Homeland Security News

A sprawling refugee camp in northeast Syria is described as a breeding ground for ISIS and a ticking time bomb. A few hundred U.S. allies guard the Al-Hol camp, where the strict laws of ISIS are followed.

The guards call the Syrian refugee camp the "Islamic State" because while they control the fence, inside, they said, ISIS is in charge. Ten thousand foreigners live there. They are wives and children of accused ISIS fighters. The men are mostly dead or in prison.

CBS News went inside and met women who wouldn't say where they come from, but sound British, and they defended ISIS terror attacks in Europe and the U.S.

"This is ISIS ideology, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. That's what it is," one woman said.

Read more: CBS News

Islamic State claimed responsibility for one of the deadliest attacks against the Burkina Faso military in recent months, the SITE website that tracks militant attacks reported on Thursday.

The attack took place on Aug. 20 in Koutougou, in the country’s northern Soum province. Militants killed 24 Burkinabe soldiers and injured seven others.

A statement from Islamic State quoted by SITE attributed the attack to the group’s West Africa branch.

Read more: Reuters

The Chinese state has come down not once, but twice, on Mayila Yakufu.

First, the 41-year-old insurance company worker was taken away for 10 months of “vocational training” in one of the internment camps China has set up in the mostly-Muslim Xinjiang region as part of an extensive campaign to strip the Uighur minority of its culture and language.

She was out for barely four months before the authorities picked her up again — this time for financing terrorism. Now, the single mother of three is in a prison for criminals, serving a sentence of unknown length.

Read more: Washington Post

The Nigerian army has ordered Action Against Hunger to close its main office in Maiduguri, in Nigeria’s north-eastern Borno state, amid allegations the group has been “aiding and abetting terrorism”.

Soldiers forced the organisation to stop its work in the region on 18 September.

The army says Action Against Hunger has been supplying terrorists with food and drugs and declared the agency, which has carried out humanitarian and development work for 40 years, “persona non grata”.

A spokesperson said the army had “observed with utter disappointment and concern the notorious activities of some non-governmental organisations working in the north-east”.

“The subversive … actions of the NGO Action Against Hunger persisted despite several warnings to desist from aiding and abetting terrorists and their atrocities,” added the spokesperson.

Read more: The Guardian (UK)

A New Jersey man has been indicted on charges that he secretly worked for the terrorist group Hezbollah, scouting potential targets in New York, including Grand Central Terminal, the New York Stock Exchange and the Port Authority Bus Terminal.

Charges were announced Thursday against Alexei Saab, 42, and the FBI said he had been part of Hezbollah for more than 20 years. He also tried to kill a man in Lebanon under orders from one of his instructors, but the gun didn’t fire, authorities said.

Court papers filed in Saab’s case also show that U.S. officials have gotten significant cooperation from a former member of Saab’s group who was arrested in 2017 and has since pleaded guilty.

Read more: Washington Post