White House math
It remains unclear how many troops exactly will be withdrawn from Iraq under the Bush administration's new limited troop reduction program. Officials have suggested that five brigades will be removed from Iraq by next summer, but the exact number of soldiers has not been specified thanks to what has been described by insiders as fuzzy "White House math".
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Sign up to receive toD's daily security briefings via email by clicking hereSenior military officers remain deeply divided over the reduction plan, concerned that the withdrawal will do only further burden already overstretched troops.
Writing in the American Prospect, Terence Samuel argues that it is the Republicans who will continue to pay the highest price for the Iraq war.
Death of a sheikh, and a plan?
Thousands of mourners cried for revenge and chanted anti-al-Qaida slogans at the funeral of the Sunni Arab leader Abdul Sattar Abu Risha. Abu Risha, who was killed by a roadside bomb this week, was nominally the leader of the Anbar Awakening, the movement to turn armed locals in Iraq's Sunni heartlands against al-Qaida.
With Abu Risha's death, Marc Lynch argues that the fundamental naivety of Anbar Awakening has been exposed.
The return of Bhutto
Former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto has announced the date of her long-expected return to the country. She will arrive on 18 October to grapple for power in the crisis-hit nation. Pakistani officials have welcomed her return, but insisted that she'll have to face corruption charges.
Fifteen soldiers of an elite Pakistani commando unit were killed when an apparent suicide bomb ripped through their dining hall in a military facility in northwest Pakistan. Islamabad's war against militants in its lawless northwest continues as casualties mount.
Samar Abbas Kazmi writes that Pakistan's "children of 9/11" expect little from the west, which has only driven Pakistan towards the precipice.
Indian troops in Kashmir arrested four members of the Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group, which New Delhi claims is backed by Islamabad.
Ramadan intervention
While government across the world relax curfews and restrictions in insurgent situations during the month of Ramadan, Israel has tightened security around East Jerusalem and the West Bank, preventing thousands of Muslims from praying at the revered Al Aqsa Mosque.
The Left's flirtation with Islam
Lorenzo Vodino and Andrea Morigi chart the links between the Italian leftist militant group the New Red Brigades and Islamist radicals in the Jamestown Foundation's Terrorism Monitor.
Violence in Mogadishu
The formation of a new anti-government alliance of political and militant groups has sparked a new wave of insurgent violence in the Somali capital Mogadishu, with seven people killed in hit-and-run attacks.
Delta gang clashes
Using helicopter gunships and ground troops, the Nigerian army attacked an alleged criminal gang operating in the oil-rich Niger Delta region of the country. The anarchic area has been convulsed by separatist insurgency and criminal violence.
Another bomb blast averted in Spain
Days after Spanish police defused an ETA bomb in the north of the country, anti-terror forces found an unexploded bomb beneath a car in the Basque town of Andaoin. The government and Basque separatists have ended peace talks after they collapsed in recent years into waves of fresh violence.
