Monthly Archives: December 2014

France

Defense Minister LeDrian said France is willing to coordinate a regional task force in Africa to confront Boko Haram; the 2,800-strong force was pledged by regional powers in July but has not yet materialized. He urged greater cooperation among African nations on security matters. He also noted that jihadists driven from Mali have regrouped in […]


United Kingdom

Ismail Abdulrahman, Muktar Said Ibrahim, Yassin Omar, and Ramzi Mohammed, who were sentenced to life in prison for an al Qaeda plot to attack London transport on July 21, 2005, two weeks after the deadly July 7 subway bombings, lost their appeals to the European Court of Human Rights. Two men from Luton were arrested […]


United States

Since Dec. 10, the US has conducted 16 airstrikes against the Islamic State in Syria, and the US and partners have carried out 29 airstrikes against the group in Iraq. President Obama told US troops: “The time of deploying large ground forces with big military footprints to engage in nation building overseas, that’s coming to […]



Australia

Sydney siege over: Lindt cafe gunman forces hostages to appear in videos


Iraq

Attacking ISIS, From an American Aircraft Carrier



Australia

Police stormed a cafe in downtown Sydney where Man Haron Monis, an Iranian self-styled cleric and known criminal, was holding hostages for 16 hours after forcing them to display an Islamist flag at the cafe window. Monis and two hostages were killed and a number of hostages were injured; others managed to escape. During the […]



Somalia

Suspected Shabaab fighters attacked the military base of the African Union Mission in Somalia in Mogadishu with mortars on Dec. 14; nearly 200 suspected members of the jihadist group were detained throughout the city earlier that day. Shabaab has conducted five beheadings in Somalia over the past week.


Egypt

Egypt’s head prosecutor referred 439 “hard-liners” to military tribunals over violence that occurred last year after protests were broken up. Two policemen were killed in a drive-by shooting in the town of El Arish in the Sinai. At least 10 jihadists were killed and one vehicle destroyed in a government air strike on militant hideouts […]


Libya

Anti-government forces with Libya Dawn attacked al-Hilal, a major oil region, causing the shutdown of one oil export port and threatening another. Pro-government forces under General Khalifa Hafter and Libya Dawn are fighting over the Ras Jdir border crossing, the main crossing into Tunisia. Hafter’s forces claimed to have seized “the western Bokmash area and […]


Mali

The Malian government announced that it traded four prisoners to AQIM to obtain the release of French hostage Serge Lazarevic last week. France’s defense minister said that “nearly 200 terrorists have been neutralized” by French forces in the Sahel region over the past year.


Tunisia

Tunisia closed its border crossing at Ras Gdair on Dec. 15 as fighting raged between pro-government forces and Islamist militias in Libya. The closing follows another air strike by the Libyan Army near the border on Dec. 14.


France

During raids in Toulouse, Paris, Bordeaux, and Normandy, antiterrorism police arrested at least 10 suspected members of a jihadist recruiting network, as part of an investigation begun in late 2013. Among those arrested were two prison inmates and a woman. The number of French jihadists traveling to Syria has risen at least 80 percent this […]


United Kingdom

Michael Coe and Simon Keeler, of east London, were charged with trying to travel to Syria to join the Islamic State; Anthony Small, of southeast London, was charged with helping Coe and Keeler with travel plans; and two other east Londoners, Zagum Perviaz and Hamzah Safdar, were charged with assisting Coe and Keeler in obtaining […]


Australia

A number of businesses in central Sydney were evacuated as a hostage situation unfolded in a downtown cafe, where hostages inside were forced to display an Islamist flag at the window. Three hostages have escaped. In a separate matter, two men who had been detained during counterterrorism raids in September were charged; one of them […]




Turkey

Antiterrorism police in Istanbul arrested Z.M., a Russian national of Chechen origin, on suspicion of assassinating Abdullah Bukhari, 38, a dissident Uzbek religious leader in the city. On Dec. 5, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov claimed that Akhmat Umarov, a brother of late Caucasus Emirate leader Doku Umarov, was behind the deadly Dec. 4 attack in […]


Afghanistan

Kabul – the fifth fastest growing city in the world – is bursting at the seams





Libya

Britain pressing Tobruk to reach agreement with Muslim Brotherhood: Libyan minister


Syria

Syrian patriarch: To help Christians, stop flow of weapons