On January 15 al-Qaeda in Iraq announced that it had set up an umbrella body with five other militant groups in Iraq, called the Mujahideen Shura Council, to coordinate the fight against the U.S.-led forces and confront the "Crusaders and their Rafidi (Shi'ite) and secularist... MORE

Kenya is widely remembered as the site of the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombing that killed over 200 people and cast al-Qaeda into international prominence. The attack was followed by a 2002 suicide car bombing that targeted a hotel popular with Israelis near Mombassa and the... MORE

Government authorities achieved a recent success in the battle against jihadists in Algeria, but the development comes at a time when the threat posed by the group may be more significant outside the country's borders. The Algerian daily Le Jeune Independant (www.jeune-independant.com) reported on January... MORE

Investigations into Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad bil-Maghrib (the Monotheism and Jihad group in Morocco) cells broken up by Moroccan security have revealed the inroads al-Qaeda has made into the region (see Terrorism Focus, Volume II, Issue 22). From the testimony of the arrested Belgian national Mohamed... MORE

In an interesting new development, the al-Qaeda network is making strides to present itself as a permanent cultural--as well as military--phenomenon. An October 7 posting on the al-Farouq jihadi forum (www.al-farouq.com) by Ahmad al-Wathiq bi-Llah, the "deputy general emir" of the Global Islamic Media Front,... MORE

On November 14, a posting on the al-Hesbah jihadi forum (www.alhesbah.org) displayed a novel use of the Internet. Entitled the "Pledge of Death in God's Path," the posting by the Global Islamic Media Front (GIMF) called for forum participants, on "Day One of the Great... MORE

The latest Sawt al-Khilafa (Voice of the Caliphate) broadcast by the Global Islamic Media Front (GIMF) was distributed on the forums on November 20, and again demonstrated the strategic value of the media for the mujahideen. With a new interview format, entitled "To Be Continued,"... MORE

Indonesian counter-terrorism officials announced a conspicuous success on November 9 with the cornering and subsequent suicide in East Java of Azahari Husin, the top militant and fugitive suspected of involvement in the 2002 and 2005 Bali explosions and the 2004 bombing of the Australian embassy... MORE

The fifth and latest edition of the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) magazine al-Jama’ah was distributed over the forums on October 21-22. As expected, outside the customary ideological literature, much of the issue is dedicated to the question of the amnesty referendum, which... MORE

On October 23 a statement was distributed on the jihadi forum Minbar Suriya al-Islami (www.nnuu.org/vb) from the Mujahideen in Morocco that “the time draws right for the decisive date, the date of the declaration of Jihad against the Infidel and Tyrant state, whose heads have... MORE