The head of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office, Aleksandr Bastrykin, said yesterday (October 22) that the number of terrorist acts in the North Caucasus has increased by 57 percent this year. He told a meeting of the committee in St. Petersburg... MORE

Several terrorist attacks have been carried out in Ingushetia and Chechnya this week. Today (October 22), a bomb exploded as Isa Korigov, the head of the criminal police in the Ingush city of Malgobek, was getting into his car with his wife at their home... MORE

Georgian officials have denied accusations made by the head of Russia’s main security agency that Georgian special services have aided al-Qaeda-linked terrorists in Russia’s North Caucasus.Federal Security Service (FSB) Director Aleksandr Bortnikov, who also heads Russia’s National Anti-Terrorist Committee (NAK), claimed during an NAK meeting... MORE

One of the trends surfacing in news reports about the North Caucasus insurgency this year is the presence of Azeri fighters within the rebel ranks. Chechnya’s president Ramzan Kadyrov also pointed a finger at Azerbaijan in a recent interview, claiming: “Most of the ammunition warehouses... MORE

Shootouts between insurgents and police and other violent incidents have been reported across the North Caucasus this week, a week which also marked the second anniversary of the proclamation of the Caucasus Emirate, the notional Islamic state declared by the radical Islamist wing of the... MORE

For all their tactical success, American drone strikes on terrorist targets in northwest Pakistan have taken a significant toll on U.S. public relations efforts in the region. Despite their popularity amongst counterterrorism officials in the United States, polls show that 82% of Pakistanis find the... MORE

Turkish State Minister Zafer Caglayan paid an official visit to China and met Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao as a special envoy of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on August 31. Caglayan is the first Turkish minister to visit China after July’s Uyghur unrest... MORE

Germany’s federal elections passed without incident on September 27, though they took place against a backdrop of intense concern in the German security services about a growing number of increasingly pointed al-Qaeda videos threatening Germany over its military deployment in Afghanistan. These messages included a... MORE

Reports emerged on September 21 that Lebanon’s Forces de Sécurité Intérieure (FSI) had been placed on high alert in Beirut following the discovery of an alleged plot to assassinate Lebanon’s most prominent Sunni cleric, Grand Mufti Shaykh Muhammad Rashid Qabbani (al-Anba’a [Kuwait], September 21).  According... MORE

The Pakistani military’s powerful offensive in Swat has destroyed much of the terror network of the Taliban. The fiery “FM Mullahs” who once announced death threats to opponents on their radio networks are now silenced. Their readily available spokesmen claiming responsibility for the daily deadly... MORE