InsurgencyWatch moving to True/Slant

In the com­ing days, Insur­gen­cy­Watch will be mov­ing to True/Slant, “an orig­i­nal con­tent news net­work tai­lored to both the ‘Entre­pre­neur­ial Jour­nal­ist’ and mar­keters who want a more effec­tive way to engage with dig­i­tal audi­ences.” (That’s what the offi­cial about page says.)
It’s not a deci­sion I’ve made lightly, but I real­ize that gone are the days when the lone […]

Terror at Islamic University

ISLAMABAD—Twin sui­cide blasts killed at least five four and injured at least 23 more than 40 at one of the largest Islamic uni­ver­si­ties in the world today, the sev­enth major ter­ror­ist attack in two weeks.
The attack comes as the Pak­istani Army presses its assault on South Waziris­tan against Tal­iban mil­i­tants, for­eign fight­ers and al Qaeda.
Today’s attacks occurred […]

Pakistan’s 9/11

ISLAMABAD—Militants launched simul­ta­ne­ous attacks across Pak­istan Thurs­day morn­ing, hit­ting at least three police instal­la­tions in Lahore, ram­ming a sui­cide car bomb into a police sta­tion in Kohat in the NWFP and attack­ing a school in Peshawar. At least 37 peo­ple were killed in the com­bined attacks.
The scene in Lahore was one of may­hem, where the Fed­eral Inves­ti­ga­tion Agency, […]

Kerry-Lugar’s First Victim

If true, this is total bull­shit:
After strong crit­i­cism on the Kerry-Lugar bill in Pak­istan, the gov­ern­ment has decided to replace Pakistan’s ambas­sador to the US Hus­sain Haqqani and the announce­ment in this respect is expected within the next two days.
There’s noth­ing in the bill rea­son­able Pak­ista­nis should object to, but bla­tant dem­a­goguery has appar­ently won the […]

Pakistan’s Civil War Heating Up

In the after­math of this weekend’s assault on the Pak­istani Gen­eral Head­quar­ters in Rawalpindi, the Tal­iban hit again in Alpuri, in the Shangla dis­trict east of Min­gora in Swat.
Accord­ing to mil­i­tary sources who asked to remain anony­mous because they weren’t autho­rized to talk to the press, a 13– or 14-year-old boy walked up to an Army con­voy in […]

Suicide bombing kills 5 at WFP in Islamabad

The bomb that blasted through the World Food Pro­gram’s lobby at its heav­ily for­ti­fied office in Islam­abad on Mon­day, killing at least three five, and wound­ing at least six five, was a stark reminder that the Pak­istani Tal­iban are still a force to be reck­oned with.
The explo­sion occurred at approx­i­mately 12:15 p.m., on a leafy street in one of […]

At Home with a Swat Lashkar

I just fin­ished up a few days in Swat and while I’m work­ing on a story about it, I thought you might like to see a few pic­tures I took while there. Enjoy.

Somalia’s Al Shabaab Releases Extensive Training Video

The Mujahideen Youth Move­ment, also known as al-Shabaab, released yes­ter­day an exten­sive 48-and-a-half minute train­ing video titled, “At Your Ser­vice, Osama.” It shows exten­sive footage from the Com­man­der Abu Suleim Train­ing Camp some­where in Soma­lia — likely south­ern Soma­lia where the al Shabaab have a strong­hold. Intel­Cen­ter, which obtained the tape, says the footage is almost identical […]

Mingora Shrugs Over Rumors of Fazlullah Capture

MIN­GORA, Pak­istan – The Swat Valley’s belea­guered cap­i­tal was tak­ing a wait-and-see atti­tude to the rumors that Maulana Fazlul­lah, head of the Swat Tal­iban which had ter­ror­ized the pic­turesque val­ley for five years, had been cap­tured or killed by secu­rity forces this week­end.
The rumors first began appear­ing on Sat­ur­day night, when the NWFP gov­er­nor, Owais Ghani, […]

Fazlullah may be captured

MIN­GORA, Swat — I’m fil­ing this from my iPhone, as Inter­net is spotty up here, but reports are trick­ing out that Maulana Fazlul­lah, leader of the Swat Tal­iban and a close ally of the TTP, has been either cap­tured or has sur­ren­dered near Gulibagh. This is as yet uncon­firmed, how­ever.
I will post more as I can, but […]

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