At the end of August, the Katibat al-Muslimeen (Veiled Brigade) of Mokhtar Belmokhtar, announced a merger with the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJWA) to create a new jihadist movement, al-Murabitun (The Almoravids). According to its founding statement, the group aims at... MORE

Algeria, a forerunner in the fight against Islamist terrorism due to its decades-long experience with Islamist extremists, is facing new challenges in terms of tactics and strategy. Beyond the spectacular January In Aménas attack, new trends in local terrorism were already in place. The recent... MORE

Two years ago, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s assassination by Western-backed rebels (October 20, 2011) marked the end of all-out civil war and the collapse of the state in Libya. The United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) based their case for military intervention on... MORE

With Yemen in the midst of a political reconstruction, there are signs that the Zaidi Shiite insurgent group known as the Houthis is taking advantage of the ongoing turmoil to consolidate their de facto rule of the northern province of Sa’ada while making inroads in... MORE

Many local media channels in Egypt are constantly broadcasting the banner “Egypt Fighting Terrorism” in what seems to be a media campaign to mobilize the masses to support the military and police in their crackdown on Muslim Brotherhood members. One large poster near the state... MORE

Tunisia continues to go through a critical phase—to its economic and social difficulties, it now adds a political crisis. It is in this context that new security challenges have emerged. In a climate already made ??tense by the July 25 assassination of a leading member... MORE

The July 3 coup d’état in Egypt was an occasion few mainstream Islamists had cause to celebrate. As the remonstrations of Muslim Brotherhood supporters were drowned out by the rattle of tank treads and the rhythmic palaver of General Abd al-Fatah al-Sisi, Islamic parties in... MORE

Thousands of Yemeni Shi’a Muslims attended the funeral of Husayn Badr al-Din Houthi on June 5 in the northern Yemeni city of Sada’a. Husayn was the founder and ideologue of the Houthi movement and was killed in 2004 in fighting with government forces (Yemen Post,... MORE

Tunisia is in the middle of a political transition but the internal debate is still monopolized by the quarrel between Islamists and secularists. The stalemate is presenting an opportunity for the Salafist movement Ansar al-Shari’a Tunisia (AST) to enter directly into the political fray. Confrontation... MORE