Shaykh Ahmed Madobe is a very influential Islamist warlord in southern Somalia who has turned his guns on his former ally, the al-Qaeda linked Somali Islamist group al-Shabaab. His role was elevated in September 2009 when al-Shabaab fighters ousted his Ras Kamboni Brigade from Kismayo where... MORE

The Progeny  The third Uyghur to lead the jihad against the Chinese state over the “occupation” of Xinjiang, Abdul Shakoor Turkistani is the “Amir” of the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP). [1] [2] In this role, he succeeds two prominent Uyghur leaders—Abdul Haq al-Turkistani and Hahsan... MORE

After decades of carrying out unspeakable atrocities and thousands of kidnappings in Central Africa, the elusive commander of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), Joseph Kony, appears to have narrowly escaped capture by the Uganda People’s Defense Force (UPDF) twice in recent weeks. The UPDF emerged... MORE

Background  A ferociously combative polemicist, Abu Zar al-Burmi (a.k.a. Abu Zar Khanjari; Abu Zar Azzam)has been recently identified on jihadi forums as the mufti of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), one of the most radical groups based in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). [1]... MORE

One of the significant yet underreported impacts of the Arab Spring on the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan was the visible participation of jihadis protesting in the streets of Amman and other major Jordanian cities such as Ma’an, Salt, Irbid and Zarqa. Inspired by the power... MORE

The appearance of Shaykh Abdulcaadir Mumin, alongside al-Shabaab’s senior leadership, in May 2011 at the group’s official press conference acknowledging Osama bin Laden’s death was something of a coming out for Mumin. Largely unknown outside the Somali-speaking community, he has until now lurked in the... MORE

One of the key figures in al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), al-Qaeda’s North African franchise, is Abou Zeid. Though there is no agreement on his precise given name, it has recently emerged that his real name is likely Mohadem Ghadir, which surfaced among certain... MORE

Mishaal Tammo the widely respected 53-year-old leader (speaker) of the Syrian “Kurdish Future Movement” and also a member of the executive committee of the recently formed, broadly-based opposition Syrian National Council (SNC) was assassinated in the city of Qamishli, in northeastern Syria’s al-Hasakah Governorate on October 7,... MORE

In Yemen’s troubled governorate of Marib, the regime of President Ali Abdullah Saleh generally has maintained a hands-off policy toward the region’s autonomous tribes. For decades, tribal infighting plagued Marib to a degree that Saleh himself had little reason to worry about these heavily armed... MORE