Indonesia
Detachment 88, Indonesia’s counterterrorism police, arrested 19 suspects involved in a series of book bombings and a plot to blow up a church in Serong over Easter weekend. Police found a suspected bomb factory in Aceh.
Monthly Archives: April 2011
ISAF captures HIG’s provincial commander for Khost
Special operation teams have hammered Hizb-i-Islami Gulbuddin’s command in an area of Khost under the control of the Haqqani Network.
Pakistan
Another case of Taliban victimisation
Bangladesh
Police arrested Maulana Sheikh Farid, the top Harkat-ul-Jihad-i-Islami Bangladesh leader. Farid has been linked to a string of attacks in Bangladesh, and fought with the Taliban during the 1990s.
Pakistan
Three people were killed in a bombing of a Navy bus in Karachi. Pakistani forces killed three Afghan troops after launching artillery attacks from South Waziristan. The government denied reports it is seeking to split the US and Afghanistan.
Afghanistan
Pakistan urged Afghanistan to distance itself from the West, officials say
Obama set to shuffle national security team
Panetta to Defense, Petraeus to CIA, and Crocker returns to the diplomatic corps in Afghanistan.
Afghanistan
An Afghan pilot killed eight ISAF soldiers and a contractor in an attack in Kabul. The Taliban killed two policemen in Kunar and two ISAF troops in the south and the east. Security forces killed and captured several Taliban and HIG commanders and fighters in Kandahar, Helmand, Khost, and Paktika.
Sweden
Reacting to the publication yesterday in Sweden of WikiLeaks documents about his prior detention at Guantanamo, Swedish terror suspect Mehdi Ghezali said, “I just want to be able to move on.” Returned to Sweden in 2004, Ghezali was briefly detained in Pakistan in 2009.
Denmark
An expanded indictment in the case of Tahawwur Rana, detained with David Headley in the US on charges related to the 2008 Mumbai attacks, reveals that terrorist Ilyas Kashmiri offered Headley a network of Europeans to provide weapons, money, and operatives for an attack on the Jyllands-Posten newspaper in Copenhagen.
Somalia
Ten people were killed in an IED attack in Luq. Three soldiers and two civilians were killed during clashes with Shabaab in Mogadishu. Shabaab banned khat usage in Marka.
Yemen
Two Yemeni soldiers were killed in an ambush in Zinjibar in the southern province of Abyan. The government said the opposition and President Saleh’s political party have agreed to the Gulf Cooperation Council’s plan to transition power.
Al Qaeda in Iraq
Yemen remains al Qaeda’s ultimate breeding ground
Al Qaeda
United Kingdom – Elected police commissioners could damage fight against terrorists
United Kingdom
WikiLeaks: fear of offending Muslims allowed extremists into Britain ahead of 7/7 London bombings
Turkey
Turkey to build its own ‘Panama Canal’
Al Qaeda
Karzai told to dump US
Afghanistan
Pakistan denies reports of efforts to split US, Afghanistan
Egypt
“Masked gunmen” bombed the El Sabil natural gas export terminal on the Sinai Peninsula. The bombing has shut down the natural gas pipeline to Israel and Jordan. No group has claimed the attack.
Libya
A US official said NATO is increasing airstrikes in an effort to pressure President Gaddafi into ending the fighting, not kill him. Venezuela is hosting Gaddafi’s envoys and seeks to negotiate a settlement to the fighting.
Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb
In a tape released on the jihadist forums, al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb again called for France to withdraw from Afghanistan in exchange for the release of five French hostages captured in Niger. “We implore the president of the French republic, Nicolas Sarkozy, to answer favorably al Qaeda’s demands for France to withdraw French […]
United States
President Obama is expected to nominate current CIA Director Leon Panetta as the Secretary of Defense, and current ISAF Commander General David Petraeus as the head of the CIA. Lieutenant General John Allen will replace Petraeus as ISAF commander.
Afghan pilot kills 8 US troops, contractor in Kabul attack
The pilot is said to have opened fire on the ISAF troops after a dispute at North Kabul International Airport. The Taliban claimed the attack.
Egypt
Egyptian youth leaders plan new tactics
Iraq
Text messages proliferate as threats in Iraq
Al Qaeda
Pentagon lists mosques where al-Qaida recruited, reveals WikiLeaks
Egypt
Egypt – Qena protests end after Coptic governor is suspended
How many al Qaeda operatives are now left in Afghanistan?
ISAF said it has killed more than 25 al Qaeda leaders and fighters in Afghanistan in the past month.
Iraq
Insurgents killed two Iraqis in Kirkuk and the Baghdad governor’s secretary in the capital. Security forces detained two al Qaeda operatives in Wasit, three members of an IED cell in Baghdad, and seven wanted men in Kirkuk.
Lashkar-e-Taiba
The US has charged four Pakistani members of the Lashkar-e-Taiba in absentia for their conspiring in the November 2008 terror assault on Mumbai. The men are known as Sajid Mir, Abu Qahafa, Mazhar Iqbal, and “Major Iqbal.”