2012

January 2012—South Korea—Liu Qiang, a Chinese citizen, conducted an arson attack at the Japanese Embassy in Seoul. He had conducted an arson attack on Tokyo’s Yasukuni Shrine for Japan’s World War II dead in December 2011. He served ten months in a South Korean prison for the embassy attack. A Seoul court rejected a prosecution effort to extradite him to Tokyo. On January 4, 2013, he flew home to China. 12019901

January 2012—Azerbaijan—The Ministry of National Security announced it had stopped “preparations” by Iran-backed terrorists to attack “foreign public figures in Baku,” including Israeli Ambassador Michael Lotem, a rabbi, and a teacher at a local Jewish school. The ministry said the Iranians had budgeted $150,000 for the attack and that by living in Iran, the terrorists’ leader could meet “with Iranian special services.”

January 2012—United States—The Ohio-based King Hearts for Charitable Humanitarian Development disbanded. Six years earlier, the U.S. Treasury Department had ordered U.S. banks to freeze the group’s assets because it suspected that the group was funding Hamas.

January 2012—Algeria—The Algerian Direction de la Sécurité Interieure arrested three members of al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb who were planning suicide attacks against U.S. and European ships in the western Mediterranean. The trio had purchased a boat that they planned to pack with explosives.

January 1, 2012—United States—At 8:44 p.m., a Molotov cocktail exploded at the main entrance of the Imam al-Khoei Foundation’s mosque in Queens, New York, while about eighty worshipers were in the building. A second firebomb was thrown at the sign for the center’s school. Molotov cocktails went off at a convenience store and three homes that evening. Structural damage was minimal. The foundation has branches around the world, promoting development, human rights, and minority rights as a consultant to the UN’s Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).

Ray Lazier Lengend, 40, a Queens resident of Guyanese descent, said he threw the firebombs in part because he was not permitted to use the mosque’s bathrooms. Police found him after tracking a stolen car with Virginia license plates that was spotted at two sites. He was arrested on January 3 and charged with one count of arson as a hate crime, four counts of arson, and five counts of criminal possession of a weapon. He was given a psychiatric examination. Authorities said he was believed to have been kicked out of the store on December 27 for stealing milk and coffee in a glass bottle.

January 4, 2012—Ukraine—On February 27, 2012, Russian Channel One television reported that Ukrainian and Russian intelligence services had foiled a plot to assassinate Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in Odessa. Authorities learned of the plot after a bomb went off on January 4 inside an Odessa apartment, killing Ruslan Madayev, 26. Adam Osmayev, 31, and Ilya Pyanzin, 28, a Kazakh citizen, survived. Several of the inhabitants had been sent by Doku Umarov, Chechen terrorist leader. Pyanzin said the group planned to first attack strategic sites in Moscow, then attack Putin. Pyanzin had traveled to the Ukraine from the Arab Emirates via Turkey. Osmayev, who lived in London for several years, said the group had surveilled Moscow routes taken by Putin’s drivers. The group was to conduct the attack in the days leading up to the March 4 presidential elections. The bomb would go off on Kutuzovsky Prospect, a wide avenue. Opposition party leaders suggested the story was a hoax.

January 5, 2012—Pakistan—Pakistani Taliban gunmen kidnapped Khalil Rasjed Dale, 60, a British doctor working for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), while on his way home from work. On April 29, 2012, Dale’s beheaded body, wrapped in plastic, was found by the roadside in Quetta. Dale’s name was written with black marker on the white plastic bag. The Taliban said a ransom had not been paid. A doctor said he had been killed twelve hours before being found; a sharp knife had been used to cut his head off. He had worked for the ICRC and the British Red Cross in Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan. He had been managing a health program for Baluchistan for the past year. 12010501

January 5, 2012—United States—A federal court in the District of Columbia sentenced Pakistani citizen Irfan ul-Haq, 37, to four years in prison for conspiring to smuggle a member of the Pakistani Taliban into the United States. He and two other Pakistanis had pleaded guilty in September 2010 to conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization. Qasim Ali, 32, and Zahid Yousaf, 43, in December 2010 were sentenced to three years in prison as part of their plea bargains. They were to return to Pakistan after their release. Federal agents ran a sting operation in Ecuador against them in January 2011, sending informants to ask them to smuggle the individual to the United States. The individual would journey from Pakistan to Dubai, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, then on to the United States. One of the smugglers said the normal rate for such a job was between $50,000 and $60,000. The trio was arrested in Miami on March 13, 2011, after accepting partial payment and obtaining a fake Pakistani passport.

January 5, 2012—Iraq—A suicide bomber set off his explosives near Shi’ite pilgrims near Nasiriyah, killing forty-eight and wounding eighty-one. An Iraqi security officer tried to stop him by wrapping his arms around him. The Sunni officer was killed in the blast and became a local hero. On February 6, 2012, the al Qaeda affiliate Islamic State of Iraq said, “Sunni heroes of heroes” killed “nonbelievers and Iranian agents” in the attack.

January 6, 2012—Syria—A suicide bomber set off his explosive device at a busy intersection in the center Midan neighborhood of Damascus, when many people were heading to Friday prayers. The blast killed twenty-six, including eleven police officers, and wounded sixty-three. The government blamed terrorists; the opposition blamed the government. Col. Malik Kurdi, an assistant commander of the Free Syrian Army opposition group, denied involvement.

January 6, 2012—United States—Authorities arrested Craig Benedict Baxam, 24, of Laurel, Maryland, at Baltimore-Washington International Airport as he returned to the United States after trying to get to Somalia to join al-Shabaab. He secretly converted to Islam in July, days before leaving the army. He was charged with attempting to provide material support to a terrorist group. He left the United States on December 20 on a flight to Kenya, en route to Somalia. He was arrested by the Kenyans on a bus to Garissa on December 23. The FBI interviewed him twice in Kenya. He had served in Baghdad and South Korea, and had been trained in cryptology and intelligence. He faced fifteen years in prison followed by three years of supervised release.

January 6, 2012—Kenya—The Kenya-based Muslim Youth Center claimed that its leader had been named to represent al-Shabaab in Kenya. In 2011, the UN said the group had recruited, funded, and run training and orientation events for al-Shabaab. Amiir Ahmad Iman Ali, alias Abdul Fatah of Kismayo, issued a fifty-minute video lecture produced by al-Kataib, al-Shabaab’s media foundation. He noted wars in Yemen, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Chechnya. Ali said, “If you are unable to reach the land of jihad … then raise your sword against the enemy that is closest to you. Jihad should be now waged inside Kenya, which is legally a war zone. You don’t have to get permission from your parents.” In a separate statement, he said, “The Muslim lands will once again rule with Shari’ah and your kufr democracy will be dumped in the sewage.” Ali, a Kenyan, had been based in Somalia since 2009. He was believed to command between two hundred and five hundred fighters. He speaks Swahili, English, Arabic, and Somali.

January 6, 2012—Georgia—Police arrested a man in Tbilisi and confiscated thirty-six vials of cesium–135, a radioactive isotope. He claimed he obtained the material in Abkhazia.

January 7, 2012—United States—The FBI arrested Sami Osmakac, 25, a naturalized American born in Kosovo who was planning on conducting a car bombing, hostage-taking, and suicide bombing in the Tampa, Florida, area. The Florida resident intended to use explosives and weapons “to create mayhem” in Tampa, but the Muslim community tipped off authorities, who conducted a sting operation. On January 9, he was charged with one count of attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction.

Osmakac recorded a martyrdom video in which he said he would “pay back for wrongs he felt were done to Muslims,” according to prosecutors. He had posted anti–Jewish and anti–Christian videos on the Internet. The FBI was tipped off in September 2011 that the resident of Pinellas Park, Florida, “asked for al Qaeda flags.” He went on to discuss potential targets, and asked for an informant’s assistance in obtaining guns and explosives. An undercover FBI employee met him on December 21, when Osmakac said he wanted an AK-47-style machine gun, Uzi submachine guns, high capacity magazines, grenades, and an explosive belt. Prosecutors said he gave the FBI employee a $500 down payment. The FBI inerted the weapons, which were to be used in night clubs in the Ybor City area of Tampa, the operations center of the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office in Ybor City, a business in the South Tampa area, and an Irish bar in south Tampa—all places where there would be large crowds. In a follow-up hostage-taking, he planned to demand prison release, then set off an explosive belt. He faced life in prison.

Osmakac was born in Lubizde, near the Prokletije Mountains of Kosovo on the Albania border. His family, followers of a Sufi sect, immigrated to the United States when he was 13. Locals said he was a loner in high school who rapped about bombs and killing. Osmakac was jailed for head-butting a Christian preacher outside a Lady Gaga concert. He had also physically threatened a Tampa area activist. He had tried to travel to Saudi Arabia to study Islam but had visa problems and only made it to Turkey.

January 7, 2012—Afghanistan—An Afghan soldier shot to death a member of NATO.

January 10, 2012—Pakistan—A bomb exploded at a Jamrud bus station, killing thirty people and injuring dozens in what was believed to be an attack on a pro-government militia. Some members of the Zakakhel tribe were among those waiting in the passenger pickup area. At least six tribal police officers were killed. The Pakistani Taliban was suspected.

January 10, 2012—Pakistan—Aslam Awan, alias Abdullah Khorasani, 29, a Pakistani from Abbottabad who was a senior operations organizer for al Qaeda, was killed in a drone strike at a compound near Miran Shah in North Waziristan. He was close to the group’s chief of external operations. He had lived for several years in the Cheetham Hill area of Manchester, United Kingdom. He arrived in the United Kingdom in 2002 on a student visa, moving into an apartment with Abdul Rahman, a school friend from Pakistan. They were joined by Murad Iqbal, a Pakistani from Karachi. The trio recruited other youths in Manchester, going camping in the Lake District in March 2006 and June 23, 2006, and simulating suicide bombing exercises. Awan went to the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area in late 2006. He wrote to Rahman to have him and his colleagues join him. He noted terrorist training and participation in fighting. One of the recruits was Omar Arshad, who had dropped out of pharmacy studies at Manchester University and went missing. In January 2007, Arshad’s father had tracked him down and obtained a British control order, which limited his movements and communications. The group planned to help him escape. He shaved his beard, a colleague drove him to Birmingham Airport, and he flew to Iran then Lahore, Pakistan, the next day on a ticket Rahman bought for him. U.K. authorities believed Arshad joined militants in Pakistan. Iqbal went to the border region to join his friends.

In November 2007, Rahman pleaded guilty to dissemination of terrorist literature and aiding and abetting a breach of a control order. Rahman had arrived in the United Kingdom from the Pakistan border area to study biotechnology at Abertay University in Dundee, United Kingdom, but quit on his first day and moved to Manchester, working as a mobile phone salesman. The Cheetham Hill team was linked to Rangzieb Ahmed, a senior al Qaeda facilitator in Manchester who was arrested in Pakistan and convicted in the United Kingdom in 2008 of directing terrorism.

January 11, 2012—Iran—A bomb magnetically attached by a passing motorcyclist to a Peugeot 405 killed Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, 32, a chemical engineer at the Natanz uranium enrichment plant, and his bodyguard. Roshan was deputy director of the facility. Tehran blamed Israel for the rush-hour attack. No one claimed credit for the fourth attack on an Iranian nuclear scientist in the past two years. On February 9, 2012, MSN.com said Iranian officials claimed that Mossad had financed, trained, and armed the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (MEK), a group designated as terrorists by the United States, to carry out attacks on Iranian nuclear scientists.

January 11, 2012—Kenya—Al-Shabaab took several hostages in an attack on Gerille, killing six people, including three police officers, a civilian servant, and a primary-school teacher. At least four government officials were missing.

January 12, 2012—Pakistan—The Associated Press said that intercepted militant radio communications suggested that Hakimullah Mehsud, head of the Pakistani Taliban, was killed in an air strike in North Waziristan.

January 14, 2012—Iraq—A suicide bomber killed 53 Shi’ite pilgrims, including 3 children, and wounded 137 near Basra. He was wearing a military uniform. On February 6, 2012, the al Qaeda affiliate Islamic State of Iraq said, “Sunni heroes of heroes” killed “nonbelievers and Iranian agents” in the attack.

January 15, 2012—Yemen—Armed Obeyid Marib tribesmen kidnapped a 34-year-old Norwegian man working for the UN in Sana’a, then transferred him to central Marib Province, 110 miles east. The group demanded the release of a fellow tribesman arrested for killing four soldiers guarding oil tankers. 12011501

January 15, 2012—Yemen—Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula announced it had murdered two soldiers who had been kidnapped two months earlier near Zinjibar, capital of Abyan Province. The bodies were found in southern Yemen.

January 16, 2012—Nigeria—Boko Haram gunmen shot and killed three Chadians in Kamaturu in Yobe State. 12011601

January 16, 2012—Thailand—Thai police detained Hussein Atris (variant Atris Hussein), a former hairdresser born in Lebanon, who held a Swedish passport and was alleged to have links to Hizballah. He led police to a warehouse containing more than 8,800 pounds of urea fertilizer and several gallons of liquid ammonium nitrate. Police said he had distilled the materials into crystal form, one step toward making a bomb. Police charged Atris Hussein after finding “initial chemical materials that could produce bombs.” Authorities said he wanted to attack popular Western tourist spots in Bangkok. Police said they had foiled a bombing but that another suspect was at large.

January 17, 2012—Ethiopia—Gunmen from Eritrea attacked a group of twenty-two European tourists before dawn in the volcanic northern Afar region, killing five—including two Germans, two Hungarians, and an Austrian—and seriously hurting two Belgians before kidnapping two Ethiopians and two Germans. Two Italians escaped unharmed. The tourists were traveling with the Addis Ababa-based Green Land Tours and Travel, according to local observers. The Eritrean government denied involvement. In February, a rebel group in the Afar region claimed it had freed the two Germans, although by mid–April, there had been no official confirmation of the release. 12011701

January 19, 2012—Somalia—A bomb went off at a police checkpoint to a refugee camp near Mogadishu, killing two Somali policemen and four refugees.

January 19, 2012—Somalia—A hand grenade was thrown at a UN compound in Mogadishu, causing no casualties. 12011901

January 19, 2012—Northern Ireland—Irish Republican Army dissidents set off two bombs within ten minutes in Londonderry during the night, causing no injuries. Police had evacuated the areas after received phoned warnings. One bomb went off outside Londonderry’s main tourist office while seventy-five residents of a nursing home were being evacuated 25 yards away. A bomb was hidden in a gym bag.

January 19, 2012—Pakistan—Gunmen broke into a home in Multan and kidnapped Italian citizen Giovanni Lo Porto and a German man who worked for Welthungerhilfe, an international aid group based in Bonn. The kidnappers overpowered the private guard who watched over the rented house. The gunmen threw the duo into a car and sped away. The group was providing aid to victims of the 2010 floods and had returned after a visit to nearby Kot Addu town. No one claimed credit. It was unclear whether the Taliban or criminals were responsible. 12011902

January 20, 2012—India—Indian-born British author Salman Rushdie, 64, called off his visit to the Jaipur Literature Festival after learning that he was a target for assassination by Muslim protestors. Muslim clerics and lawmakers had called for him to be banned from entering India. Rushdie said that paid assassins from the Mumbai underworld had been hired to kill him. On January 24, he was prevented from speaking to the convention via video link when William Dalrymple, the event’s organizer, received a death threat and police warned of likely violent protests.

January 20, 2012—Nigeria—Boko Haram conducted a series of bombings and gun attacks on police stations, immigration offices, and the local headquarters of the secret police in Kano, killing 186 people, including 150 civilians, 29 police officers, 3 secret police officers, 2 immigration officers, and a customs officer. A suicide car bomber set off explosives outside a regional police headquarters, freeing many Boko Haram prisoners. Spokesman Abul Qaqa took credit for the group, saying the state government had refused to release the prisoners. Authorities announced on January 23 that they had discovered ten unexploded car bombs in Kano.

January 20, 2012—Nigeria—Gunmen in the Niger Delta kidnapped William Gregory, 50, a U.S. citizen working for Marubeni Corporation, in the southeastern town of Warri. The group killed his driver and demanded a ransom. He was released on January 27. Marubeni said it had not paid a ransom. 12012001

January 20, 2012—Afghanistan—Abdul Basir, an Afghan soldier belonging to the 201 Army Corps, turned his gun on allied forces, killing five French soldiers and wounding fourteen in Kapisa Province, east of Kabul, on a joint French-Afghan base. On July 17, 2012, an Afghan military court sentenced the gunman to death. 12072002

January 21, 2012—Somalia—Gunmen surrounded the car of Michael Scott Moore, a German American journalist who had just left the airport after dropping off an Indian colleague, threw him into another vehicle, and kidnapped him in the northern town of Galkayo, Adado, on the border between Puntland and Galmudug. The gunmen severely beat his Somali companion. The American engineer came to Somalia to look into building a deep water port in the town of Hobyo, a coastal pirate base. Local officials said the attackers might have been his guards who had links to pirates. They were believed to have driven to Hobyo. The group moved him at least three times within twenty-four hours and on January 26 threatened to kill him after the U.S. Navy SEALs rescued an American and a Danish hostage the previous night. Hassan Abdi, a pirate connected to the kidnappers, said, “If they try again, we will all die together … It’s difficult to hold U.S. hostages, cause it’s a game of chance: die or get huge money. But we shall stick with our plans and will never release him until we get a ransom.” 12012101

January 21, 2012—Sudan—A gunman shot a UN–African Union peacekeeper and wounded three others in an ambush on a patrol in eastern Darfur. 12012102

January 21, 2012—United States—The FBI’s Denver and Chicago Joint Terrorism Task Forces arrested Jamshid Muhtorov, 35, an Uzbek refugee living in Aurora, Colorado, at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport on charges that he planned to travel overseas to fight for a terrorist group. There was no evidence that he was plotting attacks in the United States. Muhtorov was charged with providing and attempting to provide material support to the Islamic Jihad Union in Uzbekistan. He was detained before boarding a flight to Istanbul, Turkey. Judge Morton Denlow in Chicago ordered him transferred to Denver. Neighbors said Muhtorov worked as a truck driver. The FBI said intercepted phone calls with his wife indicated that they argued about his plans. He told his daughter he would never see her again, but “if she was a good Muslim girl, he will see her in heaven.” He faced fifteen years in prison and a $250,000 fine. He was represented by a court-appointed attorney. In his February two court appearance in Denver, he denied the allegations, saying, “I swear to Allah I never did anything like that.”

January 22, 2012—United States—Authorities arrested North Carolina teacher Nevine Aly Elsheikh and Shkumbin Sherifi on charges of plotting to behead three witnesses who testified against Shkumbin’s brother, Hysen Sherifi, who on January 13 was sentenced to forty-five years in prison for conspiracy to kill people overseas and kill a federal officer. Elsheikh was scheduled to appear in federal court on February 3 on charges of conspiracy to commit murder. Elshiekh was on leave as director of special education at the Sterling Montessori Academy in Morrisville, North Carolina. She was represented by attorney Charles Swift.

Hysen Sherifi is a native of Kosovo and a U.S. legal permanent resident in North Carolina. Prosecutors quoted FBI informants as saying that Hysen wanted to hire someone to kill the witnesses and to attack an inmate who “defrauded” him out of money concerning his federal charges. He wanted photos of their corpses as proof. Prosecutors said Elsheikh had visited him in a North Carolina jail in December 2011, when she learned of his plans. In January 2012, she handed $750 to an informant to kill one witness. Shkumbin Sherifi gave the same informant the other $4,250.

January 24, 2012—Somalia—Al-Shabaab set off a truck bomb at an Ethiopian military base in Beledweyne. The group claimed thirty-three Ethiopian troops were killed.

January 26, 2012—Afghanistan—A suicide car bomber killed three people and wounded thirty-one outside the gates of a NATO-sponsored Provincial Reconstruction Team aid office in Lashkar Gah, capital of Helmand Province. The bomber appeared to be targeting vehicles that held foreigners. It was not clear whether foreigners were among the casualties. 12012601

January 26, 2012—United States—The Department of State designated a trio as terrorists for targeting Americans overseas. Brothers Yassin Chouka and Monir Chouka were involved in 2010 and 2011 attacks on civilians in Afghanistan. State said they were “fighters, recruiters, facilitators and propagandists for the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.” Mevlu Kar had tried to set up an al Qaeda branch in Lebanon where he was a wanted man and subject of an Interpol Red Notice. State said he was involved in a 2007 bomb plot against U.S. military installations in Germany to be conducted by the Islamic Jihad Union. Their U.S.-based financial assets were frozen.

January 27, 2012—Nigeria—Al Qaeda kidnapped German engineer Edgar Fritz Raupach in Kano. Raupach worked for Dantata and Sawoe Construction Co., Ltd. He appeared in an online video in March, wearing a tank top and guarded by two rifle-toting masked terrorists. He said in German and English, “I beg my government to save my life. They will kill me here.” The group demanded the release of Umm Sayf Allah al-Ansariya, also known as Filiz Gelowicz, who had been sentenced in March 2011 to thirty months in prison on five counts of supporting a terrorist organization and six counts of recruiting for a terrorist group. Prosecutors said she had collected money and posted Internet text and video for al Qaeda, the Islamic Jihad Union, and the German Taliban Mujahideen. Her husband was arrested in 2007 as the leader of the Sauerland Group, a German terrorist organization. In April 2012, the Berliner Kammergericht ordered her released after she served two thirds of her sentence. He attorney, Mutlu Gunal, said she did not want to be released as part of al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb’s (AQIM) demands.

Raupach’s kidnappers stabbed him to death when Nigerian soldiers attacked their hideout on May 31. The soldiers killed all four kidnappers, then found his body.

It was believed to be the first AQIM operation on Nigerian soil.

On June 11, 2012, AQIM blamed the German government for Raupach’s death, even though Berlin had complied with their demand for Gelowicz’s release. The group posted a note on the Internet, saying, “Your government gave the green light for the operation” to rescue Raupach. AQIM warned European governments to not be “dealing in foolishness” during hostage negotiations. A German official told the press that the government was not aware beforehand that Nigerian troops were going to attack the hideout and that the troops were trying to arrest terrorists and did not know that Raupach was being held at that location. 12012701

January 27, 2012—Nigeria—Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau released a forty-five-minute Hausa-language tape in which he threatened to kill more security personnel and kidnap their families. He claimed U.S. President Barack Obama was conducting war against Islam. He said that Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan could not stop the group. He claimed credit for the recent attacks in Kano that killed 186 people. “We attacked the securities base because they were arresting our members and torturing our wives and children. They should know they have families, too, we can abduct them. We have what it takes to do anything we want.” But he also said the group was not responsible for civilian casualties. “We never kill ordinary people. Rather, we protect them. It is the army that rushed to the press to say we are the ones killing civilians. We are not fighting civilians. We only kill soldiers, police, and other security agencies.” Turning to the United States, he observed, “In America, from former President George Bush to Obama, the Americans have always been fighting and destroying Islam. They have tagged us terrorists, and they are paying for it. It is the same in Nigeria, and we will resist.”

January 28, 2012—Sudan—Gunmen from the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement–North (SPLM-N) kidnapped forty-seven Chinese workers near Abbasiya in the South Kordofan region, 390 miles south of Khartoum. At least eighteen escaped but one was missing. China announced on February 2 that a worker shot by rebels during a Sudanese government rescue attempt probably had died; he remained missing. The hostages were employed by Sino-hydro, a state-controlled engineering and construction company. Beijing sent a hostage negotiation team to Sudan and approached the new government of South Sudan to mediate. The rebels demanded that Beijing include the government to get them to stop military attacks and let aid reach South Kordofan and suggested that Beijing move its nationals out of the war zones. Yasir Arman, SPLM-N General Secretary, said, “The SPLM-N calls upon China to contribute to the humanitarian operation and to ask Khartoum government to open safe corridors for humanitarian operations. SPLM-N calls again upon China to support the demand of an international investigation on the war crimes against Sudanese people.” Authorities believed the hostages were held in the mountainous Nuba region of South Kordofan. The Chinese public expressed outrage at the lack of a strong Chinese strike against the hostage takers. Arman said China’s Ambassador to Ethiopia Xie Xiaoyan had held talks with his group. The rebels released the twenty-nine Chinese workers on February 7, 2012. The Sudanese government suggested that the government of South Sudan had intervened. The Red Cross transferred the freed hostages to Nairobi. One of the missing workers was found dead. 12012801

January 29, 2012—Venezuela—Four gunmen kidnapped Mexican Ambassador Carlos Pujalte Pineiro, 58, and his wife, Paloma Ojeda, from their BMW following a reception in the “country club” section of Chacao in Caracas, holding them for four hours before police forced the kidnappers to release them unharmed in a slum the next morning. This was the second time in two months Pineiro had been taken hostage. Police suspected criminals interested in quick money via an “express kidnapping.”

January 31, 2012—Yemen—An air strike killed a dozen al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) terrorists, including Abdul Monem al-Fahtani, a mid-level AQAP leader believed to have participated in the 2000 USS Cole attack. Yemeni forces had attacked him in late 2010; his death was never confirmed.

January 31, 2012—Egypt—Bedouins blocked a road and kidnapped twenty-four Chinese workers and a translator who were on their way to a military-owned cement factory. The kidnappers demanded the release of prisoners but freed the hostages a day later. 12013101

January 31, 2012—Yemen—Armed tribesmen kidnapped a German, a Colombian, an Iraqi, a Palestinian, and two Yemenis, all of whom worked for the UN Humanitarian Office, near Sana’a. They were released unharmed on February 2. 12013102

February 2012—Colombia—The Colombian National Liberation Army kidnapped eleven oil workers in Arauca Province from a bus on the way to the Bicentennial pipeline. They were freed at the request of the families on March 6, 2012.

February 1, 2012—Philippines—Abu Sayyaf was believed responsible for kidnapping two tourists—a Dutch citizen and a Swiss citizen—in southern Tawi-Tawi Province. 12020101

February 1, 2012—Nigeria—A member of the State Security Service announced the arrest of Boko Haram spokesman Abul-Qaqa after tracking his cell phone. He was flown to Abuja for questioning.

February 2, 2012—Philippines—The military announced that in a 3:00 a.m. air strike on a terrorist safe house in Parang on Jolo Island, it had killed Malaysian citizen Zulkifli bin Hir, alias Marwan, senior leader of Jemaah Islamiyah; Umbra Jumdail, a leader of Abu Sayyaf; and Abdullah Ali, alias Muawiyah, a Singaporean leader of Jemaah Islamiyah. The United States had offered a $5 million reward for Marwan’s capture. The U.S.-trained engineer was accused of involvement in several bombings in the Philippines and training new terrorists. The military said thirty terrorists were at the camp. Fifteen of them were killed.

February 3, 2012—Egypt—Masked Bedouin gunmen kidnapped two American tourists and their local tour guide from a minibus on the way from St. Catherine’s Monastery on the Sinai Peninsula to the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh on the heels of major soccer rioting following the one-year anniversary of the kickoff of the Arab Spring. The kidnappers left behind three other people. The Bedouins demanded the release and retrial of thirty-three detained Bedouins, some of whom were believed responsible for the shooting of a French tourist during an armed robbery of a Sharm el-Sheikh currency exchange shop the previous week. The hostages were freed the same day into the custody of the military. One of the freed Americans, E. P., said that she was not afraid and that the Bedouins were “very nice … They kept on reassuring us that we will be fine … They treated us like family.” 12020301

February 5, 2012—Egypt—An explosion went off at the Egyptian pipeline carrying gas to Israel and Jordan in the northern Sinai at the entrance of the town of al-Arish. No group claimed credit. The pipeline was shut down for at least two months. The pipeline is run by Gasco, a subsidiary of the national gas company EGAS.

February 5, 2012—Nigeria—The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta took credit for attacking an Italian oil giant Eni SpA pipeline, interrupting the flow of four thousand barrels of oil. It warned of more attacks in the Delta. The company confirmed the sabotage.

February 7, 2012—Nigeria—Boko Haram was suspected of setting off car bombs at the army’s First Mechanized Division Headquarters and the training command of the air force near Kaduna, causing several injuries. The group released a video claiming to welcome peace talks with the government. A third bomb went off near a highway overpass. One of the car bombers at the headquarters was wearing a military uniform. Soldiers fired at him, killing him. Air force officials said the bomber was stopped before getting past the gate, so he threw an explosive 550 yards from the outer fence of the base.

February 8, 2012—Somalia—Al-Shabaab set off a car bomb in Mogadishu that killed eight people and wounded two members of parliament.

February 9, 2012—Somalia—As-Sahab Media released a fifteen-minute video in which Ayman al-Zawahiri and Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen leader Mukhtar Abdurahman Abu az–Zubeir, alias Godane, announced that al-Shabaab had pledged bayat (an oath of allegiance) to the al Qaeda leader. The duo had recorded their presentations separately; the comments were then spliced. Al-Zawahiri said, “Today I bring glad tidings to our Muslim Ummah, happy tidings that pleased the believers and displeases the crusaders, which is the joining of Shabaab al-Mujahideen in Somalia to Qaida’t al-Jihad in support of the jihad unit in the face of the Zionist-Crusader campaign and their helpers of cooperative traitor rulers who brought in the crusader invasive forces to their countries.” Az-Zubeir added, “The entire world attests that America’s days are over and her rule has gone and her minions in the land of Muslims—their end has come.”

February 10, 2012—Syria—Two suicide bombs went off in the commercial center of Aleppo, killing twenty-eight. No one claimed credit. Observers feared al Qaeda was trying to establish a foothold.

February 11, 2012—Syria—Three gunmen waiting outside Brig. Gen. Issa al-Kholi’s his home in the Rukn Eddin neighborhood of Damascus shot him to death. Al-Kholi was director of a hospital.

February 12, 2012—Egypt—Nermeen Gomaa Khalil, 41, an Egyptian woman working as a consultant for a UN fund for women, was fatally shot in the head by gunmen in a passing car while driving through Mohandiseen, a Cairo neighborhood.

February 12, 2012—Internet—Ayman al-Zawahiri released a video onto the Internet entitled Onwards, Lions of Syria in which he called for Syrians to overthrown Bashar al-Assad without Arab or Western government assistance. He called on Muslims in Turkey, Iraq, Lebanon, and Jordan to aid Syrian rebels.

Wounded Syria still bleeds day after day, while the butcher, son of the butcher Bashar bin Hafiz, is not deterred to stop. But the resistance of our people in Syria despite all the pain, sacrifice, and bloodshed escalates and grows. [Muslims should help] his brothers in Syria with all that he can, with his life, money, opinion, as well as information … Our people in Syria, don’t rely on the West, or the United States or Arab governments and Turkey. You know better what they are planning against you. Our people in Syria, don’t depend on the Arab League and its corrupt governments supporting it. If we want freedom, we must be liberated from this regime. If we want justice, we must retaliate against this regime. Continue your revolt and anger. Don’t accept anything else apart from independent, respectful governments.

February 13, 2012—United Kingdom—The United Kingdom released Abu Qatada, al Qaeda’s seniormost operative in Europe.

February 13, 2012—India—A bomb exploded under an Israeli Embassy van in New Delhi, wounding four people, including the van’s driver, its passenger—Tal Yehoshua-Koren, an embassy employee who is the wife of an Israeli defense envoy—and two people in a nearby car. The bomb was slapped onto the car by a passing motorcyclist as Yehoshua-Koren was on her way to pick up her children from the American Embassy School. The bomb went off a few hundred yards from the prime minister’s residence. It was similar to the January 11 killing of an Iranian nuclear chemist in Tehran. On March 7, Indian police arrested a local journalist, Syed Mohammed Kazmi, 50, in connection with the attack. He claimed to work for an Iranian news organization, according to the Press Trust of India. Investigators said he had been in touch with the bomber. He was represented by attorney Vijay Aggarwal. On March 15, India issued arrest warrants for three Iranians—Housan Afshar, Syed Ali Mehdi Sadr, and Mohammed Reza Abolghasemi. On March 17, 2012, Indian police said the bombing attack was connected to the plot to attack Israelis in Thailand.

Indian police identified the bomber as Houshang Afshar Irani, whose passport showed he first visited New Delhi in April 2011 for ten days before returning to the city on January 29, 2012. He reached the city’s airport seventy-five minutes after the bomb attack, and after waiting seven hours for a flight, left for Malaysia and on to Dubai, then Tehran. Investigators said the bomb was a TNT variant. The shell was made outside India. The magnetic strips used in the limpet were the same as those used in the Bangkok and Tbilisi bombings.

On July 30, 2012, ABCNews.com reported that Interpol had issued arrest warrants for five members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard in the case. They were Houshang Afshar Irani, a builder who drove past the Israeli car on a motorcycle and attached the explosive device; Masoud Sedaghatzadeh, a salesman and alleged mastermind; Syed Ali Mahdiansadr, a mobile shopkeeper; and Mohammed Reza Abolghasemi, a clerk at a Tehran water authority. Two were also wanted by Thai police for the plot to attack Israeli targets in Bangkok the next day. Thai and Indian police were also searching for Ali Akbar Norouzishayan, a retired Tehran accountant, who was spotted on security camera footage leaving the Bangkok safe house after the explosion. 12021301

February 13, 2012—Georgia—A bomb found under an Israeli Embassy car in Tbilisi was defused without incident. 12021302

February 14, 2012—Thailand—The Israeli government blamed Iran for a bomb that exploded in Bangkok, blowing off a leg of Saeid Moradi, an Iranian man who was carrying it. Three Thai men and one Thai woman were treated at Kluaynamthai Hospital for their injuries from the blast. Two foreigners and the Iranian ran from the residence when some explosives went off. He tried to hail a cab, but the driver refused to take the blood-drenched Moradi. He then threw a bomb at the taxi and started running. Surrounded by police, he threw a grenade at them, but it bounced back, blowing off a leg. Police found Iranian currency, U.S. dollars, and Thai money in a satchel at the scene. Authorities found C4 explosives and two magnetic explosive devices in his house. His passport said he was Saeid Moradi from Iran. Mohammad Kharzei, 42, a second Iranian, was detained at Bangkok’s international airport as he attempted to escape to Malaysia. A third man, Masoud Sedaghatzadeh, was arrested in Malaysia on February 15. A Bangkok court approved an arrest warrant for Leila Rohani, who rented the destroyed house before fleeing to Tehran. Thai police said on February 17 that they were searching for a fifth suspect who was seen on security cameras entering and exiting the house before the bomb went off. On February 27, Thai authorities arrested three more Iranians who were in contact with the key suspects.

Moradi arrived in Thailand from Seoul, South Korea, on February 8. He flew into Phuket, then stayed in a Chonburi hotel.

Israel said that the magnetic explosives were similar to those used in New Delhi and Tbilisi the previous day.

On March 15, Masoud Sedaghatzadeh, 31, an Iranian man held in Malaysia, told a Kuala Lumpur court that he was not involved and intended to fight extradition. Thai officials said he was seen leaving the building where the bomb went off. Malaysia ordered Sedaghatzadeh’s extradition to Thailand on June 25, 2012. 12021401

February 17, 2012—Pakistan—A suicide bomber on a motorcycle killed twenty-three Shi’ite Muslims and wounded fifty people in a market in Parachinar near the Afghanistan border. Locals protested the attack and were fired on by security officials, who killed three people.

February 17, 2012—United States—Federal authorities arrested Amine el Khalifi, 29, a Moroccan illegally in the United States, as he walked to the U.S. Capitol wearing what he thought was a suicide vest. The Alexandria, Virginia, resident had been given an inerted vest and fake handgun by an FBI undercover agent. Retired patent attorney Frank Dynda, Khalifi’s landlord, tipped off the FBI a year earlier about his suspicious behavior. For the rest of the year, the FBI learned he was considering attacking a synagogue, an Alexandria building with military offices, and a restaurant popular with military officers before settling on the Capitol target. He was arrested a few blocks from the Capitol at lunchtime, carrying the vest and an inoperable loaded automatic weapon which he believed had been provided by al Qaeda. He was charged in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction against federal property. He faced life in prison.

He had arrived in the United States at age 16, then overstayed his visitor’s visa while living in northern Virginia. He was evicted from an Arlington apartment in 2010 after missing rent payment. On December 1, 2011, Khalifi and Hussien, who Khalifi thought was an al Qaeda operative, met Yusuf, an undercover officer who Khalifi told he wanted to bomb an Alexandria building. On December 8, Khalifi told Hussien that he should attack a synagogue and an army general. On December 15, Khalifi told Hussien that he wanted to bomb a DC restaurant next to a government building; the duo visited the restaurant the next week. On January 7, 2012, Hussien told Khalifi that he worked for al Qaeda. They talked about conducting a second attack on a military site after Khalifi either shot up or bombed the restaurant. On January 8, Khalifi bought bomb-making materials. On January 15, Khalifi decided to conduct a suicide bombing against the Capitol. The duo set off a test bomb in a West Virginia quarry. Khalifi set the bombing date for February 17. The two visited the Capitol on January 28 and February 6. During the second surveillance and on February 12, Khalifi asked for a gun to shoot Capitol guards. On February 14, Yusuf gave Khalifi an inoperable weapon and what Khalifi thought was a suicide jacket. Khalifi tested its cell phone detonator. On February 17, Khalifi prayed at the northern Virginia Dar al-Hijrah mosque. The trio went to a parking garage near the Capitol, and Khalifi took what he thought would be his last walk. He was arrested several blocks away. Police raided a red brick rambler on Randolph Street in the Douglas Park neighborhood of Alexandria. A preliminary court hearing was set for February 22.

On June 22, 2012, Khalifi pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Alexandria to a charge of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction against federal property. Under his plea bargain, he would serve twenty-five to thirty years. On September 14, 2012, Khalifi was sentenced to thirty years in prison. He was to be deported to Morocco after finishing his sentence.

February 22, 2012—Georgia—Five gunmen fired automatic rifles and grenade launchers and set off a roadside bomb under a motorcade at 8:30 a.m. in a failed attempt to kill Aleksandr Z. Ankvab, president of the Russian-backed rebel enclave Abkhazia. Ankvab was uninjured, but a bodyguard died and two others were seriously injured in the sixth assassination try against Ankvab in a decade. He had recently dismissed the entire staff of the immigration bureau on suspicion of corruption.

