Blog Posts

"The Kurdish expression 'No friends but the mountains' has become more painfully true in recent weeks."

"Israel's prime minister says the military will continue to strike its enemies, including through covert missions, after a weekend flareup of violence in the Gaza Strip."

"Protesters have blocked the main thoroughfares in the Iraqi capital Baghdad, as mass anti-government protests continue. Demonstrators were seen parking cars at key junctions of the city as police looked on without intervening."

"Turkish-backed forces fighting Kurdish militias in north-east Syria have been accused of committing war crimes, with acts of brutality surfacing on mobile phone footage. The gruesome footage is much like that produced by the ultra-violent Islamic State group."

"How did Turkish intelligence not know what was going on within shouting distance of their border?"

Turkey's interior minister said Saturday Ankara would eventually send detained Islamic State members back to their home countries, declaring, "We are not going to keep them until the end of time."

"Everyone is rightly concerned about the dangers extremists can pose, but the post (“Addressing the National Security Threat of White Supremacist Terrorism”) by Jonathan Greenblatt and George Selim, two officials of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), doesn’t help."

"A jihadist attack targeting military post in Mali killed least 53 soldiers and one civilian in the second such assault in a month, the government said Saturday."

Russian and Turkish troops have begun patrolling what Turkey says is a "safe zone" in north-east Syria.

The State Department is warning about a "rise in racially or ethnically motivated terrorism" that is "learning from their jihadist predecessors," according to its top official for counter-terrorism.

"Africa’s Sahel region is emerging as a new frontier in the fight against terrorist groups, according to a new State Department report, following a doubling of attacks recorded last year."

"Tens of thousands of Iraqis thronged central Baghdad on Friday demanding the root-and-branch downfall of the political elite in the biggest day of mass anti-government demonstrations since the fall of Saddam Hussein."

"U.S. Africa Command announced Friday that intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) operations are now being conducted out of the base in Agadez, Niger, which is designed to house armed drones and other aircraft that have historically operated out of Niger’s capital, Niamey."

"Syrian President Bashar al-Assad clawed back control over much of his country with the help of Russia and Iran. Now he is poised to take back much of the rest—in large part because of the U.S."

"The death of Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi may not change the world. Nevertheless, how it came about says a fair amount about the world he has departed."

"The JLTV is designed to be a troop-pleaser — more comfortable, better protected, able to go anywhere. But experts debate whether the truck is the right vehicle for the conflicts to come."

The FBI says it is investigating more than 2,000 cases tied to groups designated by the United States as foreign terrorist organizations, a figure that reflects the persistent threat posed by outfits such as al-Qaida and Hezbollah.

Some Islamic State supporters are starting to rally around the terror group’s new leader, using social media to pledge their allegiance to a man whose true identity may not be known for some time.

"As U.S. forces reduce their anti-ISIS efforts in Syria, and amid the group’s calls for lone-wolf revenge actions after the death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, we must focus on a largely overlooked subset of its radicalized supporters: women. While security services have generally tended to approach women as victims, female participation in ISIS has evolved beyond caretakers and housewives."

"Taliban attacks that wounded or killed civilians or U.S.-allied troops spiked this summer ahead of September’s turbulent national elections and the disintegration of the U.S.-led peace process."

"Bradley armored vehicles rolled into eastern Syria on a mission to combat ISIS and prevent oil wells from falling back into the hands of the Islamic extremist group, according to an official with Operation Inherent Resolve."

"The Islamic State group declared a new leader Thursday after it confirmed the death of its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi days earlier in a U.S raid in Syria."

Continue on for the key points from the latest report released by SIGAR.

"U.S. military special operations forces destroyed the compound where a raid last weekend led to the death of Islamic State founder Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to assure that the site didn’t become a shrine to the extremist leader, a top commander said Wednesday."

Attacks carried out by Taliban and other insurgent groups in Afghanistan were twice as effective in the third quarter of 2019 than they were earlier in the year, according to a leading oversight authority on Afghanistan that reports to the United States Congress.