The Latest - Pakistan
Obama’s Way of War
Is Barack Obama a warrior president? Not in the British tradition, of course, which gave us Winston Churchill, with his crazy cavalry charge against Sudanese spears, or the more cerebral Harold Macmillan, shot to pieces in World War I. more...
Mullah Dadullah Front Claims Assassination of Afghan High Peace Council Member
The Mullah Dadullah Front, a Taliban group closely linked to al Qaeda, claimed credit for yesterday's assassination of a senior member of the Afghan High Peace Council. more...
Bin Laden Docs Hint at Large al Qaeda Presence in Pakistan
Two of the 17 documents released by the US government from the large cache seized during the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound indicate that al Qaeda has a much larger footprint in Pakistan than US officials have claimed. more...
Al Qaeda Releases Vdeo of American Captured in Pakistan
Al Qaeda has released its first video of Warren Weinstein, an American citizen who was kidnapped in Lahore, Pakistan in August 2011. In the videotape, Weinstein pleaded with US President Barack Obama to submit to al Qaeda's demands to ensure his release before he is killed. more...
Bin Laden Advised Relocation of Some Leaders to Afghan Provinces Due to Drone Strikes in Waziristan
Seven months before his death in a US special operations raid at his hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan, al Qaeda emir Osama bin Laden instructed some of al Qaeda's leaders to relocate to provinces in eastern Afghanistan. more...
US Drone Strike Kills 4 ‘Militants’ in North Waziristan
Today the US launched its first drone strike in Pakistan's Taliban-controlled tribal agency in nearly a month. The strike in North Waziristan targeted an abandoned school that is known to be used by foreign fighters. more...
Taliban Release Photos, Videos of Kabul Suicide Teams
The Afghan Taliban have released photos and videos of members of the suicide assault teams that attacked Kabul and the provincial capitals of Paktia, Logar, and Nangarhar earlier this week. more...
Pakistan’s Message to the West
On Sunday, insurgents launched a series of coordinated attacks on Western embassies in Kabul, as well as other targets throughout Afghanistan. Afghanistan’s interior minister, Bismillah Khan Mohammadi, said that at least two detained terrorists. more...
A Lion in Winter?
Last week, foreign press outlets ran a story that deserves to receive a lot more attention in America. Documents captured in Osama bin Laden’s Abbottabad, Pakistan compound reportedly show that the terror master helped plan the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India. more...
Pakistan’s ISI Supports Taliban, al Qaeda in Nuristan, Says Afghan Parliament
Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate continues to support the Taliban and al Qaeda in the northeastern province of Nuristan, according to the Afghan parliament's Security Commission, while US forces have withdrawn from the area. more...
Report: Osama bin Laden Helped Plan Mumbai Attacks
Osama bin Laden was in close contact with Hafiz Saeed, the wanted chief of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), and helped plan the 2008 Mumbai attack, according to a report in the Hindustan Times. more...
US Offers $10 Million Bounty for Capture of Lashkar-e-Taiba Chief Hafiz Saeed
The US government has offered a $10 million bounty for the capture of Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, the founder of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba, or Army of the Pure. more...
From Brampton to Bangladesh, Anti-Hindu Hate is All Too Real
The last week has done much to educate me in the ethnic politics of South Asia. After writing this blog post criticizing those Canadian Sikh activists who expressed support for convicted terrorist Balwant Singh Rajoana... more...
9/11 plotter spotted in Mir Ali
The trial of Ahmed Siddiqui, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan operative who allied with al Qaeda and was part of a plot to conduct Mumbai-style attacks in Europe before he was captured in Afghanistan in the summer of 2010, has yielded some interesting information. more...
French Fighters Training in North Waziristan
The Associated Press reported today that scores of Frenchmen are training in the Miramshah and Datta Khel areas of Pakistan's Taliban-controlled tribal agency of North Waziristan: more...
Pakistani Islamist Warlord Mangal Bagh Rumored Killed in Khyber
Pakistani police claimed that Mangal Bagh, the leader of a Taliban-linked terror group based in the tribal agency of Khyber, was killed during an operation there last weekend. The report is unconfirmed and a spokesman for the group denied Bagh was killed. more...
US Drones Kill 2 ‘Good Taliban’ Commanders in Pair of Strikes in South Waziristan
Unmanned US Predator or Reaper strike aircraft killed 15 Taliban fighters, including two commanders of a faction considered to be "good Taliban" by the Pakistani government, during a pair of strikes in South Waziristan today. more...
Investigating the Bin Laden Family’s Safe Havens
Perhaps someday we will learn the real extent of Osama bin Laden’s support network inside Pakistan. A truly independent investigation would begin with bin Laden’s ties to various Pakistani military and intelligence officials in the 1980s and walk forward from there. more...
Taliban Demand Release of bin Laden’s Wives, Kill 7 Pakistani Troops
Today the spokesman for the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan threatened that the group would "carry out suicide bombings against security forces and the government" if Osama bin Laden's three widows are not freed from custody. more...
US Drones Kill at Least 13 in South Waziristan Strike
Unmanned US Predator or Reaper strike aircraft killed 13 "militants" in airstrikes in the Miramshah and Mir Ali areas of Pakistan's Taliban-controlled tribal agency of South Waziristan today. more...
Experts
President
Senior Fellow
Senior Fellow and Editor of The Long War Journal
Director, Center for the Study of Terrorist Radicalization