Evacuees load on to buses to be processed during an evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport, Kabul, Afghanistan on Aug. 22, 2021. US Marine Corps Photo
The Taliban is struggling to govern a drastically changed country in Afghanistan, the nation’s ambassador to the United States said Wednesday. Read More
A U.S. Marine with Task Force Southwest (TFSW) provides security for Marine advisors during an advising mission with 1st Brigade, Afghan National Army (ANA) 215th Corps as the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces conduct Operation Maiwand 12 at Camp Shorserack, Afghanistan, March 12, 2018. US Marine Corps Photo
U.S. Central Command’s top officer stressed today that the military is “completely focused” on responsibly withdrawing from Afghanistan by Sept. 11, 2021, the 20th anniversary of the al Qaeda attack on the United States. Read More
Sailors observe an MH-60S Knight Hawk helicopter, assigned to the ‘Dragon Slayers’ of Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron (HSC) 11, flying alongside the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75) in the Arabian Sea on Feb. 14, 2020. US Navy Photo
Aircraft carrier presence allows the top American commander in the Middle East flexibility in being able to maintain a state of “contested deterrence” with Iran, lawmakers were told during a Tuesday hearing. Read More
Undated photo of ISIS fighters.
Al Qaeda and the Islamic State could reconcile their differences to present a different but persistent security challenge to the United States for the foreseeable future, three experts in counterterrorism told the House Armed Services Committee Tuesday. Read More
ISIS forces in Iraq
CORRECTION: The following piece was mislabeled as an analysis piece rather than opinion.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order last week that bars citizens from Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Libya, Yemen, Somalia and Syria from entering the United States for 90 days, suspends refugee admission programs for 120 days and indefinitely bans Syrian refugees. Many questions have been raised about this controversial executive action. Since this action is characterized as a national security measure, this analysis will examine two questions: first, will such a policy measurably contribute to U.S. national security interests at home and abroad? And second, why the sudden change in strategy? Read More
Former Secretary of State Madeline Albright speaking Wednesday at The Atlantic Council. Atlantic Council Photo
A former U.S. Secretary of State and National Security Advisor have crafted an outline for a proposed U.S. Middle East strategy that puts the onus of peace and stability in the region while keeping U.S. military intervention to a minimum. Read More
The following is the Aug. 11, 2016 Congressional Research Service report Al Qaeda and U.S. Policy: Middle East and Africa. Read More
Undated photo of ISIS fighters.
The extreme radical beliefs and brutal actions that caused al Qaeda in Iraq to fail earlier remain the heart of the success of today’s Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS or ISIL), all because the political context of a decade ago and today have changed, a leading scholar on Islamic terrorism said Monday. Read More
ISIS fighters in Iraq. Reuters Photo
Fourteen years after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center the U.S. still has “no comprehensive strategy to defeat radical Islam” in Yemen, Iraq, Syria or any other place,” one of the key figures in the development of the 2007 surge strategy in Iraq said Thursday at the American Enterprise Institute during a roll out of a new report from the think tank. Read More
US Secretary of State John Kerry meets with the late King of Saudi Arabia, Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud who died in early 2015. US State Department Photo
The late April shuffling of the line of succession to the Saudi Arabian throne, plus a major shift in ministers of defense and foreign affairs, raised a number of questions about stability in the kingdom, continuing sectarian warfare in the Middle East, a new arms race in the region and future energy prices. Read More
