Mali and Somalia: al-Qaeda Affiliates Coordinated Claims Point to Coordination with Core AQ Brian M. Perkins The release of a video message from al-Qaeda’s leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, on February 5 is the latest in a series of events over the past several months that indicate... MORE

Background The Baluchistan Liberation Army (BLA) is considered one of the oldest Baluch nationalist-separatist terrorist groups operating in the Baluchistan province of Pakistan. The ongoing insurgency started in 2006. The BLA is led by Harbayar Marri, whose father, Nawab Khair Bakhsh Marri, founded the BLA... MORE

Russia has opposed the United States’ policy in Afghanistan for years. Indeed, Moscow’s own support for the Taliban, in the form of intelligence sharing and arms transfers, goes back to about 2014 (see EDM, January 6, 2016). Therefore, President Donald Trump’s stated intention to withdraw... MORE

Introduction In the ebb and flow of the Afghanistan war, international coalition forces have historically had sole access to unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). The U.S. Air Force (USAF) has regularly used UAVs to monitor and neutralize Taliban forces (Khaama Press, May 16, 2018). Although insufficient... MORE

On October 17, Abdul Jabar Qahraman, a former member of the Afghan parliament, was killed when a bomb placed in his office at Lashkar Gah in Helmand went off.  Qahraman was among ten candidates who were killed in the run-up to the October 21 parliamentary... MORE

On November 23, three militants of the Balochistan Liberation Army attacked the PRC consulate in Karachi, the latest in a series of assaults by Baloch militants on PRC projects and personnel in Pakistan (Global Times, November 24). Baloch opposition to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC)... MORE

On June 9, the Taliban announced a three-day ceasefire with Afghan forces (Pajhwok, June 9).  This was the first time since the group was ousted from power in November 2001 that the Taliban has called for a ceasefire.  Since then, although violence on the ground... MORE

The recent Battle of Darzab saw the Afghan Taliban inflict a crushing defeat on Islamic State-Khurasan, at least in Afghanistan’s Jowzjan province. Clashes between the two militant groups started in mid-July and concluded in the first week of August. The Central Asian faction of IS-K... MORE

Bangladesh’s most lethal home-grown militant organization, Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB)—which has multiple ideological and operational factions, including the Islamic State (IS)-inspired neo-JMB and al-Qaeda linked core Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen (JM)—has gained notoriety over the last few years for recruiting and nurturing a network of women militants. Despite robust... MORE

Last week (November 9), Russia finally convened its long-heralded peace conference on Afghanistan. Attending the conference were members of the Taliban as well as the governments of Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Iran and China. A representative of the Embassy of the United States in... MORE