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

After the fall of Tripoli to fighters loyal to Libya’s National Transitional Council (NTC), the Syrian-based al-Rai TV station became the prime source of speeches of the toppled regime’s messages. Al-Rai aired audio messages and interviews with the ousted Libyan leader Colonel Mu’ammar al-Qaddafi and... MORE

The Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan (PKK – Kurdistan Workers Party) is a highly centralized organization guided by an almost cult-like worship of its imprisoned leader Abdullah Öcalan. There are however other individuals within the PKK who play a central role in its insurgent strategies and financing, like... MORE

Introduction  After the Anglo-American invasion that toppled the regime of the former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and his Arab Ba’ath Socialist Party, thousands of junior and senior members of the party fled the country. From their exile in Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Yemen and elsewhere, some... MORE

Taufik Buraga (a.k.a. Upik Lawanga) is a 34-year old high school-educated Indonesian jihadi from the small neighborhood of Tanah Runtuh, Poso on the island of Sulawesi (once known as Celebes). [1] He currently ranks as the foremost Jemaah Islamiyah (JI)-affiliated bomb expert. Since he set... MORE

“Demonstrating the continuation of the battle against the apostate regime of [Mu’ammar] al-Qaddafi through deliberate and planned action, and with the emphasis on the principle of strategic action, [we carried out an operation] against the tyrant Qaddafi in the city of Barak…last month, which had... MORE

Imam Abu Muhammad Abubakar bin Muhammad Shekau (a.k.a. Abu Shekau) has made clear that he is the sole leader of the northern Nigeria-based Islamist movement called Jama'atu Ahlis Sunnah Lidda'awati w’al Jihad, more commonly referred to as Boko Haram. However, he may be pulling the strings... MORE

Coming from obscurity, Mangal Bagh Afridi rose to power and notoriety by controlling Lashkar-e-Islam  (LI- the Army of Islam), the biggest and most influential militant group in Pakistan’s Khyber Agency. Khyber Agency is the most strategically important of the seven Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) in... MORE

Bangladesh’s Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) forces, the country’s elite anti-terror police, achieved a much awaited breakthrough barely within a week’s time in late April this year, when they apprehended three of the most wanted terror masterminds from different areas of the Dhaka Division. The RAB’s... MORE