Of the various Salafi-Jihadi militant groups currently operating, few have been as aggressive in their pursuit of financing as al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), which has added narcotics trafficking to its staples of kidnapping for ransom as well as the smuggling of cigarettes and... MORE

Gunmen from the al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) took hostages in a Syriac Catholic church in central Baghdad on October 31. About 52 people were killed and 67 injured after Iraqi security forces stormed the church. The ISI claimed responsibility for the hostage-taking and... MORE

Salafi-Jihadist ideologue Anwar al-Awlaki has penned an emotive response to a declaration by Islamic scholars who challenge the theological basis for the violent jihad of al-Qaeda and its associates. In a lengthy essay published in the second issue of the English-language Jihadist magazine Inspire, al-Awlaki... MORE

Somalia’s al-Shabaab Islamist militant movement is in the midst of a financial crisis that hit after losing protection fees from three Somalia World Food Program (WFP) sub-contractors and diminished contributions from the Somali diaspora. The radical group has been in a financial squeeze since the... MORE

Russian Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliev had to admit recently that 454 terrorist acts and 510 offenses of extremist nature were committed in Russia in the first nine months of 2010. It would have been odd if the minister had blamed the Russian authorities for the... MORE

Unidentified attackers shot up the home of a policeman in the village of Sergokala in Dagestan’s Sergokalinsky district late yesterday (November 11). The gunmen fired automatic weapons but no one was hurt in the incident, which capped a particularly violent day in Dagestan, with eleven... MORE

Since a terrorist training camp was discovered in the northwestern Indonesian province of Aceh last February, Indonesia’s Densus-88 counterterrorism police have arrested over 100 people and killed 13, significantly damaging the efforts of Indonesian militants to regroup and stage a new round of attacks. Significantly,... MORE

Actions taken recently by the local leadership in Dagestan have become increasingly reminiscent of the policy carried out by Ramzan Kadyrov, the pro-Russian leader of Chechnya. Shortly after an all-Chechen congress was held in the Chechen capital of Grozny from October 13-14, the Dagestani authorities... MORE

On November 2, Dagestan’s President, Magomedsalam Magomedov, signed a decree to set up a commission for the social rehabilitation of former militants. The commission is designed to help militants who wish to return to peaceful life re-integrate into society. Only three of the commission’s 14... MORE

Investigators in Kabardino-Balkaria said today (November 5) that two hunters found dead yesterday (November 4) may have died at the hands of members of “illegal armed formations.” The bodies of two residents of the city of Nalchik –69-year-old Vycheslav Kiriloyuk and 64-year-old Valdislav Revazov– were... MORE