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Egypt
At least four security personnel were injured in a bomb attack outside a military intelligence headquarters in Sharqiya province; security sources suggested the attack was a car bomb. The army said operations in North Sinai resulted in the destruction of four smuggling tunnels and arrest of three terrorists. Authorities defused a bomb at al Azhar University’s Faculty of Medicine in Damietta and another bomb near a school in el Arish.
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Israel
In response to rocket fire from Lebanon, the IDF struck the source of the attack with artillery fire. Prime Minister Netanyahu said Israel holds the Lebanese government and Hezbollah responsible for the rocket attack.
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Suspected car bomb wounds 4 Egyptian soldiers in Sharkiya
The attack came five days after an Ansar Jerusalem suicide car bombing in Mansoura killed more than a dozen people. Authorities also reportedly defused a bomb near a school in el Arish today.
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Suicide bomber strikes at Russian train station
The bombing, which was likely executed by the Islamic Caucasus Emirate, took place in a region where Russia will host the 2014 Winter Olympics, and is the second suicide attack in Volgograd since October.
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Mauritania
Security forces reportedly arrested several previously detained Salafists on Dec. 27, including Sidi Ould Mamoury. A number of the 29 al Qaeda-linked inmates at Nouackchott Central Prison have gone on a hunger strike to protest “arbitrary measures” such as the denial of parole and the imposition of fines as a condition of their release.
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Tunisia
Police seized $2.3 million worth of gold on Dec. 27 while searching for militants and weapons at a checkpoint on a main road near the town of Al-Miknassi, which is close to Sidi Bouzid, a terrorist hotspot. Authorities would not say whether the gold was linked to terrorism, although the checkpoints have been set up due to fears of attacks by Islamist militants around the New Year. A Tunisian security expert warned that 300 Ansar al-Sharia “emirs” who have received weapons training in Libya are preparing to enter Tunisian territory to assume command of terrorist groups. The new emirs, said…
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Mali
The government has filed treason charges against former President Amadou Toumani, who was ousted by a military coup in April 2013. He is accused of “naming incompetent officers and soldiers, whose patriotism was questionable, to high-level posts.” The Defense Ministry recently announced the arrest of Aliou Mahamar Toure, the brutal former chief of Islamic Police in Gao; he was reportedly detained while driving a scooter near Bourem.
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Afghanistan
Police killed 13 Taliban fighters during operations in Nangarhar, Laghman, Logar and Helmand. The Taliban killed an Afghan soldier in an IED attack. The Interior Minister disputed a British report that the Taliban would retake areas of Afghanistan after ISAF forces withdraw.
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United States
New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, who retires in a few days, warned that the city “remains squarely in the crosshairs of terrorists.” Another NYPD official warned that New Yorkers who have traveled to Syria to fight may return radicalized. A 300-member Army rocket battalion is deploying to the Middle East for nine months. A federal judge in Manhattan said the NSA’s telephone metadata collection “represents the government’s counter-punch” to al Qaeda’s ability to remotely operate an international terrorist network, and ruled that the NSA program does not violate privacy rights. The latest National Intelligence Estimate predicts that most…
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Afghanistan
From MRAP to scrap: US military chops up $1-million vehicles
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Iraq
Security forces clashed with bodyguards while arresting a prominent Sunni member of parliament in Anbar who has been critical of Prime Minister Maliki. Three of the MP’s bodyguards and two siblings, and a soldier were killed during the fighting. A curfew has been imposed in Ramadi.
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Yemen
Tribesmen in Dhalia clashed with security forces at government buildings; two people were killed. The fighting took place after 19 people were killed when the military shelled a funeral. Tribesmen in Hadramout province bombed an oil pipeline to the port city of Shahr.
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Syria
Regime aircraft dropped explosive barrels on an Aleppo market, killing at least 25 people. An Islamic State of Iraq and the Sham commander was killed in a clash with Kurdish YPG forces in Hasakah. ISIS and YPG forces battled violently in Aleppo’s Efrin district. The Al Nusrah Front and Islamic battalions fought against regime forces in the Babila area of Reef Dimashq. The Syrian free lawyers’ union said it would establish national courts in rebel-held areas, and that the courts would apply law based on the 1950 constitution until a new one is drafted, so long as the law complies…
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Al Nusrah Front
How al Qaeda Changed the Syrian War
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Iraq
Syria’s civil war tests whether borders drawn less than a century ago will last
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Boko Haram leader claims another attack in Borno state
Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau has once again released a video claiming responsibility for a high-profile attack on a Nigerian military installation.
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Afghanistan
Afghan MPs Say Security Worse, Worried About Elections
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Afghanistan
MOI rejects Taliban could retake key territories after NATO pullout
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Afghanistan
Afghanistan – Boy Trained by Haqqanis Claims He Was Raped
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France
France may ban French comic’s show for ‘anti-Semitism’
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Syria
US aid to Syrian refugees generally stops at the border
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Egypt
At least one protester was killed during clashes between security forces and Muslim Brotherhood supporters al Azhar University in Cairo. Human Rights Watch called on the Egyptian government to reverse its decision to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization. Authorities managed to defuse a bomb on a bus in Heliopolis. The army spokesman said 13 people were arrested in new operations in North Sinai. Unidentified gunmen targeted a military intelligence building in el Arish.
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Israel
IDF fighting new brand of Palestinian terror
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Libya
Four US military personnel traveling in two SUVs were detained at a checkpoint near Sabratha, west Tripoli, and then moved to the Ministry of the Interior before they were released. One of the SUVs was reportedly set on fire. In Benghazi, a lieutenant colonel was kidnapped and an army guard was attacked yesterday, and a senior military officer was shot dead on Dec. 26. A Palestinian who was shot in Benghazi is being held under armed guard at the hospital. Over 40 prisoners escaped in a mass jailbreak in Ajdabiya; four were recaptured. The Sebha local council went on strike…
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Afghanistan
The Taliban killed three ISAF soldiers in a suicide attack that targeted a convoy in Kabul and killed two civilians in an IED attack in Uruzgan. Security forces captured five Taliban fighters as they were manufacturing suicide vests in Baghlan.
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US drones kill 2 AQAP fighters in eastern Yemen
The strike took place in Hadramout province, the ancestral home of Osama bin Laden’s family, which has become a haven for al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
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Iraq
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Sham killed three Awakening fighters in Kirkuk. Security forces captured seven ISIS fighters in Anbar. The US is sending weapons to Iraq to aid in the fight against the ISIS.
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Syria
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Sham, the Al Nusrah Front, and other Islamist rebel groups clashed with regime, Hezbollah, and NDF forces in Aleppo. A regime ambush near Maloula killed “tens of Islamist fighters” said to be members of Al Nusrah. Residents of the blockaded rebel-held town of Moadamiyeh near Damascus raised Syrian flags as part of a deal with the Assad regime to allow food into the besieged area; rebels are to turn over their heavy weapons and inhabitants are also expected to expel unregistered persons. Several civilians died of malnutrition in the besieged Yarmouk refugee camp…
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Hezbollah
Fallout from Syrian conflict in Lebanon
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Yemen
The US killed two al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula fighters in a drone strike in Hadramout. Yemeni troops killed 15 civilians in an artillery strike at a funeral of a separatist leader in Al Dhalia province.
