In late May, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) claimed it had attacked an Areva-operated uranium mine in Arlit, northern Niger (Alakhbar, May 24). AQIM attributed the alleged assault to its al-Nasser brigade and said the attack was carried out with Grad-type missiles (Alakhbar, May... MORE

Kenya has announced a plan to close its Dadaab refugee camp, the world’s largest refugee settlement, hoping such a move will end attacks by al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabaab fighters, who Nairobi has long claimed have infiltrated the settlement. Since Kenyan troops rolled into Somalia to fight al-Shabaab... MORE

India’s controversial anti-Maoist vigilante group, Samajik Ekta Manch (SEM), has announced it will disband. Set up in December 2015 with the stated goal of ridding Chhattisgarh’s Bastar region of Maoists and supporting the police in their work, the SEM had claimed to be a peaceful... MORE

TURKEY: ISLAMIC STATE SHIFTS TACTICS WITH ISTANBUL ATTACK A suicide attack on Turkey’s Atatürk International Airport in Istanbul on June 28 left at least 41 people dead and more than 230 injured. The attack appears to have been carried out by three suicide bombers who... MORE

Since the emergence of Islamic State (IS), more than 1,000 people from countries in the Western Balkans have flocked to the group as foreign fighters, predominantly from Muslim majority areas in Albania, Kosovo, Bosnia, and from minority Muslim populated areas in Macedonia, Serbia, and Montenegro... MORE

The death from illness on May 31 of the Polisario Front’s long-time leader Mohamed Abdelaziz has brought the exiled Sahrawi independence movement of the Western Sahara to an ideological crossroads. The Polisario nation, known as the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), is effectively a state... MORE

After months denying the existence of transnational jihadist groups on its soil in the face of a violent campaign against secular and progressive forces, Bangladeshi authorities appear to have woken up to the reality of extremist militancy. Following a series of knife and machete attacks,... MORE

JORDAN: SUICIDE ATTACK RAISES FEARS IN SYRIA’S NEIGHBOR A suicide car bomber killed six members of Jordan’s security forces and injured 14 others at a military post on the border with Syria, close to the al-Rukban refugee camp on June 21. Following the incident, Jordan... MORE

After months of negotiation, the United States finally gave the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) - which is dominated by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) and includes the Syrian Arab Coalition (SAC) – the green light to launch its offensive to take the Syrian... MORE

Since the start of 2016, the Niger Delta Avengers (NDA), a hitherto unknown group, has claimed responsibility for increasingly frequent attacks on oil infrastructure in the Niger Delta. According to Nigerian Oil Minister Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu, the attacks have resulted in oil production dropping by... MORE