US "took major strides last year" against terror, per @StateDept's Amb Nathan Sales on the new 2019 State Department Country Reports on Terrorism
Hails defeat of #ISIS caliphate... repeats that US now focused more heavily on ISIS & #alQaida affiliates in #Africa
#ISIS - "It's evolved" from an entity that purported to control territory to a global network that reaches almost every continent" per @StateDept's Sales
US remains worried about rise in racially/ethnically motivated terrorism, per @StateDept's Amb Sales "We're particularly concerned about white supremacist terrorism"
"We're using the full suite of counterterrorism tools" against white supremacist terrorism, per Sales
#Taliban - #alQaida - US expects #Taliban to make "a clean break" from terrorist groups, per @StateDept's Nathan Sales, adding US has met its obligations under its deal with the Taliban
"We expect the #Taliban to live up to the commitments they have made" per Sales "We will be monitoring very closely"
"We are aggressively using our authorities to target foreign individuals and foreign groups" that threaten American lives, per @StateDept's Sales on white supremacist threat
"This is a priority that this administration has put at the top of the queue"
#Iran-terrorism: "It is a state - it has the capabilities and it has the resources of a state" per @StateDept's Amb Sales "It is a reason for severe concern"
Sales says he's surprised Iran isn't mentioned even more in the 2019 Country Terror report
MORE from @StateDept 2019 Country Reports on Terror
"The United States & our partners made major strides to defeat and degrade international terrorist organizations" per report "Despite these successes, dangerous terrorist threats persisted..."
#ISIS "adapted to continue the fight from its affiliates across the globe" per @StateDept report
Report cites concerns about ISIS activity across #Africa and in south/southeast #Asia
#ISIS, #alQaida in #Africa - "The number of attacks in the Western Sahel region increased 250% since 2018" per @StateDept "Partner countries remain strong willed against terrorism but lack the means to contain or degrade the threat on a sustained basis"
US partners seeing persistent threat from at-large #ForeignFighters
"Southeast #Asia|n governments remained concerned about foreign terrorist fighters (FTFs) returning from #Iraq or #Syria...using their operational skills, connections & experience to launch domestic attacks"
#Malaysia "remained a source, a transit point, and, to a lesser extent, destination country for terrorist groups including #ISIS, #AbuSayyaf Group (ASG), #alQaida, & Jemaah Islamiyah" per @StateDept report
NEW: US charges American TV presenter for Channel One #Russia & his wife in scheme to evade US sanctions
@TheJusticeDept unsealed the indictment vs 76yo Dimitri Simes & 55yo Anastasia Simes Thursday
They have a home in #Virginia but "remain at large...believed to be in Russia"
Dimitri & Anastasia Simes each charged w/1 count of conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), 1 count of violating the IEEPA & 1 count of conspiracy to commit int'l money laundering
Per @TheJusticeDept, it's a maximum of 20 years per count
Dimitri Simes alleged to have violated sanctions by "serving as a presenter & producer of programming, & by receiving over $1 million, a personal car & driver, a stipend for an apartment in #Moscow... a team of 10 employees from Channel One Russia" per DOJ
Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin 'Attash & Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi were charged in June 2008 & then again in May 2012 for their alleged roles in planning the September 11, 2001 terror attacks on #NewYork's World Trade Center & the Pentagon
JUST IN: US issues new National Counterintelligence Strategy
Updated strategy, signed by @POTUS Thursday, based on 3 pillars, per @NCSCgov:
-outmaneuver/constrain foreign intelligence entities
-protect US strategic advantages
-invest in the future
"Foreign intelligence and security services & their proxies persist in seeking to acquire our most
sensitive information, technology, and intellectual property" per @POTUS in the just-released strategy
"Non-state actors are following suit"
Foreign intelligence entities "also seeking to take advantage of the proliferation of commercially available tools to conduct surveillance; collect vast amounts of previously unavailable personal data;
& position themselves to disrupt our infrastructure..." per @POTUS
Some nuggets from @FBI Dir. Christopher Wray's appearance Tuesday before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies...
#ArtificialIntelligence & #Election2024-"We are, of course, seeing & I've been warning about this for some time, the role of AI to enhance efforts that our foreign adversaries have already been engaged in" per @FBI's Wray
"It's not that it [#ArtificialIntelligence] changes fundamentally what it is our adversaries want to do...it allows them to amplify to do it, to make it more sophisticated, more deceptive, cheaper, faster" per @FBI's Wray