By Malou Innocent
In today’s Washington Post, David Ignatius writes that Pakistan is reaping the whirlwind of homegrown terrorism by having “squandered the opportunity presented” with a large-scale U.S. troop presence next door and for refusing to work with Washington to stabilize its mountainous tribal region. Recent history suggests a more complex reality. Mr. Ignatius is correct when [...]
Ignatius on Pakistan: Actually, We May Have Only Had One Year is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
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Pakistan’s military has lost more than 3,000 security personnel in the fight against terrorism. Such sacrifices are often overshadowed in the U.S., where the media (rightly) focus on Pakistan’s lack of action against groups like the Haqqani network that targets U.S. forces in Afghanistan and the Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, responsible for the terrorist atrocities in Mumbai in November 2008. While Pakistani military leaders seem to believe they can handle the terrorist threat to their own country without targeting all of the terrorist groups that find sanctuary there, the recently released Osama bin … More
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By Benjamin H. Friedman
“Al-Qaeda bombmaker represents CIA’s worst fears.” That’s the headline of a Washington Post story on Yemeni terrorists’ attempt to down a U.S. bound flight by placing a bomb on the body of an operative that turned out to be a CIA and Saudi agent. By straining to alarm readers about the bomb-maker, Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri, [...]
Washington Post Defines Worst Fears Down is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
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After more than three years in office, the Obama Administration still is blaming the Bush Administration for its own difficulties. On Tuesday, Vice President Joe Biden made yet another attempt to pass the buck, claiming that the Bush Administration’s Iran policy was flawed and left the U.S. in an isolated position before the Obama Administration rectified the problem: By going the extra diplomatic mile, presenting Iran with a clear choice, we demonstrated to the region and the world that Iran is the problem, not the United States.… When we took … More
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Yesterday, U.S. national security officials announced that the CIA and other U.S. agencies, working with foreign intelligence services, had uncovered and disrupted an al-Qaeda plot to bomb civilian aircraft. The terrorist operation, hatched by the Yemen-based al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), which has launched several high-profile attacks in the past, involved an improved version of the “underwear bomb” that was built without metal parts to make it more difficult to detect. The sophisticated bomb is believed to have been built by Ibrahim al-Asiri, an accomplished AQAP bomb maker responsible … More
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Recently certain experts opined that the war on terrorism is over. This statement is ludicrous. It is true that al-Qaeda Central (AQ) has been badly wounded, but it is not dead. It has grown hydra-like heads with new affiliates, which are cause for significant concern. Below is a primer of the major AQ affiliates. In the Middle East we find both the most potent “son of AQ” and one of its oldest affiliates: Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Al-Qaeda’s Saudi Arabian and Yemeni branches merged in 2009 to form … More
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One year ago today, Seal Team Six landed in Abbottabad, Pakistan, and succeeded in bringing Osama bin Laden to ultimate justice. Though some may wish to bask in the glow of that success, now is not the time to celebrate or lay down arms. Bin Laden may be dead, but serious threats against the United States live on, both here in the homeland and around the globe. President Obama, though, is using the occasion to boost his re-election efforts with a self-congratulatory campaign ad. Heritage’s James Carafano writes, “If Lincoln had spent … More
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By Malou Innocent
The killing of Osama bin Laden marked a significant achievement in America’s long war against al Qaeda. Yet, following last year’s Navy SEAL raid in Abbottabad, Pakistan, it became clear that disrupting, dismantling, and defeating al Qaeda did not require the occupation of distant lands. Indeed, even in the absence of the terrorist leader’s death, the [...]
Bin Laden’s Death, One Year On is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
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By John Mueller
The first anniversary of the murderous raid on Osama bin Laden’s hideaway presents an opportunity to evaluate the threat al Qaeda now poses. For its part, the Obama administration/reelection campaign seems more interested in using the event to score political points against Mitt Romney. But terrorism alarmists are more focused on al Qaeda itself and [...]
Why al Qaeda May Never Die is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
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A recent assessment by senior U.S. intelligence officials shows that while the current threat associated to al-Qaeda central—i.e., Ayman al-Zawahiri and his immediate acolytes—has significantly diminished, the threat nonetheless remains. Richard Cardillo, an official with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, argues that a high-impact terrorist event emanating from al-Qaeda central is “unlikely in the next year.” While it is true that al-Qaeda central and its radical ideologies, as represented by Osama bin Laden and manifest in the tragic events of September 11, has been fractured, in many … More
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