Two years after his death, al-Qaeda has confirmed that Shaikh Asim Umar, the founding amir of al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), al-Qaeda’s south Asian franchise, was killed. Umar died in a U.S. and Afghan forces joint raid on September 23, 2019 in the Musa... MORE

In the vast jihadist landscape of Pakistan, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is a relative newcomer. The TTP was formed in 2007 and can be best considered an agglomerate of more than 40 Islamist terrorist groups operating in the tribal belt of Pakistan. [1] The TTP... MORE

Introduction Succeeding from the Adolat (“Justice”) movement, which aimed at implementing Islamic law in Uzbekistan in the early 1990s, Tahir Yuldashev and Juma Namangani established the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) in 1998 with the intention of overthrowing the President of Uzbekistan, Islam Karimov, and... MORE

Salafists in Afghanistan face severe challenges and insecurities after the fall of Kabul to the Taliban on August 15. The Taliban are suspicious of Afghan Salafists for supporting the Taliban’s arch-enemy, Islamic State in Khorasan Province (ISKP). The Taliban’s abduction of one of the most... MORE

Following the U.S. withdrawal and the Afghan Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan, various jihadist groups in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region are readjusting their ideological narratives and operational strategies to acclimatize to the rapidly evolving geopolitical environment. For instance, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has reunified by absorbing... MORE

Uzbekistan and Tajikistan Calibrate Approaches to the Taliban On September 11, the grand mufti of Tajikistan, Saidmukarrim Abdulqoddirzoda, issued an edict calling the Taliban a “terrorist group” and declared that the Taliban’s behavior was “far from Islam.” In particular, the grand mufti focused on the... MORE

When the Taliban swept into Kabul on August 15, many assumed that this would lead to a shakeup of the geopolitical order in neighboring Central Asia, with the countries there either seeking protection from the Russian Federation or moving to cooperate more closely with each... MORE

Confronted with the new Taliban government in Afghanistan, adjacent Tajikistan has broken from its Central Asian neighbors, which have largely adopted a conciliatory posture, and opted for a more confrontational approach. Speaking on the eve of Tajikistan’s 30th anniversary of independence and one day after... MORE

As the United States military completes its retreat from Afghanistan, Russia, despite its own humiliating 1989 exit from the war-torn country, has been gloating (see EDM, August 19), apparently hoping to expand its influence in the region and fill the power vacuum left by the... MORE

Terrorism Monitor sat down with Dr. Antonio Giustozzi, author of The Taliban at War (London: Hurst, 2019) and The Islamic State in Khorasan (London: Hurst, 2018), for an interview on the latest developments involving the Taliban and Islamic State in Khorasan Province (ISKP) in Afghanistan.... MORE