The string of high-profile bombings that followed the withdrawal of U.S. combat forces from Iraqi cities on June 30, 2009 exposed not only Iraqi security shortcomings, but also the continued effectiveness of the insurgents to carry out demanding operations. These types of operations suggest the... MORE

Insurgent violence has continued unabated in the North Caucasus this week, with five federal servicemen dying in a shootout with insurgents in Chechnya yesterday (February 4) and Russia’s security services again accusing Georgia of aiding militants in the North Caucasus.A source in Chechnya’s security apparatus... MORE

After a few years of relative calm, militancy is slowly but surely resurfacing in the Indian administered state of Jammu and Kashmir. In a smaller-scale repeat of Mumbai, two terrorists occupied the Punjab Hotel in downtown Srinagar on January 6. They remained held up there... MORE

Turkish police units launched their largest anti al-Qaeda operation to date on the morning of January 22. The operation took place in a series of pre-dawn raids in towns throughout Turkey. It led to the arrest of as many as 140 people allegedly involved in... MORE

Web forums associated with jihad and al-Qaeda sympathizers have become a major source of information about militant Islamist groups, as well as a platform for the dissemination of the audio, visual and textual literature of the Salafi-Jihadis. According to the U.S. State Department, only 15... MORE

It appears that al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) is currently following a new version of a classic al-Qaeda strategy.  Developed by al-Qaeda’s strategic thinkers, the strategy behind AQAP’s latest operations is to draw American military forces into Yemen. If successful, AQAP would strengthen its... MORE

Three Spanish aid workers of the Catalan NGO Barcelona Acció Solidària, Albert Vilalta, Alicia Gámez and Roque Pascual, were kidnapped somewhere between Nouadibou and Nouakchott in Mauritania on November 29 (El Paìs, November 30, 2009). Four days earlier, a French citizen, Pierre Camatte, was kidnapped... MORE

In his Friday sermon on January 15, the well-known Yemeni Islamist and U.S. designated terrorism supporter Shaykh Abd al-Majid al-Zindani called for jihad to defend Yemen in the event of a foreign military intervention. Al-Zindani noted that some American media reports said the “Yemeni regime... MORE

Following a series of urban terror attacks in 2008, including the three-day long Mumbai siege, terrorist groups maintained a low profile throughout 2009. Jihadi groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HuJI) and the homegrown Indian Mujahideen (IM) remained surprisingly inactive as they regrouped in the face... MORE

The British Home Office finally proscribed the radical Islamist organization al-Muhajiroun (The Emigrants) and a number of its successor organizations on January 14. The ban included the best-known offshoot of al-Muhajiroun, Islam4UK. Described by the Home Office as a sort of “cleaning up” following the... MORE