Doku Umarov, the notorious head of the Chechen extremist group Caucasus Emirate, claimed responsibility for the 24 January suicide bombing at Moscow’s airport that left thirty-six people dead and 180 injured; Umarov promised further attacks and spoke of his organization’s ability to carry out operations “whenever and wherever [they] want”; Umarov’s group is also responsible for the March 2010 bombing in the Moscow Metro and derailing a train in November 2009; Caucasus Emirate seeks to establish a Muslim nation in the Caucasus region and expel Russia

A new report found that the number of American Muslims involved in terrorist acts dropped by more than half compared to 2009; in 2010 twenty American Muslims were arrested for terrorism, down from 2009’s peak of forty-seven; in 2010 there were more than twenty plots by non-Muslims compared to the ten Muslim Americans arrested for domestic plots; the report supports the argument that fears of domestic radicalization are exaggerated, and was released after the American woman calling herself “Jihad Jane” pled guilty to recruiting terrorists to kill a Swedish cartoonist; Representative Peter King is preparing for domestic radicalization hearings in the House’s Homeland Security committee

Michael E. Leiter, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, told the House Homeland Security Committee that the mastermind behind al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) was the greatest threat to the United States; Anwar al Awlaki, the head of AQAP, is a dual U.S.—Yemeni citizen and has been linked to several attacks on the United States including the failed Christmas Day 2009 attack, the Fort Hood shootings, and the failed car bomb in Times Square, New York; counter-terrorism officials are particularly worried about al Awlaki because he is one of a few English-speaking radical clerics who can connect to young Muslims in America

Al Qaeda-linked Muslim extremist group Abu Sayyaf is continuing its attacks in the Philippines; the latest attack, in Makati City, has killed five; last year, the same terrorist organization claimed responsibility for killing 116 people in a burning ferry in Manila Bay, the deadliest terrorist attack in the country’s history; lawmakers propose installing CCTVs on city buses

Egypt has the largest Christian community in the Mideast; Egypt’s Christians, who make up about 10 percent of the population, increasingly live in fear of discrimination and persecution, and political change — which many outside and inside Egypt welcome — may not be a change for the better; whatever the changes bring, Egypt’s Christians are not likely to end up with someone in power as tolerant of them as even President Hosni Mubarak has been; “The Muslim Brotherhood has a long-term commitment to establishing an Islamic state under Shariah rule in Egypt,” says one expert; “The Copts and other Christians should be worried. They would be reduced to ‘dhimmi’ status — denied the right to celebrate Christmas and weddings or otherwise publicly display their faith”

In an increasing trend, the suspected mastermind behind the recent Russian airport bombing is an ethnic Russian who converted to radical Islam; terrorists are increasingly recruiting more ethnic Russian Muslim converts to their cause; several recent prominent figures in Islamic terrorist groups have been ethnic Russian converts; the latest suspect, Vitaly Razdobudko, is believed to also be behind a failed attack planned for New Year’s Eve; authorities have been searching for Razdobudko since he went missing last October

If the democratic surge in Egypt causes Islamist organizations such as the Muslim Brotherhood to join the government, the toughest counterterrorism challenge ahead may come as U.S. officials are forced to work with this new government, seeking common ground against terrorist enemies even if the Islamic faction tries to distance Egypt from its neighbor, Israel; American political leaders have long fused counterterror aims with support for Israel, but even those Arabs — let alone more religious Islamist organizations such as the Brotherhood — who oppose al Qaeda and jihadism, insist on the distinction between terrorism, on the one hand, and what they consider as a legitimate resistance to continued Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands; contending with an altered Arab world landscape with rising Islamic factions could thus force hard choices on the United States

The Muslim Brotherhood, established in Egypt in the 1920s, is described by one scholar as “the mothership for the jihadi ideologies and thinking—- therefore one can say today’s Al Qaeda, and today many other jihadists, are off shoots of the Muslim Brotherhood”; among the Brotherhood’s graduates: Al Qaeda’s number two leader, the Egyptian doctor Ayman al-Zawahiri who was imprisoned for three years on weapons charges following President Anwar Sadat’s assassination in 1981; Hamas, the terror network behind suicide bombings and rocket attacks in Israel; the Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine, whose goal is the destruction of Israel

By the end of April, terror threats to the United States will no longer be described in shades of green, blue, yellow, orange and red; the new plan for a terrorism alerts system calls for notifying specific audiences about specific threats; in some cases, it might be a one-page threat description sent to law enforcement officials describing the threat, what law enforcement needs to do about it, and what the federal government is doing, one of the officials said; the five-tiered color-coded terror warning system, created after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, was one of the Bush administration’s most visible anti-terrorism programs; the use of colors emerged from a desire to clarify the nonspecific threat information that intelligence officials were receiving after the 2001 attacks