PKK’S CEMIL BAYIK EVALUATES STATE OF THE KURDISH INSURGENCY Cemil Bayik, a leading member of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (Partiya Karkeren Kurdistan – PKK), gave a lengthy interview to a Kurdish news agency on the current state of the PKK’s insurgency against the Turkish government... MORE

Reacting to the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) indictment of Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir, several jihadi internet forums discussed Sudan’s situation in response to a posting entitled “Goodbye Omar al-Bashir and Wake Up Sleeping Cells” (al-ekhlaas.net July, 20). Other assessments of Omar al-Bashir’s reign in Sudan... MORE

PAKISTAN’S FRONTIER CORPS ABANDON COLONIAL-ERA FORT TO TALIBAN Pakistan’s paramilitary Frontier Corps is pulling out of fortified positions in the Taliban hotbed of South Waziristan, including a 1930s-era colonial fort at Ladha that was the center of heavy fighting last January, when it came under... MORE

A Lebanese jihadi forum member posted a letter addressed to Osama Bin Laden entitled “An Open message from Beirut to Osama Bin Laden,” supposedly on behalf of Lebanese Sunnis. The message details the sectarian politics of Lebanon, highlights Hezbollah’s continuing attempts to take over Lebanon... MORE

A jihadi forum has posted an interview with a spokesman for the Islamic Front for Iraqi Resistance (al-Jabha al-Islamiya lil-Moqawama al-Iraqiya - JAMI), an Iraqi Sunni jihadi group (al-Boraq, July 4). The movement has a political wing and a military wing consisting of the Salah... MORE

As the regional head of a World Health Organization mission to central Somalia was leaving the local mosque after sunset prayers, a young man approached him, pointed a pistol to his head and pulled the trigger. Fortunately for Abdullahi Ahmad Ma’alin, the weapon failed to... MORE

BALOCHISTAN REBEL LEADER SEEKS OUTSIDE MILITARY SUPPORT While global attention remains focused on Taliban activities in Pakistan’s northwest frontier, heavy fighting has broken out in southwest Pakistan’s Balochistan province, where well-armed nationalist insurgents are battling detachments of the locally-raised Frontier Corps. While sparsely populated, Pakistan’s... MORE

In an attempt to anticipate and counter the tactics of Coalition forces, jihadis in Iraq are constantly posting their observations on the forces’ activities to internet forums. The jihadis believe in the importance of studying enemy tactics to pinpoint and overcome their own operational mistakes... MORE

The “Men of the Army of al-Naqshbandia Way” (Jaysh Rajal al-Tariqah al-Naqshbandia, or JRTN) is a Sunni jihadi group that first announced insurgency operations against the Coalition in Iraq in December 2006 in response to the hanging of Saddam Hussein (albasrah.net, December 30, 2006). Since... MORE

Presidential Envoy Visits North Ossetia and Ingushetia Vladimir Ustinov, the new presidential envoy to the Southern Federal District who visited Chechnya in May, made another trip to the North Caucasus last week, this time visiting North Ossetia and Ingushetia. Kommersant reported on July 19 that... MORE