Terrorism

Strange things are happening with Dr. Sebastian Gorka. In a clip that circulated widely yesterday, the deputy assistant to the President was asked by Breitbart's Alex Marlow whether he thought right-wing terror is currently a threat in the US. Gorka brought up Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes – unprompted – claiming they had lauded Sharia law and said Muslim states were better than America. “I’m not sure that Nick Fuentes or Tucker Carlson are conservatives... If you remove those individuals and you understand that they're not conservatives, what's left?” Judging by those comments, it seems that Gorka, as Trump’s senior director of counterterrorism, regards the two podcasters as domestic security threats.

As the appalling story of Sunday’s anti-Jewish mass shooting at Sydney’s Bondi Beach continue to unfold, and 16 people are now dead, there have been few glimmers of light in the darkness. The men identified as the shooters are a father and son, Sajid Akram, 50, and Naveed Akram, 24. The father was shot and killed by police last night, and the son was overpowered and taken into custody. The New South Wales police commissioner says little is yet known about the pair, but Sajid Akram was a licensed gun owner, with six guns in his possession. Old social media posts have also emerged of Naveed Akram being praised for his Islamic studies in 2022.

I was on my way to synagogue yesterday when I got news that was surprising and unsurprising at the same time. That there had been an attack at a Manchester synagogue on Yom Kippur was a shock, but only the location and the timing. The fact that terror had struck our community felt like the confirmation of our worst fears – and something that was grimly predictable.  For as long as I can remember, Jewish life in the UK has been closely guarded and protected. My childhood synagogue in the leafy London suburb of Surbiton was behind locked gates with security guards posted outside when anyone was in the building. My Jewish newspaper office today has similar protections and an address we’re told must never be made public.

Charlie Kirk, conservative commentator and essential piece of the Trumpworld media ecosystem, is dead, allegedly at the hands of an individual whose inner life has, needlessly, been the subject of conservative speculation for the past few days. Seemingly, every faction of the American right has their own explanation as to how this young man might have been inspired to commit such an atrocity. Many of these are myopic but perhaps have a kernel of truth to them. Others are plainly wrong. The worst of them play right into the hands of the left, and deserve serious reconsideration. Details about Tyler Robinson, the suspected gunman, continue to pour in.

Will Saudi Arabia ever be held to account for the 9/11 terror attacks? For decades, the Kingdom has successfully parried lawsuits in the United States accusing it of providing logistical and financial support to a network of Islamic extremists who launched a global terror campaign, culminating in the September 11 attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center. Those attacks occurred 24 years ago and since then survivors and victims of the 9/11 hijackings have had to counter not only vigorous Saudi denials mounted by their well-funded American legal team but also repeated attempts by the US government to thwart the lawsuits. But there are signs the pendulum has begun to swing the other way. On August 28, US District Judge George B.

Since the 2024 presidential election, America has been braced for violence from the political far-left — and with good reason. Extremists like antifa, the “anti-fascist” group, are explicitly aggressive. They think looting, arson and intimidation are all acceptable, and until very recently they’ve had the support of the establishment. For a decade their liberal allies gave antifa carte blanche to cause criminal damage in the name of “resisting fascism” or opposing racism. So where is antifa now? What is it planning? It’s an understandable concern. The citizens of Portland remember all too well the bouts of rioting and violence by Black Lives Matter-antifa in November 2016, when Hillary Clinton lost to Trump.

You've been warned: a fight over the government’s ability to spy on its own citizens is coming to Congress. Section 702 is up for renewal again in December. Section 702 grew out of an illegal post-9/11 program called Stellarwind, exposed by NSA whistleblower Tom Drake. It refers to a provision of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) that was enacted in 2008. It authorizes the government to collect the communications of non-Americans located outside of the United States for the purpose of obtaining foreign intelligence information. But the program also allows for the incidental collection of information about Americans who may be communicating with the targeted foreigners.