al-Qaeda

American embassies were on heightened alert Dec. 9 amid fears of a backlash to a long-delayed US Senate report into the CIA's brutal interrogation of Al-Qaeda suspects after the 2001 attacks.
      

The United Nations peace envoy to Syria is holding talks with the Syrian opposition in Turkey to promote a cease-fire proposal for the northern city of Aleppo, opposition sources said on Dec. 8.

Staffan de Mistura hopes the plan will establish truces in Aleppo, once Syria's commercial center and second-most-populous city, and allow aid into rebel districts.

The U.S. and NATO ceremonially ended their combat mission in Afghanistan on Dec. 8, 13 years after the Sept. 11 terror attacks sparked their invasion of the country to topple the Taliban-led government.
     
NATO's International Security Assistance Force Joint Command, which was in charge of combat operations, lowered its flag, formally ending its deployment.
     

An American photojournalist and a South African teacher held by al-Qaida militants in Yemen were killed during a rescue attempt

An American photojournalist and a South African teacher held by al-Qaida militants in Yemen were killed Dec. 6 during a U.S.-led rescue attempt, a raid President Barack Obama said he ordered over an "imminent danger" to the reporter.

Lebanese authorities are holding a daughter and an ex-wife of the head of the Islamic State in IRaq and the Levant (ISIL), Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the interior minister said.

It was initially reported that a wife and son of the self-proclaimed "caliph" had been arrested last month.

Abd al-Baset Azzouz, the leader of al-Qaeda in Libya, was reportedly detained last month in western Turkey after he entered with a fake passport.

A suicide attacker drove a car laden with explosives at the Iranian ambassador’s residence in the Yemeni capital Sanaa Dec. 3, security officials said, killing as many as three people.

Pope Francis’ visit to Turkey is not only historic, but also timely, as global terrorism is on the rise with terrorist organizations like al-Qaeda, Boko Haram and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) every day killing hundreds of innocent people in the name of Islam.

Syria rejected as "fabricated" U.S. accusations that its forces are targeting civilians with air strikes and said Washington would do better to criticize hardline Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) who have killed American citizens.
   

Turkey has added Libyan Islamist group Ansar al-Sharia to its terror list following a United Nations Security Council decision taken last week.