Pakistani Taliban release video refuting rumors of leadership rift
The Pakistani Taliban leaders are seen sitting side by side. Hakeemullah Mehsud also said the Taliban are “willing to get our heads cut off for al Qaeda.”
Monthly Archives: December 2012
Algeria
Tunisia, Algeria sign security pact
Afghanistan
Afghanistan female air force pilots left grounded
Somalia
Ugandan troops killed several Shabaab fighters during clashes near Marka. Security forces captured 15 Shabaab fighters in Mogadishu. Nigeria will send 140 police officers to support AMISOM.
Afghanistan
Pakistan close Torkham gate at Pak-Afghan border
US drones kill 2 AQAP fighters in eastern Yemen
The US has stepped up drone strikes in the eastern province of Hadramout this year.
Al Nusrah Front emir denounces US terrorism designation, praises foreign fighters
Abu Muhammad al Julani sends “a greeting of love and loyalty to our pure and pious emigrant brothers” who are waging jihad in Syria.
United Nations
Islamists’ Harsh Justice on Rise in Northern Mali
Libya
A police lieutenant was shot and killed at his home near Benghazi by an unknown assailant; the policeman’s mother was injured in the attack. The Interior Ministry announced plans to investigate complaints against policemen, after a video surfaced on YouTube allegedly showing signs of torture on a suspect arrested in Benghazi.
US drones strike in Pakistan’s Shawal Valley
More than one-fifth of the drone strikes in Pakistan this year have taken place in the remote valley in North Waziristan.
Iraq
Iraq Sunni rallies gather steam
Taliban capture more than 20 Pakistani policemen
Coordinated raids by the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan on checkpoints outside of the provincial capital of Peshawar also resulted in the deaths of at least two soldiers.
Iran
The Rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran in the Middle East
Algeria
Algeria prepares for ‘guerrilla’ warfare
Afghanistan
The Taliban killed three policemen in an assault on a checkpoint in Uruzgan and another in an attack on the governor’s convoy in Faryab. The NDS found a car bomb in Parwan.
Egypt
Al Azhar rises in new Egypt
Iraq
Insurgents killed three Iraqi soldiers in an IED attack in Hamdaniya, north of Mosul. Security forces arrested five al Qaeda operatives, including a wanted “slaughterer,” in a raid in Fallujah.
Syria
Syrian moderates fear being edged out of uprising
Yemen
A jihadist identified two of the five al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula fighters who were killed in a Dec. 24 drone strike in Hadramout as Abdullah Bawazir and Nabil al Kaldi. Both men escaped from a prison in Mukallah in June 2011.
Syria
UN envoy Brahimi proposed a peace plan that included a transitional government with executive powers until new elections could be held. The National Coalition said it would agree to any plan that excludes President Assad. Russia sought to revive an earlier peace plan without the stipulation.
Israel
Israel’s internal security service arrested 10 members of an armed cell of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Two suspects are charged with plotting to kidnap an Israeli soldier; the other eight face related terror charges.
Egypt
Prosecutors ordered an investigation into opposition leaders over allegations that they planned to overthrow the government. An Islamist group in Sinai threatened to launch a crusade against drug use and cigarette smoking. Two ministers resigned over economic reforms.
Russia
Ibragim Dudarov, a deputy mufti in North Ossetia, was shot and killed by unknown gunmen near Vladikavkaz. His mufti said Islamist militants were not active in North Ossetia. The attack is the seventh this year against Islamic leaders in Russia. Police shot and killed Alim Lampezhev, a wanted militant leader in Kabardino-Balkaria, along with two […]
Algeria
Algerian army, air force, national gendarmerie, and special operation forces are conducting guerilla training exercises near the southern border to prepare for possible clashes with armed Islamists in northern Mali. Algeria is also tightening border controls, to curb the “co-operation and co-ordination between smuggling gangs, armed terrorist groups and arms trade mafia along the border […]
Mali
The al Qaeda-linked Ansar Dine destroyed the last of the mausoleums of the Sufi saints in Timbuktu. Ansar Dine’s Islamic police say the destruction of the tombs is unrelated to the UN’s approval of a military intervention in Mali.
Ansar Dine
The sack of Timbuktu: “What can we do against armed men?”
Afghanistan
ISAF to monitor Afghan policewoman investigation process
New jihadist group emerges in Syria
Syrian Jund al Sham says it will support “everyone who raised the banner of monotheism and jihad.”
Afghanistan
Betrayed While They Sleep, Afghan Police Are Dying in Numbers
Afghanistan
The high cost of disengagement