On November 26, the city court in Nalchik, Kabardino-Balkaria, sentenced a man accused of fighting in the Syrian civil war to four years in prison. This is the first time in Kabardino-Balkaria that a person was convicted and sentenced for taking part in the Syrian... MORE

Since the fall of 2014, Tashkent has been boosting diplomatic engagement with its neighbors (see Part One in EDM, October 3). In particular, Uzbekistan’s President Islam Karimov met with President Emomali Rahmon of Tajikistan in Dushanbe on September 11 (press-service.uz September 13, 2014), and visited... MORE

On November 24 and 25, Uzbekistan’s president, Islam Karimov, paid an official visit to neighboring Kazakhstan, where he spent long hours with his local counterpart, Nursultan Nazarbayev. The last time Karimov went to Astana was in September 2012, followed by Nazarbayev’s reciprocal visit to Tashkent... MORE

After the followers of Sheikh Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi proclaimed their allegiance to the Islamic State (IS) organization (sedmitza.ru, June 30), some of the rebel forces opposed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad became polarized. That polarization also affected the Chechen militant groups fighting in Syria, with... MORE

Chinese intelligence operations have long been understood in the West as somehow different than more familiar forms of espionage: inscrutable, undirected and largely run by amateurs. Like most modern states, China, however, has entrusted intelligence to professional organizations. This second installment on China’s espionage against... MORE

Chinese President and Commander-in-Chief Xi Jinping’s military reform plan, announced at the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Central Committee in November 2013, will take form over the next several years (see China Brief, November 20, 2013). The reforms, which appear... MORE

During the last three years, the Houthi movement has accomplished a remarkable transformation, evolving from an obscure family-led Zaydi Shi’a guerrilla movement in Sa’ada governorate, one of Yemen’s most remote and underdeveloped, to become the country’s dominant military and political force. During the last six... MORE

On November 27, the Kenyan government reopened four mosques in Mombasa, which it had shut down the previous week over fears that they were involved in the radicalization and recruitment of local youth for Somalia’s Islamist militant group, al-Shabaab. The reopened mosques were handed over... MORE

One effect of the rise of the Islamic State organization is that its rival al-Qaeda has had to try harder to attract global attention, funding, and recruits. The establishment of a new al-Qaeda branch, al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent, is one major step taken by... MORE

Suleiman Zailanabidov, one of the former emirs of the so-called Aukhov jamaat in Dagestan, took an oath of allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State organization that has been proclaimed in Syria and Iraq. The Aukhov jamaat operates in the Khasavyurt,... MORE