Jalaluddin Haqqani with his son Nasrudin. Click to view. Robert Kaplan’s overview of Afghanistan in the April 2010 edition of The Atlantic makes some extremely controversial statements about reconciliation with the Haqqani Network and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s Hezb-i-Islami. According to the article, top ISAF officers and advisers believe that the Taliban have become “kinder” and “gentler,” […]
Afghanistan’s new great game: The undeclared wars within the war
At Afghan outpost, Marines gone rogue or leading the fight against counterinsurgency?
The Taliban’s info-machine has chosen to highlight some Coalition politics in its latest statement (Voice of Jihad here, PDF at Scribd.com here). The Taliban say it’s good to see the Canadians, Aussies, and Dutch do what the Afghan people ‘really want’: After the dissolution of Dutch government following its parliament’s hot discussion over the American […]
LeT: An instrument of Pakistan™s national strategy
Jailed Jordanian cleric is a poster boy for al Qaeda recruiters
Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula said that Yemeni security forces killed financier and military commander Ibrahim Saleh Mujahid al Khalifa, who was also known as Abi Jandal al-Qisaimy. Khalifa was a Saudi national who also helped smuggle fighters and cash across the border. He was killed during a clash along the Yemeni-Saudi border.
UPDATE: Four suicide bombers launched coordinated attacks in the provincial capital of Kandahar, killing 35 people and wounding 45 more. Two of the attacks targeted a police headquarters and a prison; the Taliban appeared to be trying to free captives from the jail.
A suicide bomber killed 14 people in an attack on a security installation in Swat. The Taliban assassinated a pro-government militia leader and killed two of his bodyguards in Peshawar. The bodies of six Taliban fighters were found in Kurram. The government issued a list of demands to the Mehsud tribe.
Three terrorists were killed when their car bomb exploded prematurely. Security forces captured seven wanted men in Basrah; two Special Groups fighters in Wasit; and three al Qaeda leaders, a weapons facilitator, and five operatives in central and northern Iraq.
Pakistan – Govt gives 7-point demand list to Mehsuds
Editorial: Lahore attacked again
Defusing 139 Taliban bombs was nothing special, says British soldier
Afghanistan’s Kandahar hit by suicide bombers, 30 dead
The United States denied helping Somalia’s government launch an offensive against Shabaab, saying it had no plans to “Americanize” the conflict. Fighting between two clans over water killed 11 people in Galgaduud region. The French navy handed over 22 suspected pirates to semi-autonomous Puntland’s authorities to be arraigned in local courts.
Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb has claimed credit for the suicide bombing attack on a Niger military outpost near the Niger-Mali border that killed five soldiers. In a statement titled “invasion of Sa’ad Abu Sariya,” which was named after a member of AQIM killed by Niger forces two months earlier, the group stated “we […]
Jamie Paulin-Ramirez, an American citizen, was among the seven Muslims arrested in Ireland this week for plotting to kill kill Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks for a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed. Paulin-Ramirez converted to Islam and married an Algerian, who is also in custody along with two other Algerians, a Libyan, a Palestinian, and a […]
The Taliban killed six civilians in an IED attack in Uruzgan. Coalition and Afghan forces killed a Taliban commander in Helmand, 11 fighters in an airstrike in in Zabul and four more in clashes in Faryab, and detained a Taliban commander and two fighters in Uruzgan. In Badghis, a Taliban fighter was killed in a […]
Iraq PM Maliki leads Baghdad, a big election prize
Turkey – A nation of conspiracies
White House weighs talks with Taliban after Afghan successes
Karzai in U-turn over elections panel
The attack bomber targeted the police, while an anti-Taliban tribal leader is gunned down in Peshawar.
US citizen accused in Yemen killing had been under FBI watch
Clearer limits sought in Malaysia for shariah courts’ role
A titanic power struggle in Kabul
Two suicide bombers killed 39 people, including eight soldiers, in attacks in a military cantonment in Lahore. Seven small blasts were reported after the attacks, only minor injuries were reported.
Neither the Taliban and al Qaeda commander, nor a Swat Taliban commander were killed in a Pakistani airstrike last week, according to Faqir Mohammed.
Pakistani offensive turns into a test of wills
Mogadishu residents told to leave Somali capital