Modern Islamic militancy emerged in Indonesia during the late 1940s and the early 1950s. Darul Islam (Abode of Islam), a radical Islamist group whose vision was to establish an Islamic state in Indonesia, revolted in West Java in the 1950s. The rebellion was crushed, and... MORE

While China's allegations of links between the Uighur insurgency and the al-Qaeda linked Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) are mostly based on fragmentary data, there is evidence that beginning in the 1990s and continuing today, a potent cocktail of drugs, weapons and Islamic extremism is... MORE

More than a year after the al-Qaeda linked bombings in Madrid, a general appraisal of counter-terrorism developments in Europe generally yields a worrying picture. Many analysts argue that the European Union has made little progress in coordinating and enforcing measures involving intelligence swapping and police... MORE

Since the bomb-attacks in Madrid on March 11, 2004, dozens of militant Islamic activists have been detained across Europe. At the same time, several active cells dealing in everything from propaganda to smuggling Islamic activists to Iraq have been broken up by various European police... MORE

The deterioration of the war in Chechnya has very serious consequences for security and stability in the entire Caucasus region. The Western media often accept the Russian version of events, in particular when it comes to branding the entire spectrum of Chechen resistance to Russian... MORE

The March 2005 killing of Aslan Maskhadov was hailed by Russian officials as a sign of progress toward the restoration of Moscow's rule in the war-torn North Caucasian republic. But the wider trends in Chechnya and the North Caucasus betray a much bleaker picture. In... MORE

Shortly before his death in March 2005, Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov made some interesting remarks about the spreading political violence in the Russian republics of the Northwest Caucasus. Maskhadov described the necessity of "broadening the front of military resistance" after the Russian invasion of Chechnya... MORE

The specter of the "Arab fighter" in Chechnya has increasingly become an inseparable part of the Russian-Chechen conflict, particularly since 9/11, as Kremlin propagandists used the presence of a few notable Arab mercenaries in the breakaway republic to brand the entire Chechen independence movement as... MORE

For several years Kremlin spokespersons have identified Turkey as the primary source of foreign jihadi volunteers (always referred to as naemniky, "mercenaries" in official proclamations) fighting alongside their Chechen adversaries. One spokesman claimed "We keep killing armed Turkish citizens on Chechen territory" and another described... MORE

Ruled by an eccentric tyrant, Libya up until the middle of the 1990s was a prolific state sponsor of terrorism. While Qadhafi's gradual rehabilitation in the west may have alleviated fears of Libyan-sponsored terrorism, there is still much to understand about the threats posed by... MORE