February 23, 2012—Pakistan—A Honda City car filled with 100 pounds of explosives and artillery shells was remotely detonated at a minibus depot in Peshawar, killing thirteen, including two children. No one claimed credit.

February 23, 2012—Afghanistan—As a wave of protests continued over inadvertent American burning of Qurans, a member of the Afghan Army shot to death two U.S. soldiers at a base in eastern Afghanistan.

February 24, 2012—Somalia—A missile strike in Kilometre 60, in the al-Shabaab-controlled Lower Shabelle region, killed an Egyptian and three Kenyan Islamists.

February 25, 2012—Yemen—A pickup truck bomb outside a presidential compound in Mukalla, Hadramout Province, killed twenty-five people hours after Yemen’s new president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, was sworn in. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula was suspected.

February 25, 2012—Afghanistan—Abdul Saboor, an Afghan driver, turned his silenced pistol on his NATO counterparts, killing two U.S. officers inside the Interior Ministry building in Kabul. The duo were identified by the press as Air Force Lt. Col. John D. Loftis, 44, of Paducah, Kentucky and a Major Saboor, a Tajik from Parwan Province, did not appear to have Taliban links. He escaped from the Ministry.

February 26, 2012—Colombia—The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) announced that it would no longer kidnap civilians for ransom. It also said it would free its ten remaining “prisoners of war”—soldiers and policemen who had been held for more than a decade. It was believed to still hold one hundred civilian hostages. FARC did not mention their fate.

February 26, 2012—Afghanistan—Protestors demonstrating against the burning of Qurans threw a grenade, wounding at least six U.S. service members in the north.

February 26, 2012—Nigeria—A Boko Haram suicide bomber killed three people—a father, his child, and a woman—and hospitalized thirty-eight at the headquarters of the Church of Christ in Nigeria during an early morning service in Jos. The bomber hit a woman with his car while driving to the church compound. Boko Haram spokesman Abul Qaqa also claimed credit for burning down a primary school in Maiduguri and warned security agencies to not enter Islamic schools. “Our attacks have no distinction on any person, be him Muslim or Christian. For as long as they stand against us and our cause, their blood is legitimate to be shed.”

February 28, 2012—Pakistan—Uniformed Sunni gunmen fired on a bus convoy ferrying Shi’ite passengers from Rawalpindi to Gilgit in Kohistan district in the north. They forced selected passengers to get off the bus, then shot to death all eighteen. The attack was conducted 102 miles north of Islamabad. The Pakistani Taliban claimed credit.

March 2012—Yemen—In two incidents, a Swiss woman and three Philippine nationals were kidnapped. As of March 28, they had not been released. 12039901-02

March 2012—Saudi Arabia—In mid–March, gunmen attacked a BBC news crew, killing a cameraman and critically wounding a senior correspondent as they tried to film a suspected terrorist’s family home in the radical-infested Suweidi neighborhood of Riyadh. The terrorist was identified as Ibrahim al-Rayyes, number 6 on the Saudis’ Most Wanted Terrorists List. He was killed in early December 2011 in a shootout with police near a filling station in Suweidi. Eight security officers were wounded and a terrorist was killed in the gun battle. 12039903

March 2012—Saudi Arabia—In late March, two U.S. defense workers were gunned down outside their homes in Riyadh. 12039904-05

March 2012—Yemen—In two incidents, a Swiss woman and three Philippine nationals were kidnapped. As of March 28, they had not been released. On May 1, 2012, her kidnappers released a video of the Swiss hostage, who said that she was being held by al Qaeda and needed the Swiss government to help her. 12039906-07

March 1, 2012—Turkey—A remotely-detonated bomb injured fifteen police officers and a civilian in a police minibus near the Istanbul headquarters of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party). No one claimed credit.

March 1, 2012—Afghanistan—An Afghan soldier and an Afghan civilian teaching a literacy course on a NATO-Afghan base in the Zhari district of southern Kandahar Province shot to death two U.S. troops and injured a third. NATO troops shot to death the gunmen. 12030101

March 1, 2012—Yemen—A gunman fired several shots at an armored vehicle carrying a U.S. security team training Yemeni soldiers. No one was injured. 12030102

March 2, 2012—Pakistan—A Pakistani Taliban suicide bomber killed twenty-three people when he attacked the headquarters of the rival Lashkar-e-Islam insurgent group in the northwest Tirah Valley.

March 3, 2012—Algeria—A four-wheel-drive Toyota crashed into the entrance of the headquarters of the national police in Tamanrasset, 1,200 miles south of Algiers, at 7:45 a.m., wounding fifteen officers, five firemen, and three bystanders. A local journalist said five police officers had died. Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb was suspected.

March 4, 2012—Yemen—Ansar al-Sharia, a group linked to al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), conducted two suicide bomb attacks in Zinjibar, killing nearly two hundred soldiers. They also captured seventy soldiers. AQAP later claimed credit.

March 8, 2012—Thailand—Four soldiers escorting Buddhist villagers were killed by a bomb set by Islamist terrorists.

March 10, 2012—Kenya—The government blamed al-Shabaab for a series of grenade attacks in Nairobi that killed at least six and injured nearly seventy. People in a car threw three grenades at an outdoor bus terminal, killing four and wounding forty. The Red Cross said a dozen people were in critical condition. Among the injured was Frederick Shikutu, 36. 12031001

March 11, 2012—Pakistan—A suicide bomber killed at least fifteen mourners and wounded another thirty-seven at a funeral attended by anti–Taliban politician Khush Dil Khan, who was unhurt in the attack in Badhber in the Peshawar suburbs. Among the hospitalized was Zahir Khan, 32, whose brother was killed.

March 11, 2012—Afghanistan—U.S. Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, 38, wearing local garb and carrying a 9-mm pistol and an M-4 rifle with a grenade launcher, walked out of his base at 3:00 a.m. and went to Najeeban and Alokozo (also identified as Balandi and Alkozai), two villages in the Panjwai district of Kandahar Province, where he shot to death seventeen sleeping people, including three women and nine children, before coming back to his base and surrendering. At least eight other children were wounded. Bales was on his fourth war zone tour of duty; three others were in Iraq. He was flown to Kuwait, then later to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, to await criminal charges for leaving his post, killing the people, and trying to burn their bodies. There was some evidence that he had returned to base before the second attack. He was from Joint Base Fort Lewis-McChord, in Washington State. The highly decorated soldier had been hurt twice in Iraq, suffering a concussion and losing part of his foot. The married father of two had received a diagnosis of traumatic brain injury. He was a member of the 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division. The Taliban vowed to avenge the deaths, observing, “If the perpetrators of this massacre were in fact mentally ill, then this testifies to yet another moral transgression by the American military because they are arming lunatics in Afghanistan who turn their weapons against defenseless Afghans.” Prosecutors at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, charged Bales on March 23 with seventeen counts of murder, six counts of attempted murder and aggravated assault, and dereliction of duty. He was represented by attorney John Henry Browne of Seattle.

March 11, 2012—Nigeria—A suicide car bomber killed ten people during the day’s final Mass at St. Finbar’s Catholic Church in Jos. He had been stopped at the gate of the compound. Boko Haram was suspected.

March 11, 2012—France—Mohammed Merah, 23, a gunman on a motorcycle, shot and killed a French soldier of north African origin who was on his motorcycle. He used a .45 caliber pistol. The soldier was not in uniform and the motorcycle did not have military identification on it. Merah posted a video of the shooting, telling the soldier, “You kill my brothers, I kill you.” Paratrooper Imad Ibn Ziaten answered an online ad to purchase a scooter in Toulouse. Ziaten had said he was in the military. Merah used his brother’s IP address to set up the fatal meeting with Ziaten. 12031101

March 13, 2012—Ethiopia—Gunmen in the southwest killed nineteen people in an attack on a public bus in Gambella region.

March 14, 2012—Azerbaijan—The Ministry of National Security arrested twenty-two people accused of plotting terrorist attacks against Western, U.S. and Israeli embassies and other targets at the behest of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. The Azeri cell members were trained in “camps around Tehran” and elsewhere in Iran. Their Iranian handlers met them in Syria and Russia, according to the Ministry. The Ministry said the group can be traced back to 1999, and had been given money, weapons, and military training. The group had obtained weapons and explosives.

March 14, 2012—Afghanistan—An Afghan crashed a stolen pickup truck into a ditch near the plane of arriving U.S. Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta. The man burst into flames but his truck did not. The Afghan was an interpreter working for the coalition forces at the Camp Bastion military airfield, a British complex adjoining Camp Leatherneck. The attacker had tried to run over a group of U.S. Marines and other dignitaries waiting on a runway ramp for the plane. The attacker died a day later of extensive burns. No explosives were found in the car or on the attacker, who was not wearing a suicide vest. He apparently tried to ignite gasoline containers in the cab of the truck. Secretary Panetta denied that he was the target. The man had hijacked the truck thirty minutes earlier, injuring a British soldier. A military dog who apparently pulled the attacker from the wreck sustained slight burn wounds. 12031401

March 15, 2012—United States—Bakhtiyor Jumaev, a Philadelphia resident believed to be from Uzbekistan, was arrested and charged in Philadelphia in an alleged plot to provide support to an Uzbek terrorist organization. He was represented by attorney Barnaby Wittels. Authorities said Jumaev sent $300 to Uzbek refugee Jamshid Muhtorov, who lived in Aurora, Colorado. Muhtorov was arrested on January 12, 2012, while traveling in Chicago. Investigators believed the duo was planning a “wedding”—a terrorist attack by the Islamic Jihad Union.

March 16, 2012—France—Black-clad gunman Mohammed Merah, riding a motorcycle, shot and killed two French paratroopers of North African and French Caribbean descent and injured a black soldier from the French Antilles while they were using an ATM in a shopping center in Montauban. Merah posted a video of the shooting, during which he yelled, “Allahu Akbar.” He used a .45 caliber pistol to kill Abel Chennouf, 25, and Mohamed Legouade, 23. The wounded soldier went into a coma. 12031601

March 16, 2012—Pakistan/United States—The Washington Post reported that documents captured at Osama bin Laden’s compound on May 2, 2011, showed that he planned to kill President Obama so that he could deal with an “unprepared” Vice President Biden and also planned to kill then–Commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan Gen. David Petraeus. Bin Laden proposed an attack on Air Force One.

March 17, 2012—Syria—Two suicide car bombers killed 27 people and injured 140 others in front of the intelligence and security buildings in Damascus. Authorities said a third bomb went off at a Palestinian refugee camp in Damascus, but the two bombers were the only casualties.

March 18, 2012—Yemen—In Taiz, an al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula gunman riding on the back of a motorcycle shot to death Joel Shrum, 29, an American teacher serving as an advisor at a Swedish-affiliated institute. Shrum was on his way to work. The al Qaeda-linked Ansar al-Sharia texted to the news media, “This operation comes as a response to the campaign of Christian proselytizing that the West has launched against Muslims.” Shrum, of Mount Joy, Pennsylvania, had gone to Yemen in 2009 to learn Arabic. He had been living in the country with his wife and two children. 12031801

March 18, 2012—Indonesia—Counterterrorism police killed five members of a Jemaah Islamiyah splinter group in Bali who were considering conducting a series of robberies of jewelry stores, including two that night. The police raided two hotels in the Denpasar area of Bali. Authorities seized two guns and ammunition. Police believed they were responsible for a bank robbery in Medan, North Sumatra, in 2010. The press later reported that they planned to bomb the Hard Rock Café and other Western targets.

March 18, 2012—Syria—A bomb went off at a government security building in Aleppo, killing a police officer and a civilian and injuring thirty people.

March 19, 2012—France—At 8:00 a.m., Mohammed Merah, 23, a French citizen of Algerian descent, riding a Yamaha T-Max 530 motor scooter, shot to death French Israeli Rabbi Jonathan Sandler, 30, and his two sons, Gabriel, 6, and Arieh, 3, and Miriam Monsonego, 8-year-old daughter of the school’s director, at the Jewish elementary Ozar Hatorah school in Toulouse before escaping. He drove up and shot two pistols at a group of children waiting in front of the school, then followed others into a courtyard as they ran toward the building. Monsonego died in front of her father, Yaacov. All of the dead were dual Israeli French nationals and all were shot in the head. Another six students were wounded, including a 17-year-old boy who was in serious condition at a local hospital. Merah had used the same .45 caliber Colt semiautomatic pistol in his attacks on French paratroopers of North African descent on March 11 and 15.

Merah wounded three police officers in a shootout in a Toulouse house. On March 21 at 3:00 p.m., he was surrounded by three hundred police officers and said he would surrender at night “to be more discreet.” He threw a pistol out the window in exchange for a “communication device,” but police believed he retained other weapons, including an AK-47. Although he appeared to have acted alone, he told police negotiators that he had met al Qaeda leaders while in Pakistan in 2011. He said he was acting for “revenge for Palestinian children” and was attacking the French Army because of its involvement in Afghanistan and for French banning of Islamic veils. He claimed to be a member of al Qaeda who had been to Afghanistan twice and had trained in Waziristan. Authorities said he planned to kill another soldier and two police officers. His brother was implicated in a network sending foreign fighters to Iraq. After a thirty-two-hour siege, he was shot to death.

Also on March 21, police arrested another man at a separate location in connection with the school shooting.

Merah was well-known to authorities. The Toulouse-born delinquent who had worked in a body shop had been sentenced fifteen times in Toulouse juvenile court when he was a minor for such offenses as purse-snatching and possession of stolen goods. Acquaintances said he was not particularly devout as a juvenile and had taken to wearing punk garb. He had been represented on a charge of driving without a valid license by attorney Christian Etelin, who said his client was psychologically impaired. He twice tried to join the French armed forces. He was turned down in Lille because of prior convictions. In July 2010, he tried to join the Foreign Legion in Toulouse but left after the first round of tests.

France 24 said French intelligence had tracked Merah for several years. Merah was arrested in Afghanistan on December 19, 2007. He was sentenced to three years for planting bombs in Kandahar. He escaped from Kandahar prison in 2008. Afghan police picked him up at a traffic stop and sent him back to France, which placed him under surveillance. Merah became involved with a group of fifteen extremists upon returning to France. He was on a U.S. no-fly list.

Merah called Ebba Kalondo, the senior news editor of the television network France 24, two hours before police surrounded him in his hideout, to talk about the attacks.

The press said authorities found him after being tipped off by a Toulouse motorcycle shop owner, who reported that a man had asked how to turn off the GPS in his TMX scooter. When the police RAID team arrived at 3:00 a.m. at Merah’s house 2 miles from the school, he shot through the door, injuring one officer in the knee, one in the shoulder, and wounding a third. Police detained his mother, elder brother, and two sisters, seeking to get their help in dealing with him. Merah said he was a member of Forsane Alizza (Knights of Glory), which the French government had banned in January for recruiting people to fight in Afghanistan. Before its banning, it posted on Facebook a call to attack Americans, Jews, and French soldiers.

On March 22 at 11:30 a.m., the siege ended when Merah, wearing a bulletproof vest, emerged from a bathroom and fired thirty shots at police, who returned fire, using at least three hundred rounds of ammunition. Merah jumped out a window onto a balcony, apparently was hit in the head, and toppled to the ground, dead. Two police officers were injured. Merah had two bullets left in his gun. Police found rifles and material for making bombs.

The little known Kazakhstan-based Jund al-Khilafah said “Yusuf of France” was responsible for the school attack. French officials said it was probably an opportunistic claim and that Merah had not heard of them.

The attacks came just before French national elections on April 23 and May 6.

Al-Jazeera said it had decided against broadcasting Merah’s murder videos.

On March 25, investigating judges filed preliminary murder and terrorism charges against an Islamist radical with ties to a jihadi network—Abdelkader Merah, 29, the gunman’s older brother. He denied the charges.

On June 11, 2012, Mohamed Benalel Merah, Mohammed Merah’s father, filed a lawsuit in Paris alleging murder in the killing by police of his son. His legal team included terrorist Carlos’s wife Isabelle Courtant-Peyre and Algerian lawyer Zahia Mokhtari. 12031901

March 19–20, 2012—Somalia—Al-Shabaab conducted nighttime mortar attacks on the Presidential Palace, killing five and injuring several others. The five mortar attack landed on a refugee camp next to the presidential compound, killing five. Abu Zubeyr, alias Ahmed Godane, an al-Shabaab commander, aired a twenty-five-minute message on the group’s radio station calling for other Somalis to join the Jihad.

March 20, 2012—United Kingdom—Former Russian banker German Gorbuntsov was shot in East London; police viewed it as an attempted murder. Ten days later, prosecutors were attempting to deport a suspected Chechen government assassin.

March 21, 2012—United States—Shaima Alawadi, 32, an Iraqi woman whose family had been in the United States since the mid–1990s, was found severely beaten on the head with a tire iron, next to a threatening note saying, “Go back to your country, you terrorist.” Fatima Al-Himidi, 17, her daughter, found her lying in a pool of blood that morning in the dining room of the house in El Cajon, California. The mother of five died on March 24. The family received a similar note earlier in the month but had not reported it to authorities. The family had moved from Michigan a few weeks earlier. Alawadi’s husband had previously worked in San Diego as a private contractor for the U.S. Army, serving as a cultural adviser to train soldiers deploying to the Middle East. Police were investigating whether the murder was a hate crime. She was buried in Iraq on March 31.

March 22, 2012—Internet—Al Qaeda message forums al-Shamukh al-Islam, al-Fidaa, and Ansar al-Mujahideen Arabic Forum started going offline, possibly from a cyber attack. Al-Mujahidin and al-Shamukh returned briefly. The administrator of another al Qaeda site posted, “The media arena is witnessing a vicious attack by the cross and its helpers on the jihadi media castles.” Al-Shamukh returned on April 4, noting, “The enemies of Allah who boast of their freedoms have not spared any effort to eradicate our blessed media.” Five other sites remained offline.

March 25, 2012—United Kingdom—The Sunday Times received a four-minute video from Waliur Rehman, deputy commander of the Pakistani Tehrik-e-Taliban, in which he claimed that Muslim prisoners, including Bilal Abdullah, the Glasgow airport bomber, and Dhiren Barot, a “dirty bomb” plotter, were being mistreated in U.K. jails. The video was filmed the previous week near Miranshah, capital of North Waziristan. He threatened “severe revenge” if Muslim prisoners were not released. “If the British government does not comply with this, then our revenge against the British government will be very severe. These are not just words. We will show them in practice. We will show them how we take revenge for the mistreatment of our brothers.” He claimed Abdullah and Barot were “stripped naked and their dignity violated.” “They poured hot kerosene oil on [Barot’s] face.”

March 26, 2012—Afghanistan—An Afghan Army soldier shot to death two U.K. troops at the entrance of the provincial reconstruction team headquarters in Lashkar Gah, capital of Helmand Province. Foreign forces returned fire, killing him. A member of a U.S.-trained Afghan Local Police Force fatally shot a NATO soldier as troops approached a militia checkpoint. Since May 2007, Afghan security forces had killed at least eighty NATO troops.

March 27, 2012—Spain—Police in Valencia arrested Muhrad Hussein Almalki, “al Qaeda’s librarian,” on charges of broadcasting videos on the Internet to incite terrorist attacks. He had been under investigation since February 2011. He was suspected of working with al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and al Qaeda in the Islamic Mahgreb. He supervised one of the al Qaeda sites that went dark in late March 2012 and posted often under aliases on two others.

March 27, 2012—Afghanistan—The Defense Ministry went into lockdown after the discovery of ten suicide vests, mostly in guard sheds around a parking lot, and the arrests of sixteen soldiers and civilians suspected of planning to attack the ministry and the intelligence agency and bomb commuter buses carrying government employees home. Two suspected bombers reportedly were at large.

March 28, 2012—Yemen—Unknown gunmen kidnapped Saudi deputy consul Abdullah al-Khalidi from his vehicle near his residence in Rimi, in the Mansoora district. On April 17, 2012, Saudi Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Mansour al-Turki said that al Qaeda had claimed credit and was demanding the release of prisoners and a ransom payment. He said Saudi terror suspect Mashaal Rasheed al-Shawdakhi had phoned the Saudi Embassy in Yemen, threatening to kill al-Khalidi if the government did not release senior al Qaeda prisoners, both Saudi and Yemeni, and six female prisoners in Saudi jails. Shawdakhi claimed that Nasser al-Washidi, leader of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) had appointed him to release the demands. AQAP released al-Khalidi on August 11, 2012, after tribal mediation efforts. The terms of his release were not disclosed. 12032801

March 28, 2012—Pakistan—Gunmen conducted two attacks in Baluchistan’s Mastung district. In one attack, gunmen fired on a car carrying local staff of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, killing a driver and a member of the group’s project staff. Another member of the staff was wounded. In Quetta, gunmen on motorcycles fired on a passenger van, killing four Shi’ites. 12032802

March 30, 2012—Afghanistan—A member of the Afghan Local Police in Paktika Province shot to death nine drugged colleagues in their sleep, then escaped in a government vehicle full of guns and ammunition.

March 30, 2012—Afghanistan—Acid was thrown into the faces and the mouths of two children. The Afghan National Army brought their bodies to the local hospital after villagers found them in Nani village in eastern Ghazni Province’s Andar district. The identity of their parents was unknown.

March 30, 2012—Afghanistan—Asadullah, alias Mujahid Sanaullah, 22, a member of the Afghan Local Police in Paktika Province, shot to death nine colleagues—including eight police officers—whom he had drugged, in their sleep, then escaped with two terrorists in a Toyota Ranger police pickup truck filled with ten rifles and twenty-five magazines of ammunition. He had been a Taliban fighter for several years. His neighbors said he had given the Taliban permission to kill his father, Ehsanulah, a government official and religious leader in the Yayakhil district of Paktika Province. Authorities detained two of Asadullah’s brothers following the shootings. Among the dead was Mohammed Ramazan, a police commander who had supported Asadullah’s participation in a reintegration program for former Taliban insurgents, and two of Ramazan’s sons.

March 30, 2012—France—Police arrested nineteen or twenty Islamic militants in early morning raids in Toulouse, Paris, and southern and western cities including Nantes, seizing Kalashnikov assault rifles. Among those detained was Mohammed Achamlane, leader of the small militant group Forsan al-Izza. He denied that the group seeks jihadi recruits. President Nicolas Sarkozy said at least some of the detainees would be expelled. Seven were held for questioning; two were released.

On April 4, 2012, thirteen of those arrested were placed under formal investigation for “criminal conspiracy in connection with a terrorist enterprise,” and possession and transportation of weapons. Nine of the thirteen were jailed, including Achamlane. The other four were released on April 3 but remained “under judicial control.” Achamlane was represented by attorney Philippe Missamou. French prosecutor Francois Molins said the detainees were “calling for the establishment of an Islamic caliphate in France and calling for the implementation of Sharia law and inciting Muslims in France to unite for the preparation of a civil war.” Prosecutors said Achamlane’s followers held “discussions during a meeting held in Lyon in September 2011 about a plan to kidnap a judge based in Lyon.”

March 31, 2012—Thailand—Bombs killed 14 and wounded more than 500 in Yala and Songkhla provinces. Buildings, cars, and motorcycles were damaged in the attacks on shoppers and a high-rise hotel. Bombs hidden in two stolen trucks went off in Yala, setting fire to nearby vehicles and buildings and killing 11 and injuring 110. The second bomb went off twenty minutes after the first, injuring numerous people who had gathered after the initial attack. An hour later, a car bomb went off in the underground parking of the 405-room Lee Gardens Plaza Hotel in Songkhla Province, killing at least 3, including a Malaysian tourist, and injuring 400, mostly from smoke inhalation. The bomb set off a fire at a high rise hotel in Hat Yai city and badly damaged a McDonald’s. A fourth bomb on a motorcycle went off 50 meters from a local police station in the Mae Lan district of Pattani Province, wounding a police officer. Islamist insurgents were suspected. 12033101

March 31, 2012—Kenya—Two nighttime grenade attacks killed one person and injured thirty-three others. One grenade went off in the southeastern town of Mtwapa, killing one and injuring thirty-one. Another was thrown into a stadium in the coastal city of Mombasa, injuring two others. No one claimed credit, but al-Shabaab posted an Internet message that observed,

The deteriorating insecurity in Kenyan cities is an embodiment of Kenya’s misguided policies that place foreign interests above its national interests and the security of Western nations above the security of its citizens, thereby wasting the lives of its men and its resources for no real gain…. The Kenyan public must be aware that the more Kenyan troops continue to persecute innocent Muslims of Somalia, the less secure Kenyan cities will be; and the more oppression the Muslims of Somalia feel, the more constricted Kenyan life will be…. Such is the law of Retribution. Your security depends on our security. It is a long, protracted war and Kenyans must neither harbor a reason for optimism nor hope for triumph.

March 31, 2012—Nigeria—Security forces raided a suspected Boko Haram bomb factory in Okene in Kogi State. During the raid, the group killed a soldier and a member of the State Security Service. Elsewhere, Boko Haram shot to death local politician Wanangu Kachuwa after returning to his home in Maiduguri following a church service. Also that night, the group burned down two police stations in separate cities in Yobe State, injuring two police officers.

March 31, 2012—Saudi Arabia—Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) abducted Paul Johnson, 49, of Stafford Township, New Jersey, a Lockheed Martin employee. The kidnappers released a video on April 3 showing a blindfolded Johnson and threatened to kill him within seventy-two hours if the government did not release al Qaeda prisoners. The video showed a man reading a statement and holding an AK-47. A subtitle said that he was Abdulaziz al-Moqrin, head of the Saudi branch of AQAP.

April 2012—Mali—Gunmen claiming to be acting under the orders of al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb kidnapped a Swiss missionary in Timbuktu. She was later freed after negotiations. 12049901

April 2012—Georgia—Authorities arrested smugglers from Abkhazia who were bringing three glass containers with 2.2 pounds of yellowcake uranium.

April 2012—Georgia—Authorities arrested three men in a hotel suite in Batumi offering radioactive cesium. One of the Turkish men said he could provide uranium. The buyers, undercover agents, said they would photograph the four cylinders and see if their leader was interested. Police then arrested the trio. The arrests were linked to Soslan Oniani. One lead cylinder held cesium–137, two held strontium–90, and the fourth held a spent nuclear material which could be used to make a radioactive dispersal device (dirty bomb). The two Turks and Oniani were convicted in a Georgian court in September 2012 and sentenced to six years in prison.

April 2012—Turkey—Ankara authorities arrested three Turkish men with a kilogram of cesium–135. Georgian officials said they were residents of Germany and were driving a German-plated car. The material originated in Abkhazia. Turkish authorities said the trio entered the country from Georgia.

April 2, 2012—Colombia—A loaned Brazilian Air Force helicopter took off from an airstrip in central Colombia to pick up six police officers and four soldiers who were being released by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), who had kidnapped them a dozen years earlier. They were FARC’s last group of government hostages, although hundreds of civilians remained captive.

April 2, 2012—United Kingdom—Government lawyers accused E1, 45, a Chechen-born former elite soldier described as “a henchman” of President Ramzan A. Kadyrov of Chechnya, of seeking to assassinate Akhmed K. Zakayev, a prominent Chechen politician who was granted asylum in 2003 in London. Government attorneys said E1 was involved in a 2009 Kadyrov-sponsored assassination in Vienna, Austria.

April 2, 2012—Internet—Jihadi forums posted a photo of the New York City skyline at sunset, overlaid with the text “Al Qaeda: Coming Soon Again in New York.”

April 2, 2012—Pakistan—Judge Shahrukh Arjumand sentenced thee wives and two adult daughters of Osama bin Laden to serve six weeks and pay a fine of $110 for violating immigration laws. They were formally arrested on March 3. They were to be deported to their respective countries on April 15. Kharia Hussain Sabir and Siham Sharif were Saudis, as were the two adult daughters. Amal Ahmad Abdul Fateh, 30, is a Yemeni who was wounded when bin Laden was shot in a SEAL raid on May 2, 2011, in Abbotabad. Fateh had born him five children. They had faced five years, but Pakistan wanted them and their children out of the country.

April 4, 2012—Somalia—A young Al-Shabaab female suicide bomber killed six people, including two senior sports officials—Said Mohamed Nur Mugambe, head of the Somali football federation, and Somali Olympic Committee president Adan Hagi Yabarow Wiish—and injured a dozen, including Prime Minister Abdiweli Mohamed Ali, ten journalists, and a lawmaker, during a celebration of the first anniversary of Somali national television in Somalia’s newly reopened National Theater in Mogadishu. The skinny woman, in her early 20s, was carrying a police ID. Al-Shabaab said that it had planted explosives at the theater ahead of time.

April 4, 2012—France—DCRI authorities arrested another ten Islamists in Roubaix, Lyon, Bordeaux, Valence, Pau, Marseille, Carpentras, and in the Lot et Garonne region. They were suspected of links to Islamist Web sites and threatening violence in online postings. An official said some of them might have been trying to obtain terrorist training on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

April 4, 2012—Lebanon—A sniper fired bullets past the head and torso of Samir Geagea, leader of the Lebanese Forces, one of the country’s main Christian parties, as he bent down to pick up a flower. The sniper was on a hilltop, one kilometer away. Hizballah was suspected.

April 5, 2012—China—The Ministry of Public Security added six Turkic Uighur men to its list of terrorists, accusing them of involvement in East Turkestan Islamic Movement terrorist attacks in Zinjiang. They remained at large. The Ministry said they had recruited and trained members for the organization, provided funding, and incited violence, including suicide bombings.

April 5, 2012—Mali—Unidentified gunmen kidnapped Algeria’s consul in Gao and five consular officials. The town was under control of Tuareg separatists. The Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO), an ally of al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, was suspected. Authorities later changed the number of hostages to seven. As of April 30, the hostages remained detained. On September 2, 2012, MUJAO spokesman Oumar Ould Hamaha said the group had killed the Algerian diplomat. “We did this so that Algeria learns a lesson and understands that when we give an ultimatum, they need to take us seriously. And so that other countries know that when we give an ultimatum in regards to their hostages, they need to act.” 12040501

April 6, 2012—Libya—Explosives were thrown over the wall of the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi. No one was injured. Two former Libyan guards hired by a security contractor were taken into custody. They drove a car owned by compound guard Ahmed Marimi. They were released by the Libyan government for lack of “hard evidence.” Ibrahim Faqzi Etwear was a former employee of Blue Mountain Group of Carmarthen, Wales, who had been fired four days earlier for vandalism. The other suspect was Mohe el-Dean Bacher, a recently demoted guard. 12040601

April 6, 2012—Yemen—An al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula bomber died when his explosives detonated prematurely as he attempted to attack an intelligence office in Mansoura in southern Aden Province. A motorcyclist he had tricked into giving him a ride also died.

April 8, 2012—Nigeria—A suicide car bomber killed forty-one people in front of the All Nations Christian Assembly Church in Kaduna on Easter morning. The car exploded at a roadside junction where men sold black market gasoline, which caught fire. Boko Haram was blamed. As of April 10, it had not spoken of the attack.

Later that day, a bomb went off in Jos, killing sixteen.

April 9, 2012—Somalia—Al-Shabaab bombed a vegetable market in Baidoa, killing a dozen people and wounding thirty. Police arrested one suspect. The group posted on its Web site, “The explosion has targeted Ethiopians and their apostate companions. Then they opened fire at the civilians in the market, killing five people on the spot.”

April 9, 2012—Nigeria—Suspected Boko Haram gunmen fired on a policeman and his family in Potiskum, a city in the northeast, killing the policeman’s 6-year-old daughter. Meanwhile, gunmen killed three people in attacks on a police station, church, and bank in the northeastern border town of Dikwa. A local politician, a police officer, a civilian, and three gunmen died in the attacks, which were blamed on Boko Haram.

April 9, 2012—Egypt—An explosion went off at the Egyptian pipeline carrying gas to Israel and Jordan in the northern Sinai at the entrance of the town of al-Arish. No group claimed credit. It was the fourteenth attack on the pipeline since the uprising against former President Hosni Mubarak. The pipeline is run by Gasco, a subsidiary of the national gas company EGAS. 12040901

April 9, 2012—Peru—Masked Shining Path gunmen took nearly forty oil and gas workers hostage near natural gas fields near Kepashiato in a bid to foil an army capture operation. The employees work for the Swedish firm Skanska, which services Peru’s main natural gas pipeline. Some fifteen hundred troops and police joined the search for the hostages. The Shining Path fired on a military helicopter that was part of the dragnet, killing a police captain and injuring two people. The group demanded a $10 million ransom, along with explosives and weapons. The government said it would not negotiate. The Maoist faction, led by Martin Quispe, alias Comrade Gabriel, freed the hostages after being surrounded by government troops on April 14. At least six security agents were killed during the rescue. Quispe appeared on television to say that his group was now named the Militarized Communist Party of Peru. 12040902

April 12, 2012—Nigeria—Boko Haram leader Imam Abubakar Shekau posted a fourteen-minute Internet video addressing Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan. “You the helpless, we heard that you intend and want to destroy us, but this talk is useless when it is said by an infidel because only God can destroy us. Until now, nobody was able to do that, and you, too, will not be able to do anything, with God’s help…. One day you kill one thousand and then we turn back, then after two days we kill your own one hundred. We’re turning it around like the way it is in the Quran.” Shekau was in a white robe; he was joined by gunmen holding Kalashnikov rifles. He spoke in Arabic and Hausa. The video included a Hausa song about the sect, saying it was ready to kill nonbelievers. The video included the group’s logo of two crossed Kalashnikovs around a Quran and a black Islamist flag, similar to that used by al Qaeda in the Islamic Mahgreb.

April 14, 2012—Colombia—Four bombs exploded in the country apparently in protest of the visit of President Barack Obama for the Summit of the Americas. Leftist rebels were suspected. Two bombs went off in a ditch in a residential area near the attorney general’s office and the U.S. Embassy, breaking windows but causing no casualties. Two other bombs went off in Cartagena.

April 15, 2012—Afghanistan—The Taliban conducted coordinated attacks at 1:45 p.m. against several Western embassies in Kabul’s diplomatic quarter. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid credited a “spring offensive” that it had planned for months. “This is a message to those foreign commanders who claim that the Taliban lost momentum. We just showed that we are here and we will launch and stage attacks whenever we want.” Local police captured two terrorists with suicide-bomb vests and destroyed a car bomb near the parliament building. U.S. Embassy staff were reported safe but under lockdown. The Taliban said it had targeted the U.K. and German embassies, the headquarters of NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), and President Hamid Karzai’s presidential palace compound. Two rockets hit a British Embassy guard tower and a rocket-propelled grenade landed outside the front gate of a house used by British diplomats. Rockets were also fired at the Russian, U.K., German, and Canadian embassies and the parliament building. Fighting was reported at seven locations, including near the U.S., Russian, and German embassies. Three rockets hit a supermarket that is popular with foreigners near the German Embassy. The Taliban attacked the Star Hotel complex near the presidential palace and the Iranian Embassy. Gun battles went on for at least fourteen hours. The Pakistan-based Haqqani branch of the Taliban was blamed. The Interior Ministry said seventeen terrorists were killed and seventeen police officers and fourteen civilians were injured in the attacks in Kabul and several outlying areas. 12041501-05

April 15, 2012—Mali—Islamists believed linked to al Qaeda in the Islamic Mahgreb (AQIM) kidnapped Swiss missionary Beatrice Stockly. She was released on October 24, 2012. 12041501

April 16, 2012—Nigeria—Boko Haram shot dead two people in Maiduguri.

April 17, 2012—Afghanistan—The Taliban was suspected of poisoning the well of a school for girls in Rostaq in Takhar Province, hospitalizing 171 women and girls ranging in age from 14 to 30. Police took 2 school caretakers into custody.

April 17, 2012—Nigeria—Authorities raided Boko Haram sites in Maiduguri, killed one member and arrested thirteen others.

April 18, 2012—Nigeria—The U.S. Embassy warned Americans that “Boko Haram may be planning attacks in Abuja, Nigeria, including against hotels frequently visited by Westerners.” In November 2011, the embassy had warned of possible attacks against the Hilton, Sheraton, and Nicon Luxury hotels in Abuja.

April 18, 2012—Azerbaijan—The Ministry of National Security announced that it had disbanded a terrorist cell of twenty al Qaeda-linked operatives who were planning to attack “shrines, mosques, and prayer houses,” as well as “law enforcement agencies” to “create [an] atmosphere of … confusion and horror among the population.” The Ministry noted that some members of the cell had logged two months receiving “weapons and physical training in the Islamic Republic of Iran.” The Weekly Standard reported that the cell was aided by Ibrahimkhalil “Saleh” Davudov before he was killed by Russian security forces in 2012. Davudov had been head of Dagestani terrorists and reported to Chechen terrorist leader Doku Umarov. The government said some of the terrorists were trained in northern Pakistan by the Islamic Jihad Union, which is affiliated with al Qaeda.

April 19, 2012—Nigeria—Suspected Boko Haram gunmen attacked a bakery and shot others in a Maiduguri street, killing seven people, including an officer of the Nigeria Customs Service, a man selling drinking water in the street, and five people working overnight in the bakery near a branch of Nigeria’s Central Bank.

April 19, 2012—Tajikistan—A court in Khujand convicted thirty-four people of participation in a terrorist group and sentenced them to terms ranging from eight to twenty-eight years. Some were charged with murder and attempting the violent overthrow of the country. They were believed to be members of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.

April 19, 2012—Kazakhstan—A court sentenced forty-seven people to up to fifteen years on terrorism charges after a month-long secret trial in the western region of the country. Some forty-two defendants were jailed on charges of forming a terrorist group, financing extremist activity, and organizing a series of attacks. The other five were linked to Jund al-Khilafah attacks in Atyrau, a western oil city, in October 2011; only a bomber was killed. The defendants were between 22 and 32 years old. Two were from Uzbekistan.

