AFGHANISTAN’S TALIBAN DECLARE VICTORY AS PEACE INITIATIVES GET UNDER WAY The opening of an Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan office in Qatar as the first step in a Qatar-backed Afghan reconciliation process has been interpreted by the Taliban as a sign of the movement’s “victory” in... MORE

STRUGGLE BETWEEN NORTH AND SOUTH SUDAN INCREASINGLY TIED TO PALESTINIAN-ISRAELI CONFLICT In late December, South Sudan president Salva Kiir made a state visit to Israel, meeting with President Shimon Peres, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman. The visit... MORE

DISSIDENT SOUTH SUDAN LEADER KILLED IN INTERNECINE CLASH Lieutenant General George Athor Deng, a dissident South Sudanese military veteran figure, was killed in a clash with the newly formed Republic of South Sudan’s border forces on December 19-though the exact date, location, and circumstances vary... MORE

SALAFISTS TARGET WORKS OF THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS Egypt’s Salafist parties, which did surprisingly well in the first round of parliamentary elections with 24% of the vote, have tried hard to present themselves as compatible with modern norms, so long as they fit the moral standards... MORE

SYRIAN OPPOSITION STATEMENTS DISAGREE ON APPROACHES TO RESISTANCE The Syrian revolt against the Assad regime has been particularly intense in the city of Homs, as has been the regime’s violent response. Homs-based opposition leader and self-described “field coordinator of the revolution in Homs” Husayn Iryan... MORE

LASHKAR-E-ISLAM LEADER TERRORIZES KHYBER AGENCY Mangal Bagh, the warlord-leader of the militant group Lashkar-e-Islam (LeI) has been putting fear into the residents of Khyber Agency, one of the seven constituent regions comprising the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) wedged between eastern Afghanistan and Pakistan’s Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa... MORE

IRGC COMMANDER DESCRIBES IRANIAN VICTORY OVER KURDISH INSURGENTS The commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corp maintains that it was the Guards’ ability to confront Kurdish guerrillas on their own terms that led to an apparent defeat of the Partiya Jiyana Azad a Kurdistane (Party... MORE

TALIBAN REJECT AMERICAN PERCEPTIONS OF THE HAQQANI-ISI RELATIONSHIP Following a series of high-level meetings between American and Pakistani security and military figures related to the operations of the notorious Haqqani Network in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region, the leadership of the Taliban’s Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan... MORE

A REVOLUTION IS NOT A JIHAD: A SALAFIST VIEW OF THE ARAB SPRING Mao Zedong once famously said “A revolution is not a dinner party.” Now, according to a Jordanian Salafi-Jihadist ideologue, “A revolution for a loaf of bread is not a jihad.”  Ahmad Bawadi,... MORE

YEMENI REGIME ACCUSES HAMID AL-AHMAR OF TRYING TO ASSASSINATE PRESIDENT SALEH A leading member of the Yemeni regime has accused prominent opposition leader Shaykh Hamid al-Ahmar of responsibility for the June 3 bombing of the presidential palace in Sana’a that nearly killed President Ali Abdullah... MORE