Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is an Al Qaeda member and the mastermind of the 9/11 terror attacks. He was arrested in Rawalpindi, Pakistan in 2003 and is currently in detention at Guantanamo Bay. He also organized and funded... Read more

Ayman al Zawahiri is a Salafi-jihadist terrorist and the current head of Al Qaeda. Born in Egypt in 1951, Zawahiri originally trained as a physician before becoming involved in the Muslim Brotherhood. After the Egyptian government executed... Read more

Majid Khan is an Al Qaeda member who worked with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and participated in several high-profile operations. In 2003, he transported $50,000 from Pakistan to an Al Qaeda affiliate which was eventually used in the... Read more

"Media jihad" refers to an ISIS innovation in the Islamist terrorist sphere heavily emphasizing online media and appealing propaganda as a means of recruiting foreign fighters and spreading its message. To this end, ISIS recruiters often emphasize... Read more

The Garland, Texas terrorist plot, also known as the "Draw Mohammed Art Contest" plot, refers to a May 3, 2015 incident in which two men — Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi — entered the Curtis Culwell Center... Read more

Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez (1990-2015) was an Islamist extremist who opened fire at two military sites in Chattanooga, Tennessee on July 16, 2015, killing four Marines and a Navy sailor. Abdulazeez, a Kuwaiti-born U.S. national, is believed to... Read more

Mujahid is the Arabic term for someone undertaking jihad. Many Islamist extremists will refer to themselves as the mujahideen (the plural of mujahid) to evoke religious meaning to their violence. In particular, this term is used to... Read more

Mullah Mohammed Omar (1960-2013) was the founder of the Taliban. He was born in Khakrez, Afghanistan in 1960. Starting in 1994, the Taliban began to seize large parts of Afghanistan, and Mullah Omar was appointed as head... Read more

Najibullah Zazi is an Afghan-American who drove from his home in Colorado to New York City on September 9, 2009 with the intention of detonating explosives above the New York City subway during rush hour as part... Read more

Nutella and kittens was among ISIS's more inventive and disturbing media tactics. In 2015, the group paired calls to join the Islamic State with innocuous images that were popular on the internet, including pictures of kittens or... Read more