
Latest Terrorism Monitor Articles

Resolution of Turkey’s “Kurdish Question” in Critical Stage as PKK Threatens to End Peace Initiatives
Last October, eight unarmed Kurdish militants and 28 Kurdish civilians returned to southeast Turkey from bases of the Parti Karkerani Kurdistan (Kurdistan Workers’ Party - PKK) in northern Iraq. It was intended as the first of a series of government-sponsored “returns” of PKK activists and... MORE

Who Speaks for the Shi’a of Iraq?
Iraq’s Shi’a Arabs, the demographic majority with an estimated 60-70% of the population, wield the most political influence in Iraq. But the Shi’a of Iraq are a diverse group, with major regional differences between the Shi’a of Basra and the deep South and the Shi’a... MORE

Pakistani Taliban Display Effectiveness of their Intelligence Network with Attack on U.S. Special Forces
Following the Afghan Taliban intelligence coup that led to the late December suicide-bombing at an American base in Khost province that killed seven CIA agents, Pakistan’s Taliban have apparently scored an intelligence success of their own, exposing a secret U.S. operation in the North-West Frontier... MORE

Pakistani Responses to the CIA’s Predator Drone Campaign against the Taliban and al-Qaeda
Conventional wisdom in the West seems to have coalesced around the notion that the CIA’s airborne assassination campaign against al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistan’s remote FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Areas) is driving Pakistanis to new levels of anti-Americanism. Western news sources report routinely on... MORE

Bajaur Agency: The New Landscape of Insurgency in FATA
Amid conflicting reports that Pakistani Taliban Chief Hakimullah Mahsud has succumbed to his injuries after being targeted in a U.S. drone attack last month, there is also news that the deputy chief of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Maulvi Faqir Mohammad, has resigned from his position... MORE

Jihad and Islamism in the Maldive Islands
Maldivian President Mohammed Nasheed admitted in October, 2009 that hundreds of Maldivian Muslims had been recruited by Pakistan-based terrorist groups and are presently fighting against government forces in Pakistan. [1] The revelation by Nasheed was substantiated by video footage circulated by al-Qaeda’s media wing in... MORE

The People of Righteousness: Iraq’s Shi’a Insurgents Issue Demands for Hostages
The second man in the Iraqi Shi’a insurgent group Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq (The People of Righteousness – AAH), Shaykh Akram al-Ka’abi recently gave his first interview to the mainstream pan-Arab media. Al-Ka’abi talked to the London-based magazine al-Majalla, where he revealed that the AAH held... MORE

The Insurgent Rationale in Iraq
The string of high-profile bombings that followed the withdrawal of U.S. combat forces from Iraqi cities on June 30, 2009 exposed not only Iraqi security shortcomings, but also the continued effectiveness of the insurgents to carry out demanding operations. These types of operations suggest the... MORE

A Guide to Militant Groups in Kashmir
After a few years of relative calm, militancy is slowly but surely resurfacing in the Indian administered state of Jammu and Kashmir. In a smaller-scale repeat of Mumbai, two terrorists occupied the Punjab Hotel in downtown Srinagar on January 6. They remained held up there... MORE

Pakistan’s Military Examines its Options in North Waziristan
The United States has been pressuring Pakistan for several months to extend its counterinsurgency operations to North Waziristan. The U.S. perspective is that strong militant entities, especially the Haqqani group, the Hizb-i-Islami led by Gulbuddin Hekmaytar and Taliban forces under Hafiz Gul Bahadur are using... MORE