As part of their ongoing offensive against the Islamic State, Iraq’s coalition of mainly Shi’a militias, the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), in cooperation with the Iraqi armed forces have recently pushed north, coming close to Kurdish positions. From 2008 to 2014, there were minor altercations... MORE

After each death of a Chechen in Syria or Iraq, the involvement of Chechens in Middle Eastern conflicts becomes a hot topic of discussion in the Russian media. The recent death of a high-profile Chechens from the Northern Front of the Islamic State (IS) organization,... MORE

The government of Tajikistan has long sustained a shaky narrative purporting that Central Asia is in imminent danger of being overrun by militant forces. Long menaced by the specter of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), the government has more recently added a new group... MORE

Around midday on March 18, in Tunis, gunmen burst into the grounds of the Bardo Museum as tourists were alighting from buses and opened fire. The tourists fled into the museum and the gunmen followed, taking some of them hostage as security forces converged on... MORE

On February 17, three British teenagers left their East London homes and boarded a plane for Turkey. Soon afterwards, they crossed into Syria, where they are believed to have joined the Islamic State militant group (al-Jazeera, February 21). This event has put female radicalization in... MORE

While al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) continues to make inroads in south Yemen in the midst of a worsening civil war and the Saudi-led military campaign in support of beleaguered President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi, the group suffered another blow with the death of... MORE

In a televised speech, Egyptian Interior Ministry spokesperson Major Gen Hani Abdel Latif announced on April 5 that the jihadist leader of Ajnad Misr (Soldiers of Egypt), Hamam Mohamed Ahmad Ali Attiya (a.k.a. Majid al-Din al-Masri), was shot to death during an exchange of fire... MORE

Emotions ran high in the Chechen community once again with the news that two school children from Pankisi, Georgia, went to Syria to fight, presumably alongside the Islamic State organization (see EDM, April 16). Earlier in April, 16-year-old Muslim Kushtanashvili and 18-year-old Ramzan Bagakashvili went... MORE

While diplomatic developments between Iran and the United States over Iran’s nuclear program and Iran’s actions in countries such as Syria and Yemen have drawn the most attention in recent weeks, a series of attacks in Iran’s southeastern Sistan-Balochistan province underline that a range of... MORE

The Islamic State’s sudden capture of much of northern Iraq, including the country’s third largest city of Mosul, and the resulting collapse of the Iraqi Army, in June 2014, was a turning point for Shi’a militias in the country. Formerly sidelined, these groups have now... MORE