April 20, 2012—United Kingdom—West Midlands Counter Terrorism Unit police at Heathrow Airport arrested three Birmingham men on suspicion of “possessing articles and documents with intent to use them for terrorist purposes overseas.” The trio, aged 33 to 39, had arrived that night from Oman.

April 20, 2012—United Kingdom—Al-Shabaab posted a warning on jihadi Web sites that the United Kingdom faced terrorist attacks if it deported radical Muslim cleric Abu Qatada.

April 21, 2012—Afghanistan—The National Directorate of Security (NDS) intelligence agency said that it had arrested Haqqani terrorists planning to kill Second Vice President Karim Khalili and a second group of three Pakistanis and two Afghans who were smuggling 11 tons of explosives into Kabul hidden in a truck of potatoes. A government spokesman said that the trio, all Afghans, hailed from Paktia, Ghazni, and Wardak provinces, and “all the detained individuals confessed their involvement during the preliminary investigations and admitted that they had been dispatched to military, terrorist, and suicide training camps in Miran Shah, Pakistan.” NDS said the smuggling was organized by the Pakistani Taliban and the Qari Baryal group.

April 23, 2012—Kenya—The U.S. Embassy warned U.S. citizens “residing in or visiting Kenya that the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi has received credible information regarding a possible attack on Nairobi hotels and prominent Kenyan government buildings.” The attacks could include “suicide operations, bombings, kidnappings, attacks on civil aviation, and attacks on maritime vessels in or near Kenyan ports.”

April 24, 2012—Nigeria—A bomb exploded at a bar in a Christian neighborhood in Jos where people were watching Chelsea play Barcelona in the Champions League. One person was killed and nine others injured. Boko Haram was suspected.

April 24, 2012—Pakistan—A time bomb containing between 13 and 18 pounds of explosives went off in Lahore’s busiest rail station, killing two and injuring twenty-seven who were in the waiting area of Business Express, a luxury train service linking Lahore and Karachi. Lashkar-e-Baluchistan (Army of Baluchistan) claimed credit.

April 24, 2012—United Kingdom—In morning raids in Luton, members of the counterterrorism unit of London’s Metropolitan Police Service arrested five men, aged 21 to 35, on “the suspicion of the commission, preparation, or instigation of acts of terrorism.”

April 25, 2012—Syria—An explosion killed sixteen people when it flattened a block of houses in Hama. The government claimed rebel bomb makers accidentally set off the bomb, but anti-government activists blamed government shelling and said the death toll was seventy.

April 26, 2012—Nigeria—A suicide car bomber in Abuja and a man driving a car and armed with explosives in Kaduna attacked two Nigerian newspapers—ThisDay in Abuja and an office building it shares with The Moment and The Daily Sun newspapers in Kaduna—killing seven and wounding twenty-six. Boko Haram claimed credit. The Abuja attack killed three and injured others. In Kaduna, locals allowed a car bomber to open the trunk of his car; he pulled out a bomb and threw it, killing four people. He was arrested. Boko Haram said it would continue attacking the media because of inaccurate coverage. On May 1, Boko Haram posted an eighteen-minute video to YouTube that showed the smiling suicide bomber driving into the newspaper offices. The group included threats to continue attacks against journalists, major Nigerian newspapers, Voice of America, Radio France Internationale, and the Nigerian government, saying, “If they destroy one brick from our building, we will destroy five hundred from theirs.”

April 26, 2012—Afghanistan—An Afghan special forces soldier opened fire with a machine gun from the top of a building, shooting to death Andrew Britton, 25, a Green Beret soldier in the Shah Wali Kot district of Kandahar and wounding three other coalition troops and a local interpreter before he was killed. Taliban spokesman Qari Yousuf Ahmadi posted on an insurgent Web site that it had planted the terrorist in the elite unit. The Taliban identified the killer as Zakirullah, a resident of Nangarhar Province.

April 27, 2012—Afghanistan—During an argument between Afghan and Western troops, an Afghan police officer opened fire, injuring two U.S. troops. NATO troops fired back, killing two local police officers.

April 27, 2012—Syria—State television reported that a suicide bomber killed ten and wounded nearly thirty across the street from a Damascus mosque.

April 27, 2012—Denmark—Authorities arrested three people—a 22-year-old Jordanian citizen, a 23-year-old Turkish citizen who lives in Denmark, and a 21-year-old Danish citizen who lives in Egypt—on suspicion of planning a terror attack. They were charged with illegal possession of automatic weapons and ammunition, which police had confiscated. They were arrested at two locations. Police seized three cars in Herlev, a suburb of Copenhagen; witnesses also saw police activity in the Valby neighborhood.

April 27, 2012—Ukraine—Four bombs went off within seventy-two minutes of each other, injuring twenty-nine people, including nine children, in Dnipropetrovsk. Authorities blamed terrorists. The first bomb, which went off at 11:50 a.m., was hidden in a trash can at a tram stop, and injured thirteen. Forty minutes later, a bomb went off near a movie theater, injuring eleven, including nine children. A third bomb went off near a park entrance, injuring three people. The fourth bomb went off in the city center, causing no injuries. At least twenty-four people were hospitalized. The city is the home of jailed former Prime Minister Yulia V. Tymoshenko.

April 28, 2012—Afghanistan—At 11:15 a.m., two Taliban gunmen who hid their Spanish-made Astra Cub pistols and explosives in their boots failed to assassinate Kandahar Governor Tooryalai Wesa when they were stopped in his reception area by police who fired on them. Wesa is U.S.-educated. The terrorists and two Afghan police officers died in the twenty-minute exchange. Wesa’s office said it was the ninth assassination attempt on him. The Astra holds eleven .22 caliber bullets and has a 2-inch barrel. The attackers left behind two vehicles that were packed with explosives, which authorities defused.

April 28, 2012—Colombia—The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) kidnapped French television journalist Romeo Langlois, 35. On May 6, 2012, a FARC squadron commander identifying himself as Ancizar, alias Monaso, dressed in olive fatigues and carrying an assault rifle, released a video in which he said that Langlois was a “prisoner of war” who was receiving medical treatment for an injured arm. Langlois was captured in Caqueta while with Colombian military and police forces on an antidrug mission when they engaged in a gun battle with FARC during which four Colombian soldiers and a policeman were killed. The spokesman said he was reading from a script dated April 30. Langlois was working freelance for France 24, a news channel. On May 30, FARC released Langlois in the village of San Isidro, Caqueta Department, to an international delegation including a representative of the French government, the International Red Cross, and former Colombian Senator Piedad Cordoba. Langlois said that FARC treated him with respect, “They never tied me up…. They always treated me like a guest.” He told a meeting in the town square that “the government has sold the idea that this conflict was almost over, that there were just a few hot zones left. That has always been false. The fact that they had to hold an independent journalist for thirty-three days to remind people of the situation, shows how tremendously degraded the conflict has become.” He said the guerrillas held up his release to coincide with the group’s forty-eighth anniversary. 12042801

April 29, 2012—Kenya—A grenade was thrown into God’s House of Miracles International Church in Nairobi’s Ngara enclave during Sunday services, killing one person and injuring more than a dozen. Al-Shabaab was suspected. On May 15, 2012, police charged Kenyan citizen Ibrahim Kibe Kagwa with six counts of causing grievous bodily harm.

April 29, 2012—Algeria—Security forces killed twenty members of the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa, an al Qaeda splinter group, as they were about to attack two fuel tankers near the Mali border. The group had earlier kidnapped seven Algerian diplomats from their consulate in Gao, in northern Mali.

April 30, 2012—Nigeria—A suicide bomber drove his motorcycle into a convoy carrying Police Commissioner Mamman Sule to his offices near the governor’s office in Jalingo, capital of Taraba State. Sule was uninjured, but the explosives caused massive damage at a roadside market, kill?ing eleven people—including the suicide bomber—injuring twenty-six, and blowing out the windows of the state Ministry of Finance building. Boko Haram was suspected.

April 30, 2012—Syria—Government media said nine people died and one hundred were wounded in two suicide bombings against local branches of army and air force intelligence in Idlib. The U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said twenty were killed, most with the security services.

April 30, 2012—United States—The FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force arrested five men planning to blow up Cleveland’s Brecksville–Northfield High Level Bridge at Route 82 that crosses from Brecksville to Sagamore Hills over the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. An undercover FBI agent gave them inoperable explosive devices. The FBI arrested them after the individuals planted the device. Douglas L. Wright, 26, Brandon L. Baxter, 20, and Anthony Hayne, 35, were held on charges of conspiracy and attempted use of explosive materials to damage physical property affecting interstate commerce. Charges were pending against Connor C. Stevens, 20, and Joshua S. Stafford, 23. Three of the men claimed to be anarchists. The Bureau said the group wanted to “topple financial institution signs atop high rise buildings in downtown Cleveland” while co-conspirators used smoke grenades to distract law enforcement. The group ratcheted up the plan into using explosives to destroy bridges or other targets. Some of the bombers were to set off the bombs from a safe distance that they thought could provide an alibi. The FBI had tracked the individuals since a confidential source met Wright at a Cleveland-area protest event in November 2011. Wright told the source that his group of anarchists “had been discussing plans involving violence and destruction to physical property … to send a message to corporations and the United States government.” The charges carried possible sentences of twenty-plus years in prison. The five had been associated with the Occupy Cleveland movement, which denied involvement and canceled its planned May Day protest following the arrests.

May 2012—Libya—Rocket-propelled grenades were fired at the Benghazi offices of the International Committee of the Red Cross. The Brigades of Imprisoned Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, a Libyan jihadi group named after the “blind sheikh,” claimed credit. The group said the Red Cross was targeted as “one of the strongholds of Christian missionary activity.” The group released a three-minute video of the nighttime attack. 12059901

May 2012—Congo—Villagers unhappy with the UN for not protecting them fired at a UN base, injuring eleven Pakistani peacekeepers who were part of the UN mission. 12059902

May 2012—Egypt—Bedouin tribesman kidnapped ten Fijian soldiers attached to the UN Multinational Force and Observers, holding them for two days. 12059903

May 2012—Syria—As of January 9, 2013, nine Lebanese Shi’ites, part of a group kidnapped in Aleppo, remained hostages. Lebanese, Turkish, and Qatari officials had tried to broker a deal. 12059904

May 1, 2012—Germany—Berlin police found three pipe bombs, about 16 inches long and filled with an explosive made of chlorate and sugar, on sidewalks in Berlin’s western Kreuzberg neighborhood near a May 1 protest march that attracted ten thousand leftist demonstrators.

May 1, 2012—Yemen—Five suspected al Qaeda gunmen attacked Yemeni and French employees of the French oil company Total as they were driving from an oil field in Hadramout Province to the airport in Seiyun. Two kilometers away from the airport, the gunmen fired rifles at the car, killing a Yemeni escort soldier who was sitting in the front passenger seat and wounding a Frenchman in the leg and another Yemeni employee, who was hit three times in the chest. 12050101

May 1, 2012—United Kingdom—Authorities arrested six men and one woman suspected of financing terrorism in Somalia by smuggling khat leaf into the United States and Canada. The raids took place at four residences in London, Coventry, and Cardiff, Wales. Police searched seven other residences and a business in Coventry.

May 1, 2012—United Kingdom—Police charged Kamran Ahmed, 21, from Birmingham, with six counts of terrorism offenses, saying that he possessed documents and records that could be used to commit terrorism. He was out on bail until a hearing scheduled for May 4 in Westminster Magistrates Court.

May 2, 2012—Internet—The first two new editions of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula’s e-magazine Inspire since the death of editor Samir Khan and operations chief Anwar al-Aulaqi offered instructions on building remotely-detonated bombs and how to set off forest fires in the United States with timed explosives. The ninth edition eulogized the duo, saying:

To the disappointment of our enemies, issue 9 of Inspire magazine is out against all odds…. The Zionists and the Crusaders thought that the magazine was gone with the martyrdom of Shaykh Anwar and brother Samir. Yet again, they have failed to come to terms with the fact that the Muslim ummah is the most fertile and most generous mother that gives birth to thousands and thousands of the likes of Shaykh Anwar and brother Samir … Inspire is and will be an effective tool regardless of who is in charge of it.

Articles in the ninth edition included, “It Is of Your Freedom to Ignite a Firebomb,” and suggested Montana as a good place for an “ember bomb.” “In America, there are more houses built in the [countryside] than in the cities. It is difficult to choose a better place [than] in the valleys of Montana.” Articles in the eighth edition included, “Training with the Handgun” and “Remote Control Detonation,” and apparently al-Aulaqi’s final article, in which he said, “Explosives … firearms … poisons, or chemical and biological weapons against population centers is allowed and is strongly recommended due to its great effect on the enemy.” The magazine said it is “still publishing America’s worst nightmare.” The magazine’s new editors did not have the English-language fluency of their predecessors, publishing such passages as “What does it take to be an effective urbanite assassin? This is an inquiry that recurs in the psyche of the personage who apprehends the potency of this policy upon his preys.”

May 2, 2012—Afghanistan—At 6:15 a.m., at least four Taliban insurgents, armed with mortars, machine guns, hand grenades, and suicide vests attacked the main gate of the Green Village, a fortified compound run by Stratex Hospitality that houses two thousand Westerners in Kabul, killing at least six people, including one foreign guard and one Afghan student. The attack came hours after President Barack Obama left the country after a surprise visit. The Taliban announced, “This delivers a message to President Obama that he is not welcome in Afghanistan. When he is in Afghanistan, we want him to hear the sound of explosions. Afghanistan does not want his imposed strategy.” The terrorists had worn burqas to hide their weapons. They set off at least three explosions, possibly car bombs, at the gate. Two insurgents entered the compound and seized the laundry and maintenance building. Afghan special police forces and Norwegian military personnel conducted a three-hour gun battle, killing at least one terrorist. 12050201

May 3, 2012—Russia—Two suicide car bombers set off their 175 pounds of explosives fifteen minutes apart during the night near a traffic police post in Makhachkala, Dagestan, killing thirteen and wounding more than one hundred. Islamist insurgents were suspected. The first bomb went off at 10:10 p.m.; the second killed police officers and rescue workers arriving at the scene. Shrapnel went through a natural gas pipeline, starting a fire that kept rescue workers away from the victims.

May 3, 2012—Germany—Four men were charged in Berlin with membership in a terrorist organization and planning to carry out an attack for al Qaeda in Germany against an undetermined target. Abdeladim el-Kebir, the group’s 30-year-old Moroccan leader, was also charged with training at a terrorist camp near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. He also recruited and indoctrinated the group’s other members. Jamil S., 32, a German Moroccan, was charged with helping to make explosives. Amid C., 20, a German Iranian, and Halil S., 27, a German, were believed to have been involved in logistics. Halil S. was accused of involvement in the plot after the other three Duesseldorf Cell members were arrested in Duesseldorf and Bochum on April 29, 2011. Halil S. was arrested in Bochum on December 8, 2011.

May 3, 2012—Afghanistan—The national intelligence agency said it had arrested a Pakistani suicide truck bomber on the main road in eastern Kabul. The target was unspecified.

May 4, 2012—United States—The news media reported that the Department of Homeland Security’s Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team (ICS-CERT) issued a monthly note in which it indicated that cyber attacks had been targeting gas pipeline companies since December 2011. DHS spokesman Peter Boogaard confirmed that the team “has been working since March 2012 with critical infrastructure owners and operators in the oil and natural gas sector to address a series of cyber intrusions targeting natural gas pipeline companies. The cyber intrusion involves sophisticated spear-phishing activities targeting personnel within the private companies.” The memo added, “Analysis shows that the spear-phishing attempts have targeted a variety of personnel within these organizations; however, the number of persons targeted appears to be tightly focused. In addition, the emails have been convincingly crafted to appear as though they were sent from a trusted member internal to the organization.” The hacking was first spotted in March. National Security Agency Director Gen. Keith Alexander told a Senate Committee that a similar attack that occurred in March 2011 was believed to have originated on Chinese servers.

May 4, 2012—Pakistan—An 8:00 a.m. suicide bombing in the Bajur tribal area near the Afghanistan border killed twenty-six people—five of them local members of the security forces, including one who had received an award for bravery in fighting jihadis—and injuring at least seventy-five people. The terrorist set off the bomb as he approached a security checkpoint, killing a woman and several schoolchildren. The Pakistani Taliban claimed credit, saying two senior security officials had been targeted to avenge the death at the hands of security forces in Bajur in 2011 of Sheik Marwan, an al Qaeda commander. Ihsanullah Ihsan said, “We will continue to attack government-sponsored militias and security forces.” Taliban commander Dadullah was believed behind the attack.

May 5, 2012—Mali—Al Qaeda-linked Ansar Dine Islamists torched the tomb of Sidi Mahmoud Ben Amar, a Sufi saint in Timbuktu, which was designated by UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as a World Heritage Site.

May 7, 2012—Yemen/United States—The news media reported that the CIA in April had foiled a plot by al-Qaida’s affiliate in Yemen to bomb a U.S.-bound airliner around the first anniversary of the death of Osama bin Laden. The bomb contained lead azide and had a new dual-detonator design that improved upon the earlier “underwear bomber” method that failed on Christmas 2009. The bomb did not have any metal parts, which would make it more difficult to detect by current screening mechanisms, although U.S. authorities said that it would probably be spotted by U.S. scanners. U.S. officials said it was still designed to be hidden in the terrorist’s underwear. The FBI’s Quantico facility was testing the device, which had been seized within the previous ten days. The Bureau credited the “close cooperation with our security and intelligence partners overseas.” Officials said the bomb was seized in transit in the Middle East outside Yemen, but not at an airport. The United States had been aware of the plot for about one month. The bomber had been told to pick a target of opportunity.

The next day, the press reported that the would-be bomber was a Saudi intelligence service source who passed the bomb to the Agency via the Saudis rather than detonate it on a plane. In a joint operation with the Saudi intelligence service, the CIA tracked the device for several weeks. The plotters, including Fahd al-Quso, later died in an air strike because of information provided by the source, according to the Washington Post. NBC News reported on May 10 that source was a Western-documented British national of Middle Eastern origin. Other news reports said that the British MI5 and MI6 intelligence services were also involved in the individual’s recruitment. Members of the U.S. Congress called for an investigation of the plethora of leaks regarding the case.

Authorities believed the bomb was designed by al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula bomb maker Ibrahim Hassan Tali al-Asiri or an apprentice. Asiri had designed the first underwear bomb and the printer ink cartridge bombs that were discovered in 2010 before they could explode inside cargo planes. Asiri had also inserted a bomb inside his brother in the latter’s 2009 attempt to assassinate Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, the Saudi deputy interior minister. The press later reported that the would-be terrorist was a Yemeni born in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, who studied and worked in the United Kingdom, where he obtained a U.K. passport.

May 7, 2012—Yemen—Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) attacked a Yemeni army base in Abyan Province, killing twenty-two soldiers, injuring twelve, and capturing twenty-five a few hours after a drone strike had killed AQAP operations chief Fahd al-Quso. The terrorists arrived by sea and land, and stole weapons and other military hardware.

May 8, 2012—United States—Southwest Airlines flight 811 and flight 1184 flying from Orange County, California, to Phoenix, Arizona, were the subjects of nonspecific bomb threats. Passengers and bags were screened. No bombs were found.

May 8, 2012—Algeria—The U.S. Department of State announced in a travel advisory that “the U.S. government considers the potential threat to U.S. Embassy personnel assigned to Algiers sufficiently serious to require them to live and work under significant security restrictions.”

May 9, 2012—Syria—A bomb hit a Syrian military convoy escorting the head of the UN observer mission, injuring eight Syrian soldiers. The opposition Free Syrian Army denied involvement. None of the UN monitors, led by Norwegian Maj. Gen. Robert Mood, were injured. The convoy went on to Daraa. 12050901

May 9, 2012—Internet—Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri called on Muslims to avenge the February Quran burnings at a U.S. air base in Afghanistan by fighting “those aggressors who occupied your countries, stole your wealth, and violated your sanctities.” He deemed the American apology for the mistake a “silly farce.”

May 9, 2012—Nigeria—Boko Haram (BH) was believed responsible for shooting to death two traders in a market in Maiduguri. Soldiers killed one suspected BH member and arrested two others who carried out an attack on a military post.

May 10, 2012—Russia—Russian media announced that earlier in the week Russia’s security service in a joint operation with Abkhazian security services arrested three men in Georgia’s breakaway republic of Abkhazia on charges of plotting to attack the 2014 Winter Olympics in the Black Sea city of Sochi. The trio was believed to be leaders of a regional cell of the North Caucasus–based Chechen terrorist group Caucasus Emirate. Police seized weapons, including three portable surface-to-air missiles, two antitank guided missiles, a mortar, and a flamethrower.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of State added the Caucasus Emirate to its list of foreign terrorist groups and authorized a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to the location of its leader, Doku Umarov.

May 10, 2012—Syria—Syria’s Interior Ministry claimed that terrorists had set off two “booby-trapped cars” filled with more than a ton of explosives, killing dozens and wounding more than 400 near an intersection on a busy highway during the morning rush hour in Damascus. No one claimed credit. The opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 59 died and the nation’s intelligence agency building was destroyed in the 8:00 a.m. blasts. The Interior Ministry said the dead included 55 civilians and security force members and 372 injured at an intersection in the densely populated neighborhood of Qazzaz. The Health Ministry’s tally was 55 dead and circa 400 wounded. At least one foreign expert suggested that the al Qaeda-linked Al-Nusrah Front for the People of the Levant or the jihadi Al-Baraa Ibn Malik Martyrdom Brigade was responsible. The target was the headquarters of the Syrian security services’ Palestine Branch; the building housing the Patrols Branch was also damaged. The explosions destroyed twenty-one vehicles and damaged more than one hundred others. The Al-Nusrah Front released a video on May 11 claiming credit, saying, “We fulfilled our promise to respond with strikes and explosions” to avenge the Assad regime’s attacks on residential areas. “We promised the regime in our last declaration to respond to its killing of families, women, children, and old men in a number of Syrian provinces, and here we kept our promise…. We tell this regime: stop your massacres against the Sunni people. If not, you will bear the sin of the Alawites. What is coming will be more calamitous, God willing.”

May 11, 2012—Afghanistan—A man wearing an Afghan Army uniform shot to death a U.S. soldier in Konar Province. It was the fifteenth attack in which Afghan soldiers or insurgents wearing military uniforms had shot foreign troops. The Taliban claimed credit. The terrorist, Mahmood, died in a precision air strike in Kunar Province on September 15. 12051101

May 11, 2012—Syria—Authorities said they had foiled a suicide minivan bombing that would have set off 1,200 kilograms of explosives in Aleppo. The non–Syrian bomber was shot to death in his van in the al Shaar district. 12051201

May 11, 2012—Internet—Ayman al-Zawahiri released a video calling for al-Shabaab to continue attacks and ignore drone strikes.

May 12, 2012—Afghanistan—At 3:00 p.m., gunmen wearing Afghan police uniforms shot to death two British NATO soldiers in a joint NATO-Afghan coalition compound in Helmand Province. A third policeman shot to death one of the attackers and wounded the second, who escaped. The duo had been members of the Afghan National Police for one year. 12051202

May 12, 2012—Nigeria—Nigerian police captured Suleiman Mohammed, a leading Boko Haram figure in Kano, along with his wife and children in his hideout. The Yoruba terrorist was flown to Abuja. Police recovered explosives, ammunition, and guns.

May 13, 2012—Afghanistan—Gunmen shot to death Maulvi Arsala Rahmani, who was stuck in traffic in Kabul. Occupants of a car beside his opened fire. Rahmani was a Taliban defector who had served on the seventy-member High Peace Council set up two years earlier to liaise with the insurgents. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Majihid denied involvement, saying, “Others are involved in this.”

May 14, 2012—United States—Federal authorities arrested and charged three self-proclaimed anarchist members of the Black Bloc who had traveled from Florida to Chicago planning to commit violence as a protest against the NATO summit. They had plotted to attack President Obama’s Chicago campaign headquarters, the Chicago mayor’s home, and four Chicago police district stations. The Black Bloc name was used by anarchists who conducted violence during the Occupy protests, including in Rome in 2011 when ski-masked terrorists torched cars and clashed with police and other Occupiers. An Illinois judge set bail at $1.5 million. The trio were identified as Brian Church, 22, of Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Jared Chase, 27, of Keene, New Hampshire; and Brent Vincent Betterly, 24, of Massachusetts and Oakland Park, Florida. Charges included providing material support for terrorism, conspiracy to commit terrorism, and possession of explosives or incendiary devices. Authorities said Church planned to recruit four teams of four each and that reconnaissance had already been done on the Chicago Police Department headquarters. Police seized improvised explosive or incendiary devices, a mortar gun, swords, a hunting bow, throwing stars, and knives with brass-knuckle handles. Prosecutors said they had also stockpiled Molotov cocktails. They were represented by the National Lawyers Guild and attorney Sarah Gelsomino of the People’s Law Office.

May 14, 2012—Afghanistan—Some 389 boys at a school in the Ismail Khan Mandokhil district of southeastern Khost Province fell ill after drinking water from a well that may have been poisoned. Eighty of them remained in a hospital as of May 20.

May 15, 2012—Colombia—A bomb targeting former Interior Minister Fernando Londono exploded in Bogota’s commercial district, killing two people and injuring nineteen, including Londono.

May 15, 2012—Kenya—Gunmen fired shots and threw four grenades outside Mombasa’s Velle Vista nightclub after they were denied entry, killing a security guard and wounding five people, including a terrorist. Authorities blamed al-Shabaab. The terrorist was hospitalized with shrapnel from a grenade. He was identified as Thabit Jamal Din Yahya, a Nairobi resident who had traveled to Mombasa days before the attack. He was to depart for Nairobi at 10:00 p.m. via bus. Authorities searched the bus terminal and found that his luggage contained a pistol magazine and eight rounds of ammunition.

May 15, 2012—Kenya—A bomb exploded at the world’s largest refugee camp, near the Kenya-Somalia border, killing one policeman and seriously wounding four others when the bomb went off under their car. Al-Shabaab was suspected.

May 15, 2012—Internet—Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri issued an audio message on jihadi Web sites entitled Yemen: Between a Fugitive Puppet and a Collaborating Stooge. It was recorded before the latest underwear bomber attempt.

May 18, 2012—Internet—Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri issued a video lasting six minutes and nineteen seconds on jihadi Web sites in which he called for Muslims to rise up against the Saudi monarchy using the model of Arab Spring revolutions in Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia.

Why don’t you rise up, for you are the sons of the strong and proud tribes that look down upon death in order to lift up humiliation and oppression? Are you afraid of the forces of the Saudi regime and its security and army? The Family of Saud might be able to kill tens, hundreds, or thousands from amongst you, but if hundreds of thousands come out, then they will be shocked and will end up, Allah permitting, in the state that their brethren ended up in amongst the ousted tyrants.

He also observed, regarding a Yemeni government change, “So, Ali Abdallah Saleh is gone, and his successor Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi has taken over.”

May 19, 2012—Italy—A bomb went off at 7:45 a.m. at a high school in Brindisi, killing a 16-year-old girl and injuring ten. Police did not think it was the work of the Sacred United Crown, a Mafia group, suggesting anarchists were behind it. The school was named after anti–Mafia prosecutor Giovanni Falcone and his wife, Francesca Morvillo, a judge who was also killed in the 1992 bombing on a highway in Sicily by La Cosa Nostra. The bomb consisted of three cooking-gas canisters and a remotely-controlled detonator. It had been placed on a low wall ringing the school. Police later ruled out the Mafia and said it appeared to be the work of a lone man. Two men were taken into custody for questioning. On June 7, 2012, Giovanni Vantaggiato, 68, confessed to acting alone in building and placing the Brindisi school bomb. He had been arrested a day earlier. Surveillance video showed him driving his own car and his wife’s car in front of the school in the days before the attack. He used a remote detonator. He owns a gas station, giving him access to gas and gas tanks used in the bombing. His motive remained unclear.

May 19, 2012—Syria—A suicide car bomber in Deir al-Zor killed nine and wounded one hundred. The regime blamed al Qaeda.

May 20, 2012—Yemen—Three American contractors working with the Yemen Coast Guard were wounded in a shooting in the port city of Hodeida. One person was arrested in the attack. 12052001

May 20, 2012—United States—Sebastian Senakiewicz, 24, of Chicago, was charged with falsely making a terrorist threat. Mark Neiweem, 28, believed to be from Chicago, was charged with attempted possession of explosives or incendiary devices. Bond was set at $750,000 for Senakiewicz and $500,000 for Neiweem. Authorities said they were not part of the previous week’s plot to set off bombs throughout Chicago as part of the anti–NATO demonstrations by the Black Bloc. Senakiewicz, a native of Poland, told friends he had made two homemade explosive devices that could “blow up half of an overpass for a train” and was planning to use them during the summit. He said that they were stored in a Chicago home in a hollowed-out Harry Potter book. He also said he had a vehicle “filled with explosives and weapons.” A search turned up no explosives. Neiweem told an associate that he wanted to obtain materials to make a pipe bomb. Senakiewicz claimed to be a member of the Black Bloc and “an anarchist who is upset with the lack of chaos in Chicago.”

May 21, 2012—Yemen—At 10:00 a.m., a suicide bomber dressed in a military uniform killed 105 soldiers and injured 300, some critically, at a military parade rehearsal in Sabeen Square, 220 meters from the presidential palace in Sana’a. The parade was to commemorate National Day, when in 1990 the two countries of North Yemen and South Yemen united. Ansar al-Shariah posted on Facebook that it was aiming at Mohammed Nasser Ahmed, Yemen’s defense minister, and was retaliating for attacks on Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) southern safe houses in May. AQAP said it was avenging the U.S. and local military’s war on its followers in southern Yemen. The attack missed killing the defense minister, the target of the bomber. The group issued a message to military commanders that said, “We will take revenge, God willing, and the flames of war will reach you everywhere, and what happened is but the start of a jihad project in defense of honor and sanctities.” The group had heretofore attacked targets in the south, ignoring the capital. Observers suggested that the bomber was an AQAP penetration of the armed forces. Yemeni President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi announced the sacking of four senior commanders. Among the injured was Mahdi al-Jarbani, the drill major for the brigade; he sustained shrapnel wounds. On January 14, 2013, nine Yemenis accused of complicity in the suicide bombing appeared in court.

May 21, 2012—Colombia—Between sixty and eighty Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) members staged an attack from Venezuelan soil into Colombia on an army patrol guarding a telecommunications tower, killing twelve soldiers, including a second lieutenant, and wounding four others during an hour-long firefight. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced that he had sent additional troops to guard against rebels passing into his country. The Nuevo Arco Iris foundation Bogota reported that FARC had conducted 550 attacks in the first four months of 2012, an increase of 3 percent from 2011 and 15 percent from four years earlier.

May 22, 2012—France—U.S. Airways flight 787, a B-767 flying from Paris to Charlotte with 188 people on board, was diverted safely to Bangor, Maine, after a female French citizen born in Cameroon handed a note to a flight attendant saying that she had a surgically implanted bomb. The plane was trailed by two F-15s. She was removed from the aircraft, questioned by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and placed in FBI custody. Earlier in the month there were reports that al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula was looking into such an attack. U.S. Attorney Thomas Delahanty, II, said that there was not sufficient evidence to support charges against Lucie Zeeko Marigot, 41, and she would soon be headed back home.

May 22, 2012—Syria—Syrian rebels kidnapped eleven Lebanese Shi’ites and their Syrian driver in Aleppo Province while they were coming home via two buses from a pilgrimage in Iran. The rebels released the women they had detained, saying they should go to a security headquarters in Aleppo and arrange for the release of rebels being held by the Syrian government. The Free Syrian Army denied involvement. The Lebanese victims’ neighborhoods saw rioting, with streets blocked by burning tires. Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah urged calm, saying, “We don’t want to create a conflict. That is illegitimate. Those Syrian immigrants are our brothers, and we don’t want any violent actions, which do not help the cause.”

As of December 15, the kidnappers had released two hostages as a goodwill gesture but insisted that the other nine were Hizballah members. The group was led by Amar al-Dadikhi of the North Storm Brigade, who demanded the release by Syria of two prominent opposition figures—Tal al-Mallohi and Lt. Col. Hussein Harmoush—and the release by Lebanon of all Syrian activists in detention. Mallohi was a teen female blogger who was jailed in 2009 on accusations of espionage. Harmoush was the first prominent Syrian Army defector in June 2011 and disappeared in Turkey in August 2011, soon appearing on Syrian television to recant his claims that the government had ordered troops to fire on civilians. Dadikhi permitted two New York Times journalists on December 13 to meet with hostages Ali Abbas, 30, and Ali Tormos, 54. 12052201

May 22, 2012—Argentina—Police defused a bomb at the Gran Rex Theater in Buenos Aires, a day before former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe was scheduled to speak. The bomb was set to go off at 4:30 p.m. during Uribe’s presentation at an international conference of entrepreneurs. 12052202

May 22, 2012—United States—The Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs released an al Qaeda video calling for “covert mujahideen” to conduct “electronic jihad” against the U.S. government and critical infrastructure, including the electronic grid. The video exhorted Muslims “with expertise in this domain to target the Web sites and information systems of big companies and government agencies.” The Department of Homeland Security reported receiving more than fifty thousand reports of cyber intrusions or attempted intrusions in the United States since October 2011. The call for cyber jihad was part of a two-hour al Qaeda online video.

May 22, 2012—Afghanistan—At 4:00 p.m., gunmen kidnapped four workers—Helen Johnston, 28, of the United Kingdom; Moragwa Oirere, 26, of Kenya; and their two Afghan colleagues—who were on assignment for Medair, an international humanitarian organization based in Lausanne, Switzerland. Medair specializes in emergency relief work, food aid, and nutrition projects. The hostages were grabbed as they were traveling on horseback on a rural road near a project site between Yaftal and Raghistan districts in Badakhshan Province. Afghan elders worked to free the hostages during negotiations over the terrorists’ demand for a $10 million ransom. The hostages were freed from a mountain cave on June 2 in a 1:00 a.m. raid by helicopter-borne U.K. and NATO forces. Seven terrorists were killed. The terrorists had links to the Taliban and were armed with heavy machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades, and AK-47s. They had held the hostages in Gulati, a village in Shahri Buzurg district, a mountainous and forested area near the border with Tajikistan. 12052202

May 23, 2012—Afghanistan—Terrorists poisoned 122 girls and 3 teachers at the Bibi Hajera girls’ school in the provincial capital of Talokhan. The Taliban was suspected.

May 23, 2012—Internet—U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that cyber experts in the U.S. Department of State’s Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications had hacked into al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula Web sites that posted information on al Qaeda attacks against Yemeni citizens.

May 24, 2012—Pakistan—Two missiles fired from a drone hit a house in the Mirali area of North Waziristan, killing ten militants, including five Central Asians linked to al Qaeda, and injuring several individuals.

May 25, 2012—Yemen—Two al Qaeda-linked suicide bombers killed twelve Shi’ites at a school and a protest march in the north. Ansar al-Sharia (Partisans of Islamic Law), an al Qaeda-linked Sunni group, claimed credit, saying it was avenging the deaths of Sunnis in the north. A suicide bomber set off his explosive belt at a Shi’ite protest march in Saada Province but caused no casualties. Later that day, in al-Jawf Province, a suicide bomber attacked a school in which Shi’ite rebels, known as Houthis, were praying, killing twelve of them. Ansar said more than twenty “apostates” had died. The group said, “O apostates, don’t think that we have forgotten you or that our battle against the crusaders and their allies in Abyan will stop us from fighting you. For, by God, we will not cease until we purify the Arabian Peninsula of you.”

May 25, 2012—Turkey—Two suspected suicide bombers set off their car bomb outside a police station in Pinarbasi, Kayseri Province, killing a police officer and wounding eighteen people. The Kurdistan Workers Party claimed credit. The media said the bombers had entered the country from Syria. Authorities detained four people. Police had followed the car from Goksun district in Kahramanmaras to Pinarbasi after it blew through a checkpoint. Police fired on the car as it passed the Pinarbasi police station.

May 25–26, 2012—Mexico—Five warehouses and parking lots of Sabritas, a PepsiCo subsidiary, were firebombed in Michoacan and Guanajuato states by masked men who attacked dozens of the firm’s distribution trucks and some warehouses. No injuries were reported. On May 28, authorities detained a Knights Templar drug cartel lieutenant and three other drug cartel suspects for the first multiple attacks on a foreign firm in the country’s five and a half years of drug wars. The cartel left Michoacan’s La Familia group in 2011 and trafficks mostly in methamphetamines and marijuana. The Knights Templar claimed credit for the attacks. 12052501, 12052601

May 26, 2012—Kenya—Terrorists threw grenades at a hotel and a refugee camp in the northeast, wounding five people. Al-Shabaab was suspected.

May 27, 2012—Benin—A U.S. Department of State official told the press that an American had been kidnapped in Benin. The United States was providing “consular assistance.” 12052701

May 27, 2012—Iraq—A roadside bomb injured twenty-four Pakistan pilgrims whose bus overturned en route to a Shi’ite shrine near Saqlawiyah, 45 miles west of Baghdad. The pilgrims were on their way from Syria to a northern Baghdad shrine in the Kazimiyah neighborhood. At least nineteen people were hurt by the explosion; another five were hurt when the bus overturned. 12052702

May 27, 2012—Dubai—British sailor Timothy Andrew MacColl, 27, vanished after leaving the Rock Bottom Bar at the Regent Hotel in the area of Deira and getting into a taxi at 2:00 a.m. The bar was fifteen minutes from Port Rashid, where his ship, the HMS Westminster, had docked the previous day. He is married with two children, aged 4 and 6. Rachel MacColl was expecting their third child in October.

May 28, 2012—Kenya—The government blamed terrorists for a 1:15 p.m. explosion in a shopping center on Moi Avenue in downtown Nairobi that injured thirty-three people, five of them critically. Police and hospital officials said it was an accidental electrical fire. An official later suggested that it was a fertilizer bomb. Witnesses smelled ammonia at the scene and noted that a bearded man had left behind a bag shortly before the explosion.

