In-Depth Archive

More than any other organization, Harakat al-Shabab al-Mujahedeen, widely known as al-Shabab, has left its mark on the recent history of Somalia. Political and radical Islam have a long history in the country, but no group has survived longer than al-Shabab, and no group has emerged stronger from challenges and setbacks. More than any other actor involved in the two-decade-old Somali conflict, al-Shabab has demonstrated its ability to adapt. Today, the group has emerged from an existential crisis and looks stronger than it has in years. Though al-Shabab is often referred to as simply a “terrorist group,” the term does […]

This year, while Europe commemorated 100 years since the beginning of World War I, a long-forgotten conflict on the edge of the continent rumbled on. Armenia and Azerbaijan have been locked in a contest for control over Nagorno-Karabakh for more than 25 years. Beginning as an obscure conflict in a remote Soviet province during perestroika, the Nagorno-Karabakh stand-off has evolved into an enduring rivalry between two independent states, profoundly affecting both and casting a consistent shadow of insecurity across the South Caucasus. The conflict began in 1988, when a movement formed by the local Armenian majority in Nagorno-Karabakh, then an […]