A month ago, the Nour Party, the largest political group to emerge from the ultraconservative Salafist movement, was seen as …
Salafists
After Another High-Profile Assassination, Tunisia Lurches Toward Crisis
Is Tunisia headed for Egypt-type turmoil? The prospect that the small North African country which ignited the entire Arab Spring movement could spiral into violence seemed more plausible on Thursday, after gunmen killed an …
Qatar’s Geopolitical Gamble: How the Gulf State May Have Overreached
Nearly three weeks after Egypt’s military forced the country’s President Mohamed Morsi out of office and jailed him and officials of his Muslim Brotherhood party, the explosive reaction on Cairo’s streets has brought death …
Chechnya’s History of Violence: Did It Influence the Tsarnaev Brothers?
As more is learned about the background of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the alleged suspect in the Boston bombings who is now the subject of an unprecedented manhunt, the teenager’s ethnic Chechen heritage has led to a frenzy of …
The Brothers Tsarnaev: Clues to the Motives of the Alleged Boston Bombers
The land of their ancestry is fertile ground for rebellion and jihad but not everything that has emerged so far wraps up their motivations in a neat theory
Ground War: Syria’s Rebels Prepare to Take a Province from Assad
It was pomegranate season when the battle for Wadi Deif began in mid-October. Like so many rebel offensives, the fight for the Syrian military base, just east of the devastated city of Maaret Numan and one of the last major …
French Anti-Terror Raids Leave Extremist Suspect Dead
Multiple French sweeps leave a Salafist suspect dead after gunfight with police, and mark a return to France’s multi-discipline counter-terror system over the all-intelligence model of former President Nicolas Sarkozy
The President and the Islamist: Two Politicos Spar Over Tunisia’s Future
After both returned from exile when Tunisia’s dictatorship fell, Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki and Rached Ghannouchi, head of the dominant Islamists, are locked in battle over the fate of the Arab Spring
Timbuktu’s Destruction: Why Islamists Are Wrecking Mali’s Cultural Heritage
Ansar Dine, a radical Islamist militia, has set about destroying mausoleums and shrines in the historic Malian city of Timbuktu, which was once a great center of Islamic learning in the 15th and 16th centuries
In Syria, Lebanon’s Most Wanted Sunni Terrorist Blows Himself Up
Lebanese terror leader Abdel Ghani Jawhar detonated himself accidentally in Syria, raising questions about the kind of company the rebels are keeping
As Islamists Dominate Egypt’s Election, the Power Struggle with the Military Begins
The Muslim Brotherhood is Egypt’s political mainstream, and its most significant challengers are the more extreme Islamists of the Salafi movement rather than the secular liberal forces that dominate the Tahrir Square protest movement. That appears to be the not-exactly-surprising verdict of the electorate, according to reports from …