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

“THE WAY OF WAR IS NOT PAVED WITH FLOWERS” – SIRAJUDDIN HAQQANI ON THE WAR IN AFGHANISTAN Thirty-year-old Sirajuddin Haqqani controls a powerful insurgent group known as the Haqqani Network along Afghanistan’s southeastern border with the Tribal Areas of north-west Pakistan, particularly in the provinces... MORE

CHADIAN OPPOSITION CLASHES WITH GOVERNMENT TROOPS Reports have emerged of a pair of battles on April 24 and April 28 between Chadian government forces and those of the Front Populaire pour la Renaissance Nationale (FPRN), one of a number of rebel movements seeking to overthrow... MORE

TTP COMMANDERS PROVIDE THEIR OWN PROOF OF LIFE Several Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) commanders whom the Pakistani Interior Ministry claimed were killed in an aerial assault earlier this year have been providing their own proof of life—their voices. In early March, Maulvi Faqir Mohammad called local... MORE

SHAYKH ABU AL-HARITH DESCRIBES SALAFIST OPPOSITION TO HAMAS AND ISRAELAs Hamas struggles with the transition from militant group to government in Gaza, the movement has lost much of the initiative in its confrontation with Israel to a number of Salafi-Jihadi groups that promise uncompromising resistance... MORE

LEBANESE FORCES LEADER DEMANDS INCORPORATION OF HIZBOLLAH’S WEAPONS INTO LEBANESE ARMYThe issue of who should control weapons belonging to the Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah continues to dominate meetings of Lebanon’s high-level National Dialogue Commission (founded in 2006). While Hezbollah insists on retaining its arms as... MORE

TUAREG REBEL LEADER RHISSA AG BOULA ARRESTED IN NIAMEYA Tuareg rebel leader who was sentenced to death in 2008 has been arrested in Niger’s capital of Niamey after returning from exile to negotiate peace with the government (Radio France Internationale, April 1). A veteran Tuareg... MORE

CONTROVERSIAL GATHERING OF ISLAMIC SCHOLARS REFUTES AL-QAEDA’S IDEOLOGICAL CORNERSTONEAl-Qaeda and related Islamist militant groups have long relied on the works of a 14th century Syrian-born Islamic scholar for the ideological underpinnings of their radical approach to religion and politics. Shaykh Taqi al-Din ibn Taymiyya (1263-1328)... MORE

SOMALI SUFIS ENTER GOVERNMENT AS AL-SHABAAB CONTINUES ITS WAR ON THE DEADFollowing an earlier campaign of grave desecrations and exhumations in southern Somalia, al-Shabaab militants have now turned their attention to the graves of respected Islamic scholars and Sufi leaders in Mogadishu. Heavily armed detachments... MORE