May 28, 2012—Denmark—Authorities arrested two Somali-origin Danish brothers, aged 18 and 23, “in the process of preparing an act of terror.” One was detained in Aarhus and one as he got off the plane at Copenhagen International Airport. The Danish Security and Intelligence Service (PET) said they were overheard talking about weapons, targets, and methods. One had been to an al-Shabaab training camp. They had lived in Denmark for sixteen years.

May 29, 2012—Afghanistan—The Taliban was suspected when 160 schoolgirls, aged 10 to 20, were poisoned in Takhar Province. A police official suggested that the classrooms had been sprayed with a toxin before the girls entered the Aahan Dara Girls School in Taluqan.

May 29, 2012—Somalia—Al-Shabaab gunmen attacked the Somali president’s convoy as it was traveling from Afgoye to Mogadishu. African Union forces intervened; the president was unhurt.

May 30, 2012—Nigeria—Gunmen kidnapped an Italian engineer working for a construction company in the south. 12053001

May 30, 2012—Azerbaijan—The government announced the arrest of forty individuals planning to attack the Eurovision Song Contest venue at Baku Crystal Hall, religious pilgrimage sites, police stations, and Marriott and Hilton hotels in Baku, as well as conduct an April assassination against President Ilham Aliyev. Authorities seized 13 assault rifles, a machine gun, 12 handguns, 3 rifles, 3,400 rounds of ammunition, 62 hand grenades, and several kilograms of explosives.

May 30, 2012—Kenya—Al-Shabaab posted on a Web site a threat that “something big is coming” and that Kenyans would “watch your towers coming down. Two weeks from now you will weep.”

May 31, 2012—Egypt—Two 31-year-old American tourists were kidnapped from their car in Dahab on their way to Nuweiba, another resort town on the Red Sea’s Gulf of Aqaba in the Egyptian Sinai region. They were released the same day. One of the hostages was Brandon Kutz. The Bedouin gunmen had demanded the release of Eid Suleiman Etaiwy, a man arrested on May 30 for drug possession.

June 2012—Georgia—Acting on a tip from the Germans, local authorities arrested five suspects with nine vials of cesium–135.

June 2012—Argentina—Police arrested seven Peruvians with ties to the Shining Path on suspicion of trafficking cocaine in Buenos Aires. Authorities seized twenty thousand doses of paco, a smokable cocaine residue.

June 1, 2012—Mexico—Gunmen torched a delivery truck belonging to Sabritas, a local division of PepsiCo. The criminal organization Knights Templar, an offshoot of La Familia, claimed credit for similar attacks earlier in the week.

June 3, 2012—Nigeria—Boko Haram claimed credit for bombing two churches in Bauchi, killing fifteen people and injuring thirty-eight, including six children, during Sunday morning services. The group also threatened journalists over what it claimed was biased reporting. The bombs struck the Church of Christ and the Living Faith church in the Yelwatudu area of Bauchi State. The group on occasion calls itself the Nigerian Taliban.

June 3, 2012—Internet—Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri posted an Internet video entitled Days with the Imam, Part Two, in which he said that Osama bin Laden had lived cheaply, spending his money on attacks against the West and providing hospitality with good food.

When you entered his house you would be surprised. It was a very simple house, with some wooden beds and plastic coverings and very little furniture. If the Sheikh invited us to his house, he would give us what he had in the way of bread, vegetables, rice—whatever was available he would give us…. He was known for his generosity with guests by slaughtering sheep for them and because of continuous visitors, he once bought a herd of sheep so that he would be always ready for them. He would slaughter livestock for them and give them tasty food…. He spent all his money on jihad…. Luxury is the enemy of jihad and if the mujahideen were brought up to live in asceticism, they would tolerate the burden of jihad.

He thus claimed that bin Laden swore off electricity to live a simpler life. Al-Zawahiri claimed that bin Laden spent $50,000 to finance the U.S. African embassy bombings in 1998, depleting his $55,000 savings.

June 4, 2012—Italy—The Olga Nucleus of the Informal Anarchist Federation-International Revolutionary (FAI), an Italian anarchist group, shot Roberto Adinolfi, the CEO of Ansaldo Nucleare in Genoa. The company is part of the Italian industrial conglomerate Finmeccanica and builds, operates, and decommissions nuclear power plants. Two gunmen ambushed him near his Genoa home and shot him in the legs. They fled on motorbikes.

June 4, 2012—Iraq—A suicide car bomber killed 18 and wounded 125 at the offices of Shi’ite religious affairs in the Bab al-Mouadham district in north-central Baghdad.

June 4, 2012—Pakistan—A pre-dawn drone strike on a compound and nearby pickup truck in Hassu Khel (variant Hesokhel), a small North Waziristan village south of Mir Ali, Pakistan, killed al Qaeda’s deputy commander Abu Yahya al-Libi, true name Mohamed Hassan Qaid, 49, and fourteen other terrorists, including several of Arab or Central Asian descent. Al-Qaida’s top-ranked, password-protected Shamukh Web forum confirmed the death. The New York Times reported that al-Libi was at the compound recuperating from injuries suffered in a May 28 drone strike. The key propagandist escaped a U.S. military prison at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan on the night of July 10, 2005. He later appeared in more than thirty videos produced by As-Sahab. In December 2009, Pakistani officials erroneously reported he had been killed in a Predator strike. The Rewards for Justice Program had offered $1 million for information leading to his detention. He had been attempting to lure Libyans into al Qaeda, posting a video in December 2011 that said, “At this crossroads you have found yourselves: You either choose a secular regime that pleases the greedy crocodiles of the West and for them to use it as a means to fulfill their goals, or you take a strong position and establish the religion of Allah.”

On June 12, 2012, As-Sahab released a video of al-Libi that was produced some time after November 2011 and dated Islamic year 1433. He called Syrian President Bashar al-Assad a “tyrant” and his government a “criminal regime.” He said that the “West and their agent assistants” were complicit in Assad’s crimes. He called “on our brothers in Iraq, Jordan, and Turkey to go help their brothers and to sacrifice themselves for them” in Syria. “If your revolution was to be peaceful, God would have chosen it that way, but now the illusion of peaceful means after these great sacrifices … would show weakness.” He did not refer to the May 25 massacre in Houla, Syria, in which the UN said more than one hundred people, nearly half of them children, were executed. The video used honorifics for al-Libi that generally are given only to the living.

June 6, 2012—Afghanistan—Two suicide bombers attacked a bazaar in southern Kandahar Province, killing twenty-two and injuring more than fifty. The market is on the main highway to Pakistan. A Taliban spokesman credited Islamic insurgents but claimed that the dead were all foreign soldiers.

June 6, 2012—Libya—A bomb thrown from a passing vehicle exploded next to a wall of the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi causing no casualties. The Brigades of Imprisoned Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, a Libyan jihadi group named after the “blind sheikh,” claimed credit. The group said it was responding to the drone strike that killed Abu Yahya al-Libi on June 4. 12060601

June 6, 2012—Colombia—The Colombian military bombed a Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) camp in Antioquia state, killing eight rebels, including Luis Enrique Benitez, the leader of the 37th Front of the FARC.

June 7, 2012—United States/Somalia—The State Department’s Rewards for Justice program offered $7 million for information on the whereabouts of al-Shabaab founder and commander Ahmed Abdi aw-Mohammed. It offered $5 million for Ibrahim Haji Jama, an al-Shabaab co-founder; Fuad Mohamed Khalaf, al-Shabaab financer; al-Shabaab military commander Bashir Mohamed Mahamoud; and al-Shabaab spokesman Mukhtar Robow. The program offered $3 million for al-Shabaab intelligence chief Zakariya Ismail Ahmed Hersi and senior al-Shabaab figure Abdullahi Yare. On June 11, 2012, al-Shabaab fund-raiser Fuad Mohamed Khalaf posted an audio statement on jihadi Web sites offering a bounty of ten camels for U.S. President Barack Obama and twenty chickens (ten hens, ten cocks) for information on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. “Whoever brings the mujahideen information about the whereabouts of infidel Obama and the lady of Bill Clinton, the woman named Hillary Clinton, I will give a reward.” The Western press reported that the going rate for a camel in Somalia is $700. Khalaf observed, “There is nothing new in the fact that infidels pay to have Muslim leaders killed. They already did that by offering camels for the head of Prophet Mohammed, and $5 million is equivalent to two hundred camels today.”

June 8, 2012—Nigeria—A suicide bomber set off his car outside Maiduguri police headquarters, killing eight and wounding nineteen people.

A few hours later, another bomber died when his explosives went off prematurely elsewhere in the city.

June 8, 2012—Pakistan—An 18-pound time bomb went off in a bus filled with government employees and other civilians in Peshawar, killing nineteen, including seven women and a child, and wounding forty-two. Passengers included twenty-two employees of the Peshawar Civil Secretariat and another thirty civilians en route to Charsadda.

June 8, 2012—Ivory Coast—Gunmen snuck across the border with Liberia and killed eight civilians, one or two Ivorian soldiers, and seven Nigerien UN peacekeeping troops on patrol south of Tai in the southwest. 12060801

June 8, 2012—Internet—Omaima Hassan, wife of al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, posted a seven-page letter praising Muslim women for their role in the Arab Spring.

I congratulate all females of the world for these blessed revolutions and I salute every mother who sacrificed her loved ones in the revolutions. It is really an Arab Spring and will soon become an Islamic Spring…. These revolutions toppled the tyrant criminals, and thanks to your efforts, patience, and raising your sons in dignity…. Much of what happened was something we had wished, pleaded, and called for, for decades, but unfortunately, only few had responded. But today, the balance has tipped—with the grace of God—and things have changed…. We did not leave our homes, nor were we persecuted in our nations except to implement the will of God and uphold His word. But if we were made to choose between going back to our lands and compromising our principles, then we would choose expatriation, even if we continued to be immigrants for the rest of our lives … Every righteous Muslim mother shall raise her son as the new Saladin and say to him: you will be the one to bring back the glory of the Islamic Umma, and you will be the one to liberate Jerusalem, God willing … The veil is the Muslim woman’s identity and the West wants to remove this identity so she will be without an identity. My advice to you sisters is to raise your children on the love of martyrdom … and to prepare them for restoring the glories of Islam and the liberation of Jerusalem … We will have a new Islamic state based on sharia arbitration, and we will free Palestine and build a state of succession to the prophecy.

She had posted a similar message in 2009.

June 10, 2012—Nigeria—A suicide car bomber crashed into the Christ Chosen Church of God in Jos, killing six and injuring forty-eight people. Meanwhile, 230 miles away, gunmen fired into the Church of the Brethren (EYN) chapel in Biu, killing an usher and another worshiper and wounding several people. Boko Haram claimed credit for both attacks.

June 11, 2012—Internet—CNN reported that al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) posted on the Shumukh and al-Fidaa jihadi forums that it was seeking Western recruits. The posting, by the military committee of AQAP, noted, “Corresponding with those who yearn for martyrdom operations and the brothers who are searching to execute an operation that would cause great damage to the enemies, the goal now is to activate those brothers who reside in the land of the enemy … whether Jewish, Christian, or apostates as clearly individual jihad or the so-called lone wolf has become popular.” AQAP included three e-mails to use to contact them, using downloadable encryption software. They had earlier published the e-mails in Inspire.

June 11, 2012—Libya—Gunmen fired on a convoy transporting British Ambassador Dominic Asquith near a university in Benghazi, injuring two security guards. 12061101

June 12, 2012—Libya—A bomb went off at the Misrata offices of the International Committee of the Red Cross, wounding the landowner’s son and seriously damaging the building. 12061201

June 13, 2012—Iraq—A series of twenty-two roadside and suicide car bombings throughout the country killed more than 90 and injured at least 270. Many of them were Shi’ite pilgrims walking and driving to the Imam Kadhim shrine in the Kadhimiya neighborhood of Baghdad. Imam Moussa al-Kadhim is one of twelve revered imams and a saint in Shi’ite Islam. One of the bombs, in Hilla, killed twenty people and injured forty. One Hilla bomb hit a restaurant near a local police academy, killing several recruits eating breakfast. Shi’ite mosques in Hilla were also damaged, although no casualties were reported. Other bombs went off in Kadhimiya and other Baghdad neighborhoods, including Balad and Kirkuk, north of Baghdad, Hindiya and Madaan, south of Baghdad, and Samarra, Mosul, Falluja, and Ramadi. A truck bomb went off at 5:00 a.m. in Kadhimiya. Five parked cars exploded in Baghdad, killing 29 and injuring 80. A group of day laborers were hit by an explosion in a village east of Karbala. In Kirkuk, four car bombs exploded, two near Kurdish political offices, including that of Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani’s party. Two car bombs exploded in Balad, killing five and wounding thirty. Gunfire and bombs killed five in Diyala Province. A morning bomb in Mosul was aimed at an office of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani’s party, killing two people. A second afternoon blast killed a soldier. Two other Mosul explosions wounded five other people. No one claimed credit, although al Qaeda in Iraq was suspected.

June 14, 2012—Germany—Some 850 police officers raided homes, meeting halls, and mosques in seven of the country’s sixteen states, focusing on the radical Islamist organizations Dawa FFM and The True Religion (DWR). The government banned the Salafist organization Millatu Ibrahim after it called on Muslims to fight against the country’s “constitutional order.” Police seized videos, laptops, cell phones, and other items to determine whether those groups should also be banned.

June 16, 2012—Iraq—Car bombs at religious processions killed at least twenty-six people. The first bomb went off after noon near Shi’ite pilgrims in the Shula neighborhood in Baghdad, killing fourteen people headed toward the shrine of Imam Moussa al-Kadhim. At 1:00 p.m., a car bomb went off in the Kadhimiyah neighborhood, killing another dozen.

June 16, 2012—Pakistan—Two bombs killed thirty-two people in the Khyber tribal region. The first bomb was hidden in a pickup truck that exploded in the Zakhakhel bus stop in Landi Kotal, 30 miles west of Peshawar, killing twenty-five people and injuring dozens. The Zakhakhel tribe had formed a pro-government militia that had battled Lashkar-i-Islam in the Tirah Valley. Later that day, a bomb exploded in a handcart in Kohat district, killing seven people, including police officers. Lashkar was suspected.

June 16, 2012—Pakistan—The terrorist group led by Hafiz Gul Bahadur threatened to attack anyone conducting polio vaccinations in North Waziristan as long as the United States conducted drone missile strikes in Pakistan. “No one will have the right to complain about damage in case of any violation … Polio campaigns are also used to spy for America against the mujahideen, one example of which is Dr. Shakil Afridi.”

June 17, 2012—Iraq—A roadside bomb went off during the morning under a two-vehicle convoy in Kirkuk, killing an Iraqi security contractor and injuring three other Iraqis. The four were working for a Turkish firm providing security for a Turkish construction project. 12061701

June 17, 2012—Nigeria—Boko Haram bombed three churches in Damaturu during Sunday services, killing 25 people, including 20 civilians, and sparking a wave of violence leading to the deaths of at least 138 people and injuries to 130 others over the next few days. In the first attack, a suicide bomber crashed through a barricade at the EWCA Goodnews Wusasa Zaria church around 9:00 a.m., killing 24 and injuring 125, according to a Kaduna state government official (the Nigerian Red Cross Society said there were 2 dead and 22 injured). Minutes later, a bomb went off at the Christ the King Catholic Church in Zaria, killing 10 and injuring more than 50, according to the same official. (The Red Cross said 16 died and 31 were injured.) Another 10 died in a 9:25 a.m. bombing of a Kaduna church. The Red Cross said 32 were killed and 78 were injured in the bombing and a series of reprisals by Christian youths in Zaria and Kaduna. An Associated Press reporter said he saw a fourth bombed church, a police station punctured by bullets, and a crumbling police outpost. Five primary schools were also bombed. Nigerian authorities arrested a bomber who survived. Boko Haram said in a Hausa-language e-mail, “Allah has given us victory in the attacks we launched against churches in Kaduna and Zaria towns which resulted in the deaths of many Christians and security personnel.”

June 18, 2012—Pakistan—Ghazala Javed, a popular female Pakistani singer who defied the Taliban’s decree against singing and dancing, was shot to death during the night. Her ex-husband was a suspect, against whom she had filed for divorce after finding he had a second wife. Authorities said it did not appear that the Taliban was involved. She was driving home with her father after leaving a hair salon when gunmen on a motorcycle fired on her car. She was hit with six bullets and pronounced dead at a Peshawar hospital.

June 18, 2012—Israel—The Mujahideen Shura Council of Jerusalem, a group claiming al Qaeda ties, infiltrated Israel from the Egyptian Sinai desert and killed a civilian Israeli construction worker on a team building a border fence 20 miles south of the Gaza Strip near the border community of Nitzana. At 6:00 a.m., three terrorists ambushed two cars carrying civilians to the site, fired a rocket-propelled grenade and an AK-47 assault rifle, and set off bombs which hit one of the vehicles. The vehicle went into a ditch, killing Sayed Fashafsheh, 36, an Arab citizen of Israel from Haifa. Israeli forces killed two gunmen that the group said were an Egyptian and a Saudi. Israeli gunfire set off explosives that the terrorists were carrying on their bodies. A third terrorist was believed to have escaped back to Egypt. An Israeli military spokesman said the explosives and gear—flak jackets, camouflage uniforms, and helmets—were similar to those used in an August 2011 attack by the Popular Resistance Committees, a Palestinian group, in which eight Israelis were killed near Eilat resort. 12061801

June 18, 2012—Iraq—A suicide bomber set off his explosive belt in a funeral tent in Baqouba, killing at least fifteen mourners of a Zubaidi Shi’ite tribal leader. Another forty people were wounded. Among the mourners was Lt. Gen. Ali Ghaidan, commander of the army’s ground forces. He was not wounded but one of his bodyguards died and two others were wounded. The government blamed al Qaeda-linked Sunni terrorists.

June 18, 2012—Pakistan—A remotely-detonated car bomb exploded next to a bus going to the Baluchistan University of Information Technology in Quetta, killing five students and injuring more than fifty people.

June 18, 2012—Yemen—An al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) suicide bomber of Somali nationality jumped at a vehicle carrying Maj. Gen. Salem Ali Qatan to work in Aden. Qatan, who had led the anti–AQAP military campaign, died, as did his driver and a security guard escorting him in a three-car convoy. Five passersby, including two women, were seriously wounded. The group posted an Internet message to the “leaders of the joint American-Yemeni campaign … The message … consists of the blood and body parts of the martyrdom-seekers who swore to pluck your rotten heads, which agreed to be a vehicle for America in its war against the Muslims in Yemen.”

Later that day, Yemeni security forces detained Sami Dayyan, a suspected AQAP leader, and two other suspected terrorists driving from Aden to Lahej Province. Explosives and suicide belts were found in the vehicle. Residents in Aden’s al-Mansoura district said Dayyan was looking to rent a house in the neighborhood a few days earlier but was chased away.

June 19, 2012—Nigeria—A bomb went off prematurely, blowing off the arms and legs of the terrorist in Bauchi city. His intended target was not clear.

June 19, 2012—Yemen—The government announced that police in Sana’a stopped a vehicle carrying a trio who had weapons, explosives, and maps of foreign embassies and the homes of military and civilian notables marked out.

June 19, 2012—Kenya—Police arrested two Iranians in Nairobi, seizing bomb-making chemicals. The same day, police in Mombasa impounded an Iraq-origin container suspected of containing explosives. One of the Iranians was flown to Mombasa. He led police to 15 kilograms of RDX powder, which the forensic lab was examining. The duo was charged on June 25 with intent to conduct bombings. The Associated Press reported on July 2 that the Iranians planned to attack Israeli, U.S., U.K., or Saudi targets inside Kenya. They were believed to be members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Quds Force, an elite Iranian unit. The charge sheet said that Ahmad Abolfathi Mohammad and Sayed Mansour Mousavi had explosives “in circumstances that indicated they were armed with the intent to commit a felony, namely, acts intended to cause grievous harm.” The duo was represented by attorney David Kirimi.

June 20, 2012—France—A man claiming membership in al Qaeda took four hostages during a botched robbery of the CIC bank branch in Toulouse at 10:30 a.m. during which he fired a shot. The hostages, including the bank manager, were freed after several hours. He was slightly injured during his arrest at 4:00 p.m. Several gunshots were heard at the scene.

June 21, 2012—Sweden—Authorities found explosives on a truck at the southwestern Ringhals atomic power station. Technicians said the material lacked a detonator. Security was increased at the country’s three nuclear power plants.

June 21, 2012—Afghanistan—At 11:30 p.m., seven Taliban gunmen attacked Kabul’s Spozhmai Hotel, taking dozens of hostages and conducting an eleven-hour siege that left twenty-six people dead in a gun battle with Afghan and NATO troops. They jumped out of a minivan wearing burqas, which they pulled off to reveal their automatic weapons. They ran into the hotel yelling, “Where are the prostitutes,” before shooting the manager and three unarmed hotel guards. Some terrorists attacked the Spugmay restaurant. Others went to the rooftop terrace and to the garden, attacking diners. They fired on any male they found but appeared to be sparing women and children. The terrorists killed fifteen civilians, a police officer, and three security guards before they were killed. Police said ten people were wounded. One of the dead was a young Afghan man who had emigrated and returned from London for a visit. Two terrorists died by setting off their suicide vests. Police rescued the remaining fifty hostages. Four civilians had escaped by jumping into nearby Qargha Lake; one drowned. Police found burqas in the terrorists’ minivan, which was used to bring in explosives. Police disarmed the explosives by firing a rocket-propelled grenade into the van.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said the gunmen targeted Westerners and were armed with suicide vests, rocket-propelled grenades, and heavy machine guns. In an e-mail during the siege, he wrote, “Every night people come here for different types of debauchery, but on Thursday night, the number increases, including foreigners who come here and they hold anti–Islamic ceremonies. Tonight, according to our information, a number of ISAF [International Security Assistance Force] and embassy diplomats from foreign countries have been invited by some senior Kabul administration officials and are now under attack.” Claiming that there was drinking and dancing going on, he observed, “These acts are illegal and strictly prohibited in Islam. Women dancers were sexually misused there.” Apparently there were no foreigners at the site at the time of the attack. 12062101

June 22, 2012—Iraq—Two bombs went off within minutes of each other in an open-air market in the Shi’te neighborhood of Husseiniyah in northeastern Baghdad, killing fourteen and wounding more than one hundred people. A car bomb went off in Samarra near the Shi’ite al-Askari shrine, killing one pilgrim and injuring thirteen. Gunmen fired on a police checkpoint in Baghdad, killing three officers.

June 24, 2012—Pakistan—Pakistani Taliban gunmen crossed the border from Afghanistan to attack a Pakistani patrol in Upper Dir, killing eighteen troops and beheading seventeen of them. Another four troops were missing. Pakistani troops killed fourteen terrorists. Reuters reported that the gunmen were led by Fazlullah, alias FM Mullah, who had terrorized the Swat Valley before being pushed out by Pakistani forces three years ago. He was the cousin of Sirajuddin Ahmad, who served as his spokesman.

June 24, 2012—Uganda—Authorities arrested five Pakistanis and a Congolese guide in the western oil region of Ntoroki after they crossed the border with Congo. Police said while in the Congo, they had met with Allied Democratic Forces, a group of Ugandan rebels formed in the mid–1990s who hoped to create an Islamic state. Police spokeswoman Judith Nabakoba said, “They are suspected to be involved in terrorism.” Ugandan police issued a terrorist alert, suggesting that attacks could be conducted against fans watching the European soccer championship.

June 25, 2012—Pakistan—Taliban gunmen fired on the Karachi offices of Aaj TV, injuring a guard and employee. Spokesman Ahsanullah Ahsan said Aaj had not broadcast the group’s claim for the previous day’s attack in Upper Dir and threatened further attacks on stations that did not broadcast Taliban statements.

June 25, 2012—Norway—The Associated Press cited three European security agencies as indicating that a Norwegian man had been trained by al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and was awaiting orders to carry out an attack against the West. The New York Daily News said it was to be against a U.S. jet; the Times of London said it would be an Olympics attack. He was believed to be in his 30s with no immigrant background. He converted to Islam in 2008, became radicalized, then traveled to Yemen for terrorist training. He was believed to have been in Yemen for several months and was still there. He had no criminal record and used the kunya Muslim Abu Abdurrahman.

June 25, 2012—United States—NPR reported that the FBI was investigating more than one hundred suspected Islamic extremists within the U.S. armed forces. At least a dozen cases were considered serious.

June 25, 2012—United Kingdom—Reuters and The Guardian quoted Security Service (MI5) Director Gen. Jonathan Evans as saying in a rare speech “today parts of the Arab world have once more become a permissive environment for al Qaeda … A small number of British would-be jihadis are also making their way to Arab countries to seek training and opportunities for militant activity, as they do in Somalia and Yemen. Some will return to the United Kingdom and post a threat here.” He also said the Olympic Games were an attractive terrorist target.

June 25, 2012—Yemen—The Yemeni Defense Ministry said that al Qaeda landmines had killed seventy-three people, including twenty-three soldiers, in Abyan Province since al Qaeda fighters were defeated two weeks earlier. The Defense Ministry said tens of thousands of mines were planted.

June 26, 2012—Nigeria—Terrorists bombed a police outpost in Damaturu and police station in Kano at 6:00 p.m. The terrorists then conducted a gun battle with the Damaturu police in which four policemen, four civilians, and nineteen terrorists died. They later set fire to two blocks of empty classrooms at the Federal Polytechnic Damaturu during the night. Boko Haram was suspected.

June 26, 2012—Yemen—At least twenty-three inmates, including five al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) members, escaped a Yemeni prison by tunneling out from a cell to a nearby graveyard. Several AQAP terrorists were believed to have gone across the border to Oman.

June 26, 2012—Kenya—The U.S. Embassy issued a travel warning against Americans visiting the country.

June 27, 2012—Northern Ireland—Queen Elizabeth II shook hands with former Irish Republican Army (IRA) commander Martin McGuinness in a show of support for the peace process. The IRA had killed her cousin, Lord Louis Mountbatten, in a 1979 bombing. The Queen and McGuinness, now the deputy first minister of Northern Ireland, met at an arts event in Belfast.

June 27, 2012—Pakistan—A bomb exploded in a Sibi railway station tea shop, killing seven and injuring twenty. Baloch separatists were suspected of targeting Punjabis traveling through the area.

June 27, 2012—Mali—Mokhtar Belmokhtar, an Algerian founder of al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), was reported killed in a battle between Islamists and secular Tuareg separatist rebels belonging to the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) in northern Mali. The gun battle left twenty dead in Gao, Mali. Belmokhtar led one of AQIM’s two battalions in Algeria’s southern desert. An Algerian court had sentenced him to life in absentia for the killing of ten Algerian customs agents in 2007.

June 27, 2012—West Bank—A Palestinian crashed his vehicle into an Israeli police car, attacked a security guard, and tried to grab his gun. The Palestinian was shot and taken to a Jerusalem hospital. Police investigators believed it was an attempted terrorist attack.

June 27, 2012—Syria—Kamal Ghanaja, a senior Hamas operative, was assassinated in his Damascus home in the Quidsia neighborhood by gunmen who seized rifles and set the house on fire. His charred body showed signs of torture. Observers attributed the killing to a rift with the Syrian government; other blamed Israel. A Syrian opposition group blamed the Shabiha, a Syrian pro-government militia. Ghanaja, a former deputy of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, who was assassinated in a Dubai hotel room in 2010, was believed to have run guns into the Gaza Strip. A public statement by Hamas did not specifically blame Israel.

June 28, 2012—United Kingdom—East London police arrested two British Muslim converts planning to conduct terrorist attacks. Friends identified the detainees as Jamal ud–Din, 18, and Zakariya, 32. Ud-Din had posted a YouTube video in 2011 in which he denigrated democracy and non–Muslims, praised jailed Egyptian radical preacher Abu Hamza, and expressed anger at the Danish cartoons of Muhammad. It was not determined whether they planned to attack the upcoming Olympics.

June 28, 2012—Pakistan—Sunni terrorists set off a bomb against a bus carrying forty Shi’ite pilgrims from Iran to Quetta, killing ten people and wounding twenty-five, including four police officers escorting the bus. 12062801

June 28, 2012—Iraq—A bomb in a parked taxi exploded at the entrance of a Baghdad market in the Shi’ite district of Washash, killing eight people. In Baqubah, 35 miles away, six people died when a bomb in a parked car went off near shops and cafés in a Shi’ite area. Bombs also went off in the Sunni town of Taji, in the Shi’ite area of Abu Dsheer in southern Baghdad, and in Fallujah, a Sunni area. At least twenty-one people were killed and more than one hundred were wounded during the day’s attacks.

June 29, 2012—China—Ten minutes after a Tianjin Airlines flight took off from Hotan in southern Xinjiang, toward Urumqi, six people tried to hijack it and set off explosives but were subdued by the passengers, crew, and a group of police officers who happened to be on the flight. The hijackers disassembled a crutch into metal rods which they tried to use to break into the cockpit. The hijackers, all ethnic Uighurs, sustained minor injuries, as did two air marshals and two flight attendants. The hijackers were arrested once the plane landed. On December 11, a Chinese court in Xinjiang sentenced three hijackers to death and gave a fourth a life sentence in what the media deemed religious-inspired terrorism. The two other hijackers were injured during the scuffle and died in custody. Those sentenced to death were Musa Yusuf, Arsdikali Yimin, and Omar Yimin. Alimu Musa, sentenced to life, showed “a good attitude in admitting his crimes,” according to Xinhua news agency. 12062901

June 29, 2012—United States—The U.S. Department of the Treasury imposed sanctions on two hawalas—informal money exchange networks in Afghanistan and Pakistan—in an effort to slow Taliban cash used to pay salaries and purchase weapons. Treasury said Afghan Taliban commanders kept accounts with the Haji Khairullah Haji Sattar Money Exchange and the Roshan Money Exchange. Much of the cash came from narcotics sales. The UN added those exchanges to its list of backers of Taliban terrorists.

June 29, 2012—Kenya—In late June, four foreign aid workers from Norway, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Canada, and two Kenyans, all affiliated with the Norwegian Refugee Council, were kidnapped from their convoy in the Dadaab refugee complex near the Somalia border. Their driver was killed and the Pakistani hostage was shot in the leg. Two other injured staff members were treated at a Nairobi hospital. The kidnappers made off with a Norwegian Refugee Council vehicle. On July 1, they were freed following a rescue by Kenya Defense Forces and Somali soldiers, who killed a kidnapper. Two terrorists escaped while trying to flee with the hostages, none of whom were hurt in the rescue. The Pakistani underwent surgery at the base. 12062902

June 29, 2012—Nigeria—Authorities destroyed a Boko Haram hideout in Damaturu, killing at least three sect members.

June 29, 2012—France—Authorities in Toulon arrested a 35-year-old Tunisian man believed to have administered a radical Web site that served as the conduit of messages between al Qaeda-linked jihadis, including al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, al Qaeda in the Islamic Mahgreb, Fatah al-Islam in Lebanon, and groups in Yemen, Africa, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. He was accused of raising funds, recruiting and transporting jihadis for indoctrination and military training, and providing information about bomb making and potential targets. In 2003, he arrived in France, living there on a valid residence permit. Extremist leaders in 2008 tasked him with running the Web site. He was spotted in 2007 when investigators in Paris arrested a recruitment network of volunteers for Afghanistan. A French official said, “We’ve already got two emails from Fatah al-Islam in Lebanon thanking [him] for the money and saying the funds bought Kalashnikovs and rocket launchers.”

June 30, 2012—Nigeria—Soldiers continued the offensive against Boko Haram in the Nyanya and Obansanjo Estates neighborhoods of Damaturu, firing mortar rounds while the terrorists used gunfire and improvised explosive devices.

July 2012—Kenya—Local authorities arrested two Iranian men who brought more than 220 pounds of RDX explosives into the country as part of a plot to bomb several Western and Israeli businesses.

July 2012—Melilla—Authorities arrested two Spanish citizens in the Spanish enclave in North Africa on suspicion of terrorism.

July 2012—Libya—On October 6, 2012, seven members of the Iranian Red Crescent were released to the Iranian Embassy after sixty-five days in captivity.

July 2012—Congo—March 23 Movement rebels killed a UN peacekeeper and fired on a UN peacekeeping base at Kiwanja. 12079901

July 1, 2012—Kenya—At 10:15 a.m., masked “goons” wearing balaclavas attacked churchgoers at the Catholic church and the African Inland Church with guns and grenades, killing at least seventeen, including two police officers, and wounding fifty. The attacks occurred in Garissa, a town used as a base for anti-al-Shabaab operations. Four gunmen attacked the African Inland Church, throwing two grenades and shooting to death two police officers guarding the door. They scooped up the police officers’ rifles and turned them on the worshipers. Two other terrorists threw grenades into the Roman Catholic church, wounding three people.

July 1, 2012—Nigeria—Boko Haram was suspected of slashing throats in a nighttime attack in Maiduguri. One victim was found the next day barely breathing, bleeding at the neck. A neighbor saw fourteen bodies, some of them from the Christian south.

July 1, 2012—Afghanistan—The latest “green on blue” attack involved an Afghan wearing the uniform of the Afghan National Civil Order Police who turned his gun on British soldiers during an argument, killing three of them as they left a meeting with local elders in Helmand Province. A spokesman for the provincial government said that the attacker was a member of the Civil Order Police and had been fatally wounded in the 5:00 p.m. firefight with the British troops at a checkpoint in the Nahr-e Saraj district.

July 1, 2012—Yemen—Yemeni authorities announced that they had foiled at least thirteen al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) plots to attack foreign diplomats, embassies, and senior military and government officials in Sana’a and other cities. The attacks would include assassinations, bombings, and kidnappings of foreign diplomats. AQAP prisoners provided the tipoff information.

July 1, 2012—West Bank—Palestinian parliamentarian Shami al-Shami was shot twice in the leg by gunmen as he got out of his car at 1:30 a.m. as he returned to his Jenin home. Six bullets missed him; one hit the side mirror. He is a member of Fatah.

July 3, 2012—Cyprus—Authorities detained a 24-year-old Lebanese Palestinian carrying a Swedish passport on suspicion of involvement in a Hizballah plot to attack Israeli interests in Limassol. He admitted to Hizballah affiliation. He said he was planning to attack planes and buses used by Israeli tourists. Police searching his hotel room found plans to blow up a plane or tour bus. He was collecting flight schedules of charter planes from Israel and tour bus routes. Police said he acted alone. He was ordered to stand trial on September 12 on seventeen terrorism-related charges, including espionage and conspiracy to commit a terrorist attack. He faced life in prison. He was represented by attorney Antonis Georgiades.

July 3–5, 2012—United Kingdom—Police in West Midlands arrested seven men on suspicion of the commission, preparation, or instigation of acts of terrorism. The arrests followed a weekend discovery of two guns and a small amount of ammunition in a car stopped by police who believed it was uninsured. The detainees included six men from the West Midlands, all in their 20s, and a 43-year-old man from West Yorkshire.

On July 9, 2012, three men were ordered held, pending a July 31 hearing at London’s Central Criminal Court. Jewel Uddin, 26, Omar Mohammed Khan, 27, and Mohammed Hasseen, 23, all from Birmingham, were charged with “engaging in conduct in preparation for an act or acts of terrorism, with the intention of committing such acts.” Prosecutors said that they manufactured an improvised explosive device, acquired firearms and other weapons, and purchased cars connected with their plans, between May 1 and July 4.

On July 11, 2012, another three men, Anzal Hussain, 24, Mohammed Saud, 22, and Zohaib Ahmed, 22, appeared at Westminster Magistrates’ Court to face charges of preparing an act of terrorism in a plot to set off a bomb at a rally of U.K.’s far-right English Defense League, which carries a potential life sentence. Deputy Chief Magistrate Daphne Wickham ordered the Birmingham-based trio held in prison custody until a July 31 hearing with the other three at London’s Central Criminal Court.

July 5, 2012—United Kingdom—London police used smoke grenades and a stun gun to arrest five men and a woman, aged 18 to 30, on suspicion of the commission, preparation, or instigation of acts of terrorism. The raids occurred against homes in east, west, and north London and businesses in east London. Police said the operation was not linked to the Olympic and Paralympic Games. Three brothers were arrested in Stratford, a neighborhood that contains Olympic Park. They did not have any links to the individuals arrested in West Midlands. On July 11, 2012, London police released without charge two of the men detained on July 5–7—an 18-year-old man and a 24-year-old man detained at an address close to the Olympic stadium. The 24-year-old was hit by a taser during his arrest. A 30-year-old woman was released earlier.

On July 18, 2012, Scotland Yard charged three British Muslims with traveling to Pakistan for terrorist training. Richard Dart, 29, Imran Mahmood, 21, and Jahangir Alom, 26, went to Pakistan between 2010 and 2012 “with the intention of committing acts of terrorism or assisting another to commit such acts.” The indictment said they provided others with advice on how to get to Pakistan, get trained, and stay safe in Pakistan. Ruksana Begum, 22, and Khalid Javed Baqa, 47, were charged with having material likely to be useful for terrorism. The five had been arrested earlier in July. Dart, a Muslim convert, was featured in My Brother the Islamist, a BBC documentary. Former police support officer Alom appeared in a YouTube video to talk about his hardline stance. Begum was detained while carrying a memory chip with issues of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula’s Inspire. Baqa also had copies of Inspire and a CD containing “39 Ways to Support and Participate in Jihad.” Alom lives a mile from London’s Olympic Stadium. Mahmood lives down the street from the site of Royal Air Force Northolt in northwest London.

July 6, 2012—Nigeria—Authorities discovered and safely detonated a bomb in Jos. Boko Haram was suspected.

July 7, 2012—Nigeria—Terrorist attacks and reprisal raids in thirteen Christian villages near Jos left thirty-seven people—including fourteen civilians, twenty-one terrorists, and two police officers—dead and more than three hundred people displaced. Police conducted a four-hour gun battle with the attackers. The Nigerian Red Cross tallied fifty-eight killed after a federal lawmaker and a state lawmaker were ambushed on July 8 on their way to a mass burial for the victims. They were identified as Senator Gyang Dantong and majority leader of the Plateau State House of Assembly Gyang Fulani. Another seven people, including one lawmaker, were injured in the ambush. A government spokesman said the terrorists “came in hundreds. Some had (police) uniforms and some even had bulletproof vests.” Muslim Fulani herdsmen were initially suspected until Boko Haram claimed credit.

