Al-Itihaad al-Islamiya

February 26, 2013 | Daveed Gartenstein-Ross |

Uncharitable Organizations

Islamist groups are bankrolling terror groups across the Middle East and pretending it's aid work.

September 10, 2012 | Daveed Gartenstein-Ross Gunpowder & Lead

LIFG and Al Qaeda: A Response to Zelin

On Friday, I had a post at G&L questioning the field’s conve...

February 9, 2012 | Bill Roggio, Thomas Joscelyn The Long War Journal

Shabaab Formally Joins al Qaeda

Shabaab and al Qaeda have announced their formal merger, according to a video disseminated online today and translated by the SITE Intelligence group. In the video, Mukhtar Abu al Zubayr (a.k.a....

July 11, 2011 | The Long War Journal

Senior Shabaab Commander Rumored to Have Been Killed in Recent Predator Strike

A senior Shabaab commander who fought in Afghanistan and has close ties with al Qaeda is reported to have been killed in the Predator airstrike that took place in southern Somalia late last month...

June 14, 2011 | World Defense Review

Somalia Still Sinking as Eritrea Entertains Enemies

September has not been a good month in the sometime Somali capital of Mogadishu, even by the relative standards of a failed state that has not had an effective central government in the sixteen y...

November 4, 2009 | CTR Vantage

Understanding al-Shabaab

By Daveed Gartenstein-Ross and Madeleine Gruen The advance of Islamist groups in Somalia is seen as a cause for concern by Western law enforcement and...

October 22, 2009 | Middle East Quarterly

The Strategic Challenge of Somalia’s Al-Shabaab

Since emerging from an era of colonialism under Italy and Britain, Somalia has passed through military dictatorship, famine, and civil war to regional fragmentation. In the modern period, America...

September 24, 2009 | World Defense Review

Putting Puntland’s Potential into Play

By Dr. J. Peter Pham In last week's column, I noted that the United States military and intelligence communitie...

March 6, 2008 |

Why AFRICOM is Critical for Our Security Interests


This week I thought it useful to update readers on developments with some of the stories that have been previously reported in this column.

August 16, 2007 |

On the Move

Al Qaeda could beat the U.S. in Iraq if American political will collapses.

August 14, 2007 | World Defense Review

China’s Play for Somalia’s Oil

As this column has chronicled over the past year and a half, United States policy toward the remnants of the former state of Somalia has evolved into a sort of dramatic farce played out in the fo...

June 13, 2007 | Daveed Gartenstein-Ross Middle East Quarterly

Jihad’s New Leaders

The recent deaths of prominent Al-Qaeda terrorists such as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq and Abu Hafs al-Urdani in Daghestan, as well as a host of less publicized kills and captures, have hastened...

May 10, 2007 | Dr. J. Peter Pham World Defense Review

Additional Sparks Fly in the Horn of Africa

A little less than year ago, I appeared before a joint hearing of the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Human Rights, and International Operations and the Subcommittee on International Terrorism and...

January 4, 2007 | World Defense Review

Sweeping Up in Somalia

The reports continue to stream in of the hasty retreat of the militants of Somalia's Islamic Courts Union (ICU) in the face of an unexpectedly heavy offensive by Ethiopian air and land force...

December 29, 2006 |

In Somalia, An Africa Hawk Rises

With most Westerners in the throes of holiday mirth this week, an estimated 20,000 Ethiopian troops deployed to neighboring Somalia went on the offensive against the forces of the Islamic Courts...

December 14, 2006 | World Defense Review

Not Being Had by Al-Itihaad

The news from the Horn of Africa continues to be worrisome. The recent catastrophic floods that swept through the region have not slowed the advance of the radical Islamists, who in June seized c...

September 21, 2006 | World Defense Review

Financing Somalia’s Islamist Warlords

Since the fall of the sometime Somali capital of Mogadishu to the armed radicals of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) in early June, United States policymakers and analysts have debated not only the...

September 8, 2006 | World Defense Review

America’s Somali Policy Still Dangerously Adrift

This column is dedicated to the premise that the strategic neglect of Africa was the weak link in the advancement of American foreign policy interests in general, and the successful prosecution o...