In October 2018, the Taliban announced that Mullah Mohammad Fazl, Khairullah Khairkhwa, Abdul Haq Wasiq, Norullah Noori, and Mohammad Nabi would be among its representatives at upcoming talks with the United States. The five, who were imprisoned at the U.S. military detention facility at Guantanamo,... MORE

Long-time al-Qaeda operative Jamal al-Badawi was killed in what U.S. military officials called a “precision airstrike” on January 1 in the Yemeni governorate of Marib (al-Jazeera, January 6). Al-Badawi was a key accomplice in the October 2000 al-Qaeda led attack on the USS Cole in... MORE

Twenty-eight years after taking power by force, Chadian President Idriss Déby Itno faces extremely difficult economic and security challenges. Chadians form one of the most impoverished populations in the world, relying on agro-pastoral pursuits for survival despite being an oil-producing nation. Formed from the tiny... MORE

Introduction   In November 2018, Salah Badi hit the international headlines when the UN Sanction Committee imposed a number of sanctions on him (UN, November 16, 2018, US Department of State, November 19, 2018; France Diplomatie, November 19, 2018; UK Foreign Office, November 16, 2018).... MORE

On November 29, 2018, the Iraqi National Intelligence Service (INIS) announced that it had arrested Jamal al-Mashhadani, a senior member of Islamic State (IS). Al-Mashhadani occupied senior positions in IS, including as the provincial ruler (Wali) of IS’ self-districted provinces of North Baghdad, Kirkuk. He... MORE

Recently, a senior Iranian national security official stated that his country would utilize its proxy forces in Lebanon and Gaza to unleash an “inferno” on Israel (Times of Israel [Jerusalem], January 29). These comments come as Israel has increased its military activities against Iran in... MORE

Despite the United Nations-backed peace talks to end the war in Yemen—which recently concluded in Stockholm, Sweden—the Saudi-led international coalition continues to conduct a campaign to capture the northwest Yemeni governorate of Sa’dah, on the Yemeni-Saudi border, from the Ansar Allah (Partisans of God, a.k.a.... MORE

Shaykh Mukhtar Robow Ali—a.k.a Abu Mansur (Mansoor)—a former deputy leader of al-Shabaab, has fallen-out with the Somalia government, barely a year after his defection from the al-Qaeda affiliate in East Africa. Robow, who switched his allegiance in August last year, was arrested on December 13... MORE

With the dream of a Caliphate coming to an ignominious end, and Islamic State (IS) insurgents either being killed or fleeing from Syria and Iraq, female jihadists have been subjected to prosecution and captivity. As an increasing number of European women publicly plead for repatriation,... MORE

The Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad has continued through 2018 to reverse the direction of the Syrian civil war in its favor. Al-Assad’s forces are now in control of much of Syrian territory, except for the country’s northern provinces, controlled by Turkish-backed opposition groups,... MORE