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/ 16 September 2007
United States President George Bush on Sunday faced a new clash with congressional Democrats over the unpopular war in Iraq as Senate Democrats reportedly reached a deal that would allow soldiers to spend more time at home. ”If we were to be driven out of Iraq, extremists of all strains would be emboldened,” Bush said on Saturday.
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/ 15 September 2007
The head of an al-Qaeda-led group in Iraq offered  000 for the killing of Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks over his drawing depicting the Prophet Muhammad. ”From now on we announce the call to shed the blood of the Lars who dared to insult our Prophet,” said Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, leader of the self-styled Islamic State in Iraq, in an audiotape posted on a website on Saturday.
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/ 14 September 2007
At least 15 Pakistani soldiers were killed on Thursday in a suicide bombing at an army building near the capital Islamabad, the military said, the second major attack on the army this month. The blast occurred in the canteen of the building used by the army’s elite Special Services Group in the town of Tarbela Ghazi.
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/ 14 September 2007
A Sunni Arab tribal leader instrumental in driving al-Qaeda out of Iraq’s Anbar province was killed by a bomb on Thursday, hours before United States President George Bush endorsed limited US troop cuts in Iraq. Abdul Sattar Abu Risha died in an attack on his car near his home in Ramadi, capital of Anbar.
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/ 14 September 2007
United States President George Bush on Thursday ordered gradual troop reductions in Iraq but defied calls for a dramatic change of course, telling war-weary Americans the US military role there will stretch beyond his presidency. Bush acknowledged Americans’ frustration with the war but insisted progress was being made.
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/ 14 September 2007
United States President George Bush on Thursday night called on Americans to support an ”enduring relationship” with Iraq, in a speech delivered hours after a key Sunni tribal ally, portrayed as symbolic of a potential turnaround for the US in the war, was killed by a roadside bomb.
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/ 13 September 2007
Dotted throughout the world are ”ungoverned territories” outside the control of the states in which they lie and which provide havens for extremists, according to a United States military-financed study by the Rand Corporation think tank. ”The world is full of safe havens for potential terrorists,” Angel Rabasa, director of the study, said this week.
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/ 13 September 2007
Al-Qaeda has revived, extended its influence, and has the capacity to carry out a spectacular strike similar to the September 11 attacks on the United States, one of the world’s leading security think tanks warned on Wednesday. There is increasing evidence ”that ‘core’ al-Qaeda is proving adaptable and resilient, and has retained an ability to plan and coordinate large-scale attacks.
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/ 12 September 2007
Pakistani helicopter gunships and artillery pounded pro-Taliban militant hide-outs in a tribal region near the Afghan border, killing up to 40 insurgents, the army said on Wednesday. Hours earlier, dozens of Islamist fighters attacked a check post and kidnapped 12 troops a few kilometres away in the country’s north-west.
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/ 12 September 2007
Somali Islamist leader Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys dismissed United States terrorism allegations against him and instead blamed Washington for instability in the Horn of Africa, in an interview published on Wednesday. ”The US cannot present any concrete evidence for its unfounded accusations,” Aweys said.
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/ 12 September 2007
Americans stood in silence to remember the nearly 3 000 people killed in the September 11 attacks on Tuesday as Osama bin Laden resurfaced to praise the suicide hijackers who carried them out six years ago to the day. New Yorkers observed silent moments at the very times jets crashed into the World Trade Centre towers and when each tower collapsed.
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/ 11 September 2007
Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden praised as a ”champion” one of the September 11 hijackers in a new video released on Tuesday, the sixth anniversary of the devastating attacks on the United States. He also called on Muslim youths to join a ”caravan” of martyrs, in the second al-Qaeda video in just five days featuring the Western world’s most wanted man.
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/ 11 September 2007
Turkish police foiled a bomb attack in the capital, Ankara, on Tuesday, the sixth anniversary of the 9/11 al-Qaeda attacks on the United States. Ankara’s governor Kemal Onal said police had found a van packed with explosives near a multi-storey carpark in a central district of the city of four million.
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/ 10 September 2007
The top United States commander in Iraq on Monday said the number of US troops in Iraq could be cut by next summer to roughly 130 000, its level before this year’s ”surge” of 30 000 forces. General David Petraeus also strongly endorsed US President George Bush’s decision to add forces this year.
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/ 10 September 2007
At least 26 people, many of them civilians, were killed on Monday in two simultaneous suicide attacks in Afghanistan’s southern province of Helmand, a provincial police official said. About 45 people were also wounded in the twin blasts that targeted a group of police in a shopping area of the Girishk district of the province.
