Violence and Security

Jihadist Groups Aim at Caliphate in West Africa

July 23, 2018

Senior government officials in Niger are warning that the cluster of jihadist groups operating across West Africa, including both indigenous and exogenous al-Qaeda and Islamic State affiliates, are a growing existential threat aiming to impose a caliphate in the states of the Lake Chad region.
IS Regroups in Iraq’s Ungoverned Spaces

July 23, 2018

Islamic State (IS) militants have staged an increasing number of abductions for ransom of local officials and attacks on basic infrastructure in the ungoverned areas along the Baghdad-Kirkuk highway in central Iraq.
Islamist Groups Aim to Capture Parliament in Pakistan

July 23, 2018

A broad range of Islamist groups and parties in Pakistan, many of which are linked to the country’s military and which advocate death for speech considered blasphemous and violence against non-Muslims, are running strong campaigns aiming to capture a parliamentary majority in the country’s approaching national elections.
Taliban Uses Narcotics, Jihad to Maintain Power in Afghanistan

July 23, 2018

Almost two decades after the initial US war in Afghanistan following the al-Qaeda terror attacks against America, the Islamist Taliban movement controls more Afghan territory than ever before and is funding jihad at home and abroad with massive narcotics revenues from opium production.
Pakistani Extremists Target Shiites, Endorse Violence

July 23, 2018

Candidates from Sunni extremist groups, including those designated as terrorists, are using Pakistan’s 2018 national election campaign as an occasion to target the country’s Shiite minority community as apostates from Islam.
Iraqi Christian Women Kidnapped by IS Remain Missing

July 23, 2018

The fate of almost all of the women kidnapped by the Islamic State (IS) from the ancient Iraqi Christian town of Qaraqosh remains unknown, even as the population is slowly returning to the destroyed Iraqi town since the expulsion of the Islamic caliphate forces.
Case Reveals Broad Conspiracy for IS Attacks on US

July 18, 2018

The recent sentencing of a Maryland man to 20 years in prison on terrorism charges was based on a complicated FBI counter-terrorism investigation that revealed a broad network of Islamic State (IS) networks plotting a series of attacks, including the use of weaponized drones, on American soil.
Critics of Planned Islamic Concert Receive “Islamophobic” Label

July 16, 2018

Muslim organizations in France have deployed the term “Islamophobic” against critics of planned Islamic concerts, including a musician whose most well-known song is entitled “Jihad,” at the site of the 2015 Islamist terrorist attacks at the Bataclan theatre in Paris.
IS Militants Kill Guards at Saudi Prison

July 16, 2018

The Islamic State’s (IS) digital magazine has reported that IS militants staged an attack against security guards at a major prison in Saudi Arabia, with an unknown number of casualties.
Report Reveals Scope of Women’s, Minors’ IS Involvement

July 16, 2018

According to a new report from the British think tank International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence, women and minors from over 80 countries have been affiliated with the Islamic State (IS) caliphate, which also claimed more than 700 cases of infants born in the core IS caliphate territories of Iraq and Syria.