The Cuban in the Desert
In April 2011, a post appeared on the leading jihadist web forum Shumukh al-Islam authored by a little known writer called Abu As...
Marc Sageman
The Al Qaeda Factor, and the Fate of a Jihadi Group
The Al Qaeda Factor: Plots Against the West by Mitchell D. Silber. One reason terrorism watchers have often been wrong about some of the critical...
Op-eds
The Death of al Qaeda: Fawaz Gerges Edition
Few forms of writing are consistently less satisfying than “five myths” pieces. The genre, by its nature, tends toward shallow analysis and the propagation of conventional wisdom unde...
Op-eds
Criminal Networks in West Africa: An Emerging Security Challenge
On April 30, Sidi Ould Sidna, a.k.a. Abou Jendel, an al-Qaeda-linked militant who was escaped earlier in the month from the courthouse in Nouakchott, Mauritania, where he was being tried for the...
Op-eds
A False Martyr
Late last year, Guantanamo detainee Omar Khadr agreed to a plea deal that will require him to serve a maximum of eight years, with just one of those years in Cuba. Khadr is then set to be returne...
Op-eds
New HSPI Report on Foreign Fighters
Yesterday I attended the launch event for a new report published by George Washington University's Homeland Security Policy Institute. (Full disclosure: I am a 2010 Senior Fellow at HSPI.) T...
Op-eds
The Homegrown Terror Threat
Homegrown terrorism has been much discussed on cable news channels and the op-ed pages of major newspapers in recent months. The attention is unsurprising. After all, 2009 saw more homegrown terr...
Op-eds
Book Review: What Makes a Terrorist: Economics and the Roots of Terrorism
What Makes a Terrorist: Economics and the Roots of Terrorism, Alan B. Krueger (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2007), 180 pp. Reviewed by Daveed Gartenstein...
Op-eds
On the Move
Al Qaeda could beat the U.S. in Iraq if American political will collapses.
Op-eds
Myths of War: The Ten Most Widely Believed Distortions About the Global Conflict Now Underway
Co-Authored with Alykhan Velshi Ronald Reagan once said: “It’s not that liberals are ignorant, it’s just that they know so much that isn’t true.&rdquo...
Op-eds
General Hayden, Invest in the Arms Trade
On June 26, representatives of governments and non-governmental organizations will gather in New York for the United Nations Review Conference on Small Arms. In the grand scheme of things, little...