Terrorist Organizations By Region

Ayman al-Zawahiri (in Arabic, ايمن الظواهري) (born June 19, 1951) is a prominent member of the al-Qaeda group and formerly the head of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad paramilitary organization. Al-Zawahiri is a physician by trade. He speaks Arabic, French, and some English.

He has used Abu Muhammad (Abu Mohammed), Abu Fatima, Muhammad Ibrahim, Abu Abdallah, Abu al-Mu'iz, The Doctor, The Teacher, Nur, Ustaz, Abu Mohammed Nur al-Deen, Abdel Muaz (Abdel Moez, Abdel Muez), and other names as aliases.

In 1998 he formally merged Egyptian Islamic Jihad into al-Qaeda. According to reports by a former al-Qaida member, he has worked in the al-Qaida organization since its inception and was a senior member of the group's shura council. He is often described as a "lieutenant" to the head of al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden. It is also assumed that al-Zawahiri serves as bin Laden's doctor (bin Laden reportedly suffers from a kidney disorder, possibly requiring dialysis)[1] (http://www.fbi.gov/mostwant/terrorists/teralzawahiri.htm).

In the 1980s he journeyed to Afghanistan to participate in the mujahideen resistance against the Soviet Union's occupation. There he met Osama bin Laden, who was running a base for mujahideen called Makhtab al-Khidamat (MAK); both of them worked under the tutelage of the Palestinian Abdullah Yusuf Azzam; later when the MAK fractured al-Zawahiri joined bin Laden in organizing the al-Qaeda group.

In 1996, he was considered the most credible threat and a highly lethal terrorist who could strike against the U.S. A warning issued at the time specified suicide bombing as the likely form of attack. In late 1996 he was detained in Russia for six months by the FSB after he apparently tried to recruit jihadists in Chechnya. According to the FSB spokesman Sergei Ignatchenko, "He had four passports, in four different names and nationalities. We checked him out in every country, but they could not confirm him. We could not keep him forever, so we took him to the Azerbaijani border and let him go." In 1997 he was held responsible for the massacre of 58 (or 67) foreign tourists in the Egyptian town of Luxor, for which he was sentenced to death in abstentia in 1999 (see below).

On February 23, 1998, he issued a joint fatwa with Osama bin Laden under the title "World Islamic Front Against Jews and Crusaders", an important step in broadening their conflicts to a global scale.

According to Vincent Cannistraro, former top CIA counterterrorist official, "Zawahiri is the guy-he's the operational commander...number one, on the right hand side of Osama."

The U.S. Department of State is offering a reward of up to US$25 million for information leading directly to the apprehension or conviction of Ayman al-Zawahiri. He is wanted for his alleged role in the August 7, 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamist_terrorist

The Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG), or simply Abu Sayyaf, also known as Al Harakat Al Islamiyya, is a separatist group of islamist terrorists based in and around the southern islands of the Philippines, primarily Jolo, Basilan, and Mindanao.

Khadaffy Janjalani is named as the nominal leader of the group by the Armed Forces of the Philippines.

It is reported that they recently began expanding into neighbouring Malaysia and Indonesia. The group is responsible for bombings, assassinations, kidnappings, and extortion in order to promote an independent Islamic state in western Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago and create an atmosphere conducive to the creation of a Pan-Islamic superstate in the Malay portions of South-east Asia. The name of the group is Arabic for Bearer (Abu) of the Sword (Sayyaf).

The ASG is the one of the smallest and arguably the most radical and dangerous of the Islamic separatist groups in Mindanao. Some ASG members have studied or worked in Saudi Arabia and developed ties to muhajadeen while fighting and training in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

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History

Members of the ASG were once part of the Moro National Liberation Front, but started on their own in 1991 under the leadership of Abdurajik Abubakar Janjalani.

Ramzi Yousef and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, both of whom were involved with Operation Bojinka, took scuba trips to Puerto Galera. The trips may have been a cover for the training of Abu Sayyaf militants.

After Ramzi Yousef bombed Philippine Airlines Flight 434, killing a Japanese passenger, a man stated in a telephone call, "We are [the] Abu Sayyaf Group. We explode[d] one plane from Cebu." The bombing was supposedly a test for Operation Bojinka, which was discovered by Manila police on January 6, 1995.

Abu Sayyaf's first large-scale action was the beachhead assault on the town of Ipil in Mindanao in April 1995. It is responsible for the kidnapping and murder of more than 30 foreigners and Christian clerics and lay-workers.

Abdurajik Janjalani was killed in a clash with the Philippine National Police on December 18, 1998. Khaddafy Janjalani, his younger brother, is said to have succeeded him.

The death of Aburajik Abubakar Janjalani, otherwise known as Abu Sayyaf, marked a turning point in ASG operations, shifting from its ideological focus to more general kidnappings, murders and robberies.

The ASG primarily operates in the southern Philippines with members occasionally traveling to Manila, but the group expanded its operations to Malaysia in 2000 when it abducted foreigners from two different resorts. A commander named Abu Sabaya was killed in 2002 while trying to evade forces.

Abu Sayyaf is estimated to have a core membership of 200 with an extended membership of over 2000.

The group was originally not thought to receive funding from any government, but intelligence reports from the United States, Indonesia, and Australia have found intermittent ties to the Indonesian Jemaah Islamiyah terrorist group.

On February 27, 2004, a bomb exploded on the Superferry 14 near Manila, killing 116 people. Abu Sayyaf claimed responsibility. It has been their deadliest attack to date.

Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) a.k.a. Partiya Karkeran Kurdistan

Description: Established in 1974