Latest Briefs
An al-Qaeda Threat in the United Arab Emirates?
Jihadi internet forums have picked up on recent British and American warnings about possible al-Qaeda terror attacks in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). One forum post, entitled “Is al-Qaeda overlooking the United Arab Emirates,” dismissed the suggestion that al-Qaeda is overlooking the UAE because al-Qaeda... MORE
BRIEFS
HEKMATYAR TELLS PAKISTANI TALIBAN TO STAY OUT OF AFGHANISTAN Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a veteran Afghan rebel and leader of the Hezb-i-Islami Party, has issued a statement asking members of the Pakistani Taliban to refrain from crossing the border to join the jihad in Afghanistan. The statement... MORE
The Paradise Boys: The Internal Debate over the Use of Child Jihadis in Iraq
Concerned about the future of al-Qaeda in Iraq due to the killing and arrests of its prominent leaders, jihadi forum participants have discussed the second generation of al-Qaeda (hanein.info, June 7). In the same context, other forum chatters discussed al-Qaeda’s recruitment of young children as... MORE
BRIEFS
TALIBAN CLAIM ARGHANDAB OCCUPATION A DIVERSION AND DEMONSTRATION OF STRENGTH Last week’s apparent attempt by the Taliban to occupy the Arghandab district of Kandahar province perplexed many observers. Following the successful raid and breakout of prisoners from Kandahar Prison on June 13, the large-scale operation... MORE
BRIEFS
AFGHANISTAN AND PAKISTAN AGREE TO IMPLEMENT BIOMETRIC SECURITY ON BORDER The governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan have agreed to adopt a high-tech method to address the ongoing problem of suspects wanted for terrorism and other crimes crossing their mutual border. At a June 8 meeting... MORE
Iraq’s Shia Reject Direction of U.S.-Iraqi Negotiations on Security Pact
The news of the security pact currently under negotiation by Baghdad and Washington that would allow the U.S. forces to stay in the country beyond the expiry of the UN mandate in December 2008 has generated swift reaction from Shia Iraqis (al-Jazeera, June 5). The... MORE
Military Commander of the Islamic Army of Iraq Describes Rift with al-Qaeda
In an interview in the May edition of the jihadi al-Fursan magazine of the Islamic Army of Iraq (IAI), the military leader of IAI, Abu al-Abbas al-Baghdadi, discussed the group’s military situation, the reasons for the decline in jihadi operations and current efforts to develop... MORE
Crackdown Highlights Deterioration of Moroccan-Belgian Counter-Terrorism Cooperation
Anti-terrorist cooperation between Morocco and Belgium reached its lowest point in the last few months as recent security operations conducted by Rabat exposed a lack of communication between the two nations and a vast difference in counter-terrorist methods. On May 19 Moroccan and Belgian media... MORE
White British Converts to Islam Pose Suicide-Bombing Threat in UK
Until recently, the idea of white British converts to Islam carrying out suicide bomb attacks in towns in England’s quiet, rural southwest would have been dismissed as fiction or fantasy. However, in the last two months two such attempts appear to have failed. In April,... MORE