The military claimed that the Mamond region in Bajaur has been cleared and the government now controls 90 percent of the tribal agency. The Taliban bombed a girls’ school in Bannu. The Pakistani Taliban spends $45 million year, according to the governor of the NWFP.
Iraq elections ban: It™s not over
The League of the Righteous kidnapped a US civilian contractor in Baghdad and called off reconciliation talks with the government. Six insurgents and a security guard were killed during a clash in Mosul. Police detained 55 suspects in the Karbala attacks, four insurgents in Mosul, and two terrorists in Basrah.
Gates disputes deal on Iran’s nuke program
NATO allies to shuffle Afghan pledges to add training
As US begins Afghan surge, Canada plans its exit
Iraq video shows missing US contractor
Civilians are fleeing Mogadishu as government troops and Shabaab fighters are reinforcing their bases. The government admitted that Islamist groups control the nation’s economic centers and air and sea ports, and claimed Shabaab torched the Bakara market. The government will also close its foreign embassies.
Afghan police accidentally killed seven civilians mistaken for the Taliban in Kandahar. Coalition and Afghan forces killed two Taliban fighters in Helmand. The government said it would not “bribe” the Taliban to stop fighting.
The League of the Righteous has kidnapped a US citizen and backed out of “reconciliation talks” with the Iraqi government. The kidnapping comes only a month after the US released the top leader of the group.
The defense ministry announced the opening of two new missile production factories. US Defense Secretary Gates said he doubts Iran is willing to broker a nuclear deal. The chief of Iran’s police said his forces “won’t show any more tolerance” towards protesters.
Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb has extended the deadline to Feb. 20 for the hostage exchange of the French national, Pierre Camatte, for four AQIM members held in Mali prisons. AQIM set March 1 as the deadline for the exchange of the Italian national, Sergio Cicala, for an undisclosed number of AQIM members.
The US Army has released the executive summary of the report on the Taliban assault on Combat Outpost Keating in October 2009 that nearly saw the base overrun. The abandonment of Keating and other remote outposts less than two weeks after the assault gave the Taliban uncontested control of several rural districts in Nuristan. I’ve […]
Lashkar-e-Taiba leader Hafiz Saeed. The Pakistani government wants the world to believe it is sincere in its fight against Islamist terror groups, but at the same time refuses to deal with the Lashkar-e-Taiba and its front group, the Jamaat-ud-Dawa. Even though both groups are banned, its leader, Hafiz Saeed, who has been implicated by the […]
AQAP™s expert bombmaker: Ibrahim Hassan al Asiri
With Taliban leader reported dead, new Pakistani figure emerges
Dir: A Pakistani militant hotbed
Pakistan – Swati women want army to stay
Five Russian troops were killed and six more were wounded during a raid in a mountainous region south of Grozny, the capital of Chechnya. Insurgents killed the chief of police in Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan, and three police officers in a shooting.
Twenty-five Pakistanis were killed in two bombings at a Shia procession in Karachi; police also defused a bomb placed at a hospital in the city. The Taliban killed a teacher and attacked an electrical grid station in Khyber.
Hizbul Islam leader Hassan Dahir Aweys vowed to continue waging jihad in Somalia. A senior Hizbul Islam official dodged an assassination attempt in Mogadishu. Danish troops stormed a ship under the control of Somali pirates.
Pakistan – Karachi bombings a ‘conspiracy’ to paralyse financial hub
At The Wall Street Journal, Matthew Rosenberg rams home the point that US and Pakistani intelligence services are really in the dark on the status of Hakeemullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistani Taliban. “We won’t know for certain until the Taliban want us to know,” said Rustam Shah Mohmand, a former Pakistani official who […]
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, suspect in the failed Christmas airliner attack, said that radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki had instructed him to carry out the attack. Investigators say Abdulmutallab has been cooperating with authorities by giving them information about the radical cleric and Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
Forty-one Iraqis were killed in bombings in Karbala. Insurgents killed two policemen south of Mosul. Iraqi special forces killed a Syrian gunman during a clash along the border with Syria. Security forces detained six al Qaeda fighters in Mosul and a Mahdi Army cell member in Baghdad.
A suicide bomber killed three Afghans in Kandahar. The Taliban killed three Afghans at a dogfight in Helmand and a US soldier in western Afghanistan. Coalition and Afghan forces detained an undisclosed number of Taliban fighters in Kabul and Helmand.
Probe: US outpost had ‘inadequate’ defenses
Head of NATO forces in Afghanistan says situation is no longer deteriorating
Karzai’s Taliban reconciliation strategy raises ethnic, rights concerns at home
Taliban reject deal with Afghanistan, West