The Los Angeles Times’ Alex Rodriguez reports on the move by fighters from the South Waziristan Taliban, al Qaeda, and Central Asia into the Arakzai and Kurram tribal agencies. This is the perfect complementary piece to today’s report on the South Waziristan operation. From the LA Times: Villagers in Kurram and Arakzai, as well as […]
Senior Taliban leaders have dodged the operation, and the bulk of the forces have regrouped in North Waziristan, Arakzai, Khyber, and Kurram.
Al Qaeda is teaming up with Ba’athist elements, sparking fears that eastern Syrian will “begin to look like northwestern Pakistan.”
Members of a rebel military unit have enlisted to fight with al Qaeda and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, according to the Tajik National Security Committee.
Wakil Ahmad Mutawakil. Two stories of US negotiations with the Taliban are sure to spark controversy as the Obama administration has yet to decide on the path forward in Afghanistan. The first report, from Dawn, is the more interesting of the two: The Obama administration may be close to reversing course on its current strategy […]
Two suspected members of an extremist group held for seven years in Guantanamo Bay have been acquitted by an Algerian court. The men allege that they were “brutally tortured” in Guantanamo. They were arrested in Pakistan after 9/11 and sent home to Algeria last year; on Sunday, an Algerian court acquitted them of charges of […]
George Washington University’s National Security Archive has released a series of documents and cables from the US State Department and the CIA on the Taliban. Titled “The Taliban Biography, The Structure and Leadership of the Taliban 1996-2002,” the documents provide interesting background information on the Taliban leadership, and most importantly, show that back in 1998, […]
Jalaluddin Haqqani with his son Nasrudin. Jihadica points to an interview with Jalaluddin Haqqani, the patriarch of the Haqqani family network, which is based in eastern Afghanistan and across the border in North Waziristan in Pakistan. Jalaluddin has a clever answer to a question on suicide attacks being plotted and launched from Pakistan, as Jihadica […]
Three suicide bombers blew themselves up in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. Police chased the men into the foothills after residents saw them dump a bag of weapons.
Counterterrorism police detained two Pakistanis, a father and a son, who are accused of financing the 2008 terror assault on Mumbai. The two Pakistanis used their money transfer business to send cash to individuals involved in the attacks.
The Arakzai-based Taliban group has been implicated in four of the five suicide attacks in Islamabad this year.
Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Amir al Mumineen (“the commander of the faithful”) of the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban. According to The Washington Times, Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency has helped Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Amir al Mumineen (“the commander of the faithful”) for both the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban, relocate to the southern port city of […]
A Taliban training camp near Mir Ali was the target of the attack. Three al Qaeda operatives are reported to have been killed.
More than 50 are wounded, six critically, in the latest suicide strike in the besieged city of Peshawar.
The US airstrikes in Pakistan have tapered off in the past three months.
Ansar al Awlaki (left), and Major Nidal Hasan (right). As more clues emerge and investigations continue in the Fort Hood shootings, the debate rages as to what Major Nidal Hasan’s motives were. The facts that are already known, however, seem to paint a pretty clear picture of how these events unfolded, and what Hasan’s intentions […]
Afghan and Coalition forces killed 23 Taliban fighters in the Barmal district in Paktika province; Arab and Pakistani fighters were among those killed. Afghanistan was ranked the second most corrupt nation in the world by Transparency International. Slovakia will send an additional 250 troops.
Afghan troops killed 23 Haqqani Network fighters during a clash in the Barmal district. Arab and Pakistani fighters were reported killed in the battle.
Wanted flyer for Swat Taliban leaders. Fazlullah is in the top right. Mullah Fazlullah, the leader of the Swat Taliban, has surfaced in Afghanistan and has threatened to reignite the insurgency in Pakistan’s Swat Valley. From BBC: “I have reached Afghanistan safely,” Maulana Fazlullah told BBC Urdu. “We are soon going to launch full-fledged punitive […]
US asks more from Pakistan in terror war
The attack took place near a police station and leveled a mosque. Another political leader was assassinated in the northwest.
The Sunday Times has an interesting and disturbing story of an Irishman who converted to Islam while in a Saudi jail and has left the UK to become a jihadi. Khalid Kelly, as he is now known, is of course training in Pakistan. Interestingly enough, he’s in the Swat Valley: After a period underground, Kelly […]
The Taliban continue their campaign to weaken the tribal opposition in Pakistan’s northwest.
A British memo that advocates reconciliation with the Taliban – all the way to the top level with the Quetta Shura – has surfaced. The BBC has the report: “We must weaken and divide the Taliban if we are to reduce the insurgency to a level that can be managed and contained by the Afghan […]
Police arrested three members of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba for plotting to conduct terror attacks against US and Indian interests in the capital of Dhaka. The arrests were made with intelligence gleaned from US terror suspects David Headley and Tahawwur Hussain Rana.
Peshawar has been hit hard in the Taliban offensive; one-third of the major Taliban attacks have taken place in the northwestern province. Clashes were reported throughout the northwest.
More than 400 fighters from Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and Somalia are housed in the Abyan camp, one of several operating in the country with the knowledge of the government.
Osama bin Laden escorted by the Black Guard. Jean-Louis Bruguiere, a former French investigative magistrate who specialized on al Qaeda and investigated the terror group in Pakistan, has more damning information on al Qaeda, Lashkar-e-Taiba, and the groups’ ties to each other and the Pakistani state. From Reuters: In an interview, Bruguiere said he was […]
The FBI moved to seize four mosques and a Fifth Avenue skyscraper in New York City that are owned by the Alavi Foundation, which is a front for the Iranian government. The total assets are worth more than $500 million. Fort Hood shooter Major Hasan may have wired money to Pakistan.
A court said the Pakistani Taliban ordered a cell of men based in Pakistan and India to conduct suicide attacks in Barcelona’s subway system. Eleven members of the cell were detained in January 2008 after one of the cell members turned himself in to authorities.