BERLIN KNIFE ATTACK, WAVE OF ARRESTS UNDERLINES GERMAN RADICALIZATION THREAT James Brandon A known radical Islamist stabbed and wounded a policewoman in Berlin on September 17, and was subsequently shot dead (DW, September 17). The attacker, a 41-year-old ethnic Kurdish Iraqi man called Rafik Mohamad... MORE

Given that many might think Qaddafism as a political ideology died along with Mu’ammar Qaddafi in his hometown of Sirte at the hands of Libyan revolutionaries in October 2011, the announcement of the creation of the Nidal (“Struggle”) Front by pro-Qaddafist exiles in Cairo on... MORE

Shaykh Ahmed Iman Ali is one of the al-Shabaab militant leaders most wanted by Kenyan security agencies, particularly for his role in attacks in that country. In 2012, he declared war on Kenya on behalf of the jihadist group (Daily Nation [Nairobi], September 29, 2013).... MORE

As the Islamic State sought to expand geographically in the months following the declaration of the caliphate in June 2014, Libya initially appeared to be the organization’s most promising frontier outside of Syria and Iraq. Libya’s civil conflict—which has pitted the Libya Dawn military coalition,... MORE

The discovery of a world-class supergiant gas field in the waters off Egypt’s Mediterranean coast by Italian state-owned energy producer ENI is another step forward in Italy’s attempt to become an energy hub in southern Europe. Despite the silence of both the Russian government and... MORE

On August 5, 2015, four Russian warships—the missile cruiser Moskva, the escort ship Pytlivy, the large sea tanker Ivan Bubnov and Shakhtyor, a rescue tug—docked at the Mediterranean port of Ceuta, a Spanish exclave in North Africa, claimed by Morocco, and located just south of... MORE

In the extremely fluid and opaque Northern African jihadist landscape, recent events have brought into the spotlight the fate of likely the most famous, and in a sense “mythical,” jihadist—Mokhtar Belmokhtar (a.k.a. Khaled Abu Abbass, and his many nicknames include “the Elusive,” “Marlboro man” and... MORE

Mohamed Kuno, a former madrassa teacher in Garissa, Kenya’s main northeastern city, is the latest hardline militant leader to emerge from al-Shabaab. Until recently, Kuno was a typical Islamic preacher in Garissa mosques, where Muslims came to listen to his sermons. This religious figure has... MORE

During the past two months, Egypt has witnessed an unprecedented wave of attacks by Islamist militants, mostly launched by the Islamic State’s Egyptian branch—which calls itself “Sinai Province,” and which was formerly known as Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis—against tourists in Luxor, the chief prosecutor, a naval... MORE

On June 14, the Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen militant group (better known as al-Shabaab) launched a major attack on a Kenya Defense Force (KDF) camp in Lamu County. The attack failed badly and exposed the militant group’s weak military capabilities. However, it also confirmed the group’s... MORE