July 9, 2012—Pakistan—Pakistani Taliban gunmen attacked a Pakistani Army camp on the outskirts of Gujrat at 5:20 a.m., killing eight people. Thousands of Islamist Difah-e-Pakistan (Defense of Pakistan) protestors had spent the night nearby before going to Islamabad to protest the decision to reopen the NATO supply line to Afghanistan.

July 13, 2012—Egypt—Bedouin gunmen jumped from two cars and kidnapped two American tourists and their local tour guide from their tour bus in the Sinai en route to Taba. One of the Americans was Michel Louis, 61, a pastor of Boston’s Free Pentecostal Church of God, from Dorchester, Massachusetts, who was traveling with a group of clergy and church members; the other American was Lisa Alphonse, 39, a woman from another church who worked closely with Louis’s congregation. The kidnappers wanted the release of their relative who was detained in Alexandria, Egypt, on drug charges. Bedouin sheikhs acting as mediators between the kidnappers and the government said that the hostages were unharmed and well fed. Authorities said the principal hostage taker was Germy Abu Masouh, a member of a prominent Bedouin tribe in the Sinai. He wanted Egyptian police to free his uncle, who was caught in Alexandria with a half-ton of drugs. He threatened to kidnap more tourists if the demands were not met. The three hostages were freed unharmed on July 16. The government said it did not give in to the kidnappers’ demands. 12071301

July 13, 2012—Nigeria—A suicide bomber set off his explosives outside the Central Mosque in Maiduguri, killing five people. Alhaji Zanna Umar Mustapha, deputy governor of Borno State, said that the young boy was targeting him and the Shehu of Borno; neither was hurt. Boko Haram was suspected.

July 13, 2012—Syria—Islamic gunmen kidnapped two Western photojournalists—Jeroen Oerlemans, a Dutch freelance photographer with the British agency Panos Picture, and John Cant-lie, a British freelancer who had worked for the Sunday Times of London—after they entered Bab al-Hawa, a border crossing with Turkey. The two were freed on July 27 by another group of rebels. Oerlemans sustained two gunshot wounds while trying to escape; Cantlie was also shot during the failed escape. Oerlemans was hit in the groin; Cantlie in the arm. Oerlemans said in an interview in Turkey with Business News Radio of the Netherlands that he was sure that the gunmen were not Syrians. “They all claimed they came from countries like Pakistan and Bangladesh and Chechnya,” and the United Kingdom. The terrorists accused the journalists of working for the CIA and took their equipment and documents. Between thirty and one hundred jihadi gunmen kept the two hooded and blindfolded and often threatened to kill them. Oerlemans said,

They were definitely quite extreme in their religious beliefs. All day we were spoken to about the Quran and how they would bring shariah law to Syria. I don’t think they were al Qaeda; they seemed too amateurish for that. They said, “We’re not al Qaeda, but al Qaeda is down the road.” Guantanamo was constantly on their minds, and they were saying, “This is what you do to our guys.” They would cock their weapons and say, “Prepare for the afterlife,” or, “You better repent and accept Islam.” It was pretty terrifying, I can assure you.

He assumed their rescuers were from the Free Syrian Army, who fired into the air to intimidate the jihadis. By October 9, British police were investigating whether a British man and woman, both 26, who were arrested at Heathrow Airport after arriving on a flight from Egypt, were involved in the kidnapping. The two were arrested on suspicion of “commission, preparation, or instigation of acts of terrorism” in Syria. The former hostages had said that some of the kidnappers had British accents. The British press said Cantlie said one of the kidnappers claimed to be a U.K. medic who was on sabbatical to treat Syrian fighters. On October 17, 2012, Shajul Islam, 26, was indicted in Westminster Magistrates Court in the United Kingdom for the kidnapping. He had been arrested at Heathrow Airport on October 9. A 26-year-old woman arrested with Islam was released without charge. The British duo had flown to Heathrow from Egypt. Islam was a trainee doctor who studied at St. Bart’s and University of London Hospital. He joined a jihadi group in Syria, serving as a medic. He said there could be fifteen Britons in a jihadi camp in Syria. A follow-up hearing was scheduled for November 2 at the Old Bailey. 12071302

July 14, 2012—Afghanistan—A suicide bomber set off his suicide vest at a wedding in Aybak, capital of Samangan Province, killing twenty-two guests, including a senior politician, and injuring forty-three. The politician was identified as Ahmad Khan Samangani, a member of the Afghan parliament, who was hosting his daughter’s wedding. He had been an anti–Taliban militia leader. Also dead was the provincial head of the Afghan intelligence service.

July 15, 2012—Yemen—An al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula terrorist killed himself and injured another person when the bomb he was making exploded in a metal workshop in the southern Hizzayz district of Sana’a.

July 15, 2012—Netherlands—Needles were inserted into six turkey sandwiches prepared in an Amsterdam catering company for four Delta Airlines flights to Minneapolis, Atlanta, and Seattle. One passenger on a flight to Minneapolis was injured, although the individual refused medical treatment. Some of the sandwiches were served to business class passengers.

July 15, 2012—Libya—Ahmad Nabil al-Alam, president of the Libyan Olympic Committee, was kidnapped in central Tripoli at 4:00 p.m. Unidentified gunmen in two vehicles seized him. He was freed on July 22. He was scheduled to head the Libyan delegation in London for the Olympic Games.

July 17, 2012—United States—Brian Hedglin, 40, a SkyWest Airlines pilot who killed Christina Cornejo, 39, a Colorado woman found dead of stab wounds in Colorado Springs on July 13, attempted to steal a SkyWest CRJ200 commercial jetliner that was not in service at St. George Municipal Airport. He killed himself before the plane became airborne. Hedglin and Cornejo both served in the Colorado Army National Guard. Hedglin was on administrative leave from SkyWest. 12071701

July 17, 2012—Nigeria—Terrorists fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a Muslim school in Jos, killing a 10-year-old boy when it missed the school and hit a nearby house.

July 17, 2012—Pakistan—Gunmen fired on a UN vehicle in Karachi’s northwestern Gadap neighborhood, seriously wounding in the abdomen a Ghanaian doctor working on vaccinating people against polio. The doctor’s driver was less seriously wounded. The Taliban had made threats against the World Health Organization’s program. 12071702

July 18, 2012—Syria—A bomb killed Assef Shawkat, President Bashar al-Assad’s brother-in-law (Shawkat was married to al-Assad’s elder sister Bushra) and deputy chief of staff of the Syrian armed forces; Minister of Defense Dawoud Rajha, who was the most prominent Christian in the government; and former Minister of Defense Hassan Turkmani, who headed the country’s crisis management cell and was the senior military aide to Vice President Farouk al-Sharaa. The trio was attending a meeting of the central command unit for crisis management at the National Security Building in Damascus’s Rawda neighborhood. Interior Minister Lt. Gen. Mohammad Ibrahim al-Shaar and Lt. Gen. Hisham Baktiar, the national security chief, were hospitalized. Baktiar later died of his wounds. Al-Dunia TV said it was a suicide bombing; the Free Syrian Army, which claimed credit, said the bomb was remotely detonated in the conference room. The Brigade of Islam and the Islamic Battalions also claimed credit.

July 18, 2012—Bulgaria—Israel blamed Iran-backed Islamic Jihad, Hamas, or Hizballah terrorists when a suicide bomber set off explosives in his backpack on a tour bus carrying forty-seven Israelis that killed six—including five Israeli tourists and the Bulgarian bus driver—and injured thirty-two (three were in intensive care), including two Russians, an Italian, and a Slovak, in a parking lot outside Burgas Airport on the Black Sea. The Israelis had just arrived from Tel Aviv and were going to a beach resort 30 miles away. The dead included childhood friends Itzik Kolengi, 28, and Amir Menashe, 27. Their plane had landed at 5:00 p.m. The bus was one of seven that were to transport the tourists.

Bulgaria’s Interior Ministry said the male suicide bomber was carrying a fake Michigan driver’s license with a Louisiana address. The Bulgarian press said the bomber was Stockholm-born Mehdi Ghezali, 33, a Swede captured in Afghanistan in 2001, sent to Guantanamo on January 7, 2002, and detained for two years at Guantanamo Bay. Sweden denied that the man repatriated from Gitmo on July 8, 2004, was the bomber. The Bulgarian Interior Minister said Ghezali had been in the country for twenty days before the attack. Video of the bomber showed an individual with long hair wearing a hat, glasses, shorts, and T-shirt, and carrying a large backpack. The New York Times said U.S. officials believed the bomber was a Hizballah member. On July 20, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu narrowed the suspect list to Hizballah. Over the week, a Lebanese newspaper received a claim of credit by al Qaeda.

Police said the foreign bomber used 7 pounds of TNT to build the bomb. They were searching for local accomplices. He had been driven by taxi from the seaside town of Ravda. A man with a faked Michigan driver’s license had tried to rent a car earlier that week at the Tourist Office Afrodita agency in Pomorie but left when they tried to photocopy his license. Bulgarian Prime Minister Boiko Borisov told the press on July 24 that the conspirators rented several cars, met in several cities, and were never photographed together. On August 16, Bulgaria announced that a suspected accomplice used a faked Michigan driver’s license for Ralph William Rico. A computer-generated image showed a heavyset man wearing glasses with short hair and stubble. 12071801

July 18, 2012—Afghanistan—Taliban gunmen destroyed twenty-two trucks, including eighteen fuel tankers, carrying supplies for NATO forces in Samangan Province in northern Afghanistan. One person was wounded in the bombing.

July 19, 2012—Russia—Assassins in Kazan, capital of Tatarstan, killed Valiulla Yakupov, a deputy mufti, and hospitalized Ildus Faizov, Tatarstan’s chief mufti. Radical Islamists were suspected of attacking the traditionalist Islamic leaders, who had criticized Salafis. Yakupov died in the lobby of his house as he was leaving for work. A bomb exploded in Faizov’s Toyota Land Cruiser an hour later. He was thrown from the car and broke both his legs. Russian investigators arrested five suspects, one of whom headed a firm that arranges hajj travel. On August 4, 2012, Jihad Muhammad, emir of the previously unknown Mujahideen of Tatarstan, released a video on a Muslim Caucasus radical Web site in which he said, “On July 19, 2012, on my orders an operation was conducted against the enemies of Allah…. All praise Allah. We believe the operation was a success…. If any of the imams do not want or cannot carry out the points established by Shariah, they should leave their posts. That way, you will be protected from the mujahideen.” By then, investigators had detained six suspects and released photographs of Robert R. Valeev, 35, and Rais R. Mingaleev, 36, the two men at large suspected of organizing the killing and deemed “extremely dangerous.” By the end of August, dozens of Muslim men were arrested; most were released. October 24, 2012, police and security services killed three Islamic terrorists suspected of conducting the attacks on Faizov and Yakupov. While the police attempted to arrest the terrorists, a bomb went off, killing a security officer. The officers broke into the first-floor apartment in Kazan, where they found guns and materials to be used for bomb making.

July 20, 2012—United States—James Egan Holmes, 24, walked into the Century Aurora 16 multiplex’s theater 9 in Aurora, Colorado, thirty minutes after the beginning of the midnight showing of the new Batman movie, The Dark Knight Rises. He threw two tear gas canisters, then opened fire, killing a dozen people and injuring fifty-nine, including a 3-month-old. He fired an AR-15 rifle, a 12-gauge shotgun, and two .40 caliber handguns while wearing body armor, a helmet, and a gas mask. He surrendered peacefully in the parking lot to police, telling them that he was the Joker. He sported dyed red hair.

Holmes had sat in the front row by himself. He feigned taking a phone call, then walked out the emergency exit, propping open the door. He put on his gear, then returned through the door.

He told police there were explosives in his white Hyundai and in his apartment, which he had booby-trapped with incendiaries and chemical devices attached to tripwires. Police found a Soldiers of Misfortune poster in the 800-square-foot third-floor apartment, as well as sixty incendiary and chemical devices linked to wire-filament tripwires. A posting in Adult Friend Finder by “classicjimbo” appeared to have been of Holmes, who asked, “Will you visit me in prison?” He had legally purchased the guns from Gander Mountain and Bass Pro Shop. He also amassed six thousand rounds of ammunition online. He had had numerous boxes delivered to his apartment in the previous few months.

Holmes appeared in an Arapahoe County, Colorado, courtroom on July 23, sporting an amateurish orange hair dye job and looking distant. He was represented by public defenders Tamara Brady and Daniel King. On July 30, he was charged with 24 counts of first-degree murder (12 counts of murder with deliberation and 12 of murder with extreme indifference to the value of human life), 116 counts of attempted murder, a charge of possession of explosive or incendiary devices, and one charge of a crime of violence—a weapons charge of using deadly weapons during the commission of murder and attempted murder.

Holmes was about to drop out of the doctoral program in neurosciences at the University of Colorado. He had recently given a presentation on the biological basis of psychiatric and neurological disorders.

Those killed were:

• Alex Sullivan, 27, who was celebrating his birthday and had worked at the theater

• John Larimer, 27, who served in the U.S. Navy as a petty officer third class with the cyber command of the U.S. Tenth Fleet at Buckley Air Force Base in Aurora. He was a native of Crystal Lake, Illinois.

• Jessica Ghawi, 24, an aspiring sports journalist who had survived the June 2 Toronto mall shooting that left two dead and several wounded. She had graduated from the University of Texas at San Antonio.

• Micayla Medek, 23, a community college student working at a restaurant

• Jon Blunk, 26, who died shielding girlfriend Jansen Young. The navy veteran was the father of two.

• Alex Teves, 24, who recently earned a master’s degree in counseling psychology from the University of Denver

• Alexander “AJ” Boik, 18, who recently graduated from high school, planned to attend Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design. He had not yet told his parents that he was engaged to Lasamoa Croft.

• Gordon Cowden, 51, father of two, from Centennial, Colorado

• Rebecca Wingo, 32, a waitress and mother of two

• Matt R. McQuinn, 27, who died shielding his girlfriend, Samantha Yowler, 27, along with her brother, Nick Yowler, 32, who had stood up to shield Samantha. McQuinn was hit in the chest, leg, and back. He had recently come to Denver from Ohio. He worked at a local Target with Samantha.

• Veronica Moser-Sullivan, 6; her mother, Ashley Moser, 25, was in critical condition. Ashley Moser miscarried on July 29 and was paralyzed from the waist down. Ashley was studying to be a nurse.

• Jesse Childress, 29, an Air Force Reserves staff sergeant on active duty at Buckley Air Force Base, serving as a cyber systems operator with the 310 Force Support Squadron.

Those injured included:

• Brent Lowak, a Texan who was at the film with Jessica Ghawi

• Patricia Legarreta, a Texan, who brought her 4-year-old daughter and boyfriend Jamie Rohrs’s 4-month-old son, Ethan. Legarreta was hospitalized with a bullet wound. At the hospital, Rohrs proposed.

• Samantha Yowler, 27, underwent surgery for a bullet to her knee.

• Brandon Axelrod, 30, was sitting in the tenth row with Denise Traynom, 24, his wife of two weeks and a friend, Josh Nowlan. The couple suffered minor injuries from shrapnel.

• Josh Nowlan, 32, was shot twice; one bullet broke his right arm and the other damaged his leg.

• Pierce O’Farrill, 22, wounded in the left arm by a shotgun blast, was on a cross-country bike trip after graduating from Syracuse University, where he gave the student commencement speech. He was scheduled to teach English in Russia on a Fulbright grant.

• Rita Paulina, hit in the left leg

• Caleb Medely, 23, an aspiring comic who remained in a coma as of August 12, 2012

• Allie Young, 19, saved by Stephanie Davies, 21, who applied pressure to Young’s gushing neck wound and led her to safety

• Stephen Barton, of Southbury, Connecticut

• Zack Golditch, 17, a Gateway High School student who was shot in the back of the neck

• Petra Anderson, 22, a violinist who was hit by four shotgun pellets, one of which lodged in her brain. She had been accepted into the graduate program at the University of Maryland School of Music.

• Jennifer Seeger, another Gateway student and aspiring firefighter, who was burned on her legs by the hot shell casings

• Farrah Soudani, 22, who lost a kidney and her spleen and needed reconstructive surgery on her left calf. Her left lung and pancreas were damaged and three ribs were broken. She was working her way through masseuse school at a local Red Robin restaurant. She did not have health insurance.

CNN reported on August 2 that Lynne Fenton, medical director of student mental health services at the university and Holmes’s psychiatrist, had warned police about her patient. Holmes had mailed to Fenton a journal that foreshadowed a massacre, but the package was not opened before the killings.

The United States experienced 645 incidents of the killing of at least four victims between 1976 and 2010.

July 20, 2012—Iraq—An 11:00 p.m. explosion damaged a pipeline carrying oil from Kirkuk, Iraq, to Ceyhan, Turkey, causing no injuries. Authorities also shut down a parallel pipeline as a precaution. Officials blamed the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). Firat News, a PKK-linked Web site, said the group was responsible. 12072001

July 20, 2012—Iraq—Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, emir of al Qaeda in Iraq, released an audiotape for the opening of Ramadan in which it threatened to strike at the “heart” of the United States. “You will soon witness how attacks will resound in the heart of your land, because our war with you has now started.” He also praised the Syrian uprising and announced a new campaign of violence against the Iraqi government. “We are starting a new phase in our struggle with a plan we named ‘Breaking the Walls,’ and we remind you of your priority to free the Muslim prisoners. At the top of your priorities regarding targets is to chase and liquidate the judges, the investigators, and the guards.”

July 21, 2012—Somalia—Puntland authorities seized a boat carrying explosives, switches, rockets, guns, ammunition, and rocket-propelled grenades believed going from al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in Yemen to al-Shabaab in Somalia.

July 21, 2012—Pakistan—A suicide vehicle bomber killed twelve people, including four children—three girls and a boy—and wounded thirteen in Orakzai tribal agency, near the home of Maulvi Nabi, a pro-government militant commander who was not wounded. Local authorities said his group has battled an organization led by Mullah Toofan with links to Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan. A Taliban spokesman claimed credit.

July 22, 2012—Egypt—Terrorists blew up a gas pipeline in the Sinai Peninsula that transports fuel to Israel. It was the fifteenth such attack since the ouster of Hosni Mubarak in 2011. The blast caused moderate damage but set fire to some gas left in the pipeline. 12072201

July 22, 2012—Afghanistan—A man wearing an Afghan National Security Forces uniform shot to death three NATO contractors. 12072202

July 23, 2012—Yemen—Security forces defused a remote-controlled bomb planted at the entrance of an intelligence services building in Aden.

July 23, 2012—Turkey—Some 2,000 Turkish troops in an air-power-assisted offensive killed 115 suspected Kurdish rebels in Semdinli between July 23 and August 5.

July 24, 2012—Afghanistan—The National Directorate of Security claimed to have broken up a terrorist plan to attack a five-star international hotel in Kabul.

July 24, 2012—Afghanistan—Gunmen ambushed three people in a van in the northern province of Parwan, killing all three, including a U.S. electrical engineer who had lived in Afghanistan for decades, an Afghan colleague, and their Afghan driver. The Taliban took credit. 12072401

July 24, 2012—Pakistan—Gunmen fired on a NATO troop convoy, killing a driver and wounding a second driver and his assistant, in Jamrud in the Khyber tribal area. The Pakistani Taliban was suspected.

July 25, 2012—Nigeria—Boko Haram killed two Indian businessmen and injured a third in a morning attack on their shop in Maiduguri. 12072501

July 25, 2012—Philippines—In a day-long gun battle between Philippine troops and Abu Sayyaf, twelve army soldiers and four terrorists died at a terrorist encampment on Basilan Island in the Sumisip township. At least thirty-three soldiers and two terrorists were wounded.

July 26, 2012—Nigeria—Gunmen shot to death three police officers at a highway checkpoint in Bauchi State. A fourth policeman was injured in the morning attack. The terrorists stole the police officers’ rifles.

July 27, 2012—Russia—During the night, security forces killed eight terrorists in Alburikent, Dagestan, in the suburbs of Makhachkala, after storming a house where they had holed up with women and children. Negotiations failed and the terrorists fired on the troops. One woman pretended to turn herself in, but when she approached the special forces, she set off an explosive belt, killing herself but not harming any troops. At least eight bodies were found in the house.

July 27, 2012—Nigeria—Gunmen on a motorcycle shot to death two air force officers in Kano.

July 28, 2012—Nigeria—Three gunmen shot to death a shoe shiner in a morning attack outside an uninhabited house in Zaria belonging to Vice President Namadi Sambo. The house was under renovation.

July 29, 2012—Yemen—A guard at the Italian Embassy who was a member of the Carabinieri was kidnapped in broad daylight and driven off in a car. No one took credit. 12072901

July 30, 2012—Nigeria—Suicide bombers killed themselves and three other people in Sokoto. One bomber hit a compound containing a police station and regional police officers. Another hit a police station two miles away. Among the dead were a civilian and a police officer. One injured man at the Specialist Hospital Sokoto said he saw a car drive through the main gate of the compound. The blast threw him from his bicycle. Motorcycle-riding gunmen shot at a third police station in Sokoto.

July 31, 2012—Spain—Authorities arrested three suspected al Qaeda terrorists planning to conduct an attack in a Gibraltar-area shopping mall, coinciding with the London Olympics. Authorities found equipment for three motorized paragliding machines and explosives in the rented La Linea de la Concepcion home of Cengiz Yalcin. Police believed one of their targets was the Puerta de Europa commercial complex in Algeciras, across the Strait of Gibraltar. Cengiz Yalcin, the cell’s Turkish facilitator, was asked to take photos of a Gibraltar shopping mall. The cell tested a remote-controlled plane as a potential bomb delivery system. Investigators found a video of Yalcin flying a 3-meter-long remote-controlled airplane in a descent; two packets dropped from either wing of the plane. Authorities arrested Chechen Russian Eldar Magomedov, alias Ahmad Avar, and Chechen Russian Muhammad Ankari Adamov on a bus near Valdepenas and Ciudad Real, 125 miles south of Madrid, en route to France. Magomedov violently resisted arrest. The duo gave fake names but were identified by Russian authorities.

Magomedov, the group’s suspected leader, was a former member of the Russian Spetsnaz special forces. He had trained as a sniper and was an expert in poisons. He had joined training camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan, including those run by Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, after leaving the Spetsnaz. Between 2008 and 2011, he operated in Dagestan and North and South Waziristan. Adamov received explosives training in Afghanistan. He was suspected of participating in a recent bombing in Moscow. They were charged with membership in a terrorist group and possession or storage of explosives. They were believed to have been tasked with conducting the attack; they had been trained in motor-paragliding near La Linea. Authorities found a Russian-language paragliding handbook in their possession. Yalcin was accused of possession of explosive substances. He had worked at a construction company. The Chechens also lived near La Linea. The French had been monitoring the duo’s phone calls and tipped off the Spanish in May, according to CNN. The London Mirror said the two were going to conduct a Mumbai-style attack against British tourists and military personnel watching the Olympics on an outdoor screen and in bars. They would crash the explosives-laden plane, then machine-gun other tourists and soldiers. The Mirror said other gunmen were at large and that 300 pounds of explosives were seized. The paper also said the cell considered using an explosives-laden boat against a ship moored off Gibraltar.

July 31, 2012—Libya—Seven Iranian relief workers who were official guests of the Libyan Red Crescent Association were kidnapped in Benghazi. As of August 21, their whereabouts were unknown. Qadhafi loyalists were suspected. 12073101

August 2012—Djibouti—Local authorities arrested Swedish citizens Ali Yasin Ahmed, 27, and Mohamed Yusuf, 29, and former U.K. resident Mahdi Hashi, 23, as they were on their way to Yemen. The trio was of Somali extraction. Hashi’s U.K. citizenship had been revoked.

The United States accused them of participating in weapons and explosives training with al-Shabaab. A U.S. federal grand jury secretly indicted the trio on October 18. The FBI took custody of them on November 14. They appeared in a Brooklyn, New York, federal court on December 21, 2012, to face charges that they had supported al-Shabaab, illegally used high-powered firearms, and participated in “an elite al-Shabaab suicide-bomber program.” They were accompanied in court by a Swedish interpreter. The case had been under seal for several months. Attorney Ephraim Savitt, a former federal prosecutor, represented one of the Swedes. British attorney Saghir Hussain represented Hashi’s family and claimed that the case had the “hallmarks of rendition.” U.S. attorney Harry Batchelder represented Hashi. Susan Kellman was the U.S. defense attorney for Ahmed.

August 2012—Syria—Syrian rebels posted to YouTube a video in which they threatened to kill 48 Iranian Shi’ite pilgrims from Iran if Tehran and Damascus did not comply with their demands. “Unless they start releasing our people from their prisons and cease the shelling of the innocent civilians in our cities and the ongoing random slaughter, within forty-eight hours, starting from the moment this statement is read, we inform you that for every martyr who gets killed by the Syrian regime, we will kill one of the Iranian hostages.”

The government announced on January 9, 2013, that it would free 2,130 prisoners, including dozens of women and children and some Turkish nationals, in exchange for the 48 Iranian hostages. The governments of Turkey and Qatar, along with the Turkish humanitarian aid agency IHH, brokered the deal with the al-Baraa rebel brigade. Iran had eventually admitted that the 48 were part of a delegation from the Revolutionary Guard Corps and its paramilitary Basij militia, backing off from its story that they were civilian pilgrims. The hostages were turned over to an Iranian Embassy delegation at a Damascus hotel.

August 2012—Colombia—Guerrillas toppled three electricity towers in the Pacific coast port town of Tumaco, cutting electrical service for more than one week. Landmines killed at least five people, including two repairmen.

August 1, 2012—Egypt—Jihadis posted a statement on Internet forums to announce the creation of the Soldiers of Islamic Law, which listed five demands of the Egyptian and U.S. governments, including establishment of shariah law throughout Egypt starting in the Sinai, release of prisoners, and withdrawal of U.S. peacekeeping troops stationed along the border.

August 1, 2012—India—Between 7:37 p.m. and 8:15 p.m., four bombs went off in Pune. One person was seriously injured at a theater. Another bomb was defused at the theater. Other bombs went off near a McDonald’s restaurant, a bank, and a bridge. At least one bomb was on a bicycle. 12080101

August 1, 2012—Somalia—A failed suicide attack involving two bomb explosions in Mogadishu did not stop the National Constituent Assembly from adopting a new constitution that established shariah as the basis for all laws. The two bombers made it to the gate of the meeting but killed only themselves while wounding a Somali soldier.

August 4, 2012—Nigeria—Gunmen attacked two ships belonging to Sea Trucks Group, an oil and gas contractor with offices in the Netherlands, 35 nautical miles off the Niger Delta. They kidnapped an Indonesian, an Iranian, a Malaysian, and a Thai before fleeing. No immediate ransom demand or credit claim was made. 12080401

August 4, 2012—Yemen—A suspected al Qaeda suicide bomber set off his explosives during an evening funeral in Jaar, killing forty-five people and injuring forty, most of them civilian militia fighters who aided the government in its retaking of Jaar from al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

August 4, 2012—Syria—Shortly before noon, gunmen kidnapped forty-eight Iranians. Tehran claimed those kidnapped were pilgrims from a tour bus group in Damascus, en route to the Shi’ite shrine of Sayeda Zeinab and the Hotel al-Faradis in Damascus. The bus was the last in a convoy of six and was stopped at an opposition checkpoint when the kidnapping took place. The Iranian government had canceled official tours. One bus sustained a bullet hole in its windshield. No group claimed credit. The trip was organized by Samen al Aemmeh Industries’ travel agency owned by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), according to the rebels. The firm was under UN Security Council and U.S. Treasury sanctions for its role in the Iranian missile and nuclear programs. The Wall Street Journal quoted local sources as saying that the IRGC members were on a mission to provide counterinsurgency training to Syrian forces to use in Aleppo. The Free Syrian Army (FSA) posted a video of the hostages, showing IRGC ID cards. The rebels said three Iranians and several FSA soldiers died in Damascus during a government bombardment and threatened to kill the rest of the hostages if the bombing continued. Iran asked Qatar and Turkey for assistance in obtaining the hostages’ release. 12080402

August 5, 2012—United States—At 10:25 a.m., Wade Michael Page, 40, opened fire on the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin in Oak Creek, south of Milwaukee, killing six before he killed himself after being hit by police gunfire. Earlier reports said a police officer shot him to death with a rifle. The gunman shot police Lt. Brian Murphy, 51, several times. Page started firing in the parking lot, killing one person, walked into the temple and fired, then fired at responding police vehicles. The temple’s president, Satwant Singh Kaleka, 65, was among the dead. Police identified four other dead men as Sita Singh, 41, Ranjit Singh, 49, Suveg Singh, 84, and Prakash Singh, 39, a priest who had recently immigrated to the United States. One woman, Paramjit Kaur, 41, was also killed. Two other Sikhs were hospitalized in critical condition, as was Lt. Murphy, a 21-year police veteran. A third was treated and released. Members of the Sikh community praised two children who saw the shooting in the parking lot and ran into the temple to warn others, saving a dozen people who hid in a pantry.

The army veteran played guitar in Thirteen Knots—the number of knots in a noose—and End Apathy, Max Resist, Blue Eyed Devil, and Intimidation One, all far-right punk bands. He had been involved in the “hate music” subculture for a decade. Local authorities deemed it a domestic terrorist attack. Page had legally purchased his 9-mm semiautomatic handgun with multiple ammunition magazines. Police said he was a white supremacist. He had a 9/11 tattoo on his arm. Page, born on Veterans’ Day 1971, served in the army from 1992 to 1998, stationed at Fort Bliss and Fort Bragg as a missile system repairman and a psychological operations specialist. He obtained an honorable discharge, despite a service record with “patterns of misconduct.” His criminal record included DUI (driving under the influence) convictions in Colorado in 1999, writing a bad check in October 1997, and criminal mischief in Texas in 1994. He bummed around the United States with a backpack and motorcycle. He bought a house in Fayetteville, North Carolina, in 2007 for $165,000, but it was foreclosed in January 2012. He was issued five gun permits on May 5, 2008. He moved to Wisconsin in 2012, living in a two-story apartment in South Milwaukee with his girlfriend and her son. On August 7, South Milwaukee police arrested Page’s former girlfriend, Misty Cook, for felony firearm possession.

August 5, 2012—Egypt—At sunset, thirty-five masked Islamist gunmen armed with automatic rifles and weapons mounted on three Land Cruisers killed sixteen border guards and wounded seven others sitting down to their post-sunset Ramadan dinner at a checkpoint along the border with Gaza and Israel. The attackers were supported by mortar fire by Gaza. The terrorists commandeered an armored vehicle and a truck, which they used in an attack across the Israel border. The truck contained a half ton of explosives. The driver set off the explosives at 8:00 p.m. at the Israel border fence, killing himself. The armored car then entered Israel but was stopped by three Israeli air strikes that killed six or seven men, most of them carrying explosives. Egyptian officials said militants in the Sinai were aided by Palestinians in Gaza. On August 10, troops and security forces arrested nine sleeping suspects at a house close to the Rafah border crossing into the Gaza Strip. The suspects believed behind the attack included Selmi Zeyoud, a “dangerous element” and brother of a slain jihadi. Egypt indefinitely closed the border crossing at Rafah. Israel returned to Egypt the armored car and the bodies of those killed at the Kerem Shalom crossing. Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi fired intelligence chief Gen. Mohamed Murad Mowafi and other senior defense officials. On August 8, the Egyptian Army conducted helicopter missile attacks in the Sinai, killing twenty terrorists. 12080501

August 5, 2012—Libya—Gunmen attacked the International Committee of the Red Cross compound in Misrata with grenades and rockets. The Red Cross suspended its work in the port city and Benghazi. Seven aid workers were inside the residence but none were hurt. Building damage was extensive.

August 5, 2012—Nigeria—Boko Haram set off a suicide car bomb in Damaturu, killing six soldiers and two civilians.

August 6, 2012—Russia—A Chechen suicide bomber killed three Russian soldiers and wounded another three outside a Chechen department store in Grozny. A separate branch of the Interior Ministry said two suicide bombers had killed four soldiers.

August 6, 2012—United States—At 3:30 a.m., the mosque of the Islamic Society in Joplin, Missouri, burned to the ground. No injuries were reported. Arson was the cause of a July 4 fire at the mosque that caused minor damage; no arrests were made in that case. The mosque’s sign was torched in 2008.

August 6, 2012—Nigeria—Three gunmen entered the Deeper Life evangelical church in Otite, a suburb of Okene, in Kogi State, 155 miles southwest of Abuja, and fired assault rifles on an evening Bible study group, killing nineteen people. At least twenty worshipers, including Lawan, Saliu, were injured. Two gunmen fired on the parishioners while the third switched off the generator, putting the church into darkness, and preventing the victims from seeing to flee. Boko Haram was suspected.

August 7, 2012—Nigeria—Three motorcycle-riding gunmen shot at a military patrol in Okene, killing two soldiers.

August 7, 2012—Afghanistan—A remotely-detonated bomb hidden under a bridge hit a minivan in Paghman Valley in the western suburbs of Kabul, killing eight civilians and wounding several other local residents. Irate residents badly pummeled a man captured with the remote device. Observers suggested the intended target was a group of Afghan troops passing the bridge at the time; none of them were hurt. The Taliban was suspected.

August 7, 2012—Afghanistan—Two foreign soldiers died when a suicide bomber set off explosives at a joint NATO-Afghan base. Several foreign troops and Afghan civilians were wounded.

August 8, 2012—Afghanistan—A suicide bomber killed a USAID worker along with an Afghan civilian and three coalition troops. Ragaei Abdelfattah, 43, was on his second voluntary tour with USAID. He was a former master planner for Prince George’s County, Maryland, who had emigrated from Egypt. He had established schools and health clinics. He was a doctoral candidate at Virginia Tech. He became a naturalized U.S. citizen several years earlier.

August 9, 2012—Turkey—Two roadside bombs hit a bus carrying Turkish troops en route to a naval base outside the Aegean resort town of Foca, killing a soldier. Eleven people were wounded, including six soldiers and five civilians who worked for the military. The Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) was blamed for the 8:00 a.m. attack.

August 10, 2012—Afghanistan—A gunman wearing an Afghan police uniform shot to death three U.S. Special Forces troops during a nighttime meeting with tribal leaders at an Afghan checkpoint in the Sangin district of Helmand Province. The gunman, identified as police officer Asadullah, escaped. Asadullah’s father, Shamsullah Sahraye Alokozai, denied the allegations. Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi said the gunman was safe with the Taliban.

August 10, 2012—Afghanistan—At 8:30 p.m., three U.S. Marines were shot to death by Aynoddin, 15, an Afghan police affiliate, while they were exercising at the U.S.-Afghan base Delhi in Garmsir district in Helmand Province. They were pronounced dead just before midnight. They were assigned to Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment. The detained Taliban killer was a personal assistant to the district police chief, Sarwar Jan, and had not been vetted. The teen grabbed a Kalashnikov rifle that was in an unlocked barracks. He walked to the gym where four unarmed Marines were exercising and emptied the clip. The fourth Marine was badly injured. The teen walked out of the gym, still armed, and yelled, “I just did jihad. Don’t you want to do jihad, too? If not, I will kill you.”

August 11, 2012—Afghanistan—The National Directorate of Security said it had arrested four Afghans and a Pakistani in Kabul who were planning to attack the parliament and the home of Karim Khalili, the country’s second vice president and leader of the Hezb-i-Wahdat party. Authorities seized weapons, ammunition, suicide vests, Afghan army uniforms, and Pakistani ID cards, money, and phone numbers.

August 12, 2012—Sudan—An armed gang in Nyala, capital of South Darfur State, shot to death a UN peacekeeper from Bangladesh’s Formed Police Unit and injured another in the mission’s policing center inside the Otash camp for internally displaced persons. 12081201

August 12, 2012—Turkey—Members of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) kidnapped Huseyin Aygun, a parliamentarian from the opposition Republican People’s Party, during the evening at a roadblock between Ovacik and Tunceli. The gunmen freed a journalist and Deniz Tunc, an advisor traveling with him. Aygun represents Tunceli, where he was an attorney for fourteen years.

August 12, 2012—Ivory Coast—Gunmen crossed the Liberia border to attack army checkpoints in Pekambly and Pahoubly in the west, wounding one soldier in the fifth attack against the armed forces during August. Officials blamed loyalists of ousted President Laurent Gbagbo, who refused to concede defeat in the November 2010 election; the resulting violence left three thousand dead. Eleven soldiers had died in earlier pre-dawn raids against the military in Abidjan. The gunmen had also attacked Abengorour, near the Ghana border, and Agboville. Gbagbo’s Ivorian Popular Front party condemned the attacks. Human Rights Watch claimed gunmen had forced child soldiers to conduct attacks. On August 14, the Liberian government announced the arrest of six individuals who attacked two Ivorian military checkpoints while they were trying to cross into Liberia while armed.

August 12, 2012—Egypt—Security forces killed seven suspected terrorists in raids on hideouts in al-Ghora and al-Mahdiyah villages in near el-Arish in northern Sinai. Police seized landmines, an antiaircraft missile, heavy machine guns, and grenades. The terrorists died following a firefight in which the authorities shelled their safe house.

August 12, 2012—Lebanon—The Military Tribunal charged former Lebanese Information Minister Michel Samaha—believed to be an ally of Syria, Iran, and Hizballah—and two Syrians—Chief of the Syrian National Security Bureau Gen. Ali Mamlouk and Syrian Army Brig. Gen. Adnan—with conspiring to conduct terrorist attacks in Lebanon and plotting to assassinate politicians and religious officials. The charge sheet said Samaha transported and stored explosives provided by Mamlouk and Adnan. The trio set up an armed group to incite sectarian unrest and undermine “the authority of the state and its civil and military institutions.” They were accused of working with the “intelligence ministry of a foreign country to undertake attacks in Lebanon.” Lebanese authorities arrested Samaha on August 7 at his home in the Metn Mountains and seized equipment, computers, and documents from his offices in Beirut and Metn.

