North Waziristan and Quetta: Pakistani Tribal regions continue to slide into the hands of the Taliban and al Qaeda The Afghan-Pakistan border regions. News from Pakistan’s western tribal belt is less than encouraging these days. The Taliban and their al Qaeda backers continue to operate from safe havens within Pakistan, particularly in North Waziristan and […]
Signs indicate the Iraqi government and the Coalition are putting additional pressure against Muqtada al-Sadr and his radical Mahdi Army The fighting between the Iraqi Army and the forces of Iranian backed radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army earlier in the week has increased the tensions between the government and the militia. The battles […]
Sadr’s Mahdi Army and political party become targets of the Iraqi government Baghdad and Operation Together Forward. Green is cleared, Yellow is ongoing operations, Red is untouched. Diamonds indicate locations of violence. Operation Together Forward, the plan to secure Baghdad, is still in its second phase, with Iraqi and Coalition forces clearing and securing the […]
The “Taliban Offensive” continues to produce Taliban bodies but the Taliban and al Qaeda continue to grow in Northwestern Pakistan The Taliban’s summer of 2006 “offensive” continues to produce inordinately large numbers of Taliban casualties with little to show for the slaughter. But the Taliban still possess its bases of operation in northwestern Pakistan, and […]
Disarming Hezbollah no longer an option Israel’s failure to fully pursue Hezbollah in the region below the Litani River in southern Lebanon as well as in southern Beirut and the Bekaa Valley is a model of what not to do when fighting terrorist organizations. The Israeli government’s strategy of over reliance on air power during […]
Map of Somalia, recent gains by the Islamic Courts marked in red. Click map to view. Somalia continues the slide into the darkness of a radical Islamist state. Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, the al Qaeda linked leader of the Islamic Courts is consolidating power in Somalia by taking control of vital lines of communications, organizing […]
Phase 2 of Operation Together Forward is in its early stages. Click map to view. The city of Baghdad, as well as Baghdad Province has become the epicenter of violence in Iraq. In a recent press briefing, Major General Bill Caldwell stated an estimated eighty percent of the violence in Iraq is occurring in Baghdad […]
Jill Carroll, the Christian Science Monitor reporter who was kidnapped by insurgents in Iraq last January and released 82 days later, has begun to tell the story of the long days she spent in captivity following her kidnapping. In a series called Hostage: The Jill Carroll Story, Jill provides a first person account of her […]
Wanted photo of Matiur Rehman. Click photo to view. Two of the suspected ring leaders of the al Qaeda London Airline Plot to destroy aircraft en route to the United States have been captured by Pakistani intelligence. Matiur Rehman, who is believed to be a high-ranking leader in al Qaeda’s Pakistan operations, was captured in […]
Major General William Caldwell’s August 16th briefing on the state of counterinsurgency operations in Baghdad also includes an interesting, extended look at efforts to fight al Qaeda in Iraq and intelligence gleaned from the terror organization based on the capture of detainees (as well as the examination of documents, computers and other materials, which are […]
On Sunday afternoon Richard Lafayette and Nick Grace of Global Crisis Watch interviewed Daveed Gartenstein-Ross about the London Airline Plot and counterterrorism efforts. Also, I participated in a round table forum with Nir Boms of the Center for Freedom in the Middle East and Leah Soibel of the Israel Project. The topic was the war […]
With the cessation of fighting between Hezbollah and Israel largely holding after 24 hours, it is time to look at the likely winners and losers of the Hezbollah-Israel war. Israel spent the weekend scrambling to reach the Litani River and consolidate their positions south of the river before the fighting ended, launching an attack which […]
Matiur Rehman, image from ABC News Like the 7/7 London Tubes bombing in 2005, the London Airline Plot to destroy over 10 airplanes transiting from London to the United States is being traced back to Pakistan. Pakistan’s Daily Times reports seed money was sent to Pakistan under the guise of earthquake relief and diverted to […]
Southern Lebanon. Green indicates Israeli occupied town; red IDF warned towns of operations; yellow Israeli airstrikes; orange clashes. Click map to view. The government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has given the Israeli Defense Force the final approval to conduct the ground assault to the Litani River in southern Lebanon. “According to military sources, close […]
Twenty-four Britons have been arrested in the London Airline plot, and the Bank of England has suspended the bank accounts of 19 suspects. Nineteen of the suspects are Muslim men between the ages of 17 to 35, and have been identified as “Abdula Ali, Cossor Ali, Shahzad Ali, Nabeel Hussain, Tanvir Hussain, Umair Hussain, Umar […]
The Israeli Cabinet vote on the authorization for the Israeli Defense Force to expand ground operations in southern Lebanon highlights the government’s lack of a cohesive plan at the war’s outset and the hesitation to take the fight directly to Hezbollah on the ground. At the start of the war, the initial plan was to […]
Southern Lebanon. Green indicates Israeli occupied town; red IDF warned towns of operations; yellow Israeli airstrikes; orange clashes. Click map to view. Israeli Defense Force commandos have conducted another behind the lines raid in Hezbollah territory, this time in the town of Ras al-Biyada (Al Bayyadah on the map), which sits on the Lebanese coast […]
“We are in a battle, and that more than half of this battle is taking place in the battlefield of the media. And that we are in a media battle in a race for the hearts and minds of our Ummah.” – Ayman al-Zawahiri, in a letter to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi Reuters’ faked photograph of […]
Southern Lebanon. Green indicates Israeli occupied town; red IDF warned towns of operations; yellow Israeli airstrikes; orange clashes; dark blue IDF commando raid. Click map to view. The naval commandos of Flotilla 13, one of the Israeli Defense Force’s elite units, conducted a raid into the heart of Tyre, striking at what is described as […]
The Israeli government continues the debate over the shape of the proposed buffer zone in southern Lebanon, as well as the shape of the campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon. Haaretz reports that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz are at odds over how deep the IDF should push into Lebanon. Peretz advocates […]
Southern Lebanon. Green indicates Israeli occupied town; red IDF warned towns of operations; yellow Israeli airstrikes; orange clashes. Click map to view. The Israeli Defense Force is probing hard across the entire Lebanese border, from Metulla to Marwahin. Eight Israeli brigades, at about 1,000 soldiers per brigade, plus supporting units (engineering, artillery, reconnaissance, communications, logistics) […]
Location of Israeli airstrikes in the Bekaa Valley and Tyre, and the raid on Baalbek. Click map to view. Israeli commandos made a bold strike deep into Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, the heart of Hezbollah’s empire. Israeli helicopters, backed by the Israeli Air Force, inserted an unknown number of commandos, who proceeded to the target, a […]
Southern Lebanon. Green indicates Israeli occupied town; red IDF warned towns of operations; yellow Israeli airstrikes; orange clashes. Click map to view. The government of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert agreed to “expanded ground operations in Lebanon,” after an early morning vote by the Israeli security cabinet. Senior officers in the Israeli Defense Force have […]