Tuareg rebels reportedly captured Mohamed Moussa Ag Mouhamed, Ansar Dine’s former emir in Timbuktu, and Oumeini Ould Baba Akhmed, said to be behind the kidnapping of a French hostage by the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa. French warplanes struck Islamist rear areas in and around Tessalit in northern Mali.
The Moro National Liberation Front attempted to free a Jordanian hostage being held by Abu Sayyaf in Jolo. Eight MNLF and 13 Abu Sayyaf fighters were killed in the clash; the fate of the Jordanian is not known.
The tactic of the suicide assault is being employed with increasing frequency by al Qaeda and its affiliates and allies in all of the major theaters of the Long War.
Thirteen security personnel, 12 Taliban fighters, and 10 civilians were killed after the Taliban launched an assault on a checkpoint in Lakki Marwat. The Taliban killed two more soldiers in an IED attack in Arakzai.
NATO chief urges European countries not to use Afghanistan drawdown as excuse to cut budgets
Eastern Afghanistan residents wary of US departure
Insurgents killed three soldiers in an IED attack south of Samarra. Security forces captured five al Qaeda fighters in a raid on a bomb factory in Karma. Clerics in Fallujah rejected al Qaeda’s call for demonstrators to join them and fight the government.
Twenty-one al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula fighters, five soldiers, and two pro-government militia members were killed during fighting near Shurqa in Abyan. The government confirmed that a ship that was seized for smuggling weapons last week is an Iranian vessel.
A suicide bomber killed a Kenyan soldier in an attack in Wajir. Two policemen and a civlian were wounded in the blast, which took place near a bank.
A senior police official said that five Shabaab operatives who entered the country last month are still missing. The five “foreign fighters” are said to be involved in the 2010 suicide attacks in Kampala.
The HRW report provoked an undiplomatic response from the Pakistani military and ISI.
Thirteen Pakistani military personnel, 11 civilians, and 12 Taliban fighters are reported to have been killed. The Taliban said the attack was carried out to avenge the deaths of two senior commanders killed in recent US drone strikes.
A suicide bomber killed 22 civilians in an attack outside of two mosques in Hangu. Six Pakistanis were killed after mortars fired from Afghanistan struck in South Waziristan.
Security forces killed seven Taliban fighters in Helmand. Two policemen were killed in a shooting at a university in Takhar.
Security forces killed 17 Boko Haram fighters during two raids on training camps in Borno state. One soldier was also killed in the fighting. The raids occur despite a supposed truce that is being observed by Boko Haram.
The bomber detonated close to two nearby mosques, one Shia and one Sunni, in Hangu. The attack may have been carried out by the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan, the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, or both groups.
Afghan police killed a Taliban district chief in Ghazni. Two tribal elders in Kunar were killed after being kidnapped days ago. The US State department warned that traveling in Afghanistan remains unsafe.
Security forces killed an al Qaeda fighter and detained three more in Hit; captured 15 members of a bombmaking cell in Baghdad; and arrested two al Qaeda leaders in Mosul. Border guards arrested seven “gunmen” who attempted to enter Iraq from Syria.
Eighteen soldiers and 48 al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula fighters are reported to have been killed during fighting in the Maneseeh area of Baydah. Peace talks with AQAP have been suspended. The military launched an operation against AQAP in the Mojan and Wadie areas of Abyan.
Shabaab claimed credit for the Jan. 29 suicide attack outside of the prime minister’s home in Mogadishu. Shabaab claimed that seven security officers, including three senior figures, were killed in the blast.
The reconciliation between Faqir Mohammed and Abu Bakr, the new emir in Bajaur, shows that the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan is far from defeated and disorganized, as the Pakistani government has claimed. The Taliban’s leaders were able to convene the shura, send a delegation to Bajaur to mediate the dispute, and organize the reconciliation of the factions in the tribal agency.
Insurgents killed an Iraqi soldier in an IED attack in the Fallujah area. Security forces captured an al Qaeda leader in Fallujah and 10 “gunmen” linked to al Qaeda and Ansar al Sunnah in Kirkuk.
The sheikh of the tribe to which al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula deputy emir Said al Shihri belonged said the tribe would not bury the AQAP leader. Al Shihri’s father is said to have “disowned him after he walked in the path of terrorism.”
Fighting in Maneseeh between the Yemeni military and al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has stopped as mediators attempt to negotiate the release of three European hostages. Two intelligence officers were wounded in drive-by shootings in Hadramout.
A witness claimed that six security personnel were killed in yesterday’s blast outside of the prime minister’s home in Mogadishu. The World Food Program began distributing aid in Kismayo for the first time in four years.
Eastern Syria has long been a haven for al Qaeda in Iraq, but now the terror group’s affiliate is openly ruling a town near the Iraqi border.
The Pakistani military claimed it killed 33 Taliban and Lashkar-e-Islam fighters in airstrikes in Khyber and Arakzai tribal agencies. The Taliban, which has been battling the rival Ansarul Islam in Khyber, denied the Pakistani military’s claims.
“Gunmen” assassinated a district governor in Kapisa province. Twenty-eight insurgents reconciled with the government in Baghlan. Denmark will withdraw all of its troops from the country at the end of 2014.
Hundreds of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula fighters have arrived in Manaseeh in Baydah province to battle Yemeni forces who launched an offensive in the area. The fighters are said to have come from Abyan province.
A suicide bomber killed two Somali security personnel in an attack near the prime minister’s home in Villa Somalia. A minister said that the suicide bomber was a former employee of the National Intelligence and Security Agency.