August 13, 2012—Syria—Gunmen kidnapped Ahmad Sattouf, a correspondent for Iran’s state-run Arabic-language TV Al-Alam from his office in Homs. 12081301

August 13, 2012—Syria—U.S. freelance journalist Austin Tice, 31, disappeared in Darayya, a Damascus suburb. On September 26, 2012, khalidfree75 posted a forty-seven-second video clip entitled Austin Tice Still Alive on YouTube. The video was reposted on a Facebook page called “The Media Channel of Al-Assad’s Syria.” He was surrounded by masked gunmen holding assault rifles. Tice wrote stories for such outlets as the Washington Post and McClatchy Newspapers. The men were shown driving through the mountains, then leading Tice up a mountain path while they called out, “Allahu al-Akbar.” Tice was on his knees, initially praying in Arabic, then said, “Oh Jesus, oh Jesus,” before returning to Arabic. Observers noted that the gunmen were wearing freshly pressed and clean Afghan-style tunic and pants, which Syrian rebels do not wear. Another video posting blamed the al-Nusrah Front as being responsible. Some observers believed that the video was faked by the Syrian government, which was holding Tice.

Tice was a Georgetown University law school student and a former Marine infantry officer. He had crossed into Syria from Turkey in May. His parents made a plea for his release during a November 12, 2012, news conference in Beirut, Lebanon, and another on December 20, 2012. 12081302

August 14, 2012—Syria—The Saudi-owned al-Arabiya television channel broadcast a Syrian rebel video showing a kidnapped Lebanese Shi’ite believed linked to Hizballah. Hassane Salim al-Mikdad (variant Hassan al-Meqdad) said his group was told by Hizballah leader Sheik Hassan Narullah to help “the Shi’ite army against Sunni gangs.” He was surrounded by three masked gunmen. He noted, “Most of those who entered were snipers.” He said his group was sent to Syria on August 3. Hizballah denied that he was a group member. 12081401

August 15, 2012—Lebanon—Members of a clan hoping to obtain the release of a relative kidnapped by the Free Syrian Army (FSA) kidnapped a Turk and forty Syrians with ties to the FSA. They showed a video of three gunmen standing behind two Syrians in front of a banner for the al-Meqdad Clan. The first hostage said he was Mohammed Musa Issa, a member of the FSA from Daraa, who recruited and obtained weapons for the FSA in Lebanon. The second hostage, Maher al-Housarnabi, said he assisted Issa. Ramzi Meqdad, a clan spokesman, asked for International Committee of the Red Cross mediation for a hostage swap. By August 24, clan spokesman Maher Mokdad (he spells it differently) said twenty-two Syrian hostages had been released, but they were still holding more than twenty Syrians and the Turk. 12081501

August 15, 2012—Lebanon—Members of the Meqdad clan, in interviews with local news channels, threatened to kidnap Qatari and Saudi nationals in Lebanon.

August 16, 2012—Israel—Jewish extremist settlers were believed responsible for throwing firebombs at a Palestinian taxi, hospitalizing the driver and four members of a Palestinian family with several burns. The attack occurred south of Jerusalem at 5:30 p.m. Driver Bassam Ghayada, from Nahalin, a Palestinian village, was driving construction worker Ayman Ghayada, his wife, brother, and three children to the Rami Levy supermarket on the West Bank. A young masked man wearing sidelocks threw a Molotov cocktail from 30 feet away. Another group of settlers threw a second firebomb that missed the taxi. Investigators believed the attacks came from the Bat Ayin settlement, which had been the base of a Jewish network that planned to bomb a Palestinian girls’ school in 2002. Five of the victims remained hospitalized with burns after a week; the father was in intensive care. On August 26, Israeli police arrested three suspects, aged 12 or 13, living in Bat Ayin.

August 16, 2012—Indonesia—Two gunmen shot at a police post in Solo, injuring two officers.

August 17, 2012—Indonesia—A terrorist threw a grenade at a police post, wounding two police officers.

August 17, 2012—Afghanistan—An Afghan Local Police officer shot to death two American soldiers during a training exercise in Farah Province.

August 17, 2012—Kazakhstan—In a dawn raid in a village 16 miles outside Almaty, police killed nine terrorists suspected of bombing a house and killing eight people a month earlier. One police officer was wounded. The terrorists were also linked to a July11 house fire that killed eight people. Police later found guns and ammunition in an adjacent garage.

August 18, 2012—Yemen—Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula was suspected in the morning attack on the intelligence services headquarters in Aden that killed fourteen Yemeni soldiers and security guards and wounded seven others. The terrorists set off a car bomb next to the headquarters, then fired rocket-propelled grenades and guns, breaking windows and setting the building on fire.

August 18, 2012—Russia—A suicide bomber in Ingushetia killed seven people and wounded eleven at a house in rural Sagopshi of Ilez Korigov Malgobek. The home was the site of a funeral for a police officer who was killed in a shootout with terrorists that day. The government blamed Islamists.

August 18, 2012—Russia—Two masked gunmen fired inside a Shi’ite mosque in Khasavyurtin in the North Caucasus, injuring six people. The government blamed Islamists looking to form a caliphate.

August 18, 2012—Libya—A bomb exploded near a military vehicle outside the Four Seasons Hotel in Tripoli. No one was injured.

August 19, 2012—Afghanistan—An Afghan police officer shot to death a NATO service member and wounded another in Spin Boldak district of Kandahar Province. He had been arguing with his Western colleague before turning his gun on him. 12081901

August 19, 2012—Libya—Three car bombs exploded near Interior Ministry and security buildings on Omar al-Mukhtar road in Tripoli, killing two people. One bomb went off near the Interior Ministry’s administrative offices, causing no casualties. Police found another car bomb that did not explode. Thirty minutes later, two car bombs detonated near the former headquarters of a women’s police academy, which the defense ministry had used for interrogations and detentions. Two men were killed and another two wounded.

August 20, 2012—United States—Treasury officials in New York seized $150 million from the account of Beirut’s Societe Generale de Banque au Liban/Lebanese Canadian Bank in connection with the laundering of hundreds of millions of dollars of illegal money belonging to Hizballah.

August 20, 2012—Turkey—A remotely-controlled car bomb exploded at a bus stop near a police station in Gaziantep, killing nine people, including a 12-year-old girl and three other children, and wounding sixty-one. The government blamed the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and arrested more than a dozen people. The PKK denied involvement. A Gaziantep lawmaker said the raid was planned with Syrian intelligence to retaliate for the government’s policy toward Syria.

August 20, 2012—Pakistan—The Taliban tried to kidnap the brother and other relatives of Dr. Shakil Afridi, accused of helping the CIA find Osama bin Laden.

August 20, 2012—Sudan—Gunmen kidnapped two Jordanian police officers on patrol as African Union-United Nations Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) peacekeepers in Kabkabiya, 87 miles west of El-Fasher. Hasan Al-Mazawdeh and Qasim Al-Sarhan were freed on January 3, 2013, in Darfur. They had been held for 136 days but were unharmed and in good health. The UNAMID worked with the government of Sudan and Jordan and the governor of North Darfur to secure their release. 12082001

August 21, 2012—Libya—Authorities defused a car bomb in a Tripoli suburb.

August 21, 2012—Libya—The car of an Egyptian diplomat was blown up in Benghazi, causing no injuries. Security forces arrested thirty-two Qadhafi loyalists who were accused of involvement in the string of bombings the past week. 12082101

August 25, 2012—Yemen—Shots were fired in Aden at the car of Transport Minister Waed Abdullah Bathib; no one was hurt.

August 26, 2012—Saudi Arabia—Authorities arrested six Yemeni members of an al Qaeda cell preparing to set off explosives in Riyadh. Their arrest followed the detention of their Saudi leader, who was picked up in Jeddah for preparing chemicals to be used in explosives.

August 26, 2012—Russia—A car carrying three men who had an automatic rifle and Islamic pamphlets exploded in Zelenodolsk in what appeared to be an accidental detonation of a homemade bomb. Authorities blamed Tatarstan Islamists.

August 27, 2012—United States—Prosecutors near Fort Stewart in Georgia said that four army soldiers who belonged to an anarchist militia group plotted several anti-government domestic terrorist attacks and killed a former colleague and his girlfriend. The four included active and former U.S. military members who spent $87,000 to purchase eighteen rifles and handguns and bomb components in Washington and Georgia. Authorities seized uncompleted pipe bombs.

Prosecutors said the group on December 4, 2011, shot to death former soldier Michael Roark, 19, and his girlfriend, Tiffany York, 17; their bodies were found the next day by fishermen in the woods near the base. The group also planned to take over Fort Stewart and seize its ammunition control point; bomb vehicles of local and state judicial and political figureheads and federal representatives to include the local Department of Homeland Security; bomb the Forsyth Park fountain in Savannah, Georgia; bomb a dam; poison Washington State’s apple crop; overthrow the government; and assassinate President Barack Obama. Army Pfc. Michael Burnett told a southeast Long County, Georgia, court that the group killed the duo because Roark took money from the group, which he planned to leave. Also accused was Pvt. Isaac Aguigui, 21, the leader of the group, who recruited disaffected soldiers at Fort Stewart. Also accused were Sgt. Anthony Peden and Pvt. Christopher Salmon, who created the group FEAR (Forever Enduring Always Ready). Burnett said Peden shot York; Salmon shot Roark. Burnett had a plea deal in which he pleaded guilty to several charges, including manslaughter, rather than capital murder. The army dismissed military murder charges initially brought in March, ceding jurisdiction to the civilian court system. Civilian prosecutors sought the death penalty for the remaining three defendants, who were each charged with thirteen counts of malice murder, felony murder, and illegal gang activity. Salmon’s wife, Heather, was charged with murder and other counts, but the prosecution did not seek the death penalty for her.

Investigators later said that Aguigui was a suspect in the murder of his wife, Army Sgt. Deirdre Wetzker Aguigui, 24, in July 2011. She was five months pregnant. She had served in Iraq as an Arab-language linguist. He was believed to have founded FEAR with circa $500,000 in life insurance benefits he collected after his wife’s death. The couple met at the U.S. Military Preparatory Academy in Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. Aguigui was initially represented by attorney Keith Higgins.

August 27, 2012—Kenya—Radical cleric Sheik Aboud Rogo Mohammed, accused by the UN and United States of being a fund-raiser and recruiter for al-Shabaab, was shot to death in Mombasa by gunmen who sprayed his minivan with bullets. He faced Kenyan charges of orchestrating terrorist attacks. The U.S. Treasury Department had imposed sanctions on him in July 2012 for facilitating travel of recruits and raising money for al-Shabaab. The UN Security Council imposed sanctions on him in July for his “campaign to promote violence throughout East Africa.” Local police said he was assassinated by al Qaeda rivals; his followers and family said he was killed by police. The crime scene was destroyed in rioting that followed his death.

August 28, 2012—Kenya—Grenades were thrown at a police truck during a riot in Mombasa, killing fourteen people, including a local police officer. The protestors were reacting to the murder of radical cleric Sheik Aboud Rogo Mohammed the previous day. Muslims accused police of the murder.

August 28, 2012—Russia—Female suicide bomber Aminat Kurbanova, 30, set off an explosive belt, killing herself and six other people, including Sheik Said Afandi Atsayev, 74, a Sufi scholar and spiritual leader of Muslims in Dagestan. She entered his home in Chirkey disguised as a pilgrim. The explosive belt, which was packed with nails and ball bearings, also killed an 11-year-old boy who was visiting with his parents. The terrorist lived in Makhachkala, Dagestan’s capital.

A border guard shot to death seven of his fellow soldiers belonging to a special rapid response unit before he was killed in Belidzhi village in the Republic of Dagestan in the North Caucasus. The press suggested that he had been recruited by Wahhabi extremists.

August 29, 2012—Afghanistan—A gunman wearing an Afghan National Army uniform opened fire during the night at Australian soldiers who were relaxing at a base in Uruzgan Province, killing three and wounding two. Australian soldiers returned fire, but the gunman hopped a fence and escaped. One of the wounded soldiers was medevaced to another base. 12082901

August 29, 2012—Georgia—Authorities conducted a gun battle against twenty heavily armed terrorists who had crossed the Russia border from Dagestan and took hostage five Georgian villagers in Lapankuri, 13 miles from the border. At least three Georgian officers and eleven terrorists died in the exchange. Among the dead was a Defense Ministry doctor, Vladimir Khvedelidze, and two members of the Interior Ministry’s special forces—Solomon Tsiklauri and Archil Chokheli. Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili said Russia was “exporting its disorder.”

Georgian authorities had attempted to negotiate with the gunmen, who refused to surrender. They accepted a swap of border guards in place of the civilian hostages; the border guards were later exchanged for other officers. A gunfight broke out when the government forces were conducting a rescue operation. By mid-day, five hostages were freed and the terrorists were surrounded. One young former hostage, Levan Khutsurauili, was seen on a government video saying, “We went for a picnic to the forest, I and my friends. When we were returning along the river we met several men; they were armed and had beards. They told us we are hostages now and must follow them. They threatened they would kill us if we tried to run away.” The government said the terrorists wore camouflage uniforms and carried Russian passports and Qurans. The government seized automatic weapons, ammunition, grenade launchers, sniper rifles, radios, maps, binoculars, and other equipment. The government said at least six terrorists had escaped and were hiding in the woods. Swiss diplomats had conveyed information from Georgia to the Russian government regarding the attack. 12082902

August 30, 2012—Indonesia—Two gunmen on a motorbike killed a police officer in Solo following the arrest of a member of a terrorist cell in Bandung, West Java Province. He was identified as computer expert Maman Kurniawan and believed to be a Muslim terrorist and a key member of a new terrorist cell in North Sumatra’s Medan city. He had helped the group hack several Web sites and raise $700,000. Police seized computers and bank transfer documents.

August 31, 2012—Indonesia—An Indonesian antiterrorist squad shot to death two terrorists and arrested a third, who was wounded, at a food stall in central Java’s Solo town, hometown of Abu Bakar Baasyir, Jemaah Islamiya’s spiritual leader. Police had been tipped that the group was planning more attacks on Java. The terrorists fired at police, who returned fire. Police were investigating their ties to Jemaah Anshorut Tauhid.

August 31, 2012—Pakistan—A car bomb exploded in a market in Mattani near Peshawar, killing eleven, injuring twenty, and damaging thirty shops.

August 31, 2012—Afghanistan—Villagers found the decapitated body of a 12-year-old boy in the rural Panjwai district of Kandahar Province. Local observers said the Taliban killed him because his brother and uncle were members of the local police. The Taliban denied the charge.

August 31, 2012—Afghanistan—The decapitated body of a 7-year-old girl was found in a garden in the Tagab district of eastern Kapisa Province.

September 2012—Indonesia—Jakarta police found bomb-making materials at a house believed occupied by suspected bomb maker Muhammad Toriq, who fled during a police raid.

September 2012—Kenya—Following the assassination of a radical Islamic cleric, two Christian churches were burned and looted and two civilians killed.

September 2012—France—A grenade exploded at a kosher grocery store. A jihadi cell of young French converts was suspected. On October 6, 2012, police killed a man whose DNA was found at the scene. He had fired on police in Strasbourg. Police arrested eleven other suspects across the country.

September 2, 2012—Libya—A bomb that was planted in a car went off in a shopping district on Gamal Abdel-Nasser Street in Benghazi, killing the driver, who was a Libyan intelligence officer, and wounding a second.

September 4, 2012—Pakistan—A suicide bomber crashed his car bomb into a U.S. Consulate SUV near the U.S. Consulate in Peshawar during the morning, killing two Pakistanis and wounding twenty-five other people, including two U.S. consular staffers and two Pakistani employees of the consulate. A U.S. backup vehicle immediately rescued the four who were injured and took them to the consulate. The two Pakistanis were killed outside the vehicle. The Taliban was suspected. The U.S. vehicle was passing a UN High Commissioner for Refugees guesthouse on Abdara Road when the vehicle hit it and set off 200 pounds of explosives. 12090401

September 4, 2012—Afghanistan—At 3:30 p.m., a suicide bomber killed between twenty-five and thirty-five mourners and injured another forty-five at a funeral for Hajji Rasi, a prominent businessman, in the Durbaba district of Nangarhar Province. A Shinwari tribal leader said the target was probably district Governor Hamisha Gul, who was wounded. Among the dead was Gul’s son, Nek Wali, 26. The Taliban disputed government charges of involvement.

September 4, 2012—United States—Jonathan Jimenez, 28, an Orange County man, pleaded guilty to two federal charges in connection with a plot to kill members of the U.S. military serving overseas. He admitted in an Orlando Federal courtroom to tax fraud and lying to the FBI regarding the plot to wage violent jihad. An FBI phone tap established that he had received terrorist training, including martial arts, firearms, and knife training, from convicted felon Marcus Robertson, the former imam of an east Orange County mosque.

September 4, 2012—Canada—Richard H. Bain, 61, fired an assault rifle and shot to death Denis Blanchette, 48, a stagehand, and wounded another person at a nighttime victory rally in Montreal’s concert hall by Pauline Marois, 63, Quebec’s newly elected premier. The gunman was dressed in a blue bathrobe, balaclava, black underwear, and a face mask. He carried two guns and had five more in his car. Police discovered that he owned at least twenty firearms; all but one were registered. He set fire at the hall’s back door before being arrested. As he was being placed into a police cruiser, he yelled, “The English are waking up!” in French. He was initially taken to a hospital, but later jailed. Police said it might have been an assassination attempt against Marois, leader of the separatist Parti Quebecois. Bain owned an outdoor outfitting business near the Mont Tremblant resort and lived in La Conception. He was charged in a Montreal courtroom with sixteen counts, including first-degree murder, attempted murder, and arson. Many in rural Quebec viewed him as a kilt-wearing eccentric.

September 5–6, 2012—Nigeria—Boko Haram was suspected of damaging thirty-one cell phone towers in six states, including Adamawa, Yobe, Gombe, Bauchi, Kano, and Borno. One of the burned towers was in Maiduguri’s main office for the South Africa–based MTN group, Ltd., Nigeria’s largest cell network provider. Other firms hit included Bharti Airtel, Ltd., of India, Abu Dhabi-based Etisalat, the local Globacom, Ltd., and five other local firms. The group had threatened cell phone companies six months earlier for cooperating with the government against its members. 12090501-03

September 6, 2012—Gaza Strip—Israeli soldiers shot to death three Palestinian men who were “part of a terrorist squad that was planting an explosive device” near the security fence in Beit Hanoun on the border with Israel. Two of the men were brothers.

September 7, 2012—United States—The U.S. Department of State announced that as of September 17, the Haqqani network would be the fifty-second entry on the Department’s Foreign Terrorist Organizations list, thereby prohibiting network members from traveling to the United States, freezing its assets in the United States, and barring Americans from providing financial/material support.

September 7, 2012—Philippines—Seven Abu Sayyaf gunmen attacked 120 rubber plantation workers in four trucks heading home for lunch in Sumisip township on Basilan Island, killing one and wounding 35.

September 8, 2012—Afghanistan—A 14-year-old Taliban suicide bomber killed six people, most of them children, in a high-security zone in Kabul 150 feet from the headquarters of the International Security Assistance Force.

September 8, 2012—Indonesia—A bomb exploded during the night in a terrorist bomb-making safe house in Depok, a suburb near Jakarta, injuring five people, including three passersby and two fleeing terrorists on a motorbike. The terrorists were seriously wounded on their hands. Police found one man at the site whose left hand had been severed and had burns over 70 percent of his face and body. A woman sustained slight wounds to her head. The house was listed as an orphanage foundation and herbal clinic but was never opened to the public. Police confiscated six pipe bombs, three grenades, two machine guns, a Beretta pistol, bomb guide books, and several jihadi books. The bombs were packed with nails. Police ran a DNA test to determine whether the injured man was bomb maker Muhammad Toriq. He was believed linked to a terrorist group planning to shoot police and bomb the parliament building as part of a jihad to establish a caliphate. The Associated Press reported on September 10 that Toriq had surrendered on September 9 while carrying a gun and ammunition and wearing an empty suicide bomber belt. He told police he had planned to conduct a suicide bombing on September 10 against police, an antiterrorism squad, or Buddhists to protest mistreatment of minority Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar. Although he had written a suicide note, he reconsidered after thinking about the pain it would cause his mother, wife, and son.

September 9, 2012—Israel—A rocket fired from the Gaza Strip hit the roof of the southern Israel home of Pini Azoulay. Palestinian terrorists were suspected. 12090901

September 9, 2012—Iraq—A car bomb went off outside a French consular building in Nassiriya, 185 miles south of Baghdad, wounding two people. No one claimed credit. 12090902

September 11, 2012—Internet—Ayman al-Zawahiri posted a video on Islamist sites entitled Truth Has Come and Falsehood Has Perished, in which he said, “I proudly announce to the Muslim umma and to the Mujahideen … the news of the martyrdom of the lion of Libya Sheikh Hassan Mohammed Qaed,” one of the names of Abu Yahya al-Libi, a senior al Qaeda member who died in a U.S. drone strike in June in Pakistan. He called for revenge. “His blood urges you and incites you to fight and kill the crusaders.” Al-Zawahiri said Libi was a “lion of jihad and knowledge.” Referring to President Obama, he said, “This liar is trying to fool Americans into believing that he will defeat al Qaeda by killing this person or that person. But he escapes from the fact that he was defeated in Iraq and Afghanistan.” Adam Gadahn, American-born al Qaeda propagandist, added, “America is crystal clear about its opposition to Islam as a political system, Islam as a ruling system … and the essence of Islam. So, how can America say that it is not at war with Islam?”

September 11, 2012—Turkey—A Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C) suicide bomber threw a hand grenade and detonated his explosives at the entrance to a police station in Istanbul, killing a police officer and injuring seven others. The attacker had participated in prison hunger strikes.

September 11, 2012—Nigeria—Authorities arrested eleven Boko Haram members and seized a submachinegun, 7 AK-47s, 1,568 rounds of ammunition, 12 empty shells, and 19 bombs in the Waka-Biu region of Borno State.

September 11, 2012—Yemen—A car bomb went off alongside a convoy in Sana’a that included Yemeni Defense Minister Maj. Gen. Mohammed Nasser Ahmed, killing seven bodyguards and five civilians and wounding fifteen other people. Ahmed was unhurt. Ali al-Ansi, head of the National Security Agency, was fired. No group claimed credit, although al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula was suspected.

September 11, 2012—Afghanistan—Taliban attackers killed three Afghan intelligence employees and destroyed a NATO helicopter.

September 11, 2012—Libya—At 10:00 p.m., RPGs and mortars slammed into a building in the U.S. Consulate compound, killing the U.S. ambassador and three other U.S. diplomats and wounding another two. Two diplomats died in the building; another two were killed in a midnight firefight while another facility was still under siege. The Islamic terrorist group Ansar al-Shariah was suspected; the group denied responsibility. The group was believed led by Sufyan bin Qumu, a Libyan released from Gitmo in 2007 and transferred to Libya on condition he be kept in jail; Qadhafi released him in 2008. He was believed to have had ties to the 9/11 financiers and to the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group. Other observers pointed to al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) or to individuals with AQIM ties.

The dead U.S. diplomats included:

• Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, a career State Department officer who spoke Arabic and French and had twice served in Libya. He had run the liaison office with the rebels in Benghazi during the overthrow of Muammar Qadhafi. He was the sixth U.S. ambassador to be killed by terrorists.

• Sean Smith, 34, who had worked as an information management specialist for the State Department for a decade in Brussels, Baghdad, Pretoria, and Libya. The online gamer enlisted in the U.S. Air Force in 1995 at age 17. He served for six years as a ground radio maintenance specialist and deployed to Oman. He left the service in 2002 as a staff sergeant, having earned the Air Force Commendation Medal. He had served for the State Department in Brussels, Baghdad, Pretoria, Montreal, and The Hague. Smith was survived by his wife and two children.

• Glen Anthony Doherty, 42, a former U.S. Navy SEAL who worked for a private security firm protecting the Benghazi consulate. He was a pilot and paramedic, and had coauthored a book about being a military sniper. He had told ABC News that he was tracking down MANPADS shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles left over from Qadhafi’s arsenal. He attended Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Arizona. He had joined the U.S. Navy in 1996 and left active duty in 2005 as a petty officer first class. He had served two tours in Iraq, earning the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal with Combat Distinguished Device. He was lauded in the book The Red Circle by colleague Brandon Webb.

• Tyrone S. Woods, 52, a former U.S. Navy SEAL who had served several tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was a registered nurse and paramedic. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy out of high school in 1990. Decorations included the Bronze Star with Combat V. He retired as a senior chief petty officer in 2007. He had protected U.S. diplomats in Central America and the Middle East since 2010. He was survived by his wife and three sons.

The news media initially reported that the attackers and demonstrators in numerous other countries were protesting an inflammatory anti–Islam video. Authorities scrambled to determine the authorship of the thirteen-minute Innocence of Islam trailer, which portrays Muhammad and his followers as child abusers and perverts. It was eventually attributed to a handful of California-based Coptic Christian extremists. The amateurish film had been available on the Internet since July but only recently was made available in Arabic. The apparent producer of the film, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, 55, was arrested on September 27 for violating terms of his probation.

News reports later pieced together the chronology of the attack. At around 9:00 p.m., gunmen attacked the compound from three directions. Smith and Stevens were mortally injured. Stevens was taken to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead. A group of Americans escaped to a second compound a mile away but were attacked in a firefight. The two former SEALs were killed.

On September 16, Mohamed al-Magariaf, leader of the General National Congress, said fifty people had been arrested in connection with the attack. He said they included individuals from Mali and Algeria and several with ties to al Qaeda. Al-Magariaf said that the attack was planned and organized by foreigners. Some observers said the attack was led by the Ansar al-Sharia. The Wall Street Journal reported on October 2 that the gunmen were linked to Muhammad Jamal Abu Ahmad, who had asked Ayman al-Zawahiri for permission to open an al Qaeda franchise in Libya.

On September 19, during testimony to Congress, Matthew Olsen, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, said that it was an “opportunistic attack” by heavily armed militants. He told the Senate Homeland Security Committee that the Americans “were killed in the course of a terrorist attack on our embassy.”

Within a week the United States had shuttered its consulates in Alexandria, Peshawar, Lahore, and Karachi.

On September 21, U.S. officials said that the fifty attackers, many of them masked, used military-style tactics to steer the Americans toward an ambush. The terrorists used gun trucks and set up a perimeter. The first attack moved the Americans to their fallback building, which was then hit by mortars.

FBI investigators were accompanied by several dozen Special Operations forces in examining the ruins of the Benghazi consulate on October 3. Two days earlier, the State Department had withdrawn all official U.S. government personnel from Benghazi; nonessential personnel were withdrawn from the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli, as well.

Turkish authorities announced on October 4 that they had arrested two Tunisian men carrying fake Austrian passports who had attempted to arrive at Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport. They were believed involved in the Libya attack. The Omar Abdul Rahman Brigades, which had claimed credit for setting off a small bomb outside the Benghazi consulate in June, was also suspected.

Ahmed Abu Khattalah was seen at the diplomatic mission where two of the Americans died. The founder of Ansar al-Sharia reportedly propagates an al Qaeda-style ideology. The militia leader lives in the Leithi neighborhood of Benghazi. He was believed to be in his mid–40s as of October 2012. He trained to become an auto mechanic while a teen. He spent most of his adult life in Qadhafi’s Abu Salem prison. He was released in February 2011.

On October 24, 2012, the Tunisian government arrested Ali al-Harzi, 28, a Tunisian, in connection with the September 11, 2012, attack in Benghazi, Libya, in which the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans were killed. He was represented by attorney Oulad Ali Anwar, who claimed his client was working in Benghazi painting a house at the time of the attack. He had been arrested in Turkey on October 3 along with another Tunisian; the duo were carrying fake passports and were on their way to Syria from Libya.

On October 25, 2012, Egyptian police arrested five Libyan and two Egyptian members of al Qaeda, killed Karim Ahmed Essam al-Azizi, alias Hazem, a Libyan suspected of involvement in the September 11, 2012 assault on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, and seized two trucks carrying 25 rockets, 102 rocket-propelled grenades, and 102 mortar rounds. Al-Azizi died in a raid on his rented apartment in the Cairo suburb of Medinat Nasser. He threw a bomb at the police, but it bounced back and exploded in his apartment. Police seized 17 bombs, 4 rocket-propelled grenades, 3 automatic weapons, and large quantities of ammunition. Police said the group had been using several apartments in the neighborhood to store arms. The trucks were halted on the highway near Marsa Matrouh, 270 miles northwest of Cairo.

In early December, Egyptian authorities announced the arrest of Muhammad Jamal Abu Ahmad, 45, whose supporters were believed involved in the attack. He had been released from an Egyptian prison in March 2011. The former Egyptian Islamic Jihad member had been arrested in mid–November in Sharkia Province on charges of leading a militant cell of Libyans and Egyptians. Police found 2 machine guns, ammunition, and a laptop. Egyptian authorities said his cell, with al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula assistance, was planning attacks in Egypt and abroad. He had set up training camps in Libya and Egypt. The group became known as the Jamal Network. He held a master’s degree in sharia law. He had asked Ayman al-Zawahiri to establish an affiliate called al Qaeda in Egypt. Authorities also believed he was a founder and leader of the Nasr City Cell in Cairo. In October 2012, Egyptian authorities raided an apartment in Nasr City, arresting five terrorists after a gun battle during which a terrorist set off a bomb. Ahmad speaks English, is 5 foot, 7 inches, and has a thick beard.

In December 2012, Ali Harzi, alias Abdelbasset Ben Mbarek, a Tunisian suspected of involvement, refused to be interrogated by FBI agents, according to his lawyer, Anwar Oued-Ali. He was freed by Tunisian authorities on January 8, 2013, for lack of evidence. He had been detained in October 2012 at a Turkish airport.

Ahmed Abu Khattala, another suspect, on January 6, 2013, survived a car bombing in Benghazi that killed his would-be assassin. It was unclear what happened to the other man who was planting the bomb under Abu Khattala’s car. 12091101

September 11, 2012—Egypt—Protestors climbed the compound wall to attack the U.S. Embassy, burning a U.S. flag. At least two thousand demonstrators were involved but only a dozen climbed the wall.

September 12, 2012—Somalia—Three suicide bombers attacked the temporary residence of new Somali President Hassan Sheik Mohamud, 56, who was elected by the new parliament on September 10, during a news conference. The terrorists killed an African Union soldier but did not assassinate any political leaders. One terrorist struck near the gate, and one struck at the back of the Jazeera Hotel near the airport. The third attacker was shot trying to go over the wall of the compound. One terrorist was wearing a military uniform. An African Union spokesman said four people died, plus the three terrorists. Three other African Union troops were injured. Al-Shabaab claimed credit. Mohamud did not stop his speech during the gunfire, telling visiting Kenyan Foreign Minister Sam Ongeri, “Things like what’s happening now outside will continue for some time … Somalia has the momentum to move ahead.” 12091201

September 13, 2012—Iraq—Qais al-Khazali, leader of the Asaib al-Haq militia, threatened to attack Americans as part of the Islamic demonstrations against the anti–Muhammad film. “The offence caused to the Messenger will put all American interests in danger and we will not forgive them for that.” Hundreds of protestors were on the streets of Baghdad and Basra.

September 13, 2012—Internet—Ayman al-Zawahiri released another audio, calling on Muslims to back Syrian rebels and demanding Egypt revoke its 1979 peace treaty with Israel, saying Cairo represented a “government for sale and an army for rent.” “Supporting jihad in Syria to establish a Muslim state is a basic step towards Jerusalem, and thus America is giving the secular Baathist regime one chance after another for fear that a government is established in Syria that would threaten Israel.” “I appeal to the honorable members of the Egyptian Army, and there are many of them, not to be guards for the borders of Israel, and not to defend its borders or participate in besieging our people in Gaza.”

September 13, 2012—Yemen—Protests over the anti–Muhammad film led to the death of four demonstrators during a battle between security forces and thousands of demonstrators outside the U.S. Embassy. Some twenty-four security force members and eleven protestors were injured. The protestors had hopped a compound wall and stormed the embassy, but no diplomats were harmed. One of the compound’s buildings was set on fire. 12091301

September 13, 2012—Egypt—Police fired warning shots and tear gas at protestors outside the U.S. Embassy in Cairo. Minor injuries were reported.

Protests also took place in Tunisia, Morocco, Iran, and other locations throughout the Middle East.

September 14, 2012—Middle East/Asia—Anti-U.S. protests were reported in Tunisia, Turkey, Lebanon, Libya, Egypt, Sudan, Qatar, Yemen, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Malaysia, and Indonesia. Protestors torched Kentucky Fried Chicken and Hardee’s restaurants in Tripoli, Lebanon; police fired on the arsonists, killing one. Protestors broke into the U.S. embassies in Sudan and Tunisia. Sudan refused to let the United States send more Marines to defend the facility. 12091401-04

September 14, 2012—Sudan—Protestors set alight the German Embassy, then tried to attack the U.S. Embassy. Police opened fire. Casualties were not reported. 12091405

September 14, 2012—Lebanon—Demonstrators torched a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant in Tripoli. One man was killed and more than a dozen injured in clashes with police. 12091406

September 14, 2012—Kenya—Local police arrested two people with two explosive devices, four suicide vests containing hundreds of ball bears, four AK-47 assault rifles, twelve grenades, and ammunition and were searching for eight more would-be bombers and masterminds of a plot to conduct a terrorist attack in Nairobi. The group was believed linked to al-Shabaab.

September 14, 2012—United States—Authorities arrested Adel Daoud, 18, a U.S. citizen residing in Chicago’s Hillside suburb, following an undercover operation in which FBI agents provided him with a fake Jeep bomb he planned to use against a downtown bar. He was charged the next day with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and attempting to damage and destroy a building with an explosive. He had posted material on the Internet about “violent jihad” and the killing of Americans. Daoud had listed twenty-nine potential targets, including military recruiting centers, bars, malls, and other tourist attractions in Chicago. The U.S. Attorney’s office noted that at 7:15 p.m., he met the undercover agent in Villa Park and drove with him to downtown Chicago.

During the drive, Daoud led the undercover agent in a prayer that Daoud and the agent succeed in their attack, kill many people, and cause destruction. They entered a parking lot where a Jeep containing the purported explosive device was parked. Daoud then drove the Jeep out of the parking lot and parked the vehicle in front of a bar in downtown Chicago, which was the target that he had previously selected. According to the affidavit, Daoud exited the vehicle and walked to an alley approximately a block away, and in the presence of the undercover agent, attempted to detonate the device by pressing the triggering mechanism. He was then arrested.

He was charged the next day with one count of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction, namely explosives, and one count of attempting to damage and destroy a building by means of an explosive. He faced life plus twenty years in prison if convicted.

September 15, 2012—Tunisia—During anti–U.S. riots, a school building on the grounds of the American school in Tunis was destroyed. Four people died and fifty injured during a firebomb attack on the U.S. Embassy. The United States announced that it was withdrawing embassy staff in Tunisia and Sudan. Local authorities blamed Salafist thugs and announced the arrests of 96 suspects. Police were searching for Salafist leader Saif Allah bin Hussein, alias Abu Ayyad, leader of the Tunisian wing of Ansar al-Sharia. He had been jailed under the former Tunisian government and released in 2011 at the start of the Arab Spring. He had delivered a sermon the previous day that authorities believed incited the attack on the school and embassy. The government detained 144 people, mostly Salafists, including 2 leaders of Ansar al-Sharia, after the attack on the embassy. Some conducted a prison hunger strike.

On October 14, U.S. Ambassador Jacob Walles sent a letter to the Tunisian government in which he called “upon the Tunisian government to conduct its investigation and bring the perpetrators and instigators of this attack to justice.” On October 24, a Tunisian court sentenced Abu Ayyad (variant Abu Ayub, variant Abu Ayoub), leader of Ansar al-Sharia in Tunisia, to a year in prison on charges of disturbing public security and incitement to violence, including the attack on the U.S. Embassy. His attorney, Rafik Ghak, said he would appeal. Bachir al-Gholi and Mohammed Bakhti, prominent Tunisian members of the Salafist movement, died on November 15 and 17, 2012, from their hunger strikes. They were held in the attack on the U.S. Embassy. 12091501-02

September 15, 2012—Afghanistan—An Afghan Local Police officer fired on British NATO coalition soldiers, killing two and wounding four, before he was shot to death by another soldier in Gereshk town. 12091501

September 15, 2012—Yemen—Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula called for killing more U.S. diplomats. Yemen’s parliament demanded that all foreign troops leave, including the fifty U.S. Marines protecting the U.S. Embassy.

September 16, 2012—Pakistan/Afghanistan/Australia—Anti-U.S. protests continued. In Karachi, one protester died and eighteen were injured when hundreds of people broke through a barricade and tried to enter the U.S. Consulate.

September 16, 2012—Pakistan—A remotely-detonated bomb hit a passenger van in the Lower Dir district near Bunr village in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, killing fourteen and injuring six.

September 16, 2012—Turkey—Police officers hit a landmine while they were driving from Karliova to their base in Bingol Province in the predominantly Kurdish southeast. Eight officers died and nine were wounded. Kurdish separatists were suspected.

September 16, 2012—Afghanistan—A member of the Afghan security forces fired on U.S. troops at a remote checkpoint near a NATO installation in Zabul Province, killing four. 12091601

September 16, 2012—Afghanistan—An Afghan National Army soldier fired on six Lebanese civilian contractors working for NATO forces, causing minor injuries to some of them. The six were riding in a vehicle near Camp Garmsir in southern Helmand Province. 12091602

September 16, 2012—Egypt—Salafist preacher Ahmad Ashoush issued a fatwa saying, “The killing of the director, producer, actors, and everyone else involved in the film is mandatory.”

