Bill is again joined by Generation Jihad regular Ambassador Edmund Fitton-Brown to discuss the latest report from the UN Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team (which Edmund previously led). Released on July 25, 2023, the Team’s thirty-second report provides an update on al Qaeda and the Islamic State. Bill and Edmund unpack findings, discuss a few highlights, and also explain some points of disagreement.
The U.S. government designated Abdiweli Mohamed Yusuf, the financial emir of the Islamic State’s Somali Province. This move, however, has much wider implications than just the Islamic State’s Somali operations.
Ukraine seems to have launched the main thrust of its counteroffensive. The coming weeks will likely determine whether the operation succeeds.
Further evidence has emerged indicating Russia has begun making Iranian kamikaze drones or at least prototypes thereof.
The story of the Pan-Ugandan Liberation Initiative, a short-lived splinter faction of the more infamous Islamic State-loyal ADF that was destroyed earlier this year, provides important details and context in the ADF’s overall ideological trajectory and history.
The Afghan Taliban continues to claim that there are no foreign terror groups operating inside their country, despite all evidence to the contrary. The Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan has an extensive footprint in Afghanistan.
AFRICOM has launched four airstrikes against Al Qaeda’s branch in Somalia this month as it continues to provide air support for the Somali National Army.
Is Africa the epicenter of today’s jihad? Bill and Caleb discuss, including in the context of Mali, the drawdown of African Union forces in Somalia, and one of Uganda’s worst terrorist attacks in more than a decade.
Despite the largest Israeli military operation in the West Bank since the Second Intifada, the state of the West Bank remains in question.
Kyiv’s new French-supplied missiles will help the Ukrainian military degrade Russian logistics and command and control.
New evidence suggests Moscow is getting closer to producing Iranian-designed suicide drones in Russia.
“I said Al Qaeda would not be there,” President Biden said about Afghanistan. “I said we’d get help from the Taliban… I was right.” Except Al Qaeda is indeed in Afghanistan and is receiving support from the Taliban.
The head of Russia’s National Guard said his troops will receive tanks and other heavy equipment following Wagner’s mutiny.
A surge in West Bank violence is more than two years old and there are no signs that it will cease anytime soon.
The Ukrainian military on Thursday struck a key bridge connecting the Crimean Peninsula to the Russian-occupied part of Kherson Oblast. The strike aims to degrade Russia’s ability to resist the counteroffensive Kyiv launched earlier this month. On Thursday morning, Vladimir Saldo, the Russian-installed head of Kherson Oblast, shared footage showing a large hole in the […]
Two weeks into its counteroffensive, Ukraine has made some initial gains while also suffering losses. The operation has yet to reach its decisive phase.
The Afghan Taliban has vehemently objected to the lest UN report, as it punches gaping holes into the Taliban’s narrative that it does not shelter and support foreign terror groups. However, the presence of the TTP, Al Qaeda and a host of other terror groups in Afghanistan is undeniable.
Bill welcomes back to the show Generation Jihad regular Ambassador Edmund Fitton-Brown. Now a member of the Counter Extremism Project’s advisory board, Edmund previously served as the UK’s Ambassador to Yemen and later as the coordinator of the U.N. Security Council’s Sanctions Monitoring Team.
Edmund’s former team at the U.N. just released its latest report on Afghanistan which details (among other troubling issues) just how embedded al Qaeda is in Afghanistan’s Taliban government.
Bill and Edmund dissect the report’s findings.
On Monday, Islamic Jihad started a two-week summer camp for children and teens with the goal of promoting jihad against Israel.
Al Qaeda has established training camps in five Afghan provinces, as well as safe houses and a media center. The Taliban-Al Qaeda relationship is strong. Al Qaeda most certainly has not declined, nor has it been decimated or defeated.
In the face of delayed or stalled offensive action taken against it, Shabaab seeks to rally its forces.
Three prominent dual hatted Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders serve in key positions within the Taliban establishment, according to the United Nationals Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team. The Taliban is providing Al Qaeda with key support, including “welfare payments” and passports.
Ukraine launched a flurry of localized offensives across the battlefield on June 4 and 5, most notably in Russian-occupied southern Donetsk Oblast. These attacks likely aim merely to probe Russian defenses or divert Russia’s attention from a forthcoming larger offensive. Nevertheless, the early stages of Kyiv’s much-anticipated counteroffensive appear to have begun. Ukraine reportedly launched […]
Though Somalia says the raid was repelled, the major attack nevertheless came just days after a similar raid was conducted on a Ugandan military base in southern Somalia.
The massive raid comes as Shabaab is facing its biggest challenge to its rule and territory in over a decade.
Musa Ali Daqduq, a Hezbollah military commander and Specially Designated Global Terrorist, is training the “Golan Unit” to attack American troops operating in Syria.
Israel eliminates members of Islamic Jihad’s leadership in an effort to restore deterrence lost since the last year’s operation in Gaza.
Host Bill Roggio is joined by two of his FDD colleagues to unpack the context surrounding Turkey’s imminent presidential elections.
Jonathan Schanzer is the Senior Vice President for Research at FDD, where Sinan Ciddi is a non-resident senior fellow. Both are Turkey experts. (One has taken a harder hit from pro-government Turks on Twitter than the other.)
From President Erdogan’s thinly-veiled political opportunism — like his 180 on Syria; his regional charm offensive, particularly with Israel; and his role as a U.S. “counterterrorism partner” — and his blatant corruption — like his mismanagement of earthquake aid and his allowing Turkey to be a terrorist superhighway — to an opposition candidate’s eleventh hour dropout, this is your starter pack for understanding what’s about to unfold in Turkey.
The Taliban has made this false statement for decades, even prior to 9/11. After al Qaeda emir Ayman al Zawahiri was killed in Kabul, Taliban promises like this should be dismissed out of hand. Foreign terror groups continue to operate in Afghanistan to this day.
Host Bill Roggio and co-host Caleb Weiss are joined by the associate professor for national security affairs at the U.S. Naval War College, Dr. Craig Whiteside, for a deep dive into the ranks of the Islamic State. They discuss leaders of past and present and their roles within the broader IS.