Islamic State’s self-styled caliphate in Iraq has been standing on its last legs since June 26 when the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) and Shia Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) secured Fallujah. Even more significantly, the ISF forces seized the Qayyarah Airfield West base on July 9,... MORE

NICE ATTACK SPOTLIGHTS FRENCH JIHADIST RECRUITER The Bastille Day terror attack in the French city of Nice, which saw 84 people killed when a Tunisian truck driver ploughed through crowds on the Promenade des Anglais, has refocused attention on the Senegal-born French jihadist recruiter Omar... MORE

People in Georgia’s Pankisi Gorge have been going quietly, one by one, to Tengiz Batirashvili, the younger brother of Umar Shishani (Batirashvili), to express their condolences in connection with Umar Shishani’s death. Unlike his brothers Umar and Tamaz, Tengiz Batirashvili did not go to the... MORE

Rights activists of Kabardino-Balkaria have challenged official estimates of the number of militants from the republic believed to be fighting in Syria. In April, Kabardino-Balkaria’s Deputy Interior Minister Kazbek Tatuev stated that 130 residents of the republic, including 28 women, were fighting in the Middle... MORE

Russia’s National Antiterrorist Committee (NAK) reported that during a special operation in Dagestan’s Karabudakhkent district on July 7–8, “as a result of operational and combat activities, the forces of the FSB [Federal Security Service] neutralized nine people” (Riadagestan.ru, July 8). According to the NAK, the... MORE

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said, on July 5, that the June 28 attack at Istanbul’s international airport was carried out by natives of Dagestan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan (Korrespondent.net, July 5). “Unfortunately, our neighbors from the North Caucasus were involved in the terrorist attack,” Erdoğan... MORE

In late May, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) claimed it had attacked an Areva-operated uranium mine in Arlit, northern Niger (Alakhbar, May 24). AQIM attributed the alleged assault to its al-Nasser brigade and said the attack was carried out with Grad-type missiles (Alakhbar, May... MORE

Kenya has announced a plan to close its Dadaab refugee camp, the world’s largest refugee settlement, hoping such a move will end attacks by al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabaab fighters, who Nairobi has long claimed have infiltrated the settlement. Since Kenyan troops rolled into Somalia to fight al-Shabaab... MORE

India’s controversial anti-Maoist vigilante group, Samajik Ekta Manch (SEM), has announced it will disband. Set up in December 2015 with the stated goal of ridding Chhattisgarh’s Bastar region of Maoists and supporting the police in their work, the SEM had claimed to be a peaceful... MORE

TURKEY: ISLAMIC STATE SHIFTS TACTICS WITH ISTANBUL ATTACK A suicide attack on Turkey’s Atatürk International Airport in Istanbul on June 28 left at least 41 people dead and more than 230 injured. The attack appears to have been carried out by three suicide bombers who... MORE