In light of this issue's report on the Idarat al-Tawahhush and its view on the secondary importance of Afghanistan in al-Qaeda's global struggle, a further window into al-Qaeda's strategic thinking is provided by a Jordanian analyst Bassam al-Baddarin. Writing on March 11 for the Arabic... MORE

An interesting new publication to hit the web gives insight into the thinking of an al-Qaeda strategist on the next stages of the struggle. Posted on the al-Ikhlas jihadi forum [https://ekhlas.com/forum] the work is entitled Idarat al-Tawahhush, "The Management of Barbarism," further defined as "the... MORE

German Chancellor Gerhardt Schroeder's visit to Yemen in early March was well timed. Indeed, coinciding with the closing arguments in the New York terror trial of Yemeni cleric Mohammed Ali Hassan al-Moayad and his assistant, Mohammed Yahya Zayed, Schroeder's visit could easily be seen as... MORE

Taghout: ‘Tyrant' Originally a pre-Islamic idol, the term denotes any object or individual that prevents mankind from doing good. In jihadist literature it is commonly used to denote heads of state of Muslim countries which are not governed by Shari'a law. ‘Taghout' used as an... MORE

Philippine intelligence searching for suspects for the February 14 bomb attacks in Makati, Davao and General Santos - detailed in the last edition of Terrorism Focus - claim to have been swamped with raw information on plots to bomb shopping malls and transport systems. They... MORE

On February 24 the jihadist al-Qal'ah forum (www.qal3ati.net) ran a brief note on breaking events in Libya. Under the rubric: "Your brothers in Libya need your prayers," a contributor to the forum explained that: "For a week now, right up to the present hour, a... MORE

Participants to a jihadist forum have been troubled by another scare story that bin Laden has been arrested. Iranian websites, apparently quoting American officials, said that Osama bin Laden had been arrested in the beginning of February by Iranian forces, while moving along the border... MORE

While Bangladesh government spokesmen dismiss the notion of the presence of international Islamist militants in the country, and intelligence agents attempt to identify the local sources of a New York Times article in January that depicted ripe conditions for the "next Islamist revolution", events in... MORE

Posted on the jihadi forum al-Qal'ah (www.qal3ati.net), a new 44-page jihadi magazine, Dhurwat al-Sanam, "The Pinnacle", and subtitled the "Pinnacle of Islam" made its appearance on March 2. The magazine is billed as a "periodical issued by the information department of the Organization of the... MORE

The announcement on February 20 of the capture of Talib al-Dulaymi, known as Abu Qutayba, marks the latest in a string of arrests of high-ranking aides to Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi. Al-Dulaymi fell victim to the military operation conducted by U.S. and Iraqi troops termed "Operation... MORE