Saturday, December 27, 2014

Islamic State has suffered severe losses as a result of coalition air
strikes in the last months. Over 1,000 of its fighters have been
killed, and Kurdish peshmerga forces have driven the jihadists back on a
wide front between the cities of Erbil and Mosul.
The terror movement has also failed to conquer the symbolic town of
Kobani (Ayn al-Arab) close to the Syrian-Turkish border (further south,
Islamic State losses have been more modest and at least partially
reversed).

Monday, December 22, 2014

This
article provides the most thorough overview yet of how jihadis have plotted
terrorist attacks in Europe. Drawing on a database of 122 incidents, we review
trends in weapon types, attack types and target types in the period 1994–2013.
The overall finding is that jihadi terrorism in Europe is becoming more
discriminate in its targeting whileattack types and weapons are becoming
progressively more diverse. The most likely scenarios in the coming three to
five years are bomb attacks and armed assaults against sub-national entities,
communities and individuals. A majority of the terrorist attacks will be
limited in scope, but mass-casualty terrorism cannot be excluded. Foreign
fighters from Syria are likely to influence the threat level in Europe, but we do
not expect them to alter patterns in modus operandi dramatically.

Sunday, December 21, 2014

The so-called "Great Albania" project, which is merely the unification of Albanian scattered populations in the Balkans, is being sought after by a variety of often conflicting in between them, nationalistic circles, with little chances of success.

Friday, December 19, 2014

The Movement of the Taliban
in Pakistan,
one of many al-Qaeda-linked jihadist groups operating in the South Asian
country, launched one