AL-QAEDA SUPPORT IN NORTHERN MALI BEGINS TO CRUMBLE AS ALLIES PULL BACK It was an alliance that shocked security professionals and political observers—a coalition of Tuareg military veterans, Muslim militants from West Africa and one of al-Qaeda’s most active and vicious regional chapters, al-Qaeda in... MORE

ALGERIA WORKING TO SPLIT TUAREG ISLAMISTS FROM AL-QAEDA IN NORTHERN MALI Algeria has modified its stance on the conflict in northern Mali by dropping its insistence on a mediated settlement based on dialogue in favor of a growing willingness to consider the military option to... MORE

LIBYAN ISLAMIST ABD AL-HAKIM BELHADJ ON BENGHAZI CONSULATE ATTACK One of the most prominent Islamists to emerge as a political power in Libya’s post-Qaddafi era has offered his views on the controversial September 11 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi that left four Americans dead.... MORE

FORMER MILITANTS OF EGYPT’S AL-GAMA’A AL-ISLAMIYA STRUGGLE FOR POLITICAL SUCCESS For decades one of Egypt’s most violent extremist groups, al-Gama’a al-Islamiya (GI) has been engaged in a struggle to establish itself as an Islamist political party in post-revolutionary Egypt. Though traditionally a Salafist-Jihadi movement, GI... MORE

KENYAN NAVY SOFTENS UP KISMAYO PRIOR TO AMISOM ATTACK Kenya’s navy continues to play an important role in the multi-national struggle against Somalia’s al-Qaeda affiliated al-Shabaab movement by shelling the Shabaab-held port of Kismayo in southern Somalia. These operations come at a time when Kenya... MORE

MALI’S SELF-DEFENSE MILITIAS TAKE THE RECONQUEST OF THE NORTH INTO THEIR OWN HANDS With the Malian Army still in disarray, the United States urging caution and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) demanding the formation of a government of national unity before taking... MORE

WAS AL-QAEDA’S SAHARAN AMIR MOKHTAR BELMOKHTAR KILLED IN THE BATTLE FOR GAO? Though al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) continues to deny the death of one of its leading amirs in the late June battle for the northern Malian city of Gao, the movement has... MORE