The BioWeapons Monitor is an initiative of the BioWeapons Prevention Project (BWPP)—a global network of civil society actors dedicated to the permanent elimination of biological weapons and of the possibility of their re-emergence—to help monitor compliance with the international norm prohibiting biological weapons, laid down chiefly in the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention (BWC). Particularly, it aims to increase the transparency of activities relevant to the BWC, which the current treaty regime does not accomplish sufficiently.

Often tagged as the second most lethal India-centric terror group based in the Pakistani Punjab, Jaish-e-Muhammad (Army of [the Prophet] Muhammad - JeM) is once again raising its head under the guise of charity in an apparent attempt to revitalize its fledgling stature in the jihadi landscape of South Asia.

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Jamaatul Mujahidin Bangladesh (JMB), an indigenous terrorist group founded in 1998¹ and committed to establishing an Islamic state in Bangladesh through violence, stormed onto South Asia’s jihadist scene with a synchronized, country-wide bomb assault on August 17, 2005.² The group detonated approximately 460 bombs within a 30-minute period at 300 locations in 63 of

During its thirty-five years, the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) has been scarred by treaty violations, failed compliance negotiations, and ambiguous treaty language. Essentially a bruised paper tiger, the BWC adds no clarification to its distinction between biological activities for peaceful versus hostile purposes and has amplified—rather than lessened—mistrust in states' biological research and development potential. For the past two decades, these circumstances have generated multilateral annual discussions on BWC issues.

In the weeks following the July 13 bomb explosions in Mumbai, responsibility for the attacks has yet to be determined. Investigative agencies have not yet pinpointed a suspect nor has any terrorist group claimed the blasts as its own doing, perhaps in order to complicate the investigation or delay the process.

The American Foreign Policy Council’s World Almanac of Islamism is a comprehensive resource focusing on the nature of the contemporary Islamist threat in individual countries and regions, intended to provide an accurate picture of the rise or decline of radical Islamism on a national, regional and global level.

Despite the Pakistan government’s proscription, the Islamic charity Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) has stepped up its overt anti-Indian and anti-Western rhetoric, holding mass protest rallies across Pakistan as its leaders continue to give provocative speeches in various public forums to fuel Jihadi sentiments and threaten Indian and Western interests in the region.

The secret U.S. operation in Pakistan’s garrison city of Abbottabad in early May has exposed Pakistan’s terror underbelly. The operation that resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden triggered severe international criticism against Pakistan for allegedly sheltering the al-Qaeda chief for almost six years.

In troubled Pakistan, sacred spaces such as Sufi shrines have increasingly been the target of bloody attacks by Taliban and al-Qaeda militants. The Taliban-Deobandi school of Islam perceives Sufi practices such as devotional whirling dances, the veneration of Sufi saints and other rituals as being un-Islamic and against the tenets of the religion. 

The old arguments against the effectiveness of biological warfare still apply. The effects of novel organisms would still be delayed, unpredictable, and difficult to control. In military terms, any advance is almost certainly not a matter of the routine use of bio-technology. Whatever the fact, this double edged weapon still acts like a deterrent against any kind of conventional attack.