Today is Tuesday, November twenty sixth, the 331st day of 2024. There are 35 days left within the yr.

Today in history:

On November 26, 2008, teams of heavily armed militants from the terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba stormed luxury hotels, a preferred restaurant, and a crowded train station in Mumbai, India, killing a minimum of 175 people (including nine of the attackers). ) in a four-day killing spree.

Also on this date:

In 1791, President George Washington held his first full Cabinet meeting; Present were Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, Secretary of War Henry Knox and Attorney General Edmund Randolph.

In 1917, the National Hockey League was founded in Montreal because the successor to the National Hockey Association.

In 1941, U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull sent a note to the Japanese ambassador to the United States, Kichisaburo Nomura (kee-chee-sah-boor-oh noh-moo-rah), expressing U.S. demands for “permanent and “comprehensive peace everywhere” stated the Pacific region.” On the same day, a Japanese naval task force consisting of six aircraft carriers left the Kuril Islands and headed for the Way to Hawaii.

In 1942, the film “Casablanca,” starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, premiered on the Hollywood Theater in New York City.

In 1973, President Richard Nixon's personal secretary, Rose Mary Woods, testified in federal court that she by chance caused a part of the 18 1/2-minute gap in a key Watergate tape.

In 2000, Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris declared George W. Bush the winner over Al Gore within the state's presidential election by 537 votes.

Today's birthdays:

• The impressionist Rich Little is 86.
• Football Hall of Famer Jan Stenerud is 82.
• Author Marilynne Robinson is 81.
• Bass guitarist John McVie (Fleetwood Mac) is 79.
• Football Hall of Famer Art Shell is 78.
• Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., is 71.
• Football Hall of Famer Harry Carson is 71.
• NASCAR Hall of Famer Dale Jarrett is 68.
• Country singer Linda Davis is 62.
• Actress and TV personality Garcelle Beauvais is 58.
• Actor Peter Facinelli is 51.
• DJ music producer DJ Khaled (KAL'-ehd) is 49.
• Country musician Joe Nichols is 48.
• Pop singer Natasha Bedingfield is 43.
• Actress, singer and TV personality Rita Ora is 34.

Donald Trump marked the anniversary of the terrorist attacks against Israel on October seventh. Supporters of Israel are gathering across the country to precise their solidarity and honor the victims and hostages still affected by the tragedy.

Members of the families of the September 11 victims, who’ve just accomplished their lawsuit against Saudi Arabia, are criticizing the Biden administration's decision to barter a cope with terror mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two accomplices.

“This is shitty timing. It's just another attempt to wrap up 9/11, put it in a box and make it disappear,” said Brett Eagleson, who was 15 when his father, Bruce, died working on the Twin Towers on 9/11.

Eagleson spoke to the Herald shortly after leaving a Manhattan federal court where relatives of the Sept. 11 victims faced Saudi officials on Wednesday, saying it was “about time” for the reality to finally come out. The case includes 1,424 documents which have been collected and filed with the court.

The lawyers representing hundreds of families – including many from Massachusetts – are fighting to have the case against the dominion heard before a judge in Manhattan. Their lawyers argue that the 9/11 Commission was unaware of the extent of alleged Saudi involvement with the California hijackers it uncovered.

“It is time to bring the truth to light. To reveal the truth,” Eagleson said immediately after the trial.

The judge within the federal case has taken the matter into deliberation. He must resolve whether the case can proceed to further discovery.

But lower than an hour later, it was announced that Mohammed and his fellow al-Qaeda killers would escape the death penalty.

The The Ministry of Defense announced Late Wednesday evening, it was reported that the US had “reached pre-trial agreements with Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin 'Attash and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi, three of the co-defendants in the 9/11 case.”

All three are expected to submit their confessions to the military commission at Cuba's Guantanamo Bay as early as next week, the Associated Press reported.

“This is a failure of justice,” said Debra Burlingame, whose brother was certainly one of the pilots killed on September 11 – almost 23 years ago. “The American people have a right to know how much this all cost. Billions are at stake. This trial. But it's not about money, it's about political injustice.”

On September 11, 2001, the hijackers killed 2,976 people – including two planes that took off from Logan International Airport that sunny morning.

Burlingame's brother, Charles “Chic” Burlingame III, was the pilot of American Airlines Flight 77, which was hijacked from Washington Dulles International Airport in Dulles, Virginia, on September 11 and flown into the Pentagon.

Eagleson said the trial was “overwhelming at times,” however the legal team representing the families of the Sept. 11 victims who’re still awaiting their day in court was “filled with pride.”

He thanks the British authorities for obtaining “incredible” evidence and the retired FBI agents for his or her support of the families of the September 11 victims who haven’t given up looking for justice after the brutal jet attacks on New York City, the Pentagon and Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

“This is all information that our own government has denied us access to,” Eagleson said. “The 9/11 Commission didn’t have the luxury of knowing all this.”

Nevertheless, he was shaken when he felt his euphoria in court and was subsequently shocked to be offered a deal.

“Why didn't anyone talk to us about this first? This is a shitty end to a great day,” he added, saying the case concerns all those that can not defend themselves: “The lawyers argued for my father and for all the people who died.”

Fifteen of the 19 September 11 attackers were Saudis.

“The kingdom and its lawyers know that the dam is breaking and that this may be their last chance to avoid a trial that would force it to defend the indefensible – its financial and logistical support of al-Qaeda and the 9/11 terrorists who killed my husband and thousands of other Americans,” said 9/11 Families United National Chairman Terry Strada.

She added: “The Kingdom's lawyers have tried everything possible to convince the court, but they have only succeeded in satisfying their financiers. The court must reject the motion to dismiss the case and continue the trial.”

