Terrorism Archive

In the aftermath of the arrest in Barcelona of 10 alleged Islamist extremists earlier this month, it has been widely reported that the group was planning imminent suicide attacks on the public transportation system of the Catalonian capital and perhaps additional attacks elsewhere in Europe. The evidence released thus far, however, does not support this scenario and indeed the statements of Spanish authorities contradict one another on several key aspects of the case. It was Spanish judge Ismael Moreno who, in ordering the detention of the 10 men last week, announced that a suicide attack had been imminent. The judge’s […]

The media’s fixation with the protracted death of former President Suharto, who ruled Indonesia for 32 years, from 1967 until he was forced to resign in May 1998, has obscured the fact that Indonesia has progressed well beyond the Suharto era. In some areas, such as the government’s support for political democracy and regional autonomy, this movement has been largely positive. In other dimensions, such as the rise of religious extremism after the collapse of Suharto’s secular regime, the results have proven more problematic. Indonesia dominates Southeast Asia geographically, demographically and potentially economically. In addition, the country has emerged as […]

DENPASAR, Indonesia — One year has made a lot of difference in the sleepy town of Poso, in the Indonesian province of Central Sulawesi. Poso gained media attention as Indonesia’s new front in the war on terror in January 2007, when two police operations left 17 Islamic radicals dead. At that time, the town was an operating hub for regional terror group Jemaah Islamiyah. (See “Indonesia’s Latest Front in the War on Terror.”) Twelve months on, Poso is a much safer place, and although sporadic pipe-bombings persisted through mid-year, just two small incidents were reported during the second half of […]

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak was in Paris last week and he gave an interview to the French daily Le Figaro. This is what he had to say about an Egyptian proposal to hold four party talks on Gaza involving Israel, Egypt, the Palestinian Authority and Hamas: I don’t see how we can accept the Egyptian proposal. We have nothing to say to Hamas. We speak to them when we interrogate them in our prisons. But this is a fundamentalist group that says openly that it has received a divine mandate to destroy Israel. One should, on the contrary, weaken […]

EU COURT THREATENS U.N. ANTI-TERROR MEASURES — In a move with potentially devastating consequences for the effectiveness of U.N. counterterrorism measures, an advocate general at the European Court of Justice, Miguel Poiares Maduro, recommended to the court last week that it annul EU financial sanctions against suspected al-Qaida financier, Yassin Abdullah Kadi (aka “Qadi”). The sanctions were originally applied by the EU in 2001 in conformity with U.N. Security Council Resolutions. Kadi’s name was placed on the U.N.’s consolidated list of Qaida or Taliban affiliated persons and entities shortly after the 9/11 attacks. A series of U.N. Security Council Resolutions […]

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — The New Year in Sri Lanka began with an all-out confrontation between government forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a terrorist group that has been battling the Sri Lankan government on and off for decades. An already fragile ceasefire accord between the two warring parties was irreparably damaged on Jan. 3 when the government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa withdrew from the agreement. This in turn rendered the presence of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission, an independent body of international investigators observing and recording human rights violations on the island, obsolete. The fact that […]

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Two United Nations peacekeeping soldiers were injured Tuesday by a roadside bomb on a coastal motorway south of Beirut. Company Sgt. Dave Williams and regimental Sgt. Maj. John McCormack, both from Dublin, Ireland, were traveling in a U.N. vehicle when the bomb exploded at 2:50 p.m. local time, causing them “superficial injuries,” according to Irish Lt. Col. Eamon O’Siochrú, head of the Irish team that is part of United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL). The explosion occurred near the town of Rmaileh, just outside Lebanon’s third biggest city, Sidon, 35 kilometers south of Beirut. The blast […]