A Note from Jamestown: As Turkish law enforcement officials work to determine who is responsible for this week’s Istanbul airport attack, international news media has focused their attention on one man, Akhmed Chataev. While Turkish media was first to finger Chataev as the one responsible... MORE

Since the emergence of Islamic State (IS), more than 1,000 people from countries in the Western Balkans have flocked to the group as foreign fighters, predominantly from Muslim majority areas in Albania, Kosovo, Bosnia, and from minority Muslim populated areas in Macedonia, Serbia, and Montenegro... MORE

The death from illness on May 31 of the Polisario Front’s long-time leader Mohamed Abdelaziz has brought the exiled Sahrawi independence movement of the Western Sahara to an ideological crossroads. The Polisario nation, known as the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), is effectively a state... MORE

After months denying the existence of transnational jihadist groups on its soil in the face of a violent campaign against secular and progressive forces, Bangladeshi authorities appear to have woken up to the reality of extremist militancy. Following a series of knife and machete attacks,... MORE

JORDAN: SUICIDE ATTACK RAISES FEARS IN SYRIA’S NEIGHBOR A suicide car bomber killed six members of Jordan’s security forces and injured 14 others at a military post on the border with Syria, close to the al-Rukban refugee camp on June 21. Following the incident, Jordan... MORE

After the armed Islamist underground movement in southern Dagestan lost ten militants, including the group’s amir, Abu Yasir (Gasan Abdullaev) (see EDM, June 23), the militants of the armed underground movement in Kabardino-Balkaria also experienced a setback. The losses by the Kabardino-Balkarian militants were smaller... MORE

Russian security services conducted a special operation, on June 16–17, against militants in southern Dagestan’s Suleiman-Stalsky and Tabasaran districts. During the operation, the security forces located ten armed men in the area. The militants refused to surrender and opened fire on the authorities. All ten... MORE

Kazakhstan has traditionally been considered the most stable and prosperous country of Central Asia and was even dubbed by external observers an “island of stability” in a chronically volatile region. Yet, on June 5, this image was shattered when a group of more than 20... MORE

The Memorial human rights center has monitored the situation in the North Caucasus since the start of the first Russian-Chechen War, in 1994. Memorial’s latest report, which covers the past two and a half years in the North Caucasus, concludes that the government is pursuing... MORE

The end of May–beginning of June turned out to be quite a tense period in Ingushetia, with the armed Islamist opposition suddenly becoming more active than in previous years. The authorities announced the elimination of suspected militants, although it is hard to verify whether the... MORE