Terrorism Archive

Algeria has taken a series of steps recently to boost cooperation with its neighbors in response to increasing violence from al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). Algeria and Mauritania agreed to increase security efforts in the Sahel region, while Algeria and Niger announced that they would launch joint border patrols and share intelligence. Algeria also sent troops into Mali to combat the terrorist threat. These countries have long looked to Algeria, the dominant economic and military power in the region, to take the lead on cooperation, according to Stephen Tankel, an assistant professor at American University and scholar at the […]

Canada sent forces from the Canadian Special Operations Regiment earlier this month to train Mali’s military to fight against al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb. In an email interview, Joel Sokolsky, principal and professor of political science at the Royal Military College of Canada, discussed Canada’s overseas military deployments. WPR: In addition to Iraq and Afghanistan, where has the Canadian military deployed over the past decade, and how have its deployments impacted both the Canadian armed forces and the civilian leadership? Joel Sokolsky: Notwithstanding a Canada First Defense Strategy that suggested a focus on the direct defense of Canada and domestic […]

Last Tuesday’s deadly attacks on Shiite processions in Kabul and Mazar-e Sharif in Afghanistan are further evidence of dangerous instability in neighboring Pakistan and of the Pakistani state’s failure to act coherently to counteract it. A clear understanding of the group responsible is important to understanding the crossborder ramifications of the attacks. Contrary to reports in prominent news outlets, the Pakistani Sunni sectarian terrorist group Lashkar-e Jhangvi (LeJ) was not responsible for the attacks. Rather, an LeJ splinter group known as Lashkar-e Jhangvi al-Alami (LeJ-A) — not the original LeJ organization — has claimed responsibility for them. A person claiming […]

With the European financial crisis dominating headlines, little attention has been given to the Eueopean Union’s recently announced plan to send a team of police and security experts to North Africa to ramp up counterterrorism efforts against al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb. The development, announced earlier this week, comes after a spate of kidnappings of Westerners by AQIM-affiliated groups, along with mounting concerns that weapons from the conflict in Libya could end up in the organization’s hands. That the EU has decided to focus on police training rather than military assistance can best be explained by the nature of the […]