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/ 10 September 2007
Iraq’s embattled Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki gave an upbeat assessment of the situation in his country on Monday, saying civil war had been prevented and boasting that violence had dropped 75% in the restive provinces of Baghdad and Anbar.
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/ 10 September 2007
The terrorist who on Saturday apparently helped drive a truck loaded with explosives into a marine barracks in the eastern Algerian city of Dellys and detonate it, killing 30 people and injuring 47, was only 15 years old, the daily El Watan reported on Monday.
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/ 9 September 2007
Iraq’s Shi’ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said on Sunday his government had made progress on all fronts and urged neighbouring countries to work together to stop what he called ”evil” from destabilising the region. Senior Democrats in the United States have slammed Maliki’s performance, with some even calling for his replacement.
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/ 9 September 2007
Al-Qaeda’s north Africa wing said it was behind two suicide attacks that killed at least 57 people in Algeria in the past two days, according to a statement posted on the internet on Saturday. It said the al-Qaeda Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb was behind Saturday’s suicide truck bombing at a coast guard barracks east of Algiers and an attack in the town of Batna less than 48 hours earlier.
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/ 9 September 2007
A car bomb has killed at least 28 coast guard officers in Algeria just days after a blast ripped through a crowd waiting for the president. The bombings are being seen as a show of strength by the country’s main extremist group, which has gained force after linking up with al-Qaeda. Interior Minister Noureddine Yazid Zerhouni warned terrorists that they have ”one choice: turn themselves in or die”.
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/ 8 September 2007
General David Petraeus, the commander of United States forces in Iraq, admitted on Friday that sending 30 000 more troops into the war zone in January had failed to yield the desired results. ”It has not worked out as we had hoped,” the general said.
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/ 8 September 2007
Osama bin Laden said in a new video marking the sixth anniversary of al-Qaeda’s September 11 attacks that the United States was vulnerable despite its military and economic power, but he made no specific threats. The al-Qaeda leader said US President George Bush was repeating the mistakes of the former Soviet Union by refusing to acknowledge losses in Iraq.
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/ 7 September 2007
An Islamist website said on Friday it would soon show a new video of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden to mark the sixth anniversary of the September 11 attacks on United States cities. The website published a still photograph apparently from the video, which showed bin Laden appearing older compared with available pictures.
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/ 6 September 2007
United States combat helicopters and tanks bombarded a Baghdad neighbourhood in pre-dawn strikes on Thursday, killing 14 sleeping civilians and destroying houses, angry residents and Iraqi officials said. The US military said the operation was aimed at Shi’ite extremists and the houses destroyed were ”enemy strongholds”.
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/ 5 September 2007
Germany said on Wednesday it had foiled a ”massive” attack with the arrest of three Islamic extremists who were targeting airports, as well as bars and discotheques used by Americans. ”They were planning massive attacks,” Federal Prosecutor Monika Harms said.
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/ 4 September 2007
Somali opposition leaders, including several senior Islamists, are to meet in Eritrea from Thursday to try to unite against the Ethiopian-backed government at talks intended to a rival a Mogadishu peace conference. Many Somali dissidents have already made their home in Eritrea, which has been accused by the United States and United Nations of sending arms to insurgents.
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/ 4 September 2007
United States President George Bush paid a surprise visit to a US military base in Iraq on Monday, in a piece of stagecraft intended to bolster support in Congress for the administration’s war strategy, only days before a crucial report on the success of the American troop ”surge”.
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/ 3 September 2007
United States President George Bush made a surprise visit to Iraq on Monday, just a week before his top officials in Baghdad present pivotal testimony to Congress that could influence future policy on the war. The White House said Bush had arrived at the al-Asad Air Force base, west of Baghdad in Anbar province.
The Iraqi government has called on armed groups to follow the lead of the biggest Shi’ite militia and freeze their operations, even as the United States military on Friday reported the deaths of two more American service members in fighting against Sunni insurgents.
Exiled opposition leader Nawaz Sharif upped the stakes in Pakistan’s turbulent power struggle on Thursday by vowing to return home in two weeks to challenge the President, Pervez Musharraf, despite threats of arrest. ”This man Musharraf is on his way out … We will be launching a movement against Mr Musharraf and his government,” Sharif told reporters in London.
A wanted Taliban insurgent leader in Afghanistan, Mullah Brother, was killed on Thursday in a United States-led raid in the southern province of Helmand, the Afghan Defence Ministry said, citing ground commanders. Brother served as a top military commander for the Taliban government until its removal from power in 2001.
Iraq’s radical Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr on Wednesday ordered his Mehdi Army militia to suspend its activities for six months in a bid to reorganise the militant group. ”I direct the Mehdi Army to suspend all its activities for six months until it is restructured in a way that helps honour the principles for which it is formed,” Sadr said in a statement.