Homeland Security News

There have been 27 reports of extremist activity by service members over the past five years, the Defense Department said in a 2018 letter addressed to then-Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn.

All but two of those 27 service members had been formally investigated and 18 service members were disciplined or separated from the military, the DoD said.

The letter from the Pentagon, dated Aug. 24, 2018, was sent to Ellison in response to his request for information related to supremacist and extremist activity across the military.

Ellison’s request was made following a bombshell ProPublica story that Marine Lance Cpl. Vasillios G. Pistolis had ties to a neo-Nazi group known as Atomwaffen Division.

The letter from the DoD may be the only hard data across the military of the number of service members participating in supremacist or extremist activities.

Read more: Marine Corps Times

Wall Street slipped on Monday on global growth worries after the weekend attack on Saudi Arabian crude facilities knocked out 5% of the world’s supply, while a more than 10% jump in oil prices lifted beaten-down energy stocks.

The attack on the world’s biggest oil exporter sent oil prices up as much as 20% before they eased off their peaks as U.S. President Donald Trump authorized the use of the country’s emergency oil stockpile to ensure stable supplies. [O/R]

The S&P 500 Energy .SPNY, one of the worst performing sectors this year, soared 3.18%, its best day since Jan. 4.

Read more: Reuters

Police in Minnesota on Sunday announced the arrest of a man in connection with a fire at a synagogue last week.

Matthew James Amiot, 36, was arrested on a felony charge of first-degree arson related to a fire at the Adas Israel Congregation synagogue in Duluth on Monday, Duluth police announced in a press conference on Sunday.

Duluth Police Chief Mike Tusken said Sunday that the investigation is "open and active" but authorities do not believe the fire was a hate crime.

Read more: UPI

When Islamic State gunmen stormed the northeast Nigerian town of Magumeri on the night of August 21, they had free rein.

Nigerian soldiers had left the town earlier that month under a new strategy of withdrawing to “super camps” that can be more easily defended against insurgents the army has been struggling to contain for a decade.

Unchallenged, the Islamist militants torched a clinic in Magumeri, ransacked government buildings and looted shops before returning to another town they had raided that night called Gubio, residents said.

Read more: Reuters