Homeland Security News

Sri Lanka’s president has pardoned 16 men linked to the Tamil Tiger rebels, as the island nation faces renewed pressure from the United Nations over detentions without charge under an anti-terrorism law.

Thursday’s pardon is a first for people linked to the Tigers since Gotabaya Rajapaksa came to power in 2019 on a nationalist agenda, which included a promise that troops who crushed the rebels would not be prosecuted.

The men were convicted under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) that gives security forces sweeping powers to arrest and detain suspects. The UN Human Rights Council and other international rights groups have called for it to be repealed.

Read more: Al Jazeera

A summit of southern African leaders has agreed to send a regional military force to Mozambique to help the country battle its growing crisis caused by a jihadi insurgency.

Leaders of the 16-nation Southern African Development Community agreed Wednesday to deploy a military force to help the Mozambican government “combat terrorism and acts of violent extremism.”

The Islamic extremists’ violent campaign in Mozambique’s northern province of Cabo Delgado has caused a rapidly escalating humanitarian crisis. The jihadi violence is blamed for the deaths of more than 2,000 people and has caused more than 700,000 to flee their homes.

The brief statement, issued after a summit in Mozambique’s capital of Maputo, did not give details on the size of the force or when troops would be sent. Earlier this year military experts from the group recommended that the regional body send in about 3,000 soldiers, with arms, helicopters, airplanes and naval capacity.

Read more: AP

Mariam Taha Thompson, 62, formerly of Rochester, Minnesota, was sentenced today to 23 years in prison for delivering classified national defense information to aid a foreign government. As part of her March 26 guilty plea, Thompson admitted that she believed that the classified national defense information that she was passing to a Lebanese national would be provided to Lebanese Hezbollah, a designated foreign terrorist organization.

“Thompson’s sentence reflects the seriousness of her violation of the trust of the American people, of the human sources she jeopardized and of the troops who worked at her side as friends and colleagues,” said Assistant Attorney General John C. Demers for the Justice Department’s National Security Division. “That Thompson passed our nation’s sensitive secrets to someone whom she knew had ties to Lebanese Hezbollah made her betrayal all the more serious. Thompson’s sentence should stand as a clear warning to all clearance holders that violations of their oath to this country will not be taken lightly, especially when they put lives at risk.”

Read more: Department of Justice

A former Toronto IT worker, known as the “voice of ISIS” because he narrated its gruesome execution videos, is being investigated by the RCMP for “serious terrorism offences,” a court document unsealed Tuesday reveals.

The RCMP alleged in the top-secret affidavit it had reason to believe Mohammed Khalifa, a Canadian citizen captured in Syria by U.S.-backed Kurdish forces in January 2019, had committed four terrorism offences.

He remains in custody in Syria.

The evidence against him includes papers that were uncovered by the U.S. military in Raqqa after ISIS was ousted from its former capital in October 2017, the RCMP affidavit alleged.

Read more: Global News (Canada)

Counter-terrorism police have charged a 29-year-old man with possessing and sharing extremist material online.

Musa Muhammad, from Dunsink Road in Witton, Birmingham, was due to appear at Westminster Magistrates' Court on Thursday, West Midlands Police said.

He is charged with three counts of sharing extremist material online under Section 2 of the Terrorism Act 2006.

Mr Muhammad was arrested last week and taken to a police station in the West Midlands, the force said.

Read more: BBC News