The Nigerian government announced in August that it had resumed amnesty payments to former militants in the Niger Delta, many of them members of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) (Naija Headlines, August 4). It had significantly reduced the amount of... MORE

During the nearly two years of the Yemeni civil war, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has gone from an organization that was under pressure and struggling financially, to an organization that is larger, more formidable and better armed than it has ever been. The... MORE

JORDAN: SATIRIST’S KILLING HIGHLIGHTS RADICALIZATION FEARS Protesters in Jordan demanded the resignation of both Prime Minister Hani al-Malki and Interior Minister Salama Hammad in September, following the murder of Nahed Hattar, a satirical writer who was shot dead on the steps of a court building... MORE

KENYA: SEEKING PARTNERS FOR A NEW TERROR STRATEGY Jordan’s King Abdullah has promised greater counter terrorism support to Kenya during a meeting with Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta in Nairobi. The visit has received a good deal of publicity in Kenya, where the two leaders were... MORE

During the past six years, Boko Haram has been principally operational in Nigeria and, to a lesser extent, in neighboring Niger, Chad and Cameroon. Now, beyond Nigeria and its border regions, Senegal has unexpectedly become a country where the group is attempting to expand its... MORE

Kenya has launched a new strategy aimed at preventing violent extremism, unveiling it against a background of increased threats from Somalia’s al-Qaeda affiliated al-Shabaab, home-grown militants and, more recently, suspected Islamic State (IS) sympathizers (The Star, September 16). President Uhuru Kenyatta launched the strategy on... MORE

Though Nigeria’s southern Delta region has abundant oil reserves that should provide amply for the future of both the region and the nation, the Delta has become consumed by environmental degradation, unrestrained oil theft, destruction of infrastructure and a new wave of anti-government militancy complicated... MORE

Jamaat-ul-Ahrar (JuA), once a disgruntled breakaway faction of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), has been behind a series of deadly attacks across Pakistan since March 2016, apparently contradicting the Pakistani Army’s claim to have eliminated terrorism from North Waziristan and the Khyber Agency through years of its... MORE

On August 24, Turkish armor, infantry, and air units crossed the Syrian border and, in conjunction with the Ankara-supported Free Syrian Army (FSA) Sunni-dominated rebel group, launched a full-scale assault on the Islamic State-controlled city of Jarabulus. Simultaneously, the Turkish-FSA force moved against the Kurdish... MORE

INDONESIA: LONE-WOLF ATTACKS SHOW NEED FOR GREATER DERADICALIZATION EFFORTS On August 28, an 18-year-old Indonesian man attempted to stab a Roman Catholic priest during a church service in Medan, in Indonesia’s North Sumatra province, an attack reminiscent of one carried out by Islamic State (IS)... MORE