AL-QAEDA

Since the departure of U.S. troops in December after almost nine years of war, such attacks have escalated.

Seven people were killed in Afghanistan on Wednesday during protests over the burning of the Koran at a NATO base near Kabul.

Somalia is not the only country known for inflicting such horror on children. During a period of intensified Palestinian–Israeli violence that started in 2000, gunmen surrounded themselves with children while shooting on Israeli forces. Various other reports have also suggested that the Taliban used women and children from their own communities as human shields against coalition forces around the year 2006.

Several people were wounded on Wednesday, witnesses said, when shots were fired as hundreds of angry Afghans gathered in a second day of violent clashes after copies of the Koran, Islam's holy book, were burned at NATO's main base in Afghanistan.

Some of these youths, who have been abducted from their homes and schools, have been subjected to rape and forced marriage.

Yemen is holding an election to rubber-stamp Vice-President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi as the new leader, after three-decade ruler Ali Abdullah Saleh stood down under a deal brokered by Gulf nations and left for the United States in January.

Yemeni's former president Ali Abdullah Saleh is calling on his countrymen to take part in presidential elections on Tuesday.

Three other masterminds of the Bali bombings, Imam Samudra, Amrozi bin Nurhasyim and Ali Ghufron, were executed in 2008.

A suicide car bomber killed 19 Iraqi police officers and cadets Sunday in an attack on a crowd outside a Baghdad police academy, police and hospital sources said.

Amnesty International describes the situation in northern Mali as the country’s worst crisis in two decades.

In an interesting turn of events, will the entry of al-Qaeda comically twist the balance as it will be naturally pitted against the Hezbollah, the feared Shia militia actively supported and patronized by Iran? Assad's promise of a regional conflict could come true then!

The Underwear Bomber, Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, was sentenced to life in prison without parole by a federal court in Detroit on Thursday afternoon.

Tareq al Dahab, brother-in-law of slain U.S.-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, was killed along with five bodyguards by his brother Hizam - who was himself later killed in a revenge attack.

In 2006, a Sudanese woman who had been held captive by bin Laden as a sex slave wrote of the terrorist mastermind's obsession with Whitney Houston.

Moreover, it’s not clear exactly when and how he died.

A top military official is seeking more freedom for the Special Operations forces that are playing an increasingly prominent role in America's military strategy, according to The New York Times.

By indicting Pakistan's embattled prime minister for contempt of court on Monday, the Supreme Court may have cemented its role as a political player alongside the military and the civilian government, complicating an already Byzantine political scene.

Al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri, in an online video recording posted on Sunday, urged Syrians not to rely on the West or Arab governments in their revolt to topple President Bashar al-Assad.

On Friday, Mohammed Wali Zazi, 56, and a U.S. citizen from Afghanistan, was sentenced to 4 1/2 years in prison for destroying evidence and lying to investigators to cover up his son’s bomb plot. The father was originally supposed to face up to 40 years in jail. According to the Huffington Post, Mohammed Wali Zazi’s attorneys argued that Zazi was only trying to protect his family, and that he had no idea what his son had planned.

The crisis means nearly 12 million more people require assistance.

Americans overwhelmingly support President Barack Obama's foreign policy on issues ranging from drone warfare to Afghanistan, according to a new Washington Post/ABC News poll.