Urgent anti-terror operation, or election season security stunt? That’s the question some people in France were already asking themselves Friday in the wake of a series of dawn police raids resulting the arrest of 19 suspected …
Al-Qaeda
Terror in Toulouse: Brother of Jihadist Killer Held by Police
Investigators seeking full details in the spree of violence by self-described al-Qaeda jihadi Mohammed Merah are detaining his older brother on suspicions he may have assisted the murderous campaign that left seven people dead in …
Siege in Toulouse Wears On as Details of Suspect’s Jihadist Past Emerge
The fear and tension wore on in France as elite police officers continued their standoff with a self-declared al-Qaeda militant who claimed responsibility for the slayings of seven people in three attacks since March 11. Security …
French Police Corner Suspected Toulouse Killer Claiming Al-Qaeda Membership
French police have pinned down a self-declared jihadist believed to be the killer of seven people in southwestern France in the past 10 days—including three small children and a rabbi outside a Jewish school in Toulouse on Monday. The suspect has been barricaded inside a house in eastern Toulouse, where officials say he has claimed …
Must-Reads from Around the World: February 14, 2012
The Greek Way of Life – Austerity measures aimed at rescuing Greece have hammered the economy, the Washington Post reports. Figures released Tuesday show the GDP dropped by 7% for the final quarter of 2011. Response to the …
Pakistan Still Propping Up the Taliban, Alleges Secret NATO Report
Pakistan’s Foreign Minister must have really regretted getting on that flight to Kabul this morning. About the time Hina Rabbani Khar was winging her way over the Hindu Kush for a friendly visit to repair relations between the …
Reflecting on 9/11, Britain’s Former Spy Chief Criticizes Iraq War and Proposes Talks with Al Qaeda
“We are not women; we will keep fighting,” vowed Libya’s elusive despot Muammar Gaddafi in a message broadcast on Syrian TV on Sept. 1. A lecture delivered in London the same evening, for broadcast on Sept. 6 as part of the BBC’s 2011 Reith Lecture series Securing Freedom, illuminated the unintended kernel of truth to the Colonel’s …
France’s Counter-Terrorism Ace Finds Himself Under Scrutiny
For the past three decades he’s been known as “The Sheriff”, “The Admiral”, and more generally as the world-famous icon of French counter-terrorism. The pipe-smoking, Magnum-packing judge became counter-terrorism’s international celebrity through exploits that included (but were far from limited to) tracking down and …
The Afghanistan Drawdown: The Limits of American Power
Swampland’s Michael Crowley examines the politics and regional implications of President Obama’s announcement last night that the U.S. will withdraw 33,000 troops from Afghanistan by next summer. While the decision might have been inevitable, many Republicans have already begun to call the president a ‘declinist.’ Crowley contends, …
Al-Qaeda’s ‘Shadow Leader’ Finally Emerges As Head Honcho
In an investigation for TIME, Tim McGirk details Al-Qaeda’s new chief: an Egyptian doctor who some report has been wielding the true power in the terrorist organization for several years. Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden’s former deputy, does not look like a fearsome terrorist leader with his large wire-framed glasses and scraggly …
More Details On the Slaying of Ilyas Kashmiri
TIME’s Pakistan reporter Omar Waraich examines the reported death of al-Qaeda operative Ilyas Kashmiri, killed by a U.S. drone strike on June 3. If confirmed, the targeted assassination may be a sign of greater U.S.-Pakistani cooperation after the heated rhetoric that followed the discovery of Osama bin Laden, hiding safely on Pakistani …
The “Death” of Ilyas Kashmiri: Has Another Key al-Qaeda Leader Bitten the Dust?
BBC Urdu reports that U.S. drone strikes in the Pakistani tribal agency of South Waziristan have killed eight militants, including Ilyas Kashmiri, a notorious jihadist who some suspect could even be al-Qaeda’s top operational commander. The U.S. had placed a $5 million bounty on Kashmiri’s head — the grizzled fighter is linked to …
Bin Laden’s Posthumous Tape: The Sad Nothings of a Dead Man
Through an Islamist website, al-Qaeda apparently released a 12-minute audio tape recorded by Osama bin Laden shortly before his May 2 death at the hands of Navy SEALs. In it, the deceased terrorist mastermind lavishes praise upon the protest movements of the Arab Spring, insisting that “the winds of change will envelope the entire Muslim …