AL-SHABAAB EXPANDS OPERATIONAL ZONE WITH KAMPALA BOMBING – BUT TO WHAT END?After several years of threats and warnings, al-Shabaab’s Somali jihad has finally spilled across Somalia’s borders to its East African neighbors. On July 11, bombs ripped through the Ethiopian Village Restaurant and the Kyadondo... MORE

DEFIANT AQIM CHALLENGES NEW REGIONAL COUNTERTERRORIST COMMAND WITH DEADLY CROSS-BORDER RAIDAl-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) answered the formation of a multinational counterterrorism center in the southern Algerian town of Tamanrasset by ambushing a patrol of Algerian border gendarmes close to Tin Zaouatine, roughly 40... MORE

FORMER TALIBAN COMMANDER ALLEGES UK SUPPORTS TALIBAN, REGRETS JOINING GOVERNMENT A former Taliban commander who, after his defection, was appointed Governor of the Musa Qala district of Helmand Province told an independent Afghan TV station that he now regrets his choice and foresees at least... MORE

NIGERIA’S IMAMS WARN OF THREAT FROM KALA KATO ISLAMIST MOVEMENT A group of Muslim imams in Nigeria’s northern Niger state have warned state governor Dr. Muazu Babangida Aliyu of the threat posed by a radical Islamic group known as Kala-Katu. The Imams urged the state... MORE

WILL INDIA DEPLOY ITS ARMY AGAINST MAOIST TERRORISTS?India is considering a large-scale redeployment of specialized counterterrorist commandos based in Kashmir-Jammu and a paramilitary force based in Northeast India to combat a growing Naxalite (Maoist) insurgency in East India. With nearly 300 deaths attributable to Naxalite... MORE

TURKS SUSPECT ISRAELI ROLE IN PKK ATTACK ON NAVAL BASE AT ISKENDERUNHours before the deadly Israeli raid on the Mavi Marmara and other ships carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza, an assault on Turkey’s Iskenderun Naval Base left seven servicemen killed and six injured (Firat, May... MORE

AFRICOM’S OPERATION FLINTLOCK: NEW PARTNERS AND NEW QUESTIONSIn the midst of a major drive to increase security in Africa’s Saharan and Sahel nations, American, African and European military forces have just concluded the latest version of Operation Flintlock (May 2-23), one in a series of... MORE

RUSSIAN NAVY TO USE PORT IN DJIBOUTI FOR ANTI-PIRACY OPERATIONSNews that the Russian Navy will begin using port facilities in Djibouti is further proof that the small, resource poor nation intends to take full advantage of its strategic location in the Horn of Africa (Shabelle... MORE

PROMINENT AL-SHABAAB LEADER WOUNDED IN MOGADISHU Shaykh Fuad Muhammad Khalaf (a.k.a. Fuad Shongole) was wounded in a large bombing in Mogadishu’s Abdallah Shidiye mosque which took the lives of at least 30 people and wounding scores of others in the Somali capital’s infamous Bakara market... MORE

WITH ELECTIONS OVER, KHARTOUM GOES ON THE OFFENSIVE IN DARFURThe leader of Darfur’s most effective rebel movement, the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), was recently in Cairo seeking greater Egyptian participation in negotiations between JEM and Sudan’s ruling National Congress Party (NCP). Dr. Khalil Ibrahim... MORE