Extremism

Twenty dead, more than 100 wounded, in Pakistan police academy attack
October 25, 2016 By Faith Matters

Twenty dead, more than 100 wounded, in Pakistan police academy attack

Gunmen stormed a Pakistani police training academy in the southwestern city of Quetta late on Monday night, killing at least 20 people and wounding more than 100, officials said. Some 200 trainees are stationed at the facility, officials said, and some had been taken hostage. Mir Sarfaraz Bugti, home minister of Baluchistan province, of which […]

Continue Reading
Declining Fortunes of Islamic State
October 17, 2016 By Faith Matters

Declining Fortunes of Islamic State

This video posted on social media purports to show rebel fighters in the village of Dabiq, Syria. Rebels — as well as Turkey, which backs them — said they fully captured the village from Islamic State on Sunday. Their victory forced the jihadists from their symbolic stronghold where they had promised to fight a final, […]

Continue Reading
Iraq PM Abadi announces start of Mosul offensive
October 17, 2016 By Faith Matters

Iraq PM Abadi announces start of Mosul offensive

Iraq’s Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi on Monday announced the start of an offensive to retake Mosul, the capital of Islamic State’s so-called caliphate in Iraq. “I announce today the start of the heroic operations to free you from the terror and the oppression of Daesh,” he said in a speech on state TV, using an […]

Continue Reading
How Tanveer Ahmed (and others) exploit religious sentiment to justify murder
October 3, 2016 By Faith Matters

How Tanveer Ahmed (and others) exploit religious sentiment to justify murder

A video from an influential Pakistani hate preacher glorifying the actions of Tanveer Ahmed will likely be subject to police investigation. In a five-minute video uploaded to YouTube, Khadim Hussain Rizvi, a Barelvi cleric, Pakistan’s largest grouping of Sunni Muslims, recounted Ahmed’s twisted account of the night he murdered Asad Shah. He confirmed that he […]

Continue Reading
Morocco arrests 10 suspected female Islamic State militants
October 3, 2016 By Faith Matters

Morocco arrests 10 suspected female Islamic State militants

Morocco has dismantled a suspected Islamic State militant cell and arrested 10 women believed to be planning attacks in the North African kingdom, the Interior Ministry said on Monday. It was the latest in a series of militant cells Morocco says it has broken up, but it is the first time authorities have arrested a […]

Continue Reading
Islamist group bombs Somali restaurant, at least three dead
October 1, 2016 By Faith Matters

Islamist group bombs Somali restaurant, at least three dead

Somali Islamist group al Shabaab bombed a restaurant frequented by members of the security forces in Mogadishu on Saturday, killing at least three people, officials and the group said. Police said a suicide car bomb rammed the Blue Sky restaurant in the capital, which is located near a detention centre, known as Jilaow, where militants […]

Continue Reading
Islamist rebel gets 9 years imprisonment for Timbuktu destruction
September 28, 2016 By Faith Matters

Islamist rebel gets 9 years imprisonment for Timbuktu destruction

War crimes judges on Tuesday sentenced a former Islamist rebel who admitted wrecking holy shrines during Mali’s 2012 conflict to nine years in prison, in the first such case to focus on destruction of cultural heritage. Human rights groups and international legal experts hope Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi’s case in the International Criminal Court may serve […]

Continue Reading
Man purporting to be Boko Haram leader taunts Nigerian military in video
September 26, 2016 By Faith Matters

Man purporting to be Boko Haram leader taunts Nigerian military in video

The purported leader of Nigerian Islamist militant group Boko Haram Abubakar Shekau appeared in a video posted on social media on Sunday in which he rejected statements by the country’s military that he had been seriously wounded. In recent years, the Nigerian military has said it has killed or critically wounded Shekau on multiple occasions, […]

Continue Reading
Jordanian Writer and Cartoonist Murdered in Broad Daylight by Religious Extremist
September 25, 2016 By Faith Matters

Jordanian Writer and Cartoonist Murdered in Broad Daylight by Religious Extremist

Few would have known Nahed Hatter who had written on Islamist violence and narratives for decades. A writer who had left Jordan for the Lebanon for his views, he had returned to his country only to be murdered this morning for a cartoon that he had posted on his Facebook page. The post initially was […]

Continue Reading
Bombing suspect Ahmad Khan Rahami being loaded into an ambulance after a shoot-out with police in Linden
September 19, 2016 By Faith Matters

Bombing suspect Ahmad Khan Rahami being loaded into an ambulance after a shoot-out with police in Linden

A still image captured from a video from WABC television shows a conscious man believed to be New York bombing suspect Ahmad Khan Rahami being loaded into an ambulance after a shoot-out with police in Linden, New Jersey, U.S., September 19, 2016. Save

Continue Reading