Three students from Karachi’s Jamia Uloom al-Islamia left their Islamic studies half way to completion and took a train to Peshawar on February 18, 1980 to take part in the nascent anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan. Anti-Russian passion was their only weapon, but they wanted to... MORE

Too often the news surrounding terrorism is dominated by the headline-catching acts of terrorism, such as last summer’s twin suicide bombings in Jakarta, or the take-down of terrorist operatives such as Dr. Azahari bin Hussin or Noordin Mohammad Top. Less is written about success in... MORE

In a scene right out of the cinema, a young Somali man armed with an axe and a knife came crashing through the door of Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard’s Aarhus house late on January 1. Hitting a panic button specially installed in the house, Mr... MORE

In November 2001, an American Muslim cleric told the Washington Post that he had no sympathy for the perpetrators of 9/11, that Muslims and non-Muslims needed “more mutual understanding,” and that the Taliban had no right to impose the burqa on women (Washington Post, November... MORE

Tensions continue to rise in the volatile Horn of Africa as Eritrean insurgent groups promise a new wave of political violence following the imposition of UN sanctions against Eritrea for its alleged support of terrorism in the region. Eritrea is strategically located on the Red... MORE

Through the combined efforts of the United States Joint Special Operations Task Force in the Philippines (JSOTF-P) and the newly updated, trained and active Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), some semblance of law, order and normalcy has returned to the Muslim-dominated Sulu Island archipelago... MORE

As al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) terrorists grow more active in the Saharan region, Algeria has introduced a new military strategy designed to restrict movement through the volatile border regions that Algeria shares with Niger, Mali and Mauritania. Algeria has deployed an additional 3,000... MORE

The string of deadly bombings against government buildings and Shiite landmarks in Baghdad that began last August provides a startling reminder that the Qaeda-associated Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) remains a clear danger to Iraq’s long-term stability.  The three sets of multiple attacks that took... MORE

In legitimizing their acts of terror, al-Qaeda and Indonesia’s Jemaah Islamiah (JI) frequently draw inspiration from the anti-Soviet Afghan jihad experience of the 1980s. To what extent, however, does the Afghan event justify their violent operations? On July 17, 2009 the twin Jakarta bombings of... MORE

Every month, the so-called Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan releases al-Somod Islamic e-magazine, a main Taliban propaganda publication. The e-magazine contains religious, political and military articles on the Taliban’s activities. Often, the e-magazine interviews one of the Taliban’s jihad leaders. The forty-second issue of al-Somod carried... MORE