How to Win Friends and Wage Jihad
Understanding al Qaeda’s Pragmatism
Dar es Salaam
U.S. on track to nearly triple airstrike record in Somalia
The US military continues to target Shabaab’s conventional forces in Somalia with record fury. In one of its latest airstrike, US Africa Command killed eight Shabaab fighters as the group attacked a...
Op-eds
Drone Drama
In 1996, al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden issued a formal declaration of war against the United State...
Op-eds
Have Tehran’s Tankers Hijacked the Tanzanian Flag?
When President Obama visited Tanzania last week, he praised the East African country as a place with which he feels a “special connection.” A glitch he did not mention is that Tanzani...
Op-eds
A 40-Year US Embassy Crisis
The murders in Benghazi are the latest in a string of attacks on American diplomats to go unanswered by the US
Op-eds
Al Qaeda’s Plan for Libya Highlighted in Congressional Report
An unclassified report published in August highlights al Qaeda's strategy for building a fully operational network in Libya. The report ("Al Qaeda in Libya: A Profile") was prepared by the f...
Op-eds
7 Shabaab Leaders Added to Rewards for Justice Most Wanted List
The US State department has added seven senior leaders of Shabaab, al Qaeda's affiliate in Somalia, to the...
Op-eds
DC Court: Iran Showed al Qaeda How to Bomb Embassies
In a little-noticed ruling on Nov. 28, a Washington, DC district court found that both Iran and Sudan were culpable for al Qaeda's 1998 embassy bombings. As is typical in cases dealing with...
Op-eds
Al Qaeda’s Big Fat Iranian Wedding
America’s top spy says the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism and the world’s most infamous terrorist organization are married
Op-eds
Iran Showed Al Qaeda How to Bomb Embassies
In a little noticed ruling on Monday, November 28, a Washington, D.C. district court found that bo...
Op-eds
Eritrea: The Horn of Africa’s Rogue Regime
Last week, exasperated with Eritrea's continued violations of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and its increasing harassment of representatives at the American Embassy in Asmara...
Op-eds
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...
Op-eds
Playing with Fire: South Africa’s Dangerous Terrorist Liaisons
On October 1, the United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) was officially stood up, achieving its "initial operating capacity" as a subordinate component of the U.S. European Command (EUCOM)...
Op-eds
Securing Africa
On February 6, 2007, President George W. Bush launched a major evolution in American military posture when he formally announced that he had directed the Pentagon to establish a new unified...
Op-eds
Untangling Ghailani
In Manhattan on Tuesday, Judge Lewis Kaplan gave al-Qaeda terrorist Ahmed Ghailani a sentence of life imprisonment after his conviction on a single count of conspiring to bomb American embassies...
Op-eds
Ghailani Verdict A Miscarriage of Justice
A New York jury delivered a stunning verdict Wednesday. Ahmed Ghailani, an al Qaeda terrorist who conspired to blow up American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, was acquitted of more than...
Op-eds
Embassy-Bombing Trial in Jeopardy
Ahmed Ghailani has confessed to bombing the U.S. embassy in Tanzania twelve years ago. As he explained to the FBI in a series of 2007 interviews, he bought the TNT used in the explosion. He even...
Op-eds
Uganda attack carried out by Shabaab cell named after slain al Qaeda leader
Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan. Click to view. The top leader of Shabaab said that the deadly attacks in Kampala, the capital of Uganda, were carried out by a cell named after an al...
Op-eds
Return of the Somali Pirates
By Dr. Peter Pham After maintaining a relatively low profile since the end of the monsoon season two months ago, Somali pirates literally shot their way back into the headlines...
Op-eds
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...