Latest Al-Shabab Attack in Mogadishu Continues Destabilization of Horn of Africa

August 23, 2022

Militants from the al-Qaeda-affiliated Somali Islamist group al-Shabab attacked a major hotel in the country’s capital city of Mogadishu, in a terrorist attack that signals the continuing resilience of the Islamist extremist group as a threat to broader stability in the geopolitically crucial Horn of Africa region. 

Attack on Author Rushdie Signals Broader Transnational Threats to Religious Freedom

August 23, 2022

The perpetrator of the recent knife-attack against novelist Salman Rushdie by a young Lebanese American sympathetic to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps justified his actions by reference to Islamic blasphemy laws and, specifically, the Islamic legal ruling (fatwa) by Iran’s islamic clerical leadership that called for killing Rushdie, with the assault providing a stark reminder of the transnational threats to religious freedom and human security posed by Islamist extremism.



Intra-Islamist Competition Paralyzes Iraq

August 17, 2022

Factional infighting among competing Shiite Islamist groups has left Iraq paralyzed without a government since the country’s parliamentary election last October 2021, with Iraqi Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr leading a socio-political bloc of Islamic nationalists opposed to the broad, pro-Iran coalition of political and para-military groups loyal to former Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.  

Islamist Sectarian Violence Comes to US With New Mexico Killings

August 17, 2022

According to Time, the police investigation into the killing of four Muslim immigrant men by a Faith Muslim immigrant man in Albuquerque, New Mexico suggests that the perpetrator, a Sunni Muslim, murdered the victims because they were Shiite Muslims, suggesting that the Islamist sectarianism is now being globalized to the United States. 

Security Environment in African Sahel Continues to Worsen Because of Islamist Extremism

August 09, 2022

According to africacenter.org, the trendlines are negative for the security environment in the African Sahel region, due to Intensifying and expanding Islamist extremism that includes a broad swathe of countries extending from the northern Atlantic Ocean to the Gulf of Aden on the Indian Ocean.  

Mali Braces for Jihadist Attacks Part of Unstable West Africa

August 09, 2022

The capital city of the West African country of Mali is on high alert as military and intelligence officials brace for jihadist attacks threatened by Al-Qaeda-affiliated militants who are part of the spreading Islamist extremism that has destabilized the Continent’s Sahel region, with Mail-based extremists warring to impose sharia law on a state already weakened by a military junta that has turned away from Euro-American cooperation and towards Russian mercenary support. 

US Strike on AQ Chief Zawahiri Highlights Clear & Present Danger of Islamist Extremism

August 04, 2022

According to the atlanticcouncil.org, the US drone strike that killed Al-Qaeda leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri in his safehouse in Afghanistan was a one-time success against global Islamist terrorism that, in fact, highlights the ongoing, clear and present danger posed by Afghanistan as a platform for jihadist activities and by the Taliban as an Islamic regime that welcomes a variety of jihadist entities for operations planning against Western targets. 

Turkey’s Neo-Ottoman Islamism Uses Influence-Building & Partnerships for Transnational Impact

August 03, 2022

Turkey’s neo-Ottoman geopolitical strategy turns on Islamism to reconfigure the country’s domestic sociopolitical orientation against the West and towards authoritarian like regimes like Russia and China, as well as to partner with radical Islamist groups like Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood in order to build influence in Europe, the Mideast, the Caucasus, and Africa. 

Al-Shabaab Incursion into Ethiopia from Somalia Signals Spreading Jihadist Threat in East Africa

August 03, 2022

The Somali-based, al-Qaeda-linked jihadist group Al-Shabaab breached the border recently in multiple incursions that signal the jihadist group’s growing strength vis-via states of East Africa pointing to the growing security threat of Islamist militancy in a geopolitically crucial region connecting the three Continents of Africa, Asia and Europe. 

Khazakh IS Foreign Fighter Details Jihadist Recruitment Propaganda

August 02, 2022

The testimony of a now-repatriated Khazakh foreign fighter who traveled from his Central Asian homeland to the Mideast to fight with IS in Syria details the systematic educational propaganda used by the jihadist group in order to win global recruits and the social media propaganda deployed to promote a narrative of Islamist successes in an inter-generational, civilizational battle