Violence and Security

US-Taliban Agreement Leaves Open-Ended Questions about Islamism and Geopolitical Competition

February 26, 2020

The impending formalization of a US-Taliban peace agreement that rests on the quid pro quo of a US troops withdrawal from Afghanistan in exchange for the Taliban commitment to renounce Afghanistan as a platform for global projection of Islamist extremism leaves open a range of implementation challenges.
Africa's Sahel Region Emerges as Major Front in Global Islamist Terrorism

February 26, 2020

The spiking trend of jihadist activities across Africa's Sahel region is threatening to make this western and north-central region of the African Continent a major front in the projection of global Islamist terrorism.
Attack on Burkina Faso Church Highlights Jihadist Efforts to Fuel Intercommunal Conflict in West Africa

February 25, 2020

The suspected jihadist perpetrators of a recent attack by armed gunmen at a Protestant church in Burkina Faso underscores the sustained efforts by local al Qaeda and Islamic State militias to politicize ethno-religious, tribal, and urban-rural cleavages, in order to advance the project of Islamist expansion and control over West Africa.
Afghan Government Supporters Fear US-Taliban Deal May Lead to Renewed Civil War

February 19, 2020

Local supporters of the government of Afghanistan are expressing concerns that the negotiated agreement between the United States and the Taliban for a gradual US troop withdrawal from the South Asian country may quickly devolved into another civil war in Afghanistan and an expansion of sharia-based Taliban control.
PM of Iraqi Kurdistan Warns of Resurgent IS

February 19, 2020

The Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) of Iraq is warning Western governments about the resurgence of the Islamic State (“IS”) in the period since the formal military defeat of the Islamist caliphate in its core territories of Iraq and Syria.
German Jihadis in Syria Underscore Transnational Fighter & Finance Networks

February 14, 2020

German media and security agencies concur that there are at least 60 German nationals fighting with Islamist extremist groups in Syria’s northwestern province of Idlib.
Lethal Suicide Attack on Afghan Military Academy Bears Hallmarks of Islamist Extremist Groups

February 11, 2020

A suicide bombing attack against one of Afghanistan’s most renowned military academies bears all the hallmarks of multiple past assaults on the same site by al-Qaeda and IS affiliates, with this current blow coming at a time when the Islamist extremist Taliban group holds more Afghan territory than ever before in its war to make sharia the law of the land.
U.S. Special Inspector's Report on Afghanistan Identifies Intensified Islamist Extremist Threat in 2019

February 05, 2020

A new report by the US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction indicates that the threat from the Taliban and other Islamist extremist groups in Afghanistan reached a record high in 2019, with widespread violence and high casualties against both civilians and government sites producing an ongoing humanitarian crisis and volatile security environment in Afghanistan and the broader geopolitics of South Asia.
US DoD Reports on Resilience and Global Scope of IS Threat

February 05, 2020

A new U.S. Department of Defense (“DoD”) study warns that the Islamic State (“IS”) constitutes an ongoing, global security threat, given the jihadist group’s unexpected resilience in operational capacity in Syria and Iraq, as well as the spread of active IS franchises in South Asia and Africa whose radicalization, recruitment, and violence have globalized the dangers and impacts of Islamist extremism.
Al-Qaeda Franchise Claims Responsibility for 2019 Attack on US Naval Air Base in FL

February 05, 2020

Al-Qaeda’s franchise in the Arabian Peninsula (“AQAP”) has belatedly claimed credit for the December 2019 shooting attack by a Saudi Air Force trainee on the US Naval Air Base in Pensacola, Florida, underscoring the twin threats of AQIP’s commitment to global reach and the penetration of Saudi Arabia’s military by AQAP Islamist radicals.