Blog Posts

"President Ashraf Ghani ordered the extension Saturday of a first-time cease-fire with Taliban insurgents, offered to provide medical treatment to injured Taliban fighters and announced that 46 Taliban prisoners had been released Friday as a sign of official goodwill."

"The Government of Afghanistan on June 7 offered a unilateral, week-long cease-fire to the Taliban beginning June 12, in observance of the end of the holy month of Ramadan. Of course, a cease-fire is not a peace agreement, but it can lead to one."

"The first day of the Eid holiday in eastern Afghanistan brought a strange sight - presumed Taliban fighters walking up to Afghan soldiers at checkpoints and taking selfies with them."

"Nearly two years after a historic peace accord ended Latin America’s longest-running insurgency and garnered a Nobel Prize, an old scourge is again spreading across the rural valleys and jungle towns of Colombia’s northeast - guerrilla warfare."

"They come from all walks of life, ages 17 to 65. Among them is a high school student who went home to complete his final exams before rejoining the others; a poet who still carries in his chest one of the four bullets he was shot with; a bodybuilding champion who abandoned his gym and has lost 20 pounds of muscle on the journey. They are day laborers, farmers, retired army officers, a polio victim on crutches, a mechanic who was robbed of his sight by war."

“As missiles fly and bombardments are launched by the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, experts say that requests for direct U.S. military involvement to take the vital port city of Hodeida could open a host of problems for U.S. concerns in the civil war-ravaged nation.”

Today, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) John F. Sopko delivered remarks at New America in Washington, D.C., marking the launch of SIGAR's fifth lessons learned report.

“The proposal for the report suggests the Marine Corps could take over all counterinsurgency missions from the Army, thereby eliminating the newly established and deployed Security Force Assistance Brigades.”

Nearing its 100th day of its deployment in Afghanistan, the highly trained and specialized 1st Security Force Assistance Brigade for the NATO Resolute Support mission is seeing results, the brigade’s commander said today.

U.S. envoy Nikki Haley rebuked the General Assembly for using its time to criticize Israel, instead of addressing other situations. "Instead, today the General Assembly is devoting its valuable time to the situation in Gaza," Haley said. "Gaza is an important international matter, but what makes it different and more urgent than conflicts in Nicaragua, Iran, Yemen, Burma or many other desperate places?" She said the assembly was meeting because "attacking Israel" is the "favorite political sport" of some U.N. member states.

“Even soldiers who fight wars from a safe distance have found themselves traumatized. Could their injuries be moral ones?”

"A top Afghan general said Monday that more than 77,000 Taliban and other militants are now fighting against the government – more than double earlier U.S. and Afghan estimates despite a large increase in U.S. airstrikes over the past year."

“Despite the recent attacks that have killed and wounded U.S. troops operating in Africa, the role of forces there remains in advising partners, not in direct combat, according to the Pentagon.”

“In recent weeks coalition forces have more than tripled the number of strikes they made against ISIS elements in Iraq and Syria. But more ground operations in pockets of those countries are needed to flush out the remaining fighters, officials said.”

In this WSJ video, Donald Bolduc, the former commander of special operations in Africa, and Jack Murphy, an eight-year army special forces veteran, speak about the report. Some of their assessments differ from the findings laid out by the Pentagon about what went wrong.

"The Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan overran a district and threatened another Tuesday after a unilateral government ceasefire went into effect. Officials confirmed that a pre-dawn assault by insurgents on Kohistan in northern Faryab province killed at least 12 members of the Afghan forces and wounded 13 others before the Taliban captured the district."

In an agreement signed Tuesday in Singapore, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un “reaffirmed his firm and unwavering commitment to complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” while U.S. President Donald Trump “committed to provide security guarantees” to North Korea.

"The civil war racking Yemen pits U.S.-backed forces against Iranian-backed elements in an all-out shooting war, and the United States, which has for years conducted counterterrorism operations in Yemen, is expanding its role there."

“The U.S. will intensify combat against the Islamic State affiliate in Afghanistan during the Kabul government’s temporary halt to attacks on the Taliban, senior U.S. officials said Friday.”

"Critics of long-term military aid to Lebanon from the U.S. have been bolstered by the May 6 parliamentary elections that have given Hezbollah and its allies a majority in the legislature. Opponents to the aid are specifically concerned about an apparent warming of relations between the U.S.-equipped Lebanese Armed Forces and the political party/militant group Hezbollah."

“Hopes for direct peace talks are high in Afghanistan after the Taliban agreed to a unilateral cease-fire from the Afghan government. A former high-ranking Taliban official said the temporary peace deal could be extended and efforts for direct peace talks could be made.”

“The Somali rebels knew where the U.S. Special Operators and their allied troops would have to deploy. By flooding terrain, they left them little choice.”

Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan have killed as many as 65 government soldiers and police officers in three attacks. Afghan officials said Saturday the overnight violence in the southern Kandahar, northern Kunduz and western Herat provinces also injured more than 17 security personnel.

"While Iraq has liberated all of its territory once captured and held by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, the U.S.-led military campaign against the rogue organization continues in Syria, Defense Secretary James N. Mattis said at a meeting of the defeat-ISIS coalition at NATO headquarters in Brussels today."

"In a move that could inject life into a long-struggling Afghan peace process, the Taliban announced Saturday that they would halt operations against Afghan forces for the three days of the Muslim festival of Eid."