Violence and Security

Taliban Hostage Demand Shows Af-Pak Islamist Linkages

August 30, 2018

The Taliban leadership in Afghanistan has conditioned the release of a US and an Australian hostage on the Afghan government's release of an imprisoned member of the Pakistan-based Haqqani network designated by Washington as a global terrorist group, underscoring the cross-border Af-Pak (Afghanistan-Pakistan) alliances among Islamist extremist groups.
IS Cleansing of Syria's Christians Is One of Caliphate's Legacies

August 29, 2018

One of the legacies of the Islamic State's (!S) caliphate regime in Iraq and Syria is the near-erasure of Syria's ancient Assyrian Christian communities, the consequence of church destruction, kidnapping and killing of hostages, and the exodus of Christian groups.
IS Cells Claim Attack on Kabul School

August 29, 2018

Islamic State (IS) cells have claimed a recent high-casualty suicide bombing attack on a university prep school in Afghanistan's capital city of Kabul, signaling the group's targeting of education and youth to ensure control over ideas, literacy, and discourses that could challenge the Islamist extremists' worldview.
Bans on Face Coverings Multiply Across Europe

August 21, 2018

The Washington Post reports that Denmark recently became the fifth European country to ban face coverings in public - including the Muslim niqab - as politicians, backed by favorable rulings of the European Court of Human Rights and using cultural and security justifications, increasingly turn to national and local laws banning the Islamic veil.
Germany Arrests Iranian Diplomat over Terror Plot

August 15, 2018

Germany's recent arrest of a high-ranking Iranian diplomat from Tehran's Embassy in Austria reveals a network of activities underscoring the extent to which Iranian intelligence operatives are engaged in espionage and violent activities committed to destabilizing the Euro-American space in line with Tehran's radical Islamist revolutionary goals.
IS Targets Druze as Militants Regroup in Syria

August 15, 2018

Islamic State (IS) fighters targeted Syria's Druze community kidnapping-for-ransom and violence, a first-time move against the Islamic offshoot community considered heretics by IS and a signal of the Islamist extremist group's shift to targeted, low-risk-high-return attacks designed to sustain their jihadist operations over the long haul in Syria and Iraq.
Judge Sentences Ex-Marine for IS Terror Plot in San Francisco

August 15, 2018

A former US Marine was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison for his role in plotting with Islamic State (IS) to perpetrate a terrorist attack against the popular tourist spot Pier 39 in San Francisco.
Islamist Sectarian Violence Leaves Shiite Students Dead in Kabul

August 15, 2018

A high-casualty suicide-bombing attack at a university preparatory school in Kabul for Afghanistan's Shiite Hazara community bears all the hallmarks of Sunni Islamist extremists who view the country's Shiite minority as heretics to be targeted with violence.
Arrested Islamist Extremist Tested Positive for Explosives at Airport in 2004

August 15, 2018

Jana Pruet reports that, according to authorities, airport security in New York chose not to detain Siraj Ibn Wahhaj, one of the men arrested by US authorities in the raid of a compound in New Mexico where children were reportedly being trained to commit public school shootings, in 2004 after he tested positive for an explosive substance.
Latest Taliban Assault Shows Islamist Resilience in Afghanistan

August 15, 2018

The assault by Taliban fighters to capture the strategically important city of Ghazni is a blow to the US’s post-9/11 efforts to combat Islamist terrorism in Southwest Asia and undermines the Afghan government's efforts to negotiate a sustainable peace with the Taliban to focus on pushing back Islamic State operatives in the region.