Muscovites were surprised by news reports of a thwarted terrorist attack (Lenta.ru, October 11) planned by militants with ties to the so-called Islamic State (IS). Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said two people taken into custody testified that they were preparing a terrorist attack on... MORE

A recent special operation in Grozny against suspected militants of the so-called Islamic State (IS) took Chechnya’s residents and analysts who follow the situation in the republic by surprise. Readers of Chechen ruler Ramzan Kadyrov’s Instagram postings were the first to learn about the incident.... MORE

Russia officially declared its intentions to intervene in the Syrian civil war only in September, but Moscow has been backing President Bashar al-Assad’s regime since the start of the conflict. Perhaps the most interesting part of Russia’s campaign in Syria is the current question of... MORE

Saudi Arabia’s ongoing armed intervention in Yemen, which began overtly in March with airstrikes in support of Yemen’s internationally-recognized president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, has since become a coalition effort, although the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has emerged as Saudi Arabia’s major military partner in... MORE

To the Islamic State militant group, foreign fighters from the Balkans have particular importance due to their historical ties to Islam, their homelands’ proximity to other Western Europe and because ethnic disputes in the region remain close to the surface. A video released in June... MORE

The recent attack by Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) on a Pakistan Air Force (PAF) camp at Badaber, located 10 miles from Peshawar, fully displayed the jihadist group’s professional, yet highly violent, nature. Dressed in uniforms of the Frontier Constabulary (a paramilitary force), 14 militants breached the... MORE

BERLIN KNIFE ATTACK, WAVE OF ARRESTS UNDERLINES GERMAN RADICALIZATION THREAT James Brandon A known radical Islamist stabbed and wounded a policewoman in Berlin on September 17, and was subsequently shot dead (DW, September 17). The attacker, a 41-year-old ethnic Kurdish Iraqi man called Rafik Mohamad... MORE

Russia’s involvement in the Syrian conflict on behalf of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad may take the war in the Middle East to a new level. The main concern of North Caucasians will be whether Moscow’s involvement in the conflict results in it sending military personnel... MORE

In the wake of the Islamic State’s June 2014 takeover of Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, the Iraqi government created al-Hashd al-Sha’bi (Popular Mobilization Committees—PMCs), a militia network to help counter the jihadist organization. Though dominated by Shi’a armed groups, several militias within the network are... MORE

Given that many might think Qaddafism as a political ideology died along with Mu’ammar Qaddafi in his hometown of Sirte at the hands of Libyan revolutionaries in October 2011, the announcement of the creation of the Nidal (“Struggle”) Front by pro-Qaddafist exiles in Cairo on... MORE