Originally published: August 1, 2024 at 10:26 am

The Rise of the unconventional right in Europe represents a Threat not just for the continent but additionally to Americans at home and abroad.

But while the US government tends to quickly apply sanctions However, on the subject of the transnational threat of far-right violence targeting perceived wrongdoers around the globe, successive U.S. administrations have been more cautious about using one other vital and effective tool: terrorist designation.

It was not until mid-June 2024 that the Biden administration’s State Department decided approved his first violent far-right group, the Nordic Resistance Movement. A neo-Nazi group based in Sweden but with a presence throughout Scandinavia, the NRM has a Call of brutality and represents a vision of totalitarian rule. As the State Department noted in its name, the group can also be the storage of weapons and explosives.

Before the Nordic group was classified as a terrorist organisation, the Trump administration named the far-right Russian Imperial Movement as a terrorist group in 2020.

Both groups are actually officially designated as Specially Designated Global Terrorists by the United States. As a result, these groups' assets are subject to a freeze, and anyone attempting to support them risks criminal prosecution for terrorist financing.

As a former State Department counterterrorism official with greater than a decade of experience Given that the United States sanctions terrorists under American law, I consider it is not any coincidence that the groups currently being targeted by US authorities are based in Europe and never within the United States.

Target for the acute right abroad

The threat posed by violent right-wing extremist actors is actually as serious in Europe because it is within the United States. But the US authorities haven’t any authority To legally sanction groups similar to the US-based Oath Keepers, Proud Boys or the Atomwaffen Division as terrorists.

Constitutional rights protecting freedom of speech, assembly and the correct to bear arms make it extremely difficult to sanction indigenous groups. In addition, all relevant decrees and laws are within the Anti-terrorist space is explicitly that the Foreign Ministry must name groups based abroad.

Since authorities' power to crack down on far-right groups within the United States is restricted, they’re as a substitute attempting to contain the influence of violent far-right ideology from abroad.

Nevertheless, the designation of only two violent right-wing extremist groups as “specially designated global terrorists” – 4 years apart – is disappointing to me, especially given the range of right-wing extremist threats scattered across the European continent.

The EU crime prevention agency, Europol, reported in its Report from December 2023 that there have been 45 arrests of right-wing extremists in 2022 and that the “threat from right-wing terrorist lone perpetrators who have become radicalized on the Internet remains significant.”

The most important attack was a October 2022 Shooting in Bratislava, Slovakia, outside an LGBTQ+ bar that left two people dead. Interestingly, Name of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Nordic Resistance Movement stressed that the group’s violent actions include an anti-LGBTQ+ platform.

Attacks on immigration

Shortly after the EU parliamentary elections, the Biden administration designated the Nordic Resistance Movement as a terrorist group that features right-wing extremist political groups achieved significant gains.

Right-wing extremist groups similar to the Alternative for Germany won seats for the primary time – 15 of them. The group promotes violence against immigrants – Communities often targeted by violent right-wing extremists similar to the Nordic Resistance Movement.

In fact, the Nordic group most notorious attack was carried out in January 2017 in a refugee center in Gothenburg, Sweden, during which an attempted bomb attack one person seriously injured.

The perpetrators of the attack were trained in a camp in Russia by the Russian Imperial Movement – ​​the group that the US State Department designated as a terrorist organization in 2020.

Recently, on June 18, former member of the Nordic group carried out a knife attack on a 12-year-old child born abroad in Finland.

Migration policy has long been the main focus of violent right-wing extremists, and politicians are increasingly being targeted.

In May 2024, for instance, a German centre-left politician was beaten up in an ideologically motivated attack while putting up election posters.

In one other attack, a politician in Dresden attacked by a gaggle on which “Heil Hitler” was allegedly shouted.

According to the Middlebury Institute’s Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism the goal of the Nordic group is to “overthrow democracy throughout the Nordic region and Scandinavia in order to establish a Nazi dictatorship inspired by the Third Reich.”

Groups similar to the Nordic Resistance Movement exploit the delicate and polarised European society and stoke fears that migrants pose a threat to the continent.

Protecting democracies

Against the backdrop of recent violent right-wing extremist attacks on politicians and immigrants, in addition to Results of the recent European electionsThe timing of the Biden administration's designation of the Nordic Resistance Movement as a company reflects growing fears in Washington that the political rise of the far right in Europe could encourage violent extremists to maneuver beyond chants, slogans and swastikas to mass shootings.

Nevertheless, the United States is less inclined to sanction far-right groups than a lot of its partners. The United Kingdom, for instance, has seven right-wing extremist organizations as terrorist organizations; for Canada the number is nine.

In short, despite its penchant for sanctioning enemies—from hostile states like Russia to terrorist groups like ISIS—the United States appears unwilling to completely exploit the terrorist designation options at its disposal against violent far-right actors.

And that, in my view, may very well be a cause for concern. Right-wing extremists from the US are known to have good connections with like-minded groups and individuals in Europe. The organizers of the 2017 Unite the Right white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, had alleged links to The banned Russian imperial movement.

By designating groups just like the Nordic Resistance Movement as terrorists, the Biden administration hopes to discourage Americans from supporting Europe's far-right. According to the State Department's order, any American who supports the group could find yourself behind bars.

At the identical time, the Biden administration's listing of the Nordic group can also be a signal to Europe that more terrorists with links to the acute right shall be added in the longer term.

Finally, the federal government has a Point to clarify that the Nordic group was named “after consultations with our European partners”.

And with several vital elections coming up in Europe, Biden's decision also represents an try to get up for democracy and resist groups that promote an “us versus them” narrative and define others worthy of attack as enemies.

If the designation of the Nordic Resistance Movement as a terrorist organization is an indication that more such designations are to return, it could further two of the Biden administration's stated goals: Promoting and protecting democracy abroad And Combating domestic terrorism.