Abu Sayyaf

Abu Sayyaf is a terrorist bandit group operating in the southern Philippines. Members of the group typically engage in bombings, kidnappings, assassinations and extortions. These operations have been lucrative, allowing leaders to offer recruits high bounties and modern weapons. The group operates with the ideological underpinnings of extremist Islam and hopes to establish an independent Muslim state in the southern Philippines....  More>>>

Al Muhajiroun

Al Muhajiroun (ALM) is a radical political Islamist party based in the UK that is led by its charismatic founder, Sheik Omar Bakri Mohammed. Bakri, who has ties to many terrorist group leaders including Osama bin Laden, advocates violence against Western regimes and Westerninfluenced regimes. ALM’s aims go beyond the establishment of an Islamic state in the Pan- Arabic Peninsula they seek to establish Islamic law (Sha’ria) wherever Muslims are present, including in Britain and the United States...  More>>>

Ansar al-Islam

Ansar al-Islam (Supporters of Islam) is a radical Islamist organization composed of Iraqi Kurds and Arabs who have vowed to establish an independent Islamist state in Iraq. Formed in December 2001 out of a conglomeration of Kurdish Islamist groups, it is closely allied with and receives both ideological and strategic inspiration from al Qaeda. A number of Ansar members trained at al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan, and the group provided safe haven to al Qaeda and affiliated terrorist groups until its operations were disrupted during Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF). Since the compromise of its stronghold, many of the organization's leaders have managed to escape into Iranian Kurdistan (Kordestan), from where they have been planning anti-Coalition attacks...  More>>>

GSPC

The Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, known by its French acronym— GSPC—
is the most sophisticated and deadly jihadist group in Algeria. It maintains ties to the Al
Qaeda network and has declared war on Algeria’s secular authorities and the West.Its
principal aims are to establish an Islamic state in Algeria and attack Western targets, such as companies and people throughout North Africa....  More>>>

Groupe Islamique Arme

Groupe Islamique Arme (GIA) is an Islamist terrorist group dedicated to overthrowing the Algerian government and replacing it with an Islamist state. The group came to prominence in 1992 after the Algerian government voided the December 1991 victory of the Islamist Front Islamique du Salut (FIS) party in the first round of legislative elections. Since its inception, the GIA has waged one of the bloodiest post-Cold War insurgencies. It has attacked the Algerian government, as well as France, a key ally of the Algerian government, and massacred entire villages in pursuit of its revolutionary agenda. While the GIA has received support from Iran, Sudan, and al Qaeda, its penchant for mass casualty attacks is believed to have largely alienated it from its foreign backers, particularly since the 1998 formation of the less radical Groupe Salafiste pour la Predication et le Combat (GSPC).  More>>>

Harakat ul-Mujahedin

The Pakistani organization Harakat ul-Mujahedin (“Movement of Holy Warriors,” or HUM)
began during the Soviet-Afghan War as means of recruiting and training volunteers for guerilla combat against the Soviets. No mere political faction fighting against Communist oppressors, the HUM saw itself as a group waging jihad (holy war) against the Soviet infidels, who would establish a secular government. From the first, the HUM’s underlying philosophy has been a Sunni pan-Islamism: the enemies of Islam are both those who abuse Muslims and those who oppose Islamic rule over Muslim states...."  More>>>

Hezbollah

Hezbollah (Party of God) is a Shiite terrorist organization also known as the Revolutionary Justice Organization, and the Organization of the Oppressed on Earth. Founded in 1982 in Lebanon with the help of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, Hezbollah has not only become a regional organization fighting against Israeli, but also a global terrorist network that has, until September 11, 2001, killed more Americans than any other terrorist group. It is a complex group that in the words of Hezbollah expert Magnus Ranstorp, "Can be active on four tracks simultaneously - the political, the social, the guerilla, and the terrorist - because its leaders are masters of long-term strategic subversion..."  More>>>

Hizb ut-Tahrir

Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT) is a networked Islamist organization active in approximately 25 countries,1 including the United States. It calls for the non-violent overthrow of Muslim regimes that are perceived as corrupt and influenced by Western governments and culture. HT intends to transform the Middle East and Central Asia into a pan-Islamic state (Khilafah) that will be governed according to political-Islamic law (Sha’ria)...  More>>>

Jamaat al-Fuqra

Members own government-contracted security agencies. Through twenty-five years of existence, followers have planned and executed dozens of faith-based firebombings and assassinations. One member was convicted of plotting with the first World Trade Center bombers. Other adherents are employed in toll booths and kiosks at sensitive New York City landmarks. ....  More>>>

Jemaah Islamiyah

Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), which means “Islamic Organization” in Arabic, is a militant Islamist group active in several Southeast Asia countries, including Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines. JI is responsible for the infamous Bali bombing (2002) and Marriot bombing (2003)....  More>>>

Mujahideen-e Khalq

Led by husband and wife Massoud and Maryam Rajavi, the Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK) is the primary opposition to the Islamic Republic of Iran; its military wing is the National Liberation Army (NLA), and its political arm is the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI). The US State Department designated the MEK as a foreign terrorist organization in 1997, based upon its killing of civilians, although the organization’s opposition to Iran and its democratic leanings have earned it support among some American and European officials.....  More>>>

The Sipah-e-Sahaba

The Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) and its militant offshoot, the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), are sectarian organizations aiming to establish Pakistan as an exclusively Sunni state. Toward this end, the groups press politically for Shiites to be declared non-Muslims, and they back up their disdain for Shia by targeting their community in terrorist attacks. Though the SSP has been in existence for twenty years, when the LeJ split off from it in the mid-1990s, the pace and scale of the violence increased; in the last ten years, terrorists have killed more than 3,600 Shia......  More>>>

Tablighi Jamaat

With origins in Pakistan, Tablighi Jamaat (TJ) is a nominally apolitical and nonviolent group comprised of traveling Islamic missionaries. It is not a terrorist group, but worthy of study and concern nevertheless. Growing out of the Deobandi school of Islam, TJ stresses traditional Islamic practices linked to worship, dress and behavior as a path to personal improvement......  More>>>