The ceaseless destruction of Somalia by internecine clan warfare, sectarian conflict and foreign intervention continues to garner headlines in the international media; yet across Somalia’s border with Ethiopia there is an ongoing conflict involving ethnic Somalis in a remote and inhospitable region that has had... MORE

Amari Saifi, better known as Abderrezak al-Para (The Parachutist), was a rising star in the Algerian Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, GSPC (Groupe Salafiste pour la Prédication et le Combat). However, his path as an Islamist militant leader was cut short when he was... MORE

Maulana Abdul Aziz Ghazi, the elder brother of Abdul Rasheed Ghazi of Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) infamy is probably the most notable Islamic ideologue in Pakistan’s rapidly radicalizing society (The Nation [Lahore], July 3, 2007). [1] With a following of thousands of diehard Islamists who... MORE

Mallojula Koteshwar Rao, better known by the nom de guerre Kishenji, is the military leader of the Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-M) and may have recently surpassed the leaders of Pakistan’s Lashkar-e-Tayyba as the biggest security headache for India’s ruling elites in New Delhi. Kishenji... MORE

Nasir al-Wuhayshi (a.k.a Abu Basir) appeared in a video in January 2009 to announce the merger between al-Qaeda branches in Saudi Arabia and Yemen under his command. The new organization was given the name Qaedat al-Jihad in the Arabian Peninsula (al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula,... MORE

The late leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi, who was killed on June 7, 2006 in a U.S. missile strike, always had ambitions to create a Salafi-jihadi movement in the Levant region. [1] Zarqawi worked to achieve his goal since the establishment of... MORE

Indonesian authorities killed one of the most wanted members of Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), Joko Pitoyo (a.k.a. Dulmatin) in a shootout at a Jakarta Internet café on March 10, 2010, (see Militant Leadership Monitor, March 2010; Christian Science Monitor, March 10, 2010). The presence of Dulmatin... MORE

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) consists of several divisions: the Shura Council, which is the highest authority of the organization; the Media division; the Military division; and the Shari’a committee, which includes individuals such as Ibrahim al-Rubaish, Khaled Batarfi (a.k.a. Abu Miqdad al-Kindi) and... MORE

Western anxiety over the spread of al-Qaeda-style Islamist militancy in the vast and inhospitable Sahara and Sahel regions of northern Africa has had unforeseen consequences for the survival of hardcore nomadic rebels operating in this eternally porous region. For ethnic-Tuareg insurgent leaders like Mali’s Ibrahim... MORE

The Talibanization of Pakistan’s North Waziristan Agency (NWA) and South Waziristan Agency (SWA) in 2004-2006 stirred great concern within the international community with regard to Pakistan’s long-term security and increasing instability. It was perhaps the fall of the Swat district of Malakand Division in the... MORE