Yearly Archives: 2020

Veteran Al Qaeda leader killed in western Afghanistan

Mohammad Hanif was involved in the 2002 assassination attempt on Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and the suicide attack on the U.S. Consulate in Karachi that same year. He was killed in Farah province. But the Taliban somehow continues to maintain that Al Qaeda isn’t in Afghanistan.



Islamic State claims terrorist attack in Vienna

The Islamic State’s Amaq News Agency claims that the terrorist who carried out an attack in Vienna, Austria yesterday was a “soldier of the caliphate.” Amaq identifies him as Abu Dujana al-Albani. He was imprisoned in 2019 after he attempted to join the Islamic State in Syria, but was released early.














Analysis: The IRGC runs for high office in Tehran

63-year-old IRGC Brigadier General Hossein Dehghan is eying the Iranian presidency. If his candidacy is approved and he is elected in 2021, Dehghan will be the Islamic Republic’s first military president, a development with significant implications for Iranian domestic politics and foreign policy.





Analysis: JNIM celebrates prisoner swap in Mali

In exchange for the release of dozens of imprisoned members from Mali’s prisons, Al Qaeda’s Group for Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM) has freed four hostages, three of them foreign. JNIM has since celebrated the prisoner swap, including a personal appearance by its overall emir, Iyad Ag Ghaly, in northern Mali.






Jihadist ideologues argue over Turkey’s Erdogan

Two prominent jihadist ideologues, Sheikh Abdullah al-Muhaysini and Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, are engaged in a war of words over Erdoğan’s Turkey. The relationship between the jihadists in Syria and Turkey has long been a point of contention and the heated rhetoric reveals that it isn’t likely to subside soon.



Analysis: Don’t trust estimates of Al Qaeda’s strength in Afghanistan

The U.S. government, military, and intelligence services have provided inaccurate assessments of Al Qaeda’s strength in Afghanistan for more than a decade. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo continued that tradition by recent regurgitating that Al Qaeda has fewer than 200 fighters in the country. This estimate, like previous ones, should not be trusted.




Analysis: A ‘Tired’ Taliban talking point

American politicians, military leaders, and reporters have been claiming that the Taliban is “tired,” “desperate,” “war weary” and other such statements for the past decade and a half. Yet the Taliban keeps fighting.