The Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, or the Graduate Institute (in French: Institut de hautes études internationales et du développement (previously known as Institut (universitaire) de hautes études internationales), abbreviated IHEID (previously HEI, IHEI, or IUHEI) is a post-graduate university located in Geneva, Switzerland. The institution counts one UN secretary-general (Kofi Annan), seven Nobel Prize recipients, one Pulitzer Prize winner, and numerous ambassadors, foreign ministers, and heads of state among its alumni and faculty. Founded by two senior League of Nations officials, the Graduate Institute maintains strong links with that international organisation&#;s successor, the United Nations, and many alumni have gone on to work at UN agencies. The school is a full member of the APSIA. Founded in , the Graduate Institute of International Studies (IHEI or HEI) is continental Europe&#;s oldest school of international relations and was the world&#;s first university dedicated solely to the study of international affairs. It offered one of the first doctoral programmes in international relations in the world. In , the Graduate Institute absorbed the Graduate Institute of Development Studies, a smaller post-graduate institution also based in Geneva founded in . The merger resulted in the current Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies. Today the school enrolls about graduate students from over countries. Foreign students make up nearly % of the student body and the school is officially a bilingual English-French institution, although the majority of classes are in English.. With Maison de la Paix acting as its primary seat of learning, the Institute&#;s campuses are located blocks from the United Nations Office at Geneva, International Labour Organization, World Trade Organization, World Health Organization, International Committee of the Red Cross, World Intellectual Property Organization and many other international organizations. It runs joint degree programmes with universities such as Smith College and Yale University, and is Harvard Kennedy School&#;s only partner university to co-deliver double degrees.

Abu Bakar Bashir (أبو بكر باعشير) also Abubakar Ba&#;asyir, Abdus Somad, and Ustad Abu ("Teacher Abu"); born August ) is an Indonesian Muslim cleric and leader of Jamaah Ansharut Tauhid. He ran the Al-Mukmin boarding school in Ngruki, Central Java, which he co-founded with Abdullah Sungkar in . He was in exile in Malaysia for years during the secular New Order administration of President Suharto resulting from various activities, including urging the implementation of Sharia law. Intelligence agencies and the United Nations claim he is the spiritual head of Jemaah Islamiyah (also known as JI) and has links with Al-Qaeda. In August , he publicly pledged allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and his declaration of a caliphate.

President of the United States George W. Bush consistently referred to the Iraq War as "the central front in the War on Terror", and argued that if the U.S. pulled out of Iraq, "terrorists will follow us here." While other proponents of the war have regularly echoed this assertion, as the conflict has dragged on, members of the U.S. Congress, the American public, and even U.S. troops have begun to question the connection between Iraq and the fight against terrorism.

Second Chechen War (Втора́я чече́нская война́), also known as the Second Chechen Сampaign (Втора́я чече́нская кампа́ния), was an armed conflict on the territory of Chechnya and the border regions of the North Caucasus between the Russian Federation and the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, also with militants of various Islamist groups, fought from August to April .