by Chris Lundry The past couple of weeks have been interesting in Indonesia, especially for those concerned with religion and conflict in the world’s most populous Muslim country. Ahmadiyya sentences. On February 6 in Banten, West Java, some 1000 villagers attacked a house with several members of Ahmadiyya inside. Ahmadis consider themselves Muslims, but many [...]

by Scott Ruston As details pour in regarding this past weekend’s daring raid in which U.S. Navy SEALs  killed elusive al-Qaeda leader and world’s most wanted terrorist Osama Bin Laden, the exact details of the events keep changing slightly. The New York Times titled an article covering a recent revision to the sequence of events [...]

By Chris Lundry The first 48 hours after the death of Osama bin Laden were grounds for relief in the United States, its allies, and those who condemn violent extremism, but they have also been fraught with speculation and rumors concerning the operation. Is bin Laden really dead? Did he really use his wife as [...]

by Steven R. Corman Yesterday the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) released a report on civilian casualties in Afghanistan over the last year.  It concluded that “2009 proved to be the deadliest year yet for civilians since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001.”  The surprise is what it says about the [...]

by Steven R. Corman Jarret Brachman just did a post on a new video by nice-Jewish-boy-turned-AQ-mouthpiece Adam Gadahn (a.k.a Azzam al-Amriki, video linked on Jarret’s site). Jarret points out that this is the first video in a good long while from as-Sahab, and it has notably lower production values than its normal fare.  But to [...]

by Steven R. Corman Pakistani public opinion about the U.S. and its war against extremists is a matter of  considerable concern given the tenuous situation in that country.  As we know, the public is quite unhappy about cross-border missile strikes the U.S. has been conducting this year. Even if the U.S. and Pakistani governments have [...]

by Monika Maslikowski For Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri’s communication strategy, its been a year full of ups and downs. Individually, the mishaps seem like minor blips in an otherwise burgeoning online presence, but when combined, they could point to Zawahiri’s diminishing abilities as a skilled communicator and principal figure of al-Qaeda’s online media strategy. Earlier this [...]

by Monika Maslikowski The Global War on Terror has been accurately described by some as a global counterinsurgency against the groups and individuals that promote the ideology of violent Islamic extremism. Unlike traditional counterinsurgency campaigns, however, there is no single host-nation (HN) in this fight; the enemy is disparate, networked, transnational, and bound together by [...]

by Steven R. Corman Last night’s PBS NewsHour carried and interview with Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani.  He said a lot of interesting things. For example, he said that the reason the Pakistani Army can’t go after the Bad Guys in the FATAs is because they don’t have Predators.  He implied that President Bush [...]

by Steven R. Corman Yesterday the Washington Times released video excerpts of an interview with  Hussain Haqqani, Pakistani ambassador to the United States.  While the Times featured statements about coming FATA operations in its print story, I was intrigued by a couple of comments he made about U.S. performance in the war of ideas. On [...]