Captive aid worker Warren Weinstein before and after he was kidnapped in Pakistan.AP Warren Weinstein had been in Pakistan for some seven years, working with a contractor on local-scale economic development. Then four days before he was due to leave, in August 2011, gunmen barged into his house in Lahore…
By David Francis, a freelance journalist who has been interviewing militant extremists across sub-Saharan Africa. The search for more than 200 schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram in Nigeria has drawn the attention of the world to the campaign of terror waged by the group in recent years – and to…
We don’t hear too much about al Qaeda these days, now that Osama bin Laden is dead. But perhaps that’s because what we have today is a much more dispersed, easy-to-miss phenomenon I call al Qaeda 2.0. Africa is where al Qaeda 2.0 is thriving.
Shakir Waheib, a senior member of the al-Qaida-linked Islamic State of Iraq, on left, next to a burning police vehicle in Iraq’s Anbar Province.AP Thousands of people fled the Anbar province of Iraq due to heavy fighting, says the UN. The world body estimates that some 5,000 families have run…
Analysis That’s the gist of a new report by Global Post, which says the links between local rebel movements in Mali, Nigeria and Somalia and the Islamist terror group Al Qaeda are growing stronger. The report coincides with today’s anniversary of the terrorist attacks of 9-11. It’s a good series,…