and not for the commission.” Arguing the ruling gave far too much power to the Britain’s home secretary, Begum’s lawyers promised an appeal. Daniel Furner, part of Begum’s legal team, said the case was “nowhere near over.” “What else this judgment calls out for though is some courage and some leadership from the Home Secretary to look at this case afresh in light of the clear and compelling factual findings this court has made,″ Furner said. “We are going to challenge this decision.” Begum had challenged the action of Sajid Javid, the U.K.’s home secretary at the time, arguing that it left her stateless and that she should have been treated as a child trafficking victim, not a security risk. The British government claimed she could seek a Bangladeshi passport based on family ties. But Begum’s family argued that she was from the U.K. and never held a Bangladeshi passport. Javid expressed satisfaction with the decision. “This is a complex case, but home secretaries should have the power to prevent anyone entering our country who is assessed to pose a threat to it,” he said. The immigration tribunal held a hearing in November on Begum's appeal. The case threw into sharp relief the larger question of how Western societies deal with people who joined IS but want to go back to their home countries. Thousands remain in camps in northeast Syria. Begum fled east London with two friends to marry IS fighters in Syria at a time when the group’s online recruitment program lured many impressionable young people to its self-proclaimed caliphate. Begum married a Dutch man fighting for IS and had three children, who all died. But her apparent lack of remorse in interviews soon after she surfaced in the refugee camp triggered criticism in Britain. Her tone has changed since then as she reflected on her actions and fought to return home.

Today marks the 5th anniversary of the Holey Artisan Bakery attack, the deadliest night of terror in the country's history that saw 22 civilians killed, the majority of them foreigners residing in or visiting the capital's swanky diplomatic quarter around Gulshan-Baridhara. Commemorations among relatives and those close to the victims will therefore span the globe from Japan at one end to Italy at the other. Indeed, those are the two countries that suffered the most casualties. Read:Govt satisfied with Holey Artisan attack verdict: Law Minister Five heavily-armed young men who didn't fit the profile of your typical 'jihadist' executed the audacious attack, that clearly drew inspiration from ISIS, the global death cult and terrorist motherboard that was at the peak of its influence at the time. However investigators never uncovered any evidence of direct operational training or support from the caliphate's headquarters.  The unlikely militants, all in their late teens or early 20s, were not madrasah students from the hinterland, but rather city boys who grew up among Bangladesh's elite, having attended top private schools and universities in Bangladesh and abroad. Their pathways to radicalisation were not foreseen, are still not very well-understood, but would seem to have been abrupt and even rapid.     On the evening of July 1, a little after 9pm, they made their move and laid siege to the upmarket cafe popular with expatriates - a calculated choice that paid off with maximum foreign casualties. Initially they took everyone inside the café hostage before executing them based on nationality or religion. Some Bangladeshis were allowed to leave - one bravely refused to leave without his two foreign friends, and died with them. The victims included nine Italians, seven Japanese, one Indian, one Bangladesh-born American and two Bangladeshis. Besides, two police officers called to the scene were also killed by grenades during the first wave of the attack - this demonstrated how well-armed they were, and law enforcers subsequently backed off to wait for specialist commandos to come in and do the job, causing a nightlong standoff.  Thirteen people, including three foreigners, were rescued while 20 bodies of the hostages were recovered from the restaurant after a successful operation led by the 1st Para-commando Battalion, an elite force in the Bangladesh Army, the following morning (July 2). Read:7 to walk gallows in Holey Artisan Café case Five militants and one restaurant staff were killed and one suspected militant was arrested during the drive. Including the militants and two policemen, the total death toll was 29 from what is definitively described as 'Bangladesh's 9/11,' after the 2001 attack that brought down World Trade Centre's Twin Towers in New York, the most infamous terrorist attack of all time. A case was filed with Gulshan police station in connection with what still stands as the deadliest terror attack ever in the country. Later, the case was transferred to the Detective Branch of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP). Twenty-one people were identified behind the attack. Among them, 13 people were killed in gunfights at different times. Read: Holey Artisan Attack: 8 accused brought to court Police pressed charges against eight people in the case on July 23, 2018. The tribunal framed charges against them on November 26. On December 3 last year, the trial began with the deposition of witnesses. On November 17 last, the tribunal set November 27 for delivering its verdict. On November 27, 2019, seven men were sentenced to death for their roles in the Holey Artisan café attack, the deadliest terror attack.

One by one, the flags belonging to a patchwork of armed forces were lowered in a northern Iraqi town once brutalized by the Islamic State group. The territorial claims symbolized by each were replaced by the fluttering of just one: The Iraqi state’s.

The British Court of Appeal on Thursday ruled that ISIS bride Shamima Begum could be allowed to come to the UK to appeal against the removal of her British citizenship, reports The Independent.