Islamist Militant | featured news

French President Francois Hollande's approval rating jumped this month from a record low, improving for the first time since he took office after sending troops to Mali to battle Islamist rebels.

French-backed Malian troops searched house-to-house in Gao and Timbuktu on Tuesday uncovering arms and explosives abandoned by Islamist fighters, and France said it would look to hand over longer-term security operations in Mali to an African force.

International backing for French forces battling Islamist militants in Mali gathered momentum Tuesday, as U.S. military aircraft flew French troops and supplies into the African nation and Italy's lawmakers voted to lend support.

Algerian special forces stormed a natural gas complex in the middle of the Sahara desert on Saturday in a "final assault" that ended a four-day-old hostage crisis, according to the state news agency and two foreign governments. At least 19 hostages and 29 Islamist militants have been killed.

Within the past few days, French combat forces have deployed to the West African state of Mali to halt the advance of militant Islamist fighters toward the capital and to help the Malian army begin to reclaim towns previously occupied by the militants.

Security officials frequently talk of Mali as being “the new Afghanistan.” They fear that deep inside the country’s northern desert, al-Qaida has carved out a new home -- not only a safe haven for terrorists, but a training ground for a new generation of Islamist militants.

Yemen's Defense Ministry said the military had killed 21 al Qaeda "terrorists" on Saturday in the southern Abyan province, whose capital, Zinjibar was seized by Islamist militants last month.

Suspected Islamist militants attacked two mosques packed with hundreds of worshippers from a minority sect in eastern Pakistan on Friday, holding hostages and battling police, officials and witnesses said. More than 70 people died, and dozens were wounded....

The 17-year-old widow of an Islamist militant from the North Caucasus is suspected of blowing herself up in suicide attacks that killed 40 people on the Moscow metro, a Russian law enforcement official said.