Caliphate, interrupted
After being bombarded by four years of U.S. airstrikes, a relentless ground campaign by Kurdish-led U.S. allies, and attacks from Russian, Syri...
War on terror
FDD Launches New Center on Military and Political Power
Names H.R. McMaster as Chairman and Bradley Bowman as Senior Director
Press Releases
The Senate’s Blind Spot on Terrorism in Yemen
On Tuesday, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee pressed hard on top administration officials to justif...
Op-eds
In search of a grand U.S. strategy
Richard Nixon’s rapprochement with China, the end of the Cold War, President Obama’s outreach to “the Muslim world,” the growth of the (largely American-funded) United Nat...
Op-eds
Here’s What All Those Terror Terms Actually Mean
After the attacks in Paris and California, the debate in America has again erupted over the appropriate lexicon for discussing terrorism. Here’s an extremely abridged, alphabetized list of...
Op-eds
Britain’s Corbyn Is No Laughing Matter
"Few people outside Britain have ever heard of Jeremy Corbyn," the British journalist Nick Cohen ...
Op-eds
FDD Names Board of Advisors to Help Guide Center on Sanctions and Illicit Finance
WASHINGTON – The Foundation for Defense of Democracies today announced 18 experts who will serve as members of the Board of Advisors for its Center on Sanctions and Illicit Finance (CSIF)....
Press Releases
In Africa, a Real “War on Women”
Last week, more than a hundred Nigerian students, girls between 15 and 18 years of age, were kidnapped by the al Qaeda-affiliated terrorists of Boko Haram. Most of the girls are still being held....
Op-eds
The Road to Damascus Starts in Tehran
It’s Middle East Groundhog Day all over again. The discussion of What To Do About Syria is a replay of What To Do About Saddam: it’s all about the wrong war in the wrong p...
Op-eds
It’s Time to Threaten Egypt’s Aid
The Egyptian military’s slaughter of hundreds of protesters on Wednesday leaves the United States with a single clear, albeit difficult, course of action: Condition future aid to Egypt on a...
Op-eds
Salafi Jihadism in the North African Regional Context
Chairmen Poe and Ros-Lehtinen, Ranking Members Sherman and Deutch, distinguished members of the subcommittees, it is an honor to appear before you today to discuss the threat of jihadist terroris...
Congressional Testimonies
Guantanamo’s Hunger Artists
Would shutting Gitmo satisfy them -- or whet their appetites?
Op-eds
Gay—or Left?
On July 19, 2005, authorities in the Iranian city of Mashhad publicly lynched two teenagers, Mahmoud Asgari and Ayaz Marhoni, for the alleged crime of raping a 13-year-old boy. Horrific pictures...
Op-eds
The Unchanging CIA
Technology and spies go well together.
Op-eds
The Shape of Al Shabaab’s Post-Kismayo Attacks
In late September, African Union (AU) forces surrounded the port city of Kismayo on Somalia’s southern coast. The AU troops stood on the threshold of capturing the city from the al Qaeda-af...
Op-eds
Perceptions of the “Arab Spring” Within the Salafi-Jihadi Movement
Co-authored by Tara Vassefi “The popular uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Yemen and Bahrain have not only shaken the foundation of the authoritarian order in the...
Op-eds
Seven Foreign Policy Priorities for Obama’s Second Term
In his second term, President Obama will inherit -- from his first term -- a long list of national security and foreign policy challenges. If he were asking my advice (unlikely so long as pigs ar...
Op-eds
SFC Speer’s Killer Leaves Gitmo
Omar Khadr has been sent from Guantanamo to Canada, after returning from the jihad in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Khadr is slated to stay in custody for the time being. It is difficult to think of...
Op-eds
Missed Clues Before Fort Hood Shootings
In the wake of the November 5, 2009 Fort Hood shootings, Steve Hayes and I wrote about the FBI’s and Defense Department’s...
Op-eds
Is Nigeria the Next Front in the War on Terror?
The country's sectarian violence is getting out of control.