September 16, 2012—Somalia—Gunmen shot in the head and chest freelance cameraman Zakariye Mohamed Mohamud Moallim, killing him.

September 16, 2012—Nigeria—Boko Haram shot to death a security agent and three of his family members in Kano.

Gunmen attacked a Bauchi suburb, killing eight people playing poker.

Gunmen shot to death a moderate Muslim cleric in Maiduguri.

September 17, 2012—Lebanon—Hizballah led tens of thousands of protestors in Beirut. The group was addressed by Hizballah leader Hasan Nasrallah, who noted, “The world should know our anger will not be a passing outburst but that this is the start of a serious movement that will continue all over the Muslim world to defend the prophet of God.” He said that the release of a full-length version of the thirteen-minute video would entail “dangerous consequences.”

September 17, 2012—Nigeria—Soldiers at a checkpoint in Mariri shot to death two Boko Haram (BH) leaders. One was the BH spokesman, Abul Qaqa; another was the commander of the Kogi state BH group. The commander’s wife and children, who were also in the BH vehicle, were taken into military custody.

Meanwhile, a Nigerian Army soldier and thirteen suspected BH members were killed in Maiduguri when terrorists threw an explosive at a military vehicle. The bomb killed the soldier and injured three others. During a subsequent firefight, the thirteen BH members were killed.

September 18, 2012—Afghanistan—At 6:45 a.m., a 22-year-old female suicide bomber driving a Toyota Corolla attacked a van carrying foreigners near Kabul Airport, killing fourteen people, among them ten foreigners, including eight foreign civilians working for Air Charter Service Balmoral, an international aviation company. Two Afghan bystanders were killed and ten wounded. South Africa said most of the dead were South Africans. Kabul police said only six South Africans were killed, including one woman, and that a Filipino died, along with the Afghan driver. Afghan President Hamid Karzai said one of the dead was from Kyrgyzstan. Russian casualties were also reported. Haroon Zarghoon, a spokesman for Hizb-i-Islam terrorists, claimed credit, saying the bomber, Fatima, was protesting the anti–Muhammad film. Observers noted that Afghan women rarely drive, and this was the first female suicide bombing in the country. A second Hizb-i-Islam spokesman, Zubair Sediqqi, said, “A woman wearing a suicide vest blew herself up in response to the anti–Islam video.” 12091801

September 18, 2012—Turkey—Kurdish rebels were blamed for an attack on a military convoy in Bingol Province that killed ten soldiers and wounded more than seventy.

September 18, 2012—Pakistan—Two bombs exploded within minutes of each other at a market in the Nazim Abad neighborhood of Karachi, killing six and wounding fifteen. No one claimed credit.

September 18, 2012—Mali—Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb threatened new anti–U.S. attacks in Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, and Mauritania, encouraging “all Muslims to continue to demonstrate and escalate their protests … kill their ambassadors and representatives or to expel them to cleanse our land from their wickedness…. We congratulate our Muslim rebel brothers who defended our Prophet’s honor … and we tell them: the killing of the U.S. ambassador is the best gift you give to his arrogant unjust government.”

September 19, 2012—Pakistan—A remotely-detonated car bomb went off near a passing Pakistani Air Force vehicle close to Badaber Air Base, killing ten and wounding twenty-seven at a busy intersection in Peshawar. The Pakistani Taliban was suspected.

September 19, 2012—Nigeria—The Nigerian Army announced it had killed two more Boko Haram leaders at a highway checkpoint near Maiduguri. The men had weapons in their car.

September 19, 2012—France—A grenade attack against a Jewish grocery store in Sarcelles, a Paris suburb, injured one person. On October 6, 2012, French authorities conducted raids in Strasbourg, Paris, Nice, and Cannes, detaining twelve French-born suspects and killing one suspected of involvement in the grenade attack. Police found weapons, $35,200 in cash (27,000 Euros), a printed al Qaeda publication, martyr wills, and a list of Jewish groups in the Paris area. Authorities said a jihadi network was targeting the Jewish community.

The dead suspect was Jeremie Louis-Sidney, 33, whose DNA was found on the remains of the grenade. Sidney emptied six shots from his .357 caliber pistol at police as they forced open the door of his wife’s home. They fired back, killing him. One police officer was wounded in the gun battle. Louis-Sydney had earlier served two years in prison from 2008 to 2010 for drug trafficking. He was born of Caribbean descent and raised as a Christian. He was radicalized in prison. Hours after Sidney was killed, blank shots were fired at a synagogue in Argenteuil, a working-class suburb of Paris.

Another one of the detainees was captured near Paris carrying a loaded pistol. French President Francois Hollande said a proposed law would make it illegal to travel to militant training camps. Some of the suspects were admirers of Mohammed Merah, who conducted anti–Semitic attacks in March 2012 in Toulouse before being killed in a shootout with police. Prosecutors said that the dozen suspects were planning attacks on French soil and wanted to recruit people to fight against the Syrian regime and in other countries.

On October 11, 2012, five of the detainees were freed. The other seven were recent Islamic converts. The suspects ranged in age from 18 to 25. Also on October 11, French police announced that the Sarcelles bombing was planned by Jeremy Bailly. Investigators found during a raid of his home a key to a storage unit in Torcy outside Paris that contained bomb-making material, including bags of chemicals, batteries, alarm clocks, car headlights, and a pressure cooker. A prosecutor said the bomb he was building was “exactly” the type used by an Algerian terrorist group in the mid–1990s.

September 20, 2012—Somalia—Two suicide bombers attacked a Mogadishu restaurant, killing fifteen people, including three local journalists and two police officers. The dead journalists included Abdisatar Dahir Sabriye, news producer for the state-run Somali National TV; Liban Ali Nor, a TV news editor; and Abdirahman Yasin Ali, a radio director. Five other journalists were wounded. Al-Shabaab was suspected of the attack on the Village Restaurant, which is owned by Ahmed Jama, 46, a British Somali. The restaurant is next door to Radio Kulmiye, a station where Somali comedian Abdi Jeylani Malaq, who had twitted al-Shabaab, was shot to death in August. 12092001

September 20, 2012—Internet—Al Qaeda American-born spokesman Adam Gadahn released an eighty-four-minute As-Sahab video entitled Advice and Support to Our Rebel Brothers Against Injustice. It was believed to have been produced on April 30. Gadahn spoke in Arabic.

September 21, 2012—Somalia—Gunmen shot to death a radio reporter.

September 21, 2012—Worldwide—France closed diplomatic facilities in twenty countries after Charles Hebdo, a French satire magazine, printed anti–Mohammed cartoons. Germany closed its embassy in the Sudan in preparation for likely protests. A few dozen people stood in front of the French Embassy in Cairo in protest.

September 21, 2012—Pakistan—During protests against the anti–Mohammed film, 19 people died and 160-plus were injured in demonstrations throughout the country. Mobs in Peshawar torched two movie theaters; TV reporter Muhammad Amir and another person were killed. Demonstrators in Rawalpindi set alight a tollbooth and vehicles. Police prevented the protestors from getting to U.S. diplomatic facilities in Rawalpindi, Lahore, Peshawar, and Islamabad. Arsonists in Karachi hit movie theaters, banks, American food franchises, and police vehicles and threw stones at the Sheraton hotel. A mob burned an Anglican church in Mardan.

September 21, 2012—Worldwide—Protests against the anti–Islam film were also reported in Lebanon, Bangladesh, and Malaysia.

September 21, 2012—United States—The Washington Post reported that the State Department had decided to remove the Iranian Mujahideen-e Khalq from the list of terrorist groups.

September 21, 2012—Israel—Three gunmen wearing camouflage uniforms crossed the Sinai border in a mountainous area but were shot to death in a firefight with Israeli troops, who lost soldier Netanel Yahalomi, 20; a second soldier was wounded. Yahalomi was posthumously promoted to corporal. The terrorists had fired on Israeli soldiers who were securing a construction zone for a security fence at Mount Harif between the Gaza Strip and Eilat. An explosives belt worn by one of the terrorists detonated. The gunmen had three rocket-propelled grenade launchers and a machine gun hidden in a nearby pit. The Supporters of the Holy Places (Ansar Bait al-Maqdis, variant Partisans of Jerusalem) claimed credit, saying it was retaliating for the anti–Muhammad video. The group also claimed credit for the August 18, 2011, attack near Eilat that killed eight and wounded more than thirty people. The group said one of its leaders, Ibrahim Aweida, helped lead the Eilat attack, and that he died in an Israeli attack in the Sinai village of Khreiza in August 2012. The most recent attack was also to avenge his death. 12092101

September 21, 2012—Afghanistan—A joint Afghan-NATO special operations team foiled two men preparing to attack a coalition base in Logar Province. The two “known insider attack facilitators” planned to set off homemade bombs, recruit terrorists, and infiltrate the Afghan security forces. Interrogators were trying to determine their affiliation.

September 21–22, 2012—Russia—Four police officers and four Chechen terrorists were killed in gun battles in the southern Vedeno region. Eleven police officers were wounded.

September 22, 2012—Somalia—Unidentified gunmen shot to death Mustaf Haji Mohamed, a Somali lawmaker, after evening prayers in Mogadishu’s Waberi district.

September 22, 2012—Yemen—Abdul-Latif al-Sayed, a former Islamist who helped drive al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula out of Jaar, escaped an assassination attempt when a suicide bomber set off his explosives. Al-Sayed had entered a parked car with three others after dining in an Aden restaurant. The terrorist died; four victims had serious injuries. An August attack against Sayed killed forty-five.

September 22, 2012—Pakistan—Federal Railways Minister Ghulam Ahmad Bilour told a news conference that he would personally finance a $100,000 reward for the death of the person behind the anti–Muhammad video. Although incitement to murder is illegal, Bilour was “ready to be hanged in the name of the Prophet Muhammad” and called on the Taliban and al Qaeda to join him as “partners in this noble deed.” The prime minister’s press secretary said, “We completely dissociate ourselves from the statement of Mr. Bilour.” Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, 55, who lives in California, was believed to be the target of the hit. The Pakistani Taliban took Bilour off its hit list. The Dadullah Group of the Taliban in Afghanistan offered a bounty of 8 kilograms of gold (roughly $487,000) for the killing of those behind the film.

September 22, 2012—Bangladesh—Clashes between police and Islamists protesting the anti–Muhammad video left more than one hundred people injured in Dhaka.

September 22, 2012—Indonesia—An antiterrorist squad arrested ten Islamist militants and seized a dozen homemade bombs, three rifles, four swords, and several jihadi books from the homes of three suspects. The team defused five bombs in Solo. The group was planning suicide attacks against security forces and the government; attacks would include a bombing of parliament, shooting of police, and attacking members of the antiterrorist team. Two terrorists were picked up in Central Java’s Solo town after being fingered by detainees; they were identified as Mohammad Toriq, a bomb maker who surrendered a fortnight earlier in Jakarta while carrying a gun and ammunition and wearing an empty suicide belt, and Yusuf Rizaldi, who surrendered to police in North Sumatra three days later. They in turn fingered six other terrorists arrested later in Solo. A ninth suspect was grabbed in West Kalimantan, Borneo. The tenth suspect, Joko Partit, brother of Eko Joko Supriyanto, a terrorist shot dead by police in 2009, was arrested in Solo on September 23. Badri Hartono and Rudi Kurnia Putra, both 45, reportedly recruited young men and taught them to make bombs.

September 23, 2012—Nigeria—At 9:00 a.m., a suicide car bomber attacked a Catholic Mass ceremony in St. John’s Catholic Church in Bauchi, killing two and wounding forty-five. Boko Haram was suspected.

September 24, 2012—Nigeria—The military announced it had arrested more than 150 people and killed 36 others in a crackdown against Boko Haram in towns in Adamawa and Yobe states. Two soldiers were wounded in the operations that had taken place during the previous few days.

September 24, 2012—Yemen—Gunmen shot to death Col. Abdullah al-Ashwal, the most senior intelligence officer killed in Sana’a. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula was suspected of the drive-by shooting.

September 25, 2012—India—During a gun battle in a forest village in Kashmir, a terrorist and a soldier were killed. Two soldiers were wounded.

September 25, 2012—Turkey—A bomb exploded under a vehicle carrying Turkish security forces in Tunceli, killing six soldiers and a civilian walking in the road. Kurdish rebels were suspected.

September 26, 2012—Syria—Suicide bombers attacked the Syrian Army’s General Staff Command headquarters in Damascus in a morning attack, setting off a white van on the main highway outside the perimeter fence. A second explosion went off on the grounds. Four guards were killed and fourteen people were wounded. The Free Syrian Army’s Damascus Military Council and the jihadi Tajamo Ansar al-Islam claimed credit on Facebook.

September 27, 2012—Internet—Ayman al-Zawahiri released a video on a jihadi Web site, Days with the Imam, Part III, about his memories of Osama bin Laden. He noted that bin Laden was blind in the right eye after an accident in his youth when he was a member of the Saudi branch of the Muslim Brotherhood in Jeddah. The group tossed him out for insisting on conducting jihad against the Soviet presence in Afghanistan in the late 1980s.

September 28, 2012—Iraq—During a prison break in Tikrit, forty-seven al Qaeda terrorists escaped. Al Qaeda in Iraq claimed credit on October 12, saying it had smuggled weapons to the prisoners. The dozens of prisoners, many on death row, killed sixteen members of the security forces. The group said it set off a car bomb outside the prison gate.

September 29, 2012—Thailand—Islamist insurgents were blamed for firing two grenades at a security checkpoint near a trade fair in Bajoh District, Narathiwat Province, injuring thirty people, four seriously.

September 29, 2012—Afghanistan—Guards at an Afghan Army checkpoint fired on a platoon of twenty U.S. soldiers during an afternoon patrol in Wardak Province. The senior American was killed when an Afghan opened fire without warning. A second Afghan killed a U.S. civilian contractor and wounded two U.S. soldiers. Afghan soldiers and insurgents fired from different directions at 4:00 p.m. north of Sisay in the Tangi Valley. Three Afghan soldiers were killed and several wounded in the gun battle.

September 30, 2012—Nigeria—Gunmen set off a bomb near an Islamic boarding school in the Gaskiya neighborhood of Zaria, in northern Kaduna State, injuring several. They then conducted a gun battle with authorities that resulted in two deaths. The terrorists ordered the students out of the school before setting off the bomb, which destroyed several nearby homes. Boko Haram was suspected. The school is run by Awwal Adam Albani, a critic of Boko Haram and himself a Salafi.

September 30, 2012—Kenya—At 10:30 a.m., a grenade was thrown into a church in the Eastleigh neighborhood of Nairobi, killing a 9-year-old boy and injuring several children. Al-Shabaab sympathizers were suspected.

September 30, 2012—Iraq—Bombs in Kirkuk, Taji, and Kut killed twenty-six and wounded ninety-four people. Al Qaeda in Iraq was suspected. At 7:15 a.m., three car bombs went off in a Shi’ite neighborhood in Taji, killing eight and wounding twenty-eight. At the same time, a suicide bomber set off his car bomb in Shula, Baghdad, killing one person and injuring seven. A suicide bomber drove his minibus into a security checkpoint in Kut, killing three police officers and wounding five.

October 2012—Syria—Rebel gunmen kidnapped Ukrainian journalist Anhar Kochneva, 40. On November 7, the group released a video of her admitting to working for Russian military intelligence agent Pyotr Petrov, translating for Russian and Syrian military officers. Her captors said on Ukrainian television, “Let not a single Russian, Ukrainian or Iranian come out of Syria alive.” She had grown up in Odessa, where she learned Arabic. She ran a Moscow travel agency that specialized in the Middle East. Following her divorce, she moved to Damascus. She worked on getting out the Syrian government’s message, often appearing on Syrian television. She phoned family and friends to say she had been kidnapped. She said the Free Syrian Army had saved her from a group of violent thugs but then held on to her as a hostage. 12109901

October 2012—Pakistan—The Pakistani Taliban conducted an acid attack on a Kohat University van filled with graduate students in Doranai near Parachinar in northern Pakistan, leaving two girls, Zahida and Nabila, with severe burns to their faces and one boy, Mohammad Ali, with gunshot wounds. Another boy was also burned by acid. The terrorists left pamphlets warning local girls against going to school. Local Pakistani Taliban leader Qari Muhavia told CNN, “We will never allow the girls of this area to go and get a Western education…. If and when we find any girl from Parachinar going to university for an education, we will target her [in] the same way, so that she might not be able to unveil her face before others.”

October 2012—Gaza Strip—Palestinians for the first time fired a Strela shoulder-launched missile at an Israeli helicopter early in the month. Israeli officials believed the missile originated from Libyan stockpiles that were smuggled through tunnels along the Egypt-Gaza border.

October 2012—Lebanon—In late October, Beirut authorities arrested two Malaysians on suspicion of having al Qaeda links. They were represented by local attorney Marwan Sinno, who said they were accused of planning a terrorist attack in Syria.

October 1, 2012—Afghanistan—At 9:00 a.m. in Khost, a Taliban suicide bomber set off his explosives-packed motorcycle near a joint International Security Assistance Force and Afghan police patrol in the east, killing nineteen people, including three NATO service members, their local interpreter, and fifteen Afghan police and civilians. Fifty-nine others were wounded.

October 2, 2012—Nigeria—Gunmen and knife-wielding terrorists killed twenty-five to twenty-seven people at the Federal Polytechnic college in Mubi in Adamawa State. Gang members of warring religious fraternities were suspected. Police said most who were killed were executive leaders elected in a campus election that week. Among the dead were nineteen Polytechnic students, three students from another college, a former soldier, a guard, and an elderly man. Police had raided the campus the previous week in a search for Boko Haram members, seizing weapons and bombs.

October 2, 2012—Sudan—Four Nigerian soldiers belonging to the UN–African Union peacekeeping mission in western Darfur were ambushed and shot to death during the evening. Eight soldiers were injured by unknown gunmen. 12100201

October 3, 2012—Syria—Car bombs exploded in Aleppo at a social club and a hotel in the central Saadallah al-Jabri Square, killing 40 and wounding between 90 and 130. Al Qaeda-inspired terrorists belonging to al-Nusrah were suspected.

October 3, 2012—Lebanon—Three Hizballah members were killed when explosives went off in a weapons warehouse in Nabi Sheet, south of Baalbek.

October 4, 2012—Nigeria—A bomb at an outdoor bar in Jalingo in Taraba State killed two people and wounded fourteen others at 8:00 p.m. Boko Haram was suspected.

October 5, 2012—Israel—New York native William Hershkovitz, 23, a U.S. tourist at the Red Sea resort of Eilat, attacked a security guard at the seaside Leonardo Club hotel, grabbed his gun, and shot to death a hotel chef. Hershkovitz then barricaded himself in the hotel’s kitchen before being shot dead by a military counterterrorism team. 12100501

October 5, 2012—Nigeria—A bomb went off during the night in Jalingo in Taraba State, wounding eight people. Boko Haram was suspected.

October 6, 2012—Israel—Israeli authorities shot down a Hizballah drone that entered Israeli airspace. Hizballah leader Seyed Hassan Nasrallah said it was an Iranian-built reconnaissance drone. Israeli officials said the drone was spotted over the Mediterranean, near the Gaza Strip. Israeli officials suggested it was photographing the Dimona nuclear research center. Israeli officials said it was Hizballah’s third drone flight.

October 6, 2012—Peru—The Shining Path destroyed three helicopters belonging to Transportadora de Gas Del Peru (TGP), leaving the natural gas pipeline from the Camisea gas fields without maintenance services. The firm is owned by Argentina’s Pluspetrol, U.S.-based Hunt Oil, South Korea’s SK Energy, Suez-Tractebel, and others. 12100601

October 7, 2012—Philippines—The press reported that the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front had come to an agreement that set the stage for a final agreement that would end the insurgency. Muslims in the southern Philippines would be granted broad autonomy in a new administrative region, Bangsamoro. The October 15 signing was witnessed by Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, whose emissaries served as mediators, Philippine President Benigno Aquino, III, and rebel chairman Al-Haj Murad Ebrahim.

October 7, 2012—Iraq—Six people died in bombings in Mosul, Tal Afar, Sulaiman Bek, and Baghdad. In Mosul, gunmen killed Judge Abbas al-Abadi in a drive-by shooting.

October 7, 2012—Nigeria—Boko Haram was suspected in the shooting death of a Chinese citizen outside of Maiduguri. 12100701

October 8, 2012—Yemen—Local authorities detained an American suspected of having links to al Qaeda. He was arrested in a hotel in Ataq, capital of Shabwa Province, carrying two U.S. passports and a German one. He had been visiting mosques in Marib. He had earlier been in Saudi Arabia before entering Yemen a few months ago. He was on a list of wanted al Qaeda suspects. He spoke English, claiming to be a Muslim.

October 8, 2012—Nigeria—Boko Haram was suspected of setting off a bomb that killed an army lieutenant and wounded two others in Maiduguri.

October 8, 2012—Nigeria—Boko Haram killed fourteen people, including a mother and her three children, belonging to a Christian ethnic group in the Riyom local government area of Plateau State. Gunmen fired on a car in Barkin Ladi near the local airport, killing two Christians; local villagers killed a Muslim man in retaliation.

October 8, 2012—Afghanistan—Caitlan Coleman, 27, a pregnant American woman, was reported missing with her Canadian husband. She was due to deliver in January and was suffering from a liver ailment. The family said on December 30, 2012, that they last heard from son-in-law Josh on October 8 from an Internet café. No ransom demand had been made. No terrorist group claimed credit. Observers suggested that they had been kidnapped. 12100801

October 9, 2012—Pakistan—A masked Pakistani Taliban gunman shot in the head and critically wounded Malala Yousafzai, 14 (although her school records listed her birth date as July 12, 1997), a ninth-grade girl who had spoken out against Taliban attempts to intimidate girls from going to school. The gunman jumped into her school bus, asked for her by name, and shot her. A second gunman was in the rear of the bus. She was flown to a military hospital in Peshawar, then sent to a U.K. surgical hospital. Thousands of Pakistanis demonstrated against the Taliban’s attack. In early 2009, she wrote in a diary about Taliban attacks for the BBC’s Urdu service. She lived in Mingora, in the Swat Valley. In 2011, the Pakistani government awarded her a 1 million rupee ($10,500) peace prize. She was a finalist that year for the International Children’s Peace Prize, awarded by a Dutch organization. Two other girls were shot, including a seventh grader who was hit in the leg. The Pakistani Taliban vowed to kill her if she survived surgery. Spokesman Ihsanullah Ihsan said she was responsible for “negative propaganda” about Muslims. “She considers President Obama as her ideal leader. Malala is the symbol of the infidels and obscenity.”

Authorities said they had identified an attacker who traveled from eastern Afghanistan and offered a $100,000 reward for his capture. On October 19, the Taliban threatened to attack media outlets that covered the Malala story. Pakistani police detained the relatives of Attaullah, believed to be the gunman. The detainees included his brother, Ehsanullah, 18, who was picked up a month earlier. Also detained were Attaullah’s brother-in-law and an uncle. He had earlier been arrested on suspicion of militant activity in 2009 during a military operation in Swat, Pakistan, but was freed for lack of evidence. His family home is in Sangota, 4 miles from Mingora. Two other men accused of sheltering the gunman for a night were arrested. One was a driving instructor from Mingora named Abdul Haleem. Authorities believed Attaullah had fled to Afghanistan. The press reported that the head of the Swat Taliban, Maulana Fazlullah, alias Mullah Radio (he once ran a private FM station), had ordered the murder from his hideout in Konar Province, Afghanistan.

October 9, 2012—Yemen—Authorities found three decapitated bodies in a market in Marib. CDs next to the bodies showed them confessing to being government informants against al Qaeda and placing tracking devices on cars that were targets of U.S. drones. One man said he worked in a tire repair shop and planted chips in terrorist vehicles.

October 9, 2012—Nigeria—Gunmen shot to death two police officers in Kano who were guarding workers trying to give polio shots to local children. Police arrested several suspects.

October 9, 2012—Syria—The Sunni jihadi Al-Nusrah Front for the People of Levant claimed credit for a nighttime three-stage suicide attack on a compound of the air force intelligence service in Harasta. The group named the suicide bomber and said the car contained 9 tons of explosives. After twenty-five minutes, another man drove an ambulance carrying explosives to the scene to kill first responders. The group then shelled the area.

October 10, 2012—Nigeria—Gunmen outside of Kano shot to death two officers of the Federal Road Safety Corps who were on a routine assignment checking vehicles. Another officer was wounded. Boko Haram was suspected.

October 10, 2012—Libya—Gunmen in a passing car shot to death Army Gen. Mohammed al-Fitori as he was leaving Friday prayers in Benghazi. He had defected from the Qadhafi regime and rose to become head of ammunition and armament for the army.

October 10, 2012—Afghanistan—Six members of the Afghan Local Police died when a police vehicle ran over a roadside bomb in the Nad Ali district of Helmand Province.

October 11, 2012—Pakistan—Gunmen kidnapped a retired Army Brig. Gen. who was working on a counterterrorism contract with the Inter-Services Intelligence agency. He was grabbed on the outskirts of Islamabad shortly after leaving his home for work. His driver resisted and was shot to death.

October 11, 2012—Yemen—Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula was blamed in the drive-by shooting by a masked terrorist of Qassem M. Aqlani, a security official for the U.S. Embassy in Sana’a. The terrorist escaped on a motorcycle driven by a colleague after intercepting Aqlani near his house. He had worked for the embassy for eleven years. 12101101

October 12, 2012—Internet—Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri released an audio on Mujahedin al-Ansar, an Islamist Web site, in which he called for “free and distinguished zealots for Islam” to “continue their opposition to American crusader Zionist aggression against Islam and Muslims.” He called for more protests outside U.S. embassies. He praised the assassination of the U.S. ambassador to Libya the previous month. He claimed U.S. authorities permitted the anti–Muhammed film “in the name of personal freedom and freedom of expression” that is not given to Muslim prisoners in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay.

October 13, 2012—Libya—A bomb exploded beneath the car of a police colonel in Benghazi’s al-Hadayeq neighborhood. Col. Mohammed Ben Haleem was uninjured when he went to warm up his engine then stepped back into his house. No injuries were reported.

October 13, 2012—Pakistan—A car bomb exploded in a Darra Adam Khel bazaar outside an office of anti–Taliban tribal elders, killing seventeen people, injuring forty, and destroying thirty-five shops and eight vehicles. The Pakistani Taliban was suspected of the attack in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province.

October 13, 2012—Mali—Al Qaeda-linked members of the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO) threatened to “open the doors of hell” for French citizens if Paris continued to press for armed intervention by Economic Community of West African States.

October 13, 2012—Afghanistan—An insider attack, this time by a member of the Afghan intelligence service, killed two Americans and four Afghan National Directorate of Security colleagues when a suicide bomber set off his vest at the intelligence office in the Maruf district in Kandahar Province. The dead included former U.S. military officer Dario Lorenzetti, 42 (according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram); Ghulam Rasool, deputy intelligence director for Kandahar Province; two of his bodyguards; and another intelligence employee. The terrorist was identified as Abdul Wali from Zirak village in Maruf district. Wali’s 9-year-old brother was killed in a revenge attack later that day. The New York Times, Reuters, CNN, Daily Mail, Google, and Associated Press reported on October 17 that one of the Americans killed worked for the CIA. The Wall Street Journal on October 17 said that the Department of Defense identified the U.S. military casualty as Spc. Brittany B. Gordon, 24, of St. Petersburg, Florida, assigned to the 572nd Military Intelligence Company, 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division. 12101301

October 14, 2012—Nigeria—Fifty gunmen firing assault rifles killed twenty-four people, including those leaving a mosque after dawn prayers, in Dogon Dawa, a village in Kaduna State. Observers suggested the attack was part of a clash between Muslim farmers and Muslim nomadic cattlemen.

October 14, 2012—Nigeria—Boko Haram shot to death Mala Kaka, a traditional ruler in Maiduguri who had called for an end to attacks.

October 14–15, 2012—Ivory Coast—Gunmen attacked a power station and security facilities in Abidjan during the night and early morning. Supporters of deposed President Laurent Gbagbo were suspected. Among the sites was the Azito thermal power station in Abidjan’s Yopougon neighborhood, where ten attackers were arrested. Gunmen also attacked a police station in Bonoua in an attempt to steal weapons.

October 15, 2012—Nigeria—At least fifteen bombs went off during a hail of gunfire in Maiduguri. Boko Haram was suspected. A gunman shot to death a police traffic warden. Fighting between the police and the terrorists killed at least twenty-four people; one soldier was injured. Boko Haram used small arms and rocket-propelled grenades. One school was burned down.

October 16, 2012—Yemen—A gunman on a motorcycle shot to death Gen. Khaled al-Hashim, a senior Yemeni intelligence officer. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula was suspected. Al-Hashim was one of several Iraqi military experts hired by the Yemeni government after the end of the Saddam Hussein regime in 2003. 12101601

October 16, 2012—Tunisia—Five masked men set alight the 500-year-old shrine of Sayyeda Aicha Manoubia, a thirteenth-century Muslim female saint, in Tunis. The men then stole valuables from four women staying overnight at the shrine. Salafis oppose the veneration of saints.

October 17, 2012—Norway—The government of Colombia began closed-door peace talks with representatives of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.

October 17, 2012—United States—The FBI arrested Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis, 21, a Bangladeshi living in Queens who tried to bomb the Federal Reserve Bank of New York on 33 Liberty Street with what he believed was a 1,000-pound bomb in a van. He came to the United States on a student visa in January 2012, looking to perform jihad in the United States. His parents (his father is a banker) in Dhaka said he was a terrible student, on probation in Bangladesh’s North South University, and he had come to study in the United States to improve his job prospects. He enrolled in cybersecurity at Southeast Missouri State University, becoming vice president of the school’s Muslim student association. He withdrew after a semester and requested that his records be transferred to a Brooklyn-area school. He contacted an individual who was an FBI informant. He claimed to have had overseas connections with al Qaeda (AQ), although the FBI said there was no evidence that AQ was involved. He suggested several targets, including a senior New York Stock Exchange official and President Obama. The undercover agent provided twenty 50-pound bags of inerted explosives, which Nafis stored in a warehouse, then moved to a van. He parked the van, recorded a confessor video in a nearby hotel, phoned a number he believed would set off a detonator, and was arrested. His Plan B was to conduct a suicide attack, although he preferred to stay alive to carry out more attacks. In the video, he warned, “We will not stop until we attain victory or martyrdom.” Nafis hoped the bomb would disrupt the presidential election and the U.S. economy. He also wrote an article claiming credit; he asked the agent to give the article to an al Qaeda magazine.

Nafis was charged with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and attempting to provide material support to al Qaeda. He was assigned a public defender. He made an initial court appearance at a federal courthouse in Brooklyn. Magistrate Judge Roanne L. Mann ordered him held without bail. He had claimed that he was going to attend school in Missouri. He was working as a busboy at a Manhattan restaurant when arrested.

Nafis communicated via Facebook with the undercover FBI agent and someone named “Yaqeen.” They discussed whether it was permissible under Islamic rulings to wage jihad while on a student visa. On October 18, 2012, the FBI arrested the man they believed to be “Yaqeen” and Nafis’s accomplice. Howard Willie Carter, II, was arrested after the Bureau found one thousand images and three video files of child pornography on a laptop and hard drive in the trash near his apartment in San Diego. He was held on child pornography charges. Carter was named as a co-conspirator in the Nafis indictment. Nafis said that Yaqeen had told him about a Baltimore military base that had only one guard. 12101701

October 17, 2012—Nigeria—Gunmen kidnapped six Russian sailors and an Estonian in an attack on the Bourbon Liberty 249, an anchor handling ship operated by the Paris-based Bourbon SA oil and gas services firm off the coast of the Niger Delta. The attack occurred near the Pennington River off Bayelsa State, near the Pennington Export Terminal run by the U.S.-based Chevron Corporation. The company works with the Chinese-owned Addax Petroleum Company, among others. Another nine sailors on the ship sailed to the firm’s port on Onne in Rivers State. 12101702

October 18, 2012—Turkey—Security forces killed a dozen Kurdish rebels in the southeast, bringing the death toll in two days of fighting to eighteen.

October 18, 2012—Turkey—A midnight explosion outside Eleskirt wounded twenty-eight soldiers and damaged a military vehicle and a state-owned Boru Hatlari ile Petrol Tasima AS (BOTAS) pipeline, disrupting the flow of natural gas from Iran. BOTAS transports oil and gas from Iran, Iraq, Russia, and Azerbaijan. No group claimed credit, although the Kurdistan Workers’ Party was suspected. 12101801

October 18, 2012—United States—The U.S. State Department’s Rewards for Justice Program offered multi-million dollar rewards for the arrest of two al Qaeda (AQ) members moving money and terrorists through Iran. The administration offered $7 million for Iran-based financier Muhsin al-Fadhli, who had received advanced notification of the 9/11 plot. Another $5 million was offered for Fadhli’s deputy, Adel Radi Saqr al-Wahabi al-Harbi, which moved AQ money and terrorists through South Asia and the Middle East. The U.S. Treasury imposed financial sanctions against al-Harbi, prohibiting U.S. citizens from dealing with him and freezing his U.S.-based assets. Al-Fadhli was blacklisted by the Treasury in 2005.

October 18, 2012—Afghanistan—At 6:00 a.m., a roadside mine exploded near a minibus carrying people to a wedding reception at the groom’s house in the Dawlat Abad district of northern Balkh Province, killing nineteen, including six children and seven women, and wounding sixteen.

October 18, 2012—Algeria—Gunmen stopped a bus at their checkpoint in the Boumerdes region, checked passengers’ IDs, and pulled aside two members of the military, dragging them out and shooting them dead.

October 19, 2012—Lebanon—During the afternoon rush hour, a remotely-detonated car bomb exploded in East Beirut’s Ashrafiyeh district near Sassine Square in the mostly Christian Ashrafiyeh area, killing Brig. Gen. Wissam al-Hassan, chief of the Internal Security Forces Information Branch, and seven other people, including his bodyguard and a civilian, and injuring 110. The bomb was hidden in a stolen car parked on a narrow street near a safe house he had used to meet sources. He and his bodyguard were driving an unarmored, rented Honda Accord. He was outspoken in his opposition to the Syrian regime and was leading an investigation into jailed Lebanese politician Michel Samaha, who was believed to be plotting with two Syrian officials to conduct political and religious assassination in Lebanon. Many Lebanese observers blamed Hizballah and suggested it was an inside job. Hizballah deemed the attack a “sinful attempt to target the stability and national unity.” Al-Hassan had returned from Paris to Lebanon the night before, traveling under a false name. Some officials suggested that airport workers in thrall to Hizballah leaked his whereabouts to the terrorists. 12101901

October 20, 2012—Iraq—Two bombs went off near a Baghdad checkpoint in front of a Shi’ite shrine in the Khadimiya neighborhood, killing eleven and wounding forty-eight.

October 19, 2012—Yemen—In an al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula attack on an army base in Abyan, thirteen soldiers and thirteen terrorists were killed. Two terrorists wearing army uniforms drove their truck bomb into the base, killing themselves and ten soldiers and injuring more than twenty soldiers. Another group of terrorists attacked the base from the sea, spurring a gun battle in which eleven more terrorists and three soldiers died.

October 21, 2012—Russia—The Russian National Anti-Terrorism Committee announced that it had killed forty-nine rebels and captured dozens more in the North Caucasus in a two-month period of raids against ninety militant bases and twenty-six weapons caches. The government said the terrorists were responsible for bombings, murders of police officers, and attacks on schools in the Dagestan and Kabardino-Balkaria Republics.

October 21, 2012—Jordan—The government announced the arrest of eleven Jordanians who had been planning since June to attack shopping centers, cafés, government buildings, and diplomatic targets, including the U.S. Embassy, using car bombs, mortars, machine guns, grenades, and other heavy weapons that would have killed hundreds of people. The group named itself 11-9 the Second, referring to the November 9, 2005, series of Amman hotel bombings that killed 60 people and wounded 115. Minister for Media and Communication Samih Maayta said that the group had traveled to Syria to obtain weapons, including TNT, and had taken “counsel from al Qaeda in Iraq via the terrorist sites on the Internet.” Several targets were in the affluent Abdoun neighborhood in southern Amman. Authorities seized weapons, computers, cameras, and forged documents. A week earlier, Jordanian officials had arrested three Jordanians trying to sneak into Syria to join radical jihadis fighting Assad loyalists.

The Washington Post reported on December 3, 2012, that the attacks would have been conducted in three phases. First, they planned suicide bombings of two shopping centers. Second, they planned gun and bomb attacks against luxury hotels frequented by foreigners, cafes, and government buildings, to draw police away from the final target. Third, the U.S. Embassy and the affluent Abdoun district would be subjected to heavy mortar and machinegun fire.

The detainees were identified as Mohammed Raed Moustafa Khater, Abdullah Khalil Mohammad Hamdam, Abdul Rahman Sabri Abdul Rahman al-Heyari, Ahmed Abd al Hadi Abu Taha, Mahmoud Younis Manaa, Ala al-Deen Derbas, Fawzi abd al-Jabbar Hussein, Abdal-Fattah Saud Dardas, Tareq Ali al-Shari, Jafar Saud el-Fatah Dardas, and Ayman Ahmed Salam Abu Selek. They had met while fighting the Assad government in Syria and were in their 20s and 30s. They had smuggled across the border cases of TNT, mortar shells, grenade launchers, and belt-fed machine guns. Authorities had kept them under surveillance after penetrating the cell. They arrested the group, seizing their weapons, computers, and forged documents.

October 21, 2012—Jordan—In a separate attack, government forces battled sixteen armed terrorists trying to sneak into Syria. A Jordanian soldier and four terrorists died in the twenty-minute gun battle.

October 22, 2012—Nigeria—The government set a 4:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. curfew in Potiskum, Yobe State, after twenty-three people were killed by Boko Haram attacks. The dead included a state government official and his two children. Gunmen burned down three schools and threw a bomb at a military convoy, injuring two soldiers.

