Since Islamic State (IS) declared its caliphate in June 2014, the rate of jihadist violence has escalated throughout the Middle East and North Africa. Until last month, Iran had proved to be an exception to this general trend, with its aggressive efforts to combat IS... MORE

Cameroon: Boko Haram Stepping Up Attacks Two suicide bombers killed at least 14 people and wounded another 30 in northeast Cameroon on July 12 in an attack on a bustling market town near the Nigerian border (Cameroon-Info, July 14). The attack in Waza, attributed to... MORE

Last month, Australia experienced its fifth jihadist attack since September 2014. On the afternoon of June 5, 2017, a 29-year old man named Yacqub Khayre tampered with the electronic ankle bracelet he had to wear after being recently released from prison on parole. He then... MORE

Pakistan’s tense relations with its neighbor Iran were further impacted on April 27 when militants from Jaish al-Adl (JuA, Army of Justice), a Sunni group that allegedly operates from across the border in Pakistan, killed 10 Iranian border guards in an attack in Iran’s Baluchistan-Sistan... MORE

The Middle East diplomatic crisis that has set a coalition of Arab states against Qatar has inevitably spilled over into Libya. A number of those states party to the dispute have been involved in a proxy war, with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Egypt... MORE

Egypt: The Rafah Attack and Hamas Under Pressure Militants in northern Sinai killed at least 26 Egyptian solders in a suicide car-bomb attack on two military checkpoints near Rafah on July 7 (al-Jazeera, July 8). The attack, which was claimed by Islamic State (IS), was... MORE

India first woke up to the emerging threat of Islamic State (IS) on its soil in May 2014, when four engineering students from Kalyan, Maharashtra, joined the group. In the intervening years, the security services have arrested more than 90 IS sympathizers, according to Indian... MORE

Iran: Striking Back at Islamic State A coordinated attack in the Iranian capital of Tehran, supposedly by Islamic State (IS), has prompted a furious response from the Iranian government. Among other things, this attack highlighted the sectarian risks engendered by Tehran’s efforts in Syria and... MORE

The fall of the opposition-controlled sector of Aleppo in December last year was a major blow to Syrian rebel groups who had always asserted that they would hold their ground. The city’s fall, quickly followed by a Russian-Turkish accord and the sponsorship by those countries... MORE

Missiles launched at Saudi Arabia by Yemen’s Houthi fighters have proved to be wildly inaccurate as regards their targets but largely effective in terms of their media impact, frustrating Saudi claims to have eroded the fighters’ capabilities. Indeed, concerns over Yemen’s missile stockpiles have proved... MORE