PAKISTAN RELEASES LASHKAR-E-JHANGVI LEADER Pakistan’s Supreme Court has released Malik Mohammed Ishaq on bail, a key figure in the Sunni sectarian outfit Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), after 14 years in prison (AFP, July 14). Ishaq is believed to have masterminded the deadly attack on the Sri Lankan... MORE

AFGHAN TALIBAN CONDEMN CIA FOR “DIABOLIC” HACKING OF THEIR OFFICIAL WEBSITE Various reports claiming the death of Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Muhammad Omar have emerged in the last year, all of them apparently false. The latest report of his death was the most unusual, as... MORE

HUNDREDS OF EGYPTIAN POLICE DISMISSED AS TROOPS RIOT IN ALEXANDRIA As protesters return to the streets of Cairo and other Egyptian cities to try to force an acceleration in the pace of post-revolutionary political reform, Egypt’s Interior Ministry has dismissed 669 police officers, including many... MORE

CHADIAN REGIME AND REBELS ALIKE WELCOME TALK OF ENDING FRENCH MILITARY PRESENCE Indications from Paris that France may be ready to bring an end to Opération Épervier, its 25-year-old military mission in Chad, have been welcomed by both the government of President Idriss Déby and... MORE

UGANDA REORGANIZES MILITARY TO PRESS WAR AGAINST SOMALIA’S AL-SHABAAB Even as Somalia’s fragile Transitional Federal Government (TFG) threatens to collapse, Uganda is shaking up its military structure in order to sustain what it sees as some hard-won momentum in its struggle with al-Shabaab militants in... MORE

TALIBAN SUSPECT U.S. DRAWDOWN IN AFGHANISTAN A COVER FOR PERMANENT BASESAfghanistan’s Taliban movement has reacted to Washington’s announcement that it would begin a phased military withdrawal from Afghanistan, beginning with the withdrawal of 10,000 troops by the end of the year. In an official statement... MORE

KILLING OF ‘THE COMORIAN’ AT MOGADISHU CHECKPOINT PROVIDES DETAILS ABOUT WIDENING SOMALI INSURGENCY IN AFRICA The alleged mastermind behind the coordinated August 7, 1998 East Africa embassy bombings called Fazul Abdullah Mohammed (a.k.a. Harun; Haroon), sometimes referred to as ‘The Comorian’ in counterterrorism circles, was... MORE

NIGERIA’S BOKO HARAM ISSUES CONDITIONS AMIDST WAVE OF ISLAMIST VIOLENCE A continuing wave of extremist violence sweeping northern Nigeria arrived in the Nigerian capital of Abuja on June 16, when a massive car bomb was only narrowly prevented from destroying the national police headquarters and... MORE

DISSIDENT GENERAL CLAIMS YEMENI PRESIDENT MANIPULATED AL-QAEDA PRESENCE TO ENSURE HIS PERSONAL RULEIn a recent interview with a pan-Arab daily, Yemen’s Major General Ali Muhsin Saleh al-Ahmar claimed that President Ali Abdullah Saleh (now receiving medical treatment in Saudi Arabia after being seriously wounded in... MORE

ALAWI CONTROL OF THE SYRIAN MILITARY KEY TO REGIME’S SURVIVALWith its central doctrines carefully guarded as religious secrets, the true essence of Alawism has proved elusive to many who have tried to define it. Alawism is primarily a syncretistic belief system that incorporates large doses... MORE