From the Liveblog of
Thursday, March 25, 2021
US heading anti-jihadist intelligence sharing operation — report
Some 30 countries have been sharing intelligence about jihadist terror organizations at a secret site with the aim of facilitating prosecutions, French newspaper Le Monde reports online.
The “Gallant Phoenix” project, created in 2016, is being headed by the United States and located at a US Army base in Jordan, the daily says.
It seeks to collect and centralize traces left online by terrorists, remnants from jihadist actions anywhere in the world and even the personal belongings of Islamists seized after arrest, all to help prosecutions and provide evidence at trials.
The main contributors to the sharing effort are the Iraqi army, Kurdish forces, NATO allies and the members of the international military coalition against the Islamic State group.
Le Monde says military intelligence units are always eager to collect and evaluate objects left behind by enemy combatants, but “‘Gallant Phoenix’ gives this collection of evidence a framework and a system.”
Some 700 documents relating to 500 jihadists have been handed over by Phoenix to ongoing investigations into acts of terror, the report says.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
The Times of Israel Community.