The execution of Saddam Hussein on December 30, 2006, led to the cleaving of his Ba’ath party over the question of succession. At that time, the party which had ruled Iraq for 35 years and had hundreds of thousands in its membership was significantly degraded.... MORE

In the mid-1990s, Saudi authorities clamped down on the relatively centrist Islamist opposition led by two prominent shaykhs at the helm of the al-Sahwa (awakening) movement named Salman al-Ouda and Safar al-Hawali. The crackdown on al-Ouda and al-Hawali resulted in a gap in the religious... MORE

Mohammed Azam Cheema (a.k.a. Baba/Babaji) is widely regarded as the “number three” of Lashkar-e-Taiba’s (LeT) anti-Indian operations. Azam Cheema has masterminded several high-profile attacks against India over the years from his safe haven in the dusty city of Bahawalpur in Pakistan’s southern Punjab Province on... MORE

Following the discovery of explosive-laden packages addressed to synagogues in Chicago, renewed attention has focused on al-Qaeda’s highly innovative branch in Saudi Arabia and Yemen, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). The two packages, each containing an odorless plastic explosive called pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN), were... MORE

Since the capture of Abimael Guzmán, the principal leader of the Shining Path (El Sendero Luminoso-SL), 18 years ago, many in Peru believed the Maoist insurgency that had plagued Peru’s countryside since 1980 had ended permanently. The Shining Path was thought to be a spent... MORE

With the January 9, 2011, referendum on South Sudanese independence only weeks away, a long-time rebel commander turned politician stands to become the first president of a new African nation with both abundant oil reserves and a highly uncertain future. Salva Kiir Mayardit, a Roman... MORE

The term “special groups” has been used by coalition forces in Iraq since 2006 in reference to splinter groups of Moqtada al-Sadr’s Jaish al-Mahdi (the Mahdi Army – JaM). These groups were accused of being controlled by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps and not following the... MORE

The outgoing chief of the Tripura state police, Pranay Sahay, informed the public during a briefing on October 11 that the top militants of the state are still operating from neighboring Bangladesh, but their strengths are fast dwindling due to the positive approach of the... MORE

Background Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister, envisioned India to operate as an inclusive, secular democracy. Secularism was a core value in the founding of the Indian National Congress in 1885, long before independence from the British Crown. Nehru’s secularist ideology, ideally, attempted to prevent... MORE