On July 24, Tajikistan’s government launched a military operation against an illegal armed group led by border-police commander Tolib Ayombekov, a former Islamist rebel whom authorities have accused of drug smuggling and brutal crimes. Tajikistani helicopter gunships involved in the operation strafed Khorog, the capital... MORE

The performance of the Islamist parties was particularly poor in the recent Libyan elections. The National Forces Alliance (NFA), led by former interim Prime Minister Mahmoud Jibril, won the elections, securing 39 out of the 80 seats open for candidates representing political parties. The Hizb... MORE

At a time when questions are being raised about Saudi Arabia’s tacit support for the global Salafist movement, recent developments have displayed the Kingdom’s new-found seriousness in fighting terrorism, especially that emanating from South Asia. These developments include the deportation of a top Lashkar- e-Taiba... MORE

M23 A NEW PLAYER IN THE PROXY WARS OF THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO The Congolese province of Nord-Kivu, which borders both Rwanda and Uganda on its eastern side, is a land of active volcanoes, mountain gorillas, valuable minerals, warring militias and over 200,000 displaced... MORE

A high-profile crime against the official Islamic hierarchy of the republic of Tatarstan took place in this relatively quiet Russian region on July 19, when the chief of the instructional division of the Spiritual Board of Muslims of Tatarstan, Valiulla-khazrat Yakupov, was gunned down at... MORE

This month, the government agency that oversees Russia’s arms exports and imports – the Federal Service on Military-Technical Cooperation (Federalnaya Sluzhba Voyenno-Tecknicheskogo Sotrudnichestva or FSVTS) – confirmed that Iran is suing Russia for damages to the tune of some $4 billion in the Court of... MORE

On July 3, 2012, the leader of a Salafist group in Kostanay, northern Kazakhstan, was convicted of recruiting Kazakhstani citizens and providing them with fraudulent documents to help them travel to the Afghanistan-Pakistan region and join the insurgency (Interfax [Kostanay], July 3). While the Salafist... MORE

The 62nd meeting of the CIS Council of Defense Ministers in Kaliningrad on July 5 discussed deepening security cooperation on a broad range of issues within the former Soviet space, with special attention to developing integrated air defense architecture – long discussed by the CIS... MORE

On June 13, 2012, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) obligated Russia to pay 60,000 euros ($73,680) to relatives of Ramzan Umarov, who was kidnapped by police on April 2007 in Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan. The Dagestan Public Prosecutor’s office had opened a... MORE

Russia’s Armed Forces, facing continued and long term convulsions due to inadequately planned and poorly executed defense reform, has further complicated the process by developing and introducing the Aerospace Defense Forces (Vozdushno Kosmicheskaya Oborona – VKO), which faces multiple technical and organizational challenges. On August... MORE