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

Multiple bombings targeting Iraq’s governmental ministries just outside central Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone on August 19 left 95 people killed and over 600 others wounded, marking the single deadliest day in 18 months. The event forced the Iraqi government to reevaluate the country’s security sector,... MORE

Al-Qaeda’s recent attempt on the life of a Saudi royal suggests a change in tactics for an organization which has suffered substantial losses in the past few years. 23-year-old Abdullah Hassan Tali Asiri, a would-be suicide bomber listed on Saudi security’s list of most-wanted jihadis,... MORE

Jihadi forums occasionally discuss whether al-Qaeda possesses nuclear bombs and the strategies involved in their deployment. The latest discussion on this topic was triggered by a posting on a jihadi website entitled “Al-Qaeda’s nuclear bombings - Where would the battle start?” (muslm.net, August 25).Jihadi forum... MORE