A new report from Simon Fraser University in B.C. concludes there has been a sharp decline in the incidence of terrorist violence around the world, challenging assumptions that the global threat has been increasing.

The Human Security Brief 2007 says fatalities from terrorism have decreased by some 40 per cent in recent months. It also concludes the terrorist network associated with al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden has suffered a dramatic collapse in popular support in the Muslim world.

Michael Jacobson of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy has an article on why members of terror groups 'drop out' of those groups. He advocates studying these reasons further and using this information to combat terrorism.

This is a welcome alternative to the heavy handed shotgun approach that has been taken in recent years focusing on military interventions, invasions, and the like.

A recent paper titled Engineers of Jihad by Diego Gambetta and Steffen Hertog of Oxford University finds that militants often have university degrees, more frequently in engineering and medicine. The Atlantic picked this news up by saying that "the stereotype of the poverty-stricken terrorist has been dispelled by
studies showing that militancy and high levels of education go hand in

Palestinian political leader and activist George Habash died yesterday. The interesting part is that Habash was part of the 60s-70s Palestinian resistance movements that employed terror tactics trying to draw attention to the Palestinian cause.

According to the Congressional Quarterly Jeff Stein, the FBI hoped to track down Iranian terrorists by following, out of all things, Falafel sales in groceries.

The photo on this story at Wired blogs, shows Iranian dishes.

What is sad is that falafel is not part of the Iranian cuisine, being mainly a staple of the Eastern Mediterranean.

Benazir Bhutto was assassinated today while on the streets. A gunman shot her, then blew up himself while she was standing on top of her car.

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto

Benazir's father was Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who was founder of the PPP (Pakistan's People Party), Prime Minister, then President of Pakistan. A military coup ousted him from power, and put him on trial and executed. Partially out of emotional sympathy, his wife, Nusrat Bhutto was made head of the PPP.

Ossama Bin Laden, head of Al-Qaeda, appeared in a video posted on some sympathetic web sites. This is the first time in 3 years he has done so.

Noting that he looks more youthful, Western media has noticed his shorter trimmed bird, and less grey hair compared to before.

Moreover, Radio Free Europe analyses certain aspects of the video message, including:

Two recent cases of militants in Saudi Arabia and Egypt renouncing violence and urging others to do the same.

Ahmed Al-Shayea, Saudi Arabia

The first is Ahmed Al-Shayea أحمد الشايع who drove a truck bomb in Baghdad in Christmas of 2004. He now shows his amputated fingers and disfgured face on Saudi TV channels, deploring others not to take the path that left him with these scars.

A Pew Global Attitudes survey for 2007 has observed a sharp decline in support for suicide bombing since 2002.