October 24, 2012—Yemen—Two masked motorcyclists shot to death Ali al-Yamani, a counterterrorism official, in Damar Province. The fleeing gunmen were suspected of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula membership.

October 24, 2012—Afghanistan—An Afghan soldier not wearing his uniform shot to death two British soldiers and an Afghan police officer in Helmand Province. 12102401

October 25, 2012—Yemen—A gunman firing from a motorcycle failed to assassinate Abdulkader Ali Hilal, mayor of Sana’a. The gunman and the driver of the motorbike were arrested.

October 25, 2012—Afghanistan—Taliban spokesman said a uniformed member of the Afghan security forces shot two U.S. service members in Uruzgan Province. 12102501

October 25–26, 2012—Indonesia—Antiterrorist authorities conducted raids in four provinces and arrested eleven members of Harakah Sunni for Indonesian Society (HASMI) of planning terrorist attacks on local and foreign targets, including the U.S. Embassy, the local office of U.S. mining firm Freeport-McMoRan, the U.S. Consulate in Surabaya, a plaza near the Australian Embassy, and the headquarters of a special police force in Central Java. Police confiscated bombs, explosives, bomb-making material, ammunition, and a 6.6-pound gas cylinder filled with explosives that had been assembled at a house in Madiun, East Java. They also found videos and images of attacks on Muslims elsewhere in the world.

October 26, 2012—Afghanistan—At least forty-one people died and seventy were injured when a suicide bomber attacked a mosque in Meymaneh, capital of Faryab Province, on the first day of the Eid al-Adha holiday. Casualties included police officers and soldiers plus fourteen civilians.

October 27, 2012—Internet—Ayman al-Zawahiri released a two-hour and twelve-minute video calling for kidnapping of Westerners, imposition of sharia in Egypt, and assisting the rebellion in Syria. “We are seeking, by the help of Allah, to capture others and to incite Muslims to capture the citizens of the countries that are fighting Muslims in order to release our captives.” He complained that the international community had given Bashar al-Assad “a license to kill … I incite Muslims everywhere, especially in the countries that are contiguous to Syria, to rise to support their brothers in Syria with all that they can and not to spare anything that they can offer.” Turning, to Egypt, he observed, “The battle in Egypt is very clear. It is a battle between the secular minority that is allied with the church and that is leaning on the support of the army, who are made by [former president Hosni] Mubarak and the Americans … and the Muslim ummah in Egypt that is seeking to implement the sharia.” He demanded the release of “blind sheik” Omar Abdel Rahman from the United States.

October 28, 2012—Nigeria—At 9:00 a.m., a suicide bomber crashed his explosives-carrying Jeep SUV at St. Rita’s Catholic Church in Kaduna’s Malali neighborhood, killing seven and wounding more than one hundred. Boko Haram was suspected.

October 28, 2012—France—Police arrested two Basque Homeland and Liberty (ETA) members—Izaskun Lesaka, 37, responsible for its weapons and explosives caches, and Joseba Iturbide Ochoteco, 35—in a hotel in Macon in eastern France. Both were armed. Lesaka was considered one of ETA’s top three leaders. Police seized “abundant computer equipment and a stolen car with false number plates.”

October 29, 2012—Afghanistan—A man in an Afghan police uniform shot to death two NATO soldiers during a joint patrol in Girishk, Helmand Province. The attacker escaped. 12102901

October 31, 2012—Egypt—Authorities arrested a dozen jihadis, including a Tunisian and a Libyan suspected of al Qaeda links, planning to conduct terrorist operations inside Egypt and abroad. The terrorists had rented apartments and used false names. They belonged to Cairo cells in Nasser City, Sayyida Zeinab and Heliopolis, and an area on the Cairo-Alexandria desert road. Police seized arms, explosives, and rocket-propelled grenade launchers. Three of the terrorists were trying to sneak into Libya.

November 2012—Nigeria—The Ansaru faction of Boko Haram kidnapped a French engineer in the north near the Nigeria border, citing the French ban on Islamic veils and preparations for a military operation in Mali. 12119901

November 1, 2012—Northern Ireland—Irish Republican Army (IRA) terrorists were suspected in the death of a prison guard during a gun ambush as David Black, 52, drove to work on the M1 freeway southwest of Belfast. His car crashed down a grassy embankment into a ditch. The burned-out getaway car was found in Lurgan, a power base of two factions of the IRA—the Real IRA and Continuity IRA. The car had Dublin, Ireland, license plates. It was the first murder of a guard in two decades. No one claimed credit 12110101

November 2, 2012—Afghanistan—Rival police officers shot to death four Afghan colleagues in Helmand’s Grish District during a shift change by arriving officers.

November 2, 2012—Nigeria—Boko Haram was suspected of shooting to death a retired general at his Maiduguri home while he was sitting with guests during an afternoon visit.

November 3, 2012—Pakistan—A suicide bomber set off his explosives near a vehicle carrying Fateh Khan, head of a local anti–Taliban militia, killing him, three guards, and two passersby. Several others were wounded at a gas station in Buner District in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province. Khan was a leader of the Awami National Party.

November 3, 2012—Somalia—Two suicide bombers set off explosives at a Mogadishu restaurant when a security guard stopped them from entering the building. The attack killed one person and damaged cars.

November 4, 2012—Libya—A homemade bomb exploded under a police car in front of the central Hadayeq police station in Benghazi, injuring three police officers.

November 4, 2012—Kenya—Al-Shabaab was suspected in a grenade attack on a church service in a police camp in the north that wounded ten people.

November 5, 2012—Bahrain—A series of five bomb explosions killed two Asian men working as street cleaners, including a trash collector, and seriously injured a third Asian in Manama’s Qudaibiya and Adliya districts, an area popular with tourists and Westerners. 12110501-05

November 5, 2012—Saudi Arabia—Al Qaeda killed two Saudi border guards.

November 6, 2012—Iraq—A suicide car bomber killed thirty-three people and wounded fifty-six at an Iraqi military base during shift change in Taji. Among the dead were twenty-two soldiers, as were many of the wounded.

November 6, 2012—Internet—Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri said in a video posted on a jihadi Web site that Muslims should join al-Shabaab in fighting “crusader invaders” after Kenyan soldiers forced them out of their redoubts. He suggested guerrilla tactics and suicide bombings. “Show them the fire of jihad and its heat. Chase them with guerrilla warfare, ambushes, martyrdom…. With God’s grace, these people are to be defeated. They have been defeated in Iraq, they are withdrawing from Afghanistan, their ambassador was killed in Benghazi and their flags lowered in Cairo and Sana’a.” He observed that al-Shabaab was pushed out of Kismayo thanks to “clear, direct, and flagrant support from the Americans.” He believed that American “awe is lost and their might is gone and they don’t dare to carry out a new campaign like their past ones in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

November 7, 2012—Pakistan—A suicide bomber targeted the vehicle of a senior police officer outside a Peshawar police station in a crowded market, killing the officer, two other policemen, and two bystanders. Twenty people were injured. No one claimed credit.

November 7, 2012—Yemen—A drive-by gunman on a motorbike shot in the head and killed Mohammed El-Fil, a Yemeni intelligence officer. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula was suspected.

November 8, 2012—Pakistan—In a morning attack, a Taliban suicide truck bomber crashed into housing for the Rangers paramilitary force in Karachi, killing three security officers and injuring twenty.

November 8, 2012—Gaza Strip—Explosives hidden in a tunnel blew up near soldiers on the Gaza-Israel fence, injuring one soldier. The Hamas tunnel was the largest seen in years. An army spokeswoman said, “A kidnapping attempt is a possibility. Killing soldiers is a possibility.”

November 9, 2012—Poland—Internal Security Agency investigators arrested a 45-year-old Polish researcher employed at the University of Agriculture in Krakow for illegal possession of explosive materials, munitions, and guns. He was planning to set off a four-ton bomb in front of Warsaw’s parliament building when President Bronislaw Komorowski, Prime Minister Donald Tusk, government ministers, and 460 lower chamber legislators were inside. Police discovered the plot while looking into Polish links to Anders Breivik, the Norwegian right-wing terrorist. Police believed he had purchased bomb-making materials in Poland. The researcher had nationalistic, xenophobic, and anti–Semitic ideas, although he did not belong to a political group. He refused psychiatric testing. He was building bombs and had detonators. He was a chemist who conducted research at the university. He faced five years in prison. Two accomplices were arrested for illegal possession of weapons.

November 11, 2012—Afghanistan—A gunman wearing an Afghan Army uniform shot to death a British member of the coalition forces. Coalition forces returned fire, killing a member of the Afghan Army. 12111101

November 14, 2012—Gaza Strip—An Israeli air strike killed Ahmed al-Ja’abari, chief of the Ezzedin Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing. Israel and Palestinians exchanged rocket fire for several days. Israel called up sixteen thousand reservists while hundreds of rockets were aimed at Israeli territory, including Tel Aviv. Three Israelis—Yitzhak Amsalem, Mira Scharf, and Rabbi Aharon Smadja—were killed on November 15 when a rocket fired from the Gaza strip hit an apartment house in Kiryat Malachi.

November 14, 2012—Internet—Ayman al-Zawahiri issued a statement entitled Supporting Islam on the Internet, in which he called for the resumption of the caliphate and rejected the idea of nation states or the UN in dealing with conflict. Sharia should be supreme for Muslims who “refuse judgment by any other principles, beliefs, and laws.” The caliphate “does not recognize nation state, national links, or the borders imposed by the occupiers, but establishes a rightly guided caliphate following in the footsteps of the Prophet Mohammed…. These are the objectives of the Document of Supporting Islam, and we call on all those who believe in them to call for them, support them, and try to spread them in every way possible among the people of the nation.” Muslims should liberate occupied lands, including the British Mandate Palestine, Chechnya, Kashmir, Ceuta and Melilla, and East Turkestan.

November 16, 2012—Afghanistan—A roadside bomb went off under a minivan carrying thirty-one Afghans to a wedding party in Farah Province, killing seventeen people, including nine women and one child.

November 18, 2012—Pakistan—A roadside bomb went off against a fifteen-vehicle military convoy in the Mir Ali area 21 miles east of Miran Shah, killing two Pakistani soldiers and wounding seven.

November 18, 2012—Pakistan—A bomb exploded on a motorcycle outside a Shi’ite mosque in Karachi, killing two and injuring ten people celebrating the holy month of Muharram.

November 18, 2012—Kenya—A bomb exploded in a minibus in Nairobi’s predominantly Somali Eastleigh neighborhood, killing nine and damaging two cars. Al-Shabaab was suspected. Three people were detained. Rioters attacked Somalis in Nairobi and looted their homes.

November 19, 2012—Kenya—Al-Shabaab was suspected when gunmen shot to death three Kenyan Army soldiers in the north. They were part of an African Union force fighting al-Shabaab in Somalia. They were in the border town of Garissa on their way back to Somalia. Five soldiers had gone to a garage to change a flat tire when they were fired on by seven gunmen; two soldiers survived. Rioters attacked ethnic Somalis a day later; thirteen people were shot and hundreds of shops in Garissa were torched. 12111901

November 19, 2012—Pakistan—A female suicide bomber detonated her explosives near the convoy of Husain Ahmad, former leader of Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan, the country’s largest Islamist party. He was unharmed in the attack in Mohmand tribal region, but three of his aides were injured. No one claimed credit, but the Pakistani Taliban was suspected.

November 19, 2012—United States—Bashir Ahmad, 57, an Afghan immigrant who operates a Manhattan food cart and issues the morning call to prayer at a Kew Gardens mosque in Queens, was stabbed by a stranger. The attacker approached him from behind yelling anti–Muslim comments, bit his nose, threatened to kill him, and slashed him a dozen times with a knife. Police said the attacker was 35 to 45 years old, 6 feet tall, weighed 180 pounds, and had blue eyes. He was wearing a blue baseball cap, black jacket, and blue jeans. 12111902

November 19, 2012—Colombia—Ivan Marquez, spokesman for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, unilaterally declared a two-month cease-fire as his team started peace talks with the government, hosted in Havana. The government refused to reciprocate.

November 20, 2012—United States—Four men—Sohiel Omar Kabir, 34, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Afghanistan; Ralph Deleon, 23, a permanent U.S. resident from the Philippines; Miguel Alejandro Santana Vidriales, 21, a permanent U.S. resident from Mexico; and Arifeen David Gojali, 21, an American of Vietnamese descent living in Riverside, California—were charged with conspiracy to provide material support to al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan and wage war against Americans overseas by attacking U.S. bases.

Kabir converted and recruited Santana and Deleon to Islam in 2010, introducing them to the teachings of Anwar al-Aulaqi. The two converts then recruited Gojali in September 2012. They played paintball as part of their training. Kabir went to Afghanistan in July 2012 to set up training for the other three. Vidriales and Deleon told an FBI informant of their plans to fly from Mexico City to Istanbul en route to Afghanistan. Authorities arrested Santana, Gojali, and Deleon in Chino on November 15, a day after they booked their tickets. Kabir was captured by U.S. Special Forces in Kabul on November 17, 2012.

Kabir had lived in Pomona and served in the U.S. Air Force from 2000 to 2001. The plotters lived in Ontario, Upland, and Riverside, California. Deleon went to Ontario High School in 2006, playing on the football team and making the Homecoming Court.

Kabir returned to the United States for his first court appearance on December 4, 2012, and was represented by Deputy Federal Public Defender Jeffrey Aaron. He was charged with conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists. He was held without bond and scheduled for a December 11 court date. Deleon, Gojali, and Vidriales pleaded not guilty on December 5 to the same charge. They all faced fifteen years in prison.

November 20, 2012—Mali—Seven masked and turbaned gunmen kidnapped French citizen Gilberto Rodriguez Leal, 61, a retiree who was touring western Mali in a camper. He was chatting with youths in Diema when the gunmen grabbed him. Several days later, the terrorists released a video of him pleading for his release. 12112001

November 21, 2012—Israel—A man threw a bag of explosives into a bus as it passed army headquarters, injuring twenty-two people, three seriously. Hamas praised the attack.

November 21, 2012—Libya—Three gunmen assassinated Col. Farag al-Dersi, head of Benghazi police, in front of his home as he was returning from work. The trio fled.

November 21, 2012—Pakistan—A bomb went off near an army vehicle, killing three soldiers and two civilians in Quetta. Hours later, two bombs exploded outside a Shi’ite mosque in Karachi, killing one person.

November 21, 2012—Afghanistan—Two Taliban men set off their suicide vests near a U.S. base in Kabul’s Wazir Akbar Khan neighborhood after 8:00 a.m., killing two Afghan guards and injuring five civilians in what might have been intended as an attack against Camp Eggers.

November 22, 2012—Syria—Unknown gunmen kidnapped freelance U.S. war correspondent James Foley, 39, of Rochester, New Hampshire, in Taftanaz, Idlib Province, in northwestern Syria. He contributed several videos to Agence France Presse regarding the Syrian conflict. His family made public his plight on January 2, 2013. The name of another journalist taken with Foley was not released. No group claimed credit. 12112201

November 23, 2012—Afghanistan—A Taliban suicide bomber set off his explosives hidden in a water tanker truck, killing three Afghan civilians, including one woman, and wounding more than ninety people, including twenty prisoners, fifteen police officers, and several Afghan and NATO troops in a morning explosion in Maidan Shahr, capital of Wardak Province. The wounded including seventy-five men, eleven women, and four children; six NATO troops were injured. The bomb damaged several government offices and a jail. Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said the group was retaliating for the execution of four Taliban prisoners at the Kabul detention center. 12112301

November 23, 2012—Nigeria—A military task force offered $1.8 million for information leading to the arrest of Boko Haram leaders.

November 24, 2012—Pakistan—The Pakistani Taliban set off a 10-kilogram bomb in a garbage container in Dera Ismail Khan during a Shi’ite religious procession during the two-day Ashura holiday, killing seven people, including four children. Thirty people were injured, including five children and two police officers. The Houthi tribe in northern Yemen said four Yemenis were killed in the attack. 12112401

November 25, 2012—Pakistan—Yet another bomb went off near a Shi’ite Muslim procession in Dera Ismail, killing six and injuring more than ninety. The bomb went off inside a bicycle repair shop. The Pakistani Taliban claimed credit.

November 25, 2012—Nigeria—Two suicide car bombs went off at the St. Andrew Military Protestant Church in Jaji inside the barracks of the Armed Forces Command and Staff College, killing thirty and wounding another thirty. The second bomb went off ten minutes after noon, ten minutes after the first, targeting first responders. Boko Haram was suspected. A bus bomb rammed the church’s walls before exploding. A sedan parked nearby then went off.

November 26, 2012—Nigeria—Gunmen conducted a nighttime drive-by shooting on a road leading to the airport in Plateau State, killing ten people in a Christian town. The gunmen wore military uniforms.

November 26, 2012—Pakistan—A bomb was found under the car of Hamid Mir, a journalist who hosts a popular political talk show. The Pakistani Taliban was suspected. Mir had criticized the Taliban’s attempted assassination of 14-year-old Malala Yousafzai. The Taliban affiliate Tariq Geedar had earlier in the month threatened to kill Mir. A black box attached with magnets to the bottom of his car contained a half kilogram of plastic explosive and a landmine detonator.

November 27, 2012—Pakistan—Acting on a tip, police detained three boys, aged 12 to 14, who were to be trained as suicide bombers, along with their handler. The group was going from Karachi to Miranshah and was halted while boarding a bus in Norang town. They were from South Waziristan, but living in Karachi. The boys and handler, Yahya Mehsud, part of a gang that recruits young boys for suicide attacks, appeared before an antiterror court the next day.

November 27, 2012—Iraq—Car bombs in Shi’ite mosques in Baghdad killed thirty and wounded dozens. Car bombs went off at three mosques, killing twenty-one. The first bomb went off in the Hurriyah neighborhood, killing nine and wounding twenty. Another bomb went off near Gaereat mosque, killing five. A third bomb killed seven and wounded twenty-one in the Shula neighborhood in the north. Meanwhile, three car bombs went off in Kirkuk. One went off near the main Kurdish party headquarters, killing five, including a Kurdish security guard, and injuring fifty-eight. Minutes later, two bombs went off in a market in Hawija west of Kirkuk, killing two civilians and wounding five others. Bombs injured five Iraqi Army soldiers at their houses in nearby Tuz Khortmato.

November 28, 2012—Yemen—Saudi military attaché Sgt. Khalid al-Onizi and his Yemeni bodyguard were shot to death on a busy street in Sana’a. His 4-wheel-drive vehicle was blocked at noon by another vehicle. Gunmen jumped out and fired on his vehicle, hitting both men in the head. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula was suspected. 12112801

November 29, 2012—Iraq—Two car bombs killed 32 Shi’ite pilgrims and wounded 138 in Hilla. The second car bomb was aimed at first responders. Another car bomb exploded at the shrine of Imam Hussein in Karbala, killing six Shi’ites. Bombs in Falluja, Mosul, Baghdad, and Karbala killed another ten and wounded seventy.

November 29, 2012—United States—Authorities in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, arrested Sheheryar Alam Qazi, 30, and his brother, Raees Alam Qazi, 20, two naturalized U.S. citizens from Pakistan, for plotting to provide material support to terrorists and to use a weapon of mass destruction by providing money, property, housing, and communications equipment to conspirators. A bail hearing was set for December 7.

December 2012—Algeria—The Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat posted an Internet video of its bomb attack on a bus transporting Algerian oil workers.

December 2, 2012—Nigeria—Ten people died when gunmen attacked a church in Chibok, Borno State. Boko Haram was suspected. Gunmen also torched government buildings in Gamboru village.

December 3, 2012—Pakistan—Two police officers died when a bomb exploded outside a police van on patrol in Peshawar.

December 4, 2012—Somalia—Al-Shabaab attacked an army outpost in the Galgala Mountains in Puntland, killing a dozen soldiers.

December 5, 2012—Pakistan—Two suicide bombers set off their truck bomb at the gate of an army camp in Wana, South Waziristan, killing three soldiers and wounding twenty. Soldiers had unsuccessfully fired an RPG at the truck. The Ahmadzai Wazir tribe was suspected.

December 5, 2012—Kenya—A remotely-detonated bomb exploded during the evening rush hour in Eastleigh, a rundown Somali neighborhood in Nairobi, wounding nine people, three critically. Al-Shabaab was suspected. 12120501

December 5, 2012—Afghanistan—The Taliban kidnapped American doctor Dilip Joseph of Colorado Springs, Colorado, and two of his Afghan colleagues while driving to a rural medical clinic in the Sarobi district of Kabul Province. Dr. Joseph worked for the U.S. nonprofit Morning Star Development. Following two days of negotiations, the kidnappers released the Afghan hostages. Dr. Joseph was held 50 miles from the border with Pakistan. The Taliban was believed to have demanded a $100,000 ransom. U.S. forces rescued him in a helicopter raid in Sarobi on December 9 after intelligence showed he was in “imminent danger of injury or death,” according to U.S. Gen. John R. Allen. On December 9, President Obama announced that Nicolas D. Checque, 28, of Pennsylvania, a member of the U.S. Special Forces SEAL 6 team, was killed in the hostage rescue. Seven Taliban armed with machine guns and AK-47s were killed. Two Taliban leaders were arrested. 12120502

December 6, 2012—Syria—A car bomb exploded in Damascus’s southern Zahraa district, killing one person and damaging the headquarters of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent relief organization. Observers believed the target was Prime Minister Wael al-Halki; the bomb killed his driver outside the latter’s home.

December 6, 2012—Lebanon—Snipers killed two men in Tripoli in a battle between pro– and anti–Syrian gunmen. During the past three days, eight people died and fifty-eight were wounded in the gunfights.

December 6, 2012—Afghanistan—A suicide bomber posing as a Taliban peace negotiator seriously injured Asadullah Khan Khalid, 43, head of the National Directorate of Security intelligence organization, inside one of the organizations guesthouses in Kabul’s Taimani neighborhood. Khalid underwent emergency surgery on the lower part of his body. One of his bodyguards died in the 3:00 p.m. bombing. The bomber had hidden explosives in his underwear. Khalid had served as governor of Kandahar and Ghazni provinces and minister of Tribal and Border Affairs. Afghan President Hamid Karzai claimed that the bomber came from Pakistan, where the plot had been “designed” as a “very sophisticated and complicated act by a professional intelligence service.” He said the Taliban could not have organized such a sophisticated attack alone.

December 7, 2012—Pakistan—CNN reported that a Predator drone strike killed Sheikh Khalid Bin Abdul Rehman Al-Hussainan, aka Abu-Zaid al-Kuwaiti, 46, who was eating breakfast. He was seen as a possible successor to al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. He had written several books on religious topics and had trained al Qaeda operatives in religion.

December 7, 2012—Kenya—A bomb went off in Eastleigh, a Somali district in Nairobi, killing three and wounding eight, including parliamentarian Yusuf Hassan. Al-Shabaab was blamed.

December 7, 2012—Corsica—At least seventeen houses were bombed and a man was shot to death. Authorities suggested separatist terrorists or criminal gangs were responsible.

December 10, 2012—Pakistan—Taliban attackers using a rocket, hand grenades, and automatic weapons killed six people—three police officers and three civilians—at a police station in Bannu during an hour-long gun battle. The civilians were coming out of a neighboring mosque. Another eight people—three police officers and five civilians—were injured. Three terrorists were killed; another escaped.

December 11, 2012—Yemen—Suspected masked al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula gunmen riding a motorcycle shot to death Col. Ahmed Barmadah, deputy head of the Political Security Office, as he left his house in Mukalla in Hadramut Province.

December 11, 2012—United States—The FBI arrested one U.S. citizen at a bus station in Augusta, Georgia, and one U.S. citizen at Atlanta’s airport on charges that they were leaving the United States for North Africa “intending to prepare to wage violent jihad.” Mohammad Abdul Rahman Abukhadair and Randy Wilson, alias Rasheed Wilson, both 25, were charged with conspiracy to “kill persons or damage property outside the United States.” They had run a men’s fragrance store in Mobile, Alabama. The criminal complaint said the duo exchanged e-mails two years earlier, then told an FBI source that they planned to use fake passports to join terrorists in Mauritania or Morocco. Abukhdair suggested buying firearms and taking hostages in the United States. He allegedly told Wilson and the source that “jihad means people are going to die. This is what jihad is. This is what war is.” Wilson added, “One way or the other, everyone’s gonna have to fight … Jihad is the pinnacle of Islam. There’s no dead better than jihad.”

Born in Mobile, Wilson and his wife have two small children. He was a former roommate of Omar Hammami, who had joined al-Shabaab. Abukhdair, from Syracuse, New York, was single. He had been jailed in Egypt for terrorist ties. He was deported to the United States. He moved to Mobile in October 2011. The duo watched videos of guerrilla tactics, bombings, beheadings, and mutilations of women and children. They spoke in codes, such Nevada for Nigeria, San Francisco for Sudan, and San Diego for Somalia.

December 10, 2012—United States—The State Department blacklisted the jihadist Jabhat al-Nusrah in Syria as a foreign terrorist organization linked to al Qaeda in Iraq. The U.S. Department of the Treasury imposed sanctions on its leaders. The Federal Register indicated that the name was an alias of al Qaeda in Iraq.

December 12, 2012—Syria—An NBC News team led by Richard Engel, 39, chief foreign correspondent, was ambushed, forced out of their car and into a container truck, blindfolded, and held for five days by fifteen masked members of an unknown group. Also on the team was NBC producer Ghazi Balkiz, cameraman John Kooistra, and Aziz Akyavas, a Turkish reporter working with NBC. One of their rebel escorts was immediately killed during the ambush. The hostages were moved to several safe houses. They were freed on December 17 at 11:00 p.m. during a firefight at an Ahrar al-Sham Islamist rebel checkpoint. Two kidnappers were killed; the rest escaped. NBC said no ransom was demanded, and no contact had been made with the kidnappers. News services had kept the kidnapping under wraps to avoid endangering the hostages.

Engel said he believed the kidnappers were pro–Assad Shabiha militia members trained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and allied with Hizballah. “They were talking openly about their loyalty to the government, openly expressing their Shi’ite faith.” The team returned unharmed to Turkey. Engel noted, “There was a lot of psychological torture, threats of being killed. They made us choose which one of us would be shot first and when we refused, there were mock shootings. They pretended to shoot Ghazi several times. When you’re blindfolded and then they fire the gun up in the air, it can be a very traumatic experience.” He said the kidnappers wanted the release of four Iranians and two Lebanese from a Shi’ite political party who were held by rebels. On December 19, Ian Rivers, part of the kidnapped team who became separated from the other hostages during the escape, reached safety in Turkey. 12121201

December 13, 2012—Afghanistan—At 5:00 p.m., a suicide car bomber attacked an armored military vehicle outside Kandahar Airfield, killing an American and two Afghan civilians and wounding several other people. U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta had been at the base a few hours earlier.

December 14, 2012—Philippines—Mohd Noor Fikrie Bin Abd Kahar, a suspected 26-year-old Malaysian terrorist planning a bomb attack, was shot to death by Philippine police outside a Davao hotel. He and his Filipino wife, Annabel Nieva Lee, a Muslim convert, were checking out. He tried to grab her backpack, which contained a bomb. He threatened to set off the bomb, saying, “You want the bomb? You want the bomb? Shoot me! Shoot me! I will explode the bomb!” The couple ran outside, and he grabbed the backpack and ran toward a park where there were people partying. Police arrested her. Guards locked the park gate. Kahar ran into a packed restaurant but was shot twice in the chest. Other officers shot and killed him. Police defused the bomb, which was fashioned from a mortar shell. Kahar’s passport indicated he had left Malaysia via Sabah on April 27, arriving in the Philippines on April 28. He had stayed in southern Zamboanga City, moved to Cotabato City, then went to Davao on December 14. 12121401

December 15, 2012—Pakistan—At 8:30 p.m., Pakistani Taliban gunmen fired five rocket-propelled grenades at Peshawar’s Bacha Khan International Airport, killing nine people. Two of the rockets landed in a nearby neighborhood. The terrorists failed to drive a car bomb into the airport. The vehicle hit the airport’s outer wall and exploded, killing five terrorists and four civilians and wounding more than forty people. Police removed and defused suicide jackets found on the terrorist corpses. The next day, police raided a residence that the terrorists had taken over, taking the homeowner hostage. The terrorists set off their explosives, killing two terrorists, while three other terrorists died in the gun battle with the police. One police officer died in the skirmish. Pakistani Taliban spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan said the terrorists were targeting the nearby air base. “We have planned more attacks on Pakistani forces and its installations as it works to please the USA.” Several of the attackers were Uzbeks, suggesting an al Qaeda link. 12121501

December 16, 2012—Libya—Gunmen fired rocket-propelled grenades on a security compound in Benghazi, killing four policemen. Police said the gunmen had planned to break into a detention center holding a man involved in the November 21 assassination of Col. Farag el-Dersi, National Security chief.

December 17, 2012—Syria—Gunmen kidnapped two Russian steel plant workers and an Italian colleague and demanded more than $700,000. 12121701

December 17, 2012—Afghanistan—A landmine exploded as several girls, aged 9 to13, were gathering wood outside Dawlatzai village in Nangarhar Province’s Chaperhar District. Ten girls died; another two were in critical condition at a local hospital. A boy was also injured. A police spokesman said the device went off when the children hit it with an axe and that it probably dated from the civil war or from the Soviet occupation.

December 17, 2012—Afghanistan—A Taliban suicide bomber set off a car bomb at the compound of McLean, Virginia-based Contrack International, a private military contractor in the Kabul suburbs, killing one person and injuring fifteen, including foreigners, among them five American and South African citizens. The construction maintenance company provides logistics services for the Afghan Army, police, and NATO coalition bases. Among the injured was Roheen Fedai, 19, a member of the company’s call center, who was hit in the hand and eye. The bomb destroyed a two-story office. A director of the firm was wounded. 12121702

December 17, 2012—Pakistan—Gunmen shot to death Khadim Hussain Noori, provincial spokesman and Shi’ite Muslim, in Quetta. The motorcycle-riding gunmen then shot to death two policemen and wounded a third.

December 17, 2012—Pakistan—A car bomb loaded with 90 pounds of explosives was remotely detonated near government offices in Jamrud, the Khyber tribal agency, killing seventeen people, including four Afghan women and three children, and hospitalizing forty-four, who had been near the women’s waiting area of a bus stop. No one claimed credit. It was unclear whether the attackers were targeting the government or the anti–Taliban Zakakhel subtribe. 12121703

December 17, 2012—Nigeria—Gunmen kidnapped four South Korean workers and their Nigerian colleague in the Niger Delta. They were freed on December 22 after Hyundai Heavy Industries Company paid $187,000 to the kidnappers. 12121704

December 18, 2012—Pakistan—Gunmen on motorcycles shot to death five female health workers providing polio immunizations to children in Karachi. Three victims were teens. Two male health workers were wounded. Gunmen fired on two sisters providing vaccinations in Peshawar; one died. The next day, a male health worker was shot in Peshawar, and a female health supervisor and her driver in Charsadda were shot dead in a car. The government suspended vaccinations in two cities. A local doctor, Shakil Afridi, who was involved with a vaccination program, had visited Osama bin Laden’s compound before the U.S. raid in May 2011, leading local terrorists to suspect all vaccination programs. After three days of attacks, eight workers had died and the World Health Organization and UNICEF had suspended anti-polio work in Pakistan. The Pakistani Taliban in Mohmand was suspected, although spokesman Ahsanullah Ahsan denied involvement. Police shot two suspects and arrested a dozen people in connection with the attacks.

December 19, 2012—Nigeria—Up to thirty gunmen were believed involved in the nighttime kidnapping in Rimi of a French engineer working for Bergnet, a French renewable-energy contractor. The gunmen killed a guard and another man at the victim’s home. Members of al Qaeda in the Arabaian Peninsula or another Islamist group in northern Mali were blamed. 12121901

December 20, 2012—Libya—Terrorists fired rocket-propelled grenades and threw hand grenades at the security directorate headquarters in Benghazi during the night, killing four people, including a national guard soldier, a police officer, and two militia members. Police said it was another attempt to free suspects in the November 21 assassination of Col. Farag el-Dersi, National Security chief. The detainees included Salah al-Hami, a member of an Islamist clan and a suspect in the killings of former Qadhafi regime officials. He is the brother of Mohamed al-Hami, former leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, who, along with two other brothers and an uncle, was killed by Qadhafi’s security services.

December 20, 2012—Iraq—Iraqi Finance Minister Rafia al-Issawi said a “militia” force had kidnapped members of his staff. He called for a no-confidence vote against Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who he held responsible for the hostages’ safety.

December 21, 2012—Kenya—Pokomo farmers wielding AK-47s raided a village of Orma herders in the Tana River Delta. At least thirty-nine people died in the attack, including thirteen children, six women, eleven men, and nine terrorists. The Pokomo tribesmen torched forty-five houses.

December 21, 2012—South Sudan—A UN helicopter was shot down while conducting reconnaissance in Jonglei State. All four Russian crew members were killed. The UN blamed the government, which in turn blamed rebel fighters.

December 21, 2012—Yemen—Tribesmen in Sana’a kidnapped a Finnish couple and an Austrian man who were studying Arabic. The Finnish woman was grabbed from a busy street. The hostages were sold to al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), who demanded a ransom and was holding them in al-Bayda Province as of January 15, 2013. Hundreds of AQAP terrorists flowed into the south to bolster the kidnappers after negotiations broke down. Some four thousand Yemeni troops conducted a ground assault. 12122101

December 22, 2012—Pakistan—A suicide bomber set off his explosives at a political rally for the Awami National Party, which opposes the Taliban, killing nine people, including Bashir Bilour, second-ranking member of the provincial cabinet.

December 22, 2012—Nigeria—Boko Haram was suspected when two suicide bombers attacked two mobile phone switching stations of the South Africa–based MTN Group, Ltd., and Bharti Airtel, Ltd., of India at 8:00 a.m. in Kano. The Airtel bomber crashed his car bomb into the gate, injuring a staffer. A security guard shot the MTN bomber before he could pass the gate and get onto the premises. The stations control Kano’s mobile phone network. 12122201-02

December 24, 2012—Afghanistan—An Afghan policewoman shot to death Joseph Griffin, 49, of Mansfield, Georgia, an American civilian member of the International Security Assistance Forces who served as a logistics adviser to the Kabul police. She shot him in the heart in the office of a local police chief as he looked at a case full of decorative medals. The shooter, Sgt. Nargis, 33, one of 1,850 female police officers trained in Afghanistan since 2002, was arrested and faced prosecution in an Afghan court. Griffin worked for DynCorp International of Falls Church, Virginia, since November 2000. It appeared to have been the first insider attack by a woman. A senior Afghan official later said Nargis was an Iranian who had infiltrated the Afghan National Police. She married an Afghan refugee in Tehran a decade before moving to Afghanistan with him. They had three children. He helped her obtain Afghan documents. Afghan officials showed a press conference her Iranian passport. She had returned from a monthly police training program in Egypt less than a month earlier. She had gone AWOL for two days in Egypt. She told police that she wanted to kill someone “important.” She initially tried to get access to the offices of the Kabul governor’s office and the Kabul police chief’s office but after being turned away, settled for Griffin, who had just bought an Afghan flag at a police canteen. 12122401

December 25, 2012—Nigeria—Boko Haram was suspected when gunmen fired on a church in a village west of Potiskum, Yobe State, killing five people and wounding four others.

December 26, 2012—United Arab Emirates—The government announced the arrest of U.A.E. and Saudi citizens planning attacks in the two countries and other states. Authorities confiscated equipment to be used in al-Islah terrorist operations.

December 26, 2012—Russia—Gunmen shot to death Islamic cleric Ibragim Dudarov, 34, North Ossetia’s deputy mufti, as he was driving near Vladikavkaz.

December 27, 2012—Pakistan—At least twenty-three police officers were kidnapped when the Pakistan Taliban attacked two police posts in Frontier Region Peshawar with rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons, killing two police officers. Some twenty-one officers were found shot to death in the Jabai area of Frontier Region Peshawar on December 30, after one officer escaped. Another officer was found seriously wounded. The police were lined up on a cricket pitch on December 29 and gunned down.

December 28, 2012—Yemen—Al Qaeda-linked tribesmen were believed responsible for an attack on an oil pipeline in Marib Province, hours after it had been repaired.

December 29, 2012—Nigeria—Boko Haram was suspected of attacking Musari village near Maiduguri during the morning, lining up men, women, and children, then slitting their throats. At least fifteen people were killed.

December 29, 2012—Pakistan—An explosion went off on a passenger bus at a Karachi bus terminal, killed six and wounding fifty-two. Police suspected a bomb or gas canister.

December 30, 2012—Pakistan—The Taliban was suspected when a car bomb went off near a convoy of buses taking Shi’ite pilgrims to Iran, killing nineteen and wounding thirty in the Mastung district in the southwest of the country. The explosion destroyed the bus and damaged another that was carrying Shi’ites. It was unclear whether it was a suicide bomb or a remotely-detonated device.

December 30, 2012—Northern Ireland—An Irish Republican Army splinter group placed a booby-trapped bomb under the car of a Northern Irish policeman. The officer found the bomb near the Northern Irish parliament in east Belfast, just before he was going out to lunch with his family.

December 30, 2012—Libya—A bomb went off at an Egyptian Coptic church in Misrata, killing two Egyptian citizens working at the church in preparation for New Year’s Eve Mass and wounding two other people. 12123001

December 31, 2012—Yemen—Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) offered 3 kilograms (more than 105 ounces, worth $160,000) of gold for the killing of U.S. Ambassador to Yemen Gerald Feierstein and 5 million Yemeni rials ($23,350) to anyone who kills any American soldier in Yemen. The offer was good for six months to “encourage our Muslim Ummah [nation], and to expand the circle of the jihad by the masses.” The audio recording, posted on the Internet, was made by AQAP’s Malahem Foundation media group.

December 31, 2012—Colombia—The police said the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia was behind a grenade attack that injured four civilians and two police officers at a police station in Guapi village.