Terrorism Archive

NEW DELHI — The series of deadly bomb blasts that shook India’s capital on Sept. 13 has prompted some of the usual finger pointing at Pakistan, but most evidence suggests the attacks were perpetrated by homegrown Islamist militants, and there is growing recognition here that the increasing activity of such groups poses a huge challenge to India’s anti-terror capabilities. A shadowy Muslim group, the Indian Mujahedeen, claimed responsibility for the five attacks that left 24 dead and at least 100 injured at commercial and tourist hubs around New Delhi. The serial attacks constituted the fourth separate such incident in as […]

KOTA KINABALU, Malaysia — Philippine troops have launched surprise attacks on rebel strongholds in the country’s south as authorities brace themselves for an upsurge in violence expected once Ramadan is over. Military officials claimed at least 25 rebels were killed in weekend fighting after government troops went on the offensive in the rebel-held territory. Wire services also reported one government soldier was killed. However, independent sources said the fighting was of a much lower intensity than was seen in August, when ferocious rebel attacks left scores dead and caused 160,000 people to flee their homes as Christian villages were torched. […]

Read Part 1 of this series. Late last year, four French tourists were gunned down in Mauritania where they were picnicking by a roadside on Christmas Eve, prompting the cancellation of the 2008 Lisbon-Dakar Rally. Identified as an al-Qaida “sleeper cell” by local officials, the two shooters were later picked up in Guinea-Bissau, where it was revealed that one of the men had lived there for two years and spoke the local Creole language. The two men, along with three suspected accomplices, all Mauritanian nationals, were later deported to their home country. But the inability of law enforcement to function […]

Following years of promising gains since 2001, Afghanistan is in a tailspin. Not long ago, a sophisticated Taliban assault on a Kandahar prison freed 1,200 inmates, including 350 Taliban members. The attack came only weeks after Afghan President Hamid Karzai survived a fourth assassination attempt. The main forces behind the country’s downward spiral are al-Qaida and the Taliban, which have found sanctuary in the vast unpoliced region of western Pakistan known as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). Stabilizing the Afghan-Pakistani front of the war on terrorism will require U.S. policymakers to re-examine the fatal misconception that they face only […]