The 2012 Eurocup soccer competition is underway in Poland and Ukraine, and the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London will open in a few weeks; in South Africa, the trial begins of a white supremacist who was hoping to start a race war in South Africa by disrupting the 2012 World Cup games which were held in that country: his plot included firing mortars into soccer stadiums during games, when the stadiums were filled to capacity with cheering spectators; he also planned to fire mortars into black neighborhoods in cities where the games were held

Mali’s neighbors, increasingly anxious about break-away Azawad turning into a haven for Islamic militants, worried about waves of refugees fleeing the strict Sharia law imposed in the territory by the fundamentalist Ansar Dine group, and unconvinced of the ability of the fractured and weak Mali government to tackle the situation anytime soon, are planning to seek a UN Security Council resolution authorizing a military campaign by a coalition of west African countries to oust the Islamists and help reunify Mali; the coalition, led by Niger, is seeking French and U.S. logistical and operational support for the campaign

Yesterday the U.S. State Department announced rewards totaling $33 million for information about the location of seven key leaders of Somalia’s al Shabaab Islamic militant group, seeking for the first time to target the top leadership of that organization; the increasingly precise, and increasingly lethal, U.S. drone campaign against al Qaeda and al Qaeda-affiliated organizations in Pakistan, a campaign which has killed hundreds of Islamic militants and dozens of their leaders, owes its success to one thing: good intelligence; the United States is now increasing its anti-terrorist intelligence collection efforts in Africa

Starting on 27 July, the 2012 Olympic Games in London will see more than 10,000 athletes from nearly 200 different nations compete in 302 disciplines; nine million spectators are expected at the competition venues, while between three and four billion people will follow the spectacle on television; if the Games were called off as a result of terrorist act or another disaster, Munich Re would provide cover of around 350 million euros through several policies

On Wednesday, Representative Peter King (R-New York), chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, issued a statement scathingly critical of the Obama administration after the release of internal CIA and Department of Defense e-mail messages related to the planned Sony Pictures movie on the mission in which U.S. Special Operations Forces killed Osama bin Laden; King says that there was an “extremely close, unprecedented, and potentially dangerous collaboration” between the film makers and top officials at the CIA, DoD, and the White House

The number of anti-NATO protesters arrested on terrorism-related charges has risen to five; three were arrested last Wednesday, and the police found Molotov cocktails and other weapons in the apartment of one of them; the other two were arrested for making terrorist threats; lawyers for those arrested charge that law-enforcement engaged in entrapment 

Much like their male counterparts, female terrorists are likely to be educated, employed, and native residents of the country where they commit a terrorist act, new research finds

A group of Republican and Democratic lawmakers are calling for the Obama administration to add the Haqqani Network to the U.S. list of terrorist organizations; the administration is not quick to move on the issue of designation because of the on-going U.S.-Pakistan-Taliban negotiations about the future of post-withdrawal Afghanistan, but the military drone attacks on Haqqani targets is continuing unabated

The FBI is using more and more informants in sting operations aiming to spot, and thwart, terrorist attacks in the United States; this use of informants and undercover agent by the FBI is being questioned by defense attorneys and civil liberties advocates, who ask whether such operations are preventing crimes that could have resulted in scores of deaths, or creating a crime that would not have occurred without the FBI’s help