The confirmation by U.S. officials on October 5 that Adnan El-Shukrijumah, a high-ranking al-Qaeda leader, had attempted to obtain radioactive material for the production and smuggling of a ‘dirty bomb' into the United States, focused media attention on the ongoing pursuit of this al-Qaeda leader... MORE

Under the barrage of daily news reports detailing armed attacks by militants, it might appear over-optimistic to sound the last post for an Islamist insurgency that has since 1992 accounted for 150,000 deaths in Algeria. The extremist Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) had... MORE

A flurry of intense interest has greeted the revelation, made on October 28, that al-Qaeda had issued a videotape a few days earlier warning that the next terror attack would "dwarf 9/11." The veiled speaker goes on to describe how "the streets will run with... MORE

President Pervez Musharraf's surprise initiative, revealed on October 25, to solve the Kashmir dispute which has plagued relations with India for almost 60 years, has plunged political circles in Pakistan into turmoil. The initiative, broadly speaking, is an examination of a number of options to... MORE

On October 15 the Muslim month of Ramadan kicked off with a crop of attacks, justifying Iraqi fears that the traditional holy month of fasting and prayer has been transformed into a harbinger of violence. On that day a powerful car bomb exploded in Baghdad... MORE

The pace of violence in southern Thailand continues to rise, and is fast taking on the appearance of a prototype to a full-blown insurgency. The rate of killing accelerated markedly last April when over 100 Islamist militants were killed by security forces. Earlier this month... MORE

As highlighted in the last edition of Terrorism Focus, the pace of violence, now a series of daily incidents, is confirming the impression of pre-insurgency conditions. The warnings issued by the Patani United Liberation Organization (PULO) website (www.pulo.org) "to avoid police stations, railway stations and... MORE

The mujahideen in Iraq continue to demonstrate a high degree of sensitivity to the pronouncements of religious clerics on the propriety of jihadist violence. The most conspicuous example of this came in the surprising announcement by Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi, published November 5 on an Islamist... MORE

The al-Jazeera TV channel ran an audio tape given on November 1 by Shaykh Hammud bin Sa'ud al-Utaybi, one of the 26 names on the wanted list in Saudi Arabia. Delivered at the same time as bin Laden's address, he urged the Muslims to fulfill... MORE

On November 10 the latest issue of al-Qaeda's online journal Mu'askar al-Battar (no. 22) was posted on al-Ma'sada, a jihadist internet forum (www.alm2sda.net – section "Jihadi Cells' [Muntada al-Khalaya al-Jihadiyya]). Outside the standard on-going features on weaponry – in this issue specializing on the use... MORE