The US killed 16 Taliban fighters in two Predator strikes in Helmand province, and killed and captured an undisclosed number of Taliban fighters in Herat and Kandahar. Police killed a suicide bomber in Uruzgan and detained 11 Taliban fighters in Herat. A US general said the Taliban have been defeated in Helmand.
King Abdullah’s senior religious adviser issued a fatwa prohibiting the joining of al Qaeda. “Affiliation with the so-called Al-Qaeda group is haram,” Sheikh Abdul Mohsen Al Obeikan said. A Saudi was arrested at Manila airport for posing as a pilot.
Britain will ban the Islamist groups Al Muhajiroun, Call to Submission, Islam4UK, Islamic Path, and London School of Sharia. “I have … laid an order which will proscribe Al Muhajiroun, Islam4UK, and a number of the other names the organization goes by,” Home Secretary Alan Johnson said. The ban goes into effect on Jan 14.
Drone attacks intensified after Khost blast: US
Pakistan seen becoming more Islamist, anti-US
Jordanians question alliance with US after Humam al-Balawi™s CIA suicide bombing
Social site helps Gitmo guard reunite with freed inmates
Mass car bomb threats prompt Baghdad lockdown
An Iranian nuclear physicist was killed in a bomb blast in Tehran. The major world powers are to meet in New York City to discuss new sanctions on Iran.
Mansur al Shami was an al Qaeda ideologue and a bodyguard for al Qaeda’s leader in Afghanistan. His death was reported on jihadist forums.
Philippine police probe illegal arms trade in Jolo
Four gunmen on motorcycles murdered two villagers at a tea shop in Narathiwat province. Also in Narathiwat, a policeman on a motorcycle was ambushed and wounded as he returned home from praying at a local mosque.
US team works to improve rule of law in Iraq
UK – Five men guilty of threats at Luton homecoming parade
Eight Taliban fighters and one soldier were killed in fighting in South Waziristan. Security forces detained a “key” Taliban operative behind the recent suicide attack in Lakki Marwat, a Taliban commander in Karachi, and 30 fighters in Kohat.
Gen. Stanley McChrystal says fight is in Afghanistan, not Yemen
Iraqi security forces detained seven al Qaeda operatives in northern Iraq and a female suicide-bomber recruiter in Baghdad, an “Iranian-linked assassination cell leader” and an associate in Baghdad, a Promised Day Brigade explosives-cell member in Baghdad, and two Special Groups operatives in Al Kut. Iraq has integrated more than 40,000 Sons of Iraq members into […]
Opposition leader Mehdi Karroubi accused the Iranian government of “suppressing people in the name of religion.” Tehran dismissed General Petraeus’ remarks that Iranian nuclear sites could be bombed. Tehran announced plans to expand economic growth to 8 percent per year over the next five years.
A look at Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula’s top leaders, ideologues, and operatives.
Yemeni officials admit they are losing the battle against al-Qaeda
Mauritania launches media campaign against terrorism, extremism
Abdullah al Faisal, a Jamaican-born radical Muslim cleric, has returned to Kenya after an attempt to deport him to The Gambia failed. An airline refused to allow Faisal to fly as he was reportedly on a terror watch list. Faisal spent four years in prison in Britain for inciting the murder of Hindus and Jews.
Anti-terror forces detained seven suspected al Qaeda fighters near the US Embassy in Sana’a. The government said it knows the location of five kidnapped German tourists. Yemen’s foreign minister said there is no agreement that allows for the US to conduct airstrikes on Yemeni soil.
Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb has released a statement demanding the release of four AQIM fighters held in Mali™s prison system within 20 days, otherwise they will execute French hostage Pierre Camatte. “We give 20 days to fulfill our demands, or the two governments shall be fully responsible for the life of the French […]
Money talks louder than al-Qaeda in Yemen
Poll: Israeli Jews oppose minaret ban
Bureaucracy hampers Yemeni military effort
The Taliban killed six Coalition troops, including three US soldiers and one French soldier, in attacks throughout the country and four civilians in Faryab province. Afghan and Coalition forces detained an undisclosed number of Taliban and Haqqani network fighters in Nangarhar and Khost. Twenty-three Taliban fighters in Baghlan agreed to stop fighting the government. Afghans […]
Pro-government Islamist militia Ahlu Sunna Waljama™a recaptured the east side of Beledweyne from Hizbul Islam; 18 people were reported killed in the fighting. Three people were killed during clashes between Shabaab and government forces in Mogadishu. A Shabaab spokesman claimed that US companies are plotting to pin bombings in Somalia on the terror group.
Yesterday, Jessica Stern published an op-ed in the Washington Post debunking what she describes as “5 myths about who becomes a terrorist.” Terrorism-myth-debunking pieces tend to be fairly automatic because there is a standard set of myths that researchers have pretty thoroughly disproved: that terrorists are poor and ill educated, that they are mentally ill, […]