Ilyas Kashmiri, the leader of the Harakat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami and al Qaeda’s Brigade 313. The Asia Times‘ Syed Saleem Shahzad has published his interview with Ilyas Kashmiri, a senior al Qaeda leader and longtime Pakistani jihadi with strong ties to Pakistan’s military and intelligence services who was thought to have been killed in a US airstrike in […]
Aftermath of the Shangla suicide attack. AP photo. The Taliban have taken credit for the Shangla suicide attack against a military convoy as well as the assault on the Army General Headquarters in Rawalpindi. Dawn reports on the Taliban taking credit for the Shangla attack: A boy aged about 13 and wearing a suicide vest […]
Taliban fighters in South Waziristan. Reuters photo. With four large-scale Taliban attacks in Pakistan since Oct. 4, including the brazen assault on the Army General Headquarters in Rawalpindi, the Pakistani government and military are still talking about considering discussing the possibility of issuing orders to provide for a principled decision to launch an offensive against […]
Dr. Usman was arrested in October 2008 for his involvement in the September 2008 suicide attack on the Islamabad Marriott. He is a former soldier and has extensive links to Pakistani jihadi groups.
US and Afghan forces killed 18 extremists and detained one during a raid on an al Qaeda base in the mountains in Kunar province in eastern Afghanistan. An al Qaeda commander was the target of the attack.
Afghan officials said Mullah Abdul Rahman Mostaghni, a district-level commander, was killed in a raid over the weekend. The US military has not confirmed the report.
Britain building Pakistan border force camp: report
“This means they are not coming back,” a Taliban spokesman said after US troops abandoned two outposts after a deadly battle in Nuristan. “This is another victory for Taliban.”
Six days after the deadly battle in the Kamdish district in Nuristan, the US military has withdrawn from the two combat outposts that were attacked. From an ISAF press release: ISAF forces have completed their repositioning from two combat outposts (Combat Outposts Keating and Fritsche) in Kamdesh district, Nuristan province, to other areas in eastern […]
The suicide attack is the second in one of Pakistan’s major cities in four days.
The editors of The Long War Journal take a look at the insurgency in Afghanistan through al Qaeda’s eyes.
“This was an operation which was planned by a state,” Afghan officials said, referring to Pakistan.
Indian soldiers killed seven terrorists in separate clashes in Kashmir, including four Lashkar-e-Taiba fighters in Kupwara. Indian intelligence said the Pakistani military is sending captive Taliban fighters from Swat to fight in Kashmir.
The Taliban have released a clever piece of disinformation today, which clearly is aimed at US policymakers as well as the American public as the Obama administration decides on a new path forward in Afghanistan. In this latest statement, the Taliban are claiming they have no aspirations to be involved in the global jihad. From […]
Eight months after The Long War Journal broke the news on the existence of al Qaeda’s paramilitary Shadow Army, or the Lashkar al Zil, the Associated Press picked up on the role the terror army plays in Afghanistan, and mentioned the Lashkar al Zil by name. In an article titled “Al-Qaida showing smaller presence in […]
Pakistan – UN blast shows Taliban still potent
US and Afghan troops killed the embedded al Qaeda trainers in the western province of Herat.
The US military also backed away from claims that a “Nuristani tribal militia” conducted the attack and said it was a collaborative effort by multiple extremist groups.
An explosion rocked the offices of the World Food Program in a secured region in Pakistan’s capital. The Taliban have warned they would relaunch attacks nationwide if operations in the tribal areas are not halted.
Hakeemullah Mehsud (left), the new leader of the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan, is photographed with Waliur Rehman, the new leader of the Taliban in South Waziristan (right), during their meeting with the media in Sararogha in South Waziristan. AP photo. Hakemullah Mehsud, the newly appointed leader of the Movement of the Taliban in […]
A Taliban commander said Yuldashev, the leader of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, was killed in the Aug. 27 strike in Kanigoram. The prospect of dying in a US strike “worried him a lot.”
The attack was led by Taliban commander Dost Mohammed and was aided by al Qaeda’s Shadow Army, officials told The Long War Journal.
Malik Abdul Majeed was gunned down while driving to meet with Pakistani officials about ejecting the Taliban from the Mamond region. Majeed is the tenth tribal leader to be assassinated in 10 days.
Taliban commander Hakeemullah Mehsud at a press conference in Peshawar in 2008. Reuters is reporting that the news leader of the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan may be dead. According to unnamed US intelligence officials, Hakeemullah Mehsud may have been killed during a clash with a rival Taliban group several weeks ago. From Reuters: […]
Iran’s nuclear facility in the mountains near Qom. A new round of diplomatic concessions has come out of the negotiations yesterday between the United Nations’ five permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany (P5+1) and the Islamic Republic of Iran. The biggest news coming out of Geneva is that Iran has agreed to open […]
According to Dawn, the Pakistani military has decided it can no longer wait to take on the Taliban in Waziristan: After fighting brief skirmishes against militants, the Pakistan Army plans to unfold in the next few days what military officials characterize as the mother of all battles in South Waziristan, senior military and security officials […]
Unconfirmed reports indicate Tahir Yuldashev was among those killed in a US airstrike in Kanigoram on Aug. 27.
As Sahab, al Qaeda’s propaganda wing, has released a tape of Mustafa Abu Yazid, al Qaeda’s commander in Afghanistan, eulogizing Baitullah Mehsud, the former leader of the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan. The video is 8:22 long, and unfortunately does not have English subtitles. One part, from a partial transcript, stands out. Yazid notes […]
Al Qaeda’s leader in Afghanistan, Mustafa Abu Yazid, eulogized former Pakistani Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud, who was killed in a US airstrike on Aug. 5, 2009. The eight-minute tape was released by As Sahab, al Qaeda’s propaganda arm.
While Pakistan’s Inter-Service Intelligence agency refuses to admit it backs the radical, al Qaeda-linked Lashkar-e-Taiba, US intelligence officials and even Lashkar-e-Taiba operatives beg to differ. From a report in The New York Times on Lashkar-e-Taiba and its attack on Mumbai, India: But a senior American intelligence official said the ISI was believed to maintain ties […]