Jane's Intelligence Review - Terrorism & Insurgency

Terrorism & Insurgency

*Archipelago attrition - Philippine army targets militant group ASG
Amid the Philippines' many Islamist insurgent groups, the smaller Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) is proving surprisingly resilient to military pressure. Perhaps the most radical Philippine...
23-Oct-2009

*Top target - Militant deaths hit extremism in Indonesia
The death of the Malaysian Noordin Mohammed Top, Southeast Asia's most wanted militant, in a police raid on 17 September near Solo, Central Java, was...
15-Oct-2009

*Out in force - Military operations in Helmand province
Taken together, the recent United States Marines Corps and British Army operations in Helmand were the largest carried out in Afghanistan since 2001. The International...
22-Sep-2009

*Northern explosion - Violence escalates in the North Caucasus
Statistics surrounding the conflict in the Russian North Caucasus paint a stark picture. By August, the total number of damaging attacks in all of ...
17-Sep-2009

*Explosive evolution - Thai bomb-makers adapt
In the late morning of 17 July 2009, a large vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (VBIED) concealed in a parked Ford Ranger pick-up truck exploded in...
11-Sep-2009

*Filling the vacuum - Mystery of AQIM in the southern Sahara
On 31 May, the Al-Qaeda franchise claimed its first Western victim in Mali when British tourist Edwin Dyer was executed. Captured across the Niger border...
14-Aug-2009

*Tipping the balance
The ethnic violence that killed at least 197 people in Ürümqi, capital of China's Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR), in early July is a stark...
14-Aug-2009

*Enemy of the state - Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and militancy in Pakistan
Pakistani military operations against Taliban forces in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) are unlikely to weaken Pakistan's intricately interwoven militant network. Beyond the country's...
31-Jul-2009

*Swat team - Pakistan targets militants in tribal areas
Military operations in the Swat Valley and its neighbouring districts between April and June were intended as an assurance that Pakistan was not, in the...
17-Jul-2009

*Generation kill - Jihadist youth movements
Child soldiers have been a feature of warfare throughout history and remain a key tactic in modern conflicts from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan...
16-Jul-2009

*Trouble brewing - Three decades of insurgency in Assam
The northeast of India has been among the country's most restive regions for the past three decades. In particular, the state of Assam has been...
18-Jun-2009

*Path finder - Peru's military combats resurgent rebel group
Seventeen years after Peruvian insurgent leader Abimael Guzmán was captured, his Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) group is continuing to launch attacks in Peru's mountain and...
04-Jun-2009

*Nowhere to turn - The failing strategy of suicide terrorism
Suicide attacks have come to characterise jihadist campaigns in various theatres. From Bali to Baghdad, Jerusalem to Jalalabad, the images of suicide bombers, often accompanied...
14-May-2009

*Settling Sons - Sunni groups fear Iraqi government repression
The arrest of the Sons of Iraq leader, Adil al-Mashhadani, in Baghdad's Fadhil district on 28 March sparked fighting between local Sunni Arab citizens and...
07-May-2009

*Delta force - Nigerian militant group's aims remain blurred
The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) sent out an email statement on 3 April írejecting an offer of amnesty from Nigerian...
16-Apr-2009

*Fresh troubles - Dissidents rise again in Northern Ireland
Two fatal attacks in three days in March highlighted the threat from hardline republican paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland. While the 'dissident' republicans have proved...
02-Apr-2009

*The long goodbye - Closing time at Guantánamo Bay
New United States President Barack Obama has promised to close the Guantánamo Bay detention facility by the end of January 2010. The closure highlights how...
12-Mar-2009

*Cornered Tigers - The LTTE evolves as guerrillas
The Sri Lankan military has destroyed the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) as a conventional military force. Deprived of territory, the separatist group has...
11-Mar-2009

*Safe haven? Radical Islam's Scandinavian links
Radical Islamists are increasingly using Scandinavian countries for financing and logistical purposes. While Sweden and Norway have yet to uncover any serious domestic plots, Denmark...
13-Feb-2009

*Shoots of recovery - Israeli operation leaves Hamas weak but alive
The clash between the Islamic Resistance Movement (Harakat Al-Muqawama Al-Islamia: HAMAS) and Israel that occurred in the Gaza Strip between 27 December and 18 January...
12-Feb-2009

*Safe haven? - Radical Islam's Scandinavian links
Radical Islamists are increasingly using Scandinavian countries for financing and logistical purposes. While Sweden and Norway have yet to uncover any serious domestic plots, Denmark...
04-Feb-2009

*Tribal tribulations - The Pakistani Taliban in Waziristan
Pakistan's once little-known Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) region has steadily risen to international prominence following the 2001 US-led invasion of Afghanistan. Of the seven...
13-Jan-2009

*Generation games: Basque separatists fight for ascendency
Basque separatist group Euzkadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) is at its weakest point since it was established in 1959. Nearly 800 ETA operatives are now behind...
13-Jan-2009

*In the line of fire - Could Mumbai happen again?
Shortly after 2100 local time (1530 GMT) on 26 November 2008, an inflatable dinghy slipped into the fishing port on the west coast of Mumbai. ...
11-Dec-2008

*General disorder: Ethnicity and resource conflict in DRC
Laurent Nkunda appeared to be withdrawing his rebel fighters from two battlefronts in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo in early December as newly appointed UN...
04-Dec-2008

*Fight and flight - The LTTE's air cargo ambitions
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) is losing its war for an independent state in Sri Lanka. Since the effective resumption of the conflict...
13-Nov-2008

*No peace to Moro - Agreement with Philippine militants collapses
A final peace agreement between the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) now looks remote. On 4 August 2008, the Philippine Supreme...
17-Oct-2008

*Insider knowledge - Former member profiles Hizb ut-Tahrir
Hizb ut-Tahrir (HuT) is perhaps the world's largest transnational party operating under a united global leadership. The organisation is dedicated to establishing an expansionist pan-Islamist...
03-Oct-2008

*Illegal tender - funding Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb
Algeria's Salafist Group for Prayer and Combat (Groupe Salafiste pour la Prédication et le Combat - GSPC) joined Al-Qaeda in October 2006, in the hope...
16-Sep-2008

*Misspent youth- Somalia's Shabab insurgents
The Shabab, Somalia's most infamous insurgent group, has until now avoided effective scrutiny. Little is known about it, even though it operates in a generally...
01-Sep-2008

*Fight the future - The beginning of the end for the FARC?
On 2 July, Colombian army troops disguised as an international humanitarian mission achieved a major operational success when they duped a group of insurgents from ...
14-Aug-2008

*Southern comfort - Thai insurgency falters
After four years of strategic mismanagement and repeated tactical humiliations, Thailand's security forces appear finally to have checked the rise of the Malay-Muslim separatist insurgency ...
30-Jul-2008

*Mending fences - Changing trends in Kashmiri militancy
Last month's violent protests led by Islamist groups in Indian-administered Kashmir culminated in the resignation of chief minister Ghulam Nabi Azad on 7 July and ...
17-Jul-2008

*Unsafe haven - Turkey damages Kurdish rebels in Iraq
Since late March 2008, when the spring thaw freed up the mountain passes in southeast Turkey and northern Iraq, the Workers' Party of Kurdistan (Partiya ...
17-Jul-2008

*No-go no more - The battle for Sadr City
Slow encroachment by the Iraqi and United States militaries into Baghdad's Sadr City suburb from 2007 culminated in major operations in March to May 2008. ...
12-Jun-2008

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