Seven large Islamist groups, amounting to about 45,000 fighters — Ahrar al-Sham, Jaysh al-Islam, Suqour al-Sham, Liwa al-Tawhid, Liwa al-Haqq, Ansar al-Sham, and the Kurdish Islamic Front — announced their “gradual merger” into an Islamic Front to battle the Assad regime and create an Islamic state. The group’s spokesman said the Al Nusrah Front wanted […]
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant killed 23 Iraqis in a series of bombings and attacks in Baghdad and Tarmiya. Security forces captured six ISIS fighters in Kirkuk.
“Gunmen” in Sana’a assassinated a member of parliament who represented Shia Houthi rebels in the north. The United Nations’ representative was targeted for assassination in the capital. Two soldiers were killed in an IED attack in Saada.
The United Nations has approved a plan to integrate Ethiopian troops into AMISOM and increase the number of peacekeepers to over 22,000. Shabaab infighting continues, with the detention today of Yusuf Isse and other leaders by Ahmad Abdi Godane.
The family of alleged Boko Haram cell leader Muhammad Nazeef protested his arrest, claiming he was “set up.” Boko Haram killed at least six people and injured many more during an attack that lasted several hours in Yola, the capital of Adamawa state. Police closed all roads leading out of Yola as they pursued the […]
The recent deaths of top Haqqani Network leaders Nasiruddin Haqqani and Ahmad Jan will hurt the organization, but without a comprehensive strategy to fight jihadist groups beyond the tactic of targeted killings, will not lead to its collapse.
China ‘flies first stealth drone’
Iran’s Secret Army
A factory linked to the army was attacked near Rafah. Two people were detained in connection with the recent killing of a police officer, while army operations continued in North Sinai. At least three were killed during clashes throughout the country. A top Muslim Brotherhood figure was arrested in North Sinai. Security forces increased measures […]
Iran, six powers struggle to overcome snags in nuclear talks
Arslan Ubaydullah Maroof Hussain, a spokesperson for the Norwegian Islamist group Prophet Ummah, is being tried on charges of threatening a Norwegian journalist, members of Norway’s Jewish community, and an expert witness in the trial of Ansar al Islam founder Mullah Krekar. Hussain was arrested in October 2012 but freed in November 2012.
Attorney General Brandis denied allegations by Hizb ut-Tahrir that the government is harassing members of the group to obtain information. Australia’s Security Intelligence Organisation is said to be stripping passports at more than double the usual rate in an effort to prevent jihadists from traveling to Syria. The ASIO’s 2013 report said “many” Australians have […]
The State Security Services captured members of a cell, including a Saudi-educated preacher, that was allegedly planning an attack in Kogi state in central Nigeria.
Hamas Is in Trouble in Gaza and Looking to Iran for Help
The US killed three Haqqani Network leaders, including Maulvi Ahmed Jan, a senior financier and aide to Sirajuddin Haqqani, in a drone strike in Hangu. The strike is the first outside of the tribal areas in four years. Pakistan “strongly condemned” the US attack.
President Karzai wants to delay signing the Bilateral Security Agreement with the US until after elections in April 2014. Seven Taliban fighters were killed in an airstrike in Nuristan. The Taliban killed four people in a possible suicide attack in Kandahar. Police captured a teenaged suicide bomber in Khost.
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Sham, al Qaeda’s branch in Iraq, killed 25 people in a truck bombing in a Shia area in Saadiya in Diyala province. On Nov. 18, security forces killed eight fighters from the Al Nusrah Front, an al Qaeda branch in Syria, as they attacked a border outpost in […]
Egypt’s ‘Muslim Sisterhood’ moves from social work to politics
Testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on al Qaeda’s network in Africa and the threat it poses to the US
‘Islamist posturing’ is a strategy to raise funds, says Syrian rebel
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Sham clashed with rebels in Idlib. ISIS imposed ‘sharia’ restrictions on clothing for schoolgirls in Idlib. ISIS, the Al Nusrah Front, and other Islamist rebels clashed with regime forces in east Reef Aleppo and near the 80th brigade base. Gunmen kidnapped a media activist in Deir Hafer in […]
A policeman was shot and killed while trying to arrest suspects in the recent assassination of a senior national security official in Cairo. In Ismailia, a police officer was also shot and killed. Security forces claimed to have arrested nearly 30 suspected terrorists during operations in North Sinai. Militants fired a mortar at an olive […]
Saboteurs attempting to disrupt Afghanistan’s Loya Jirga held with explosives, arms
Afghan political analyst with Taliban links has reportedly escaped
Companies, port sought to destroy Syria poisons
Tunisia racks up militant arrests
Amid reports that infamous LRA leader Joseph Kony is in CAR, the UN Secretary General said the anarchy in the country risks spiraling further and that 9,000 peacekeepers could be needed. Human rights groups say both Muslim and Christian militias may have committed war crimes, and a UN expert on genocide warned that the situation […]
A Borno state official accused Cameroonian authorities of habitually refusing to arrest or chase Boko Haram militants fleeing across the border after attacks in Nigeria. Borno has mobilized another 1,000 volunteers to join the controversial Civilian JTF. In Abuja, state security paraded five suspected Boko Haram members said to have been planning attacks in Kogi […]
French special forces in Tessalit killed Hacene Ould Khalill, a.k.a. Jouleibib, a Mauritanian national who served as deputy head of Mokhtar Belmokhtar’s Those Who Sign in Blood Brigade, which merged with MUJAO in August. Suspected MUJAO militants fired rockets into Gao. At least three French soldiers in an armored vehicle were wounded in an explosion […]
Pakistani denouncements of drone strikes that kill top Taliban, Haqqani Network, and al Qaeda leaders are now routine.