In the past week, military excursions into the tribal regions of Pakistan targeted Islamist militants believed to have connections to a number of plots designed to strike at the European mainland. As more evidence comes to light, it becomes clearer that Islamist militants have been preparing to hit “soft” targets in and around Europe, in a manner and fashion similar to the coordinated attacks in Mumbai in 2008. While the United States appears to have avoided the target lists associated with this latest round of threats, it would be foolish …
Pakistan’s closure of one of the main NATO supply routes into Afghanistan and the string of attacks on NATO convoys transiting Pakistan over the last few days highlights the vulnerability of the entire coalition mission in Afghanistan to events inside Pakistan. Nearly eighty percent of supplies for the war effort in Afghanistan currently transit Pakistan. There have been several militant attacks on NATO trucks in the past but this is the first time Pakistan has formally closed down one of the border crossings. The border closure demonstrates Islamabad’s furor over …
Yesterday, U.S. and European intelligence officials revealed that they have detected an al-Qaeda plot to carry out a major, coordinated series of commando-style terror attacks in Britain, France, Germany, and possibly the U.S. Specifically, a suspected German terrorist allegedly captured on his way to Europe in late summer and now being held at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan told interrogators that terrorists were planning a series of “Mumbai-style” commando raids on what were termed “economic or soft” targets. ABC News reports: The new threat to France, and to Germany and Britain …
Before concluding that today’s New York Times article on Taliban outreach to Karzai means that an Afghan settlement is on the horizon, consider today’s other news from Afghanistan, which includes a suicide attack that killed the Deputy Governor of Afghanistan’s Ghazni province. The point is the Taliban may be reaching out to the Karzai government less to negotiate a compromise and more toward establishing a perception of their inevitable return to power in the country. A recent Wall Street Journal article reports that key leaders of Afghanistan’s ethnic minority communities …
On Monday evening, Dutch authorities detained Ahmed Mohamed Nasser al Soofi (of Detroit) and Hezem al Murisi when their United Airlines flight from Chicago landed in Amsterdam. It’s always a big mistake to jump to “instant analysis” based on preliminary press reports. But it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise if these two men turn out to have had bad intent. Al Soofi and al Murisi are suspected of making a dry run for a future terrorist attack. Dry runs are common in the terrorism trade. Terrorists are a …
In the coming months, lots of people will be cranking up their computers and burning up the airwaves with commentary on the just-announced departure of Secretary of Defense Robert Gates sometime in 2011. Evaluating his legacy as SECDEF when he ultimately leaves next year will be important for the historical record, but the challenges his yet-to-be-named successor will face are more important. For instance, there’s little doubt that the war in Afghanistan will still be a major focus in 2011 — not to mention the challenge of managing the White …
Pakistan is facing what may turn out to be its worst natural catastrophe ever. The U.S. must focus on providing maximum relief assistance over the coming weeks and plan to partner with Pakistan in leading an international effort to rehabilitate and reconstruct the flood-affected areas over the longer term. A robust U.S. response to the flood disaster would help shore up U.S.-Pakistan relations and maintain stability in a crisis-prone country vulnerable to the influence of anti-U.S. extremist groups. In addition to the floods, Pakistan has been wracked in recent weeks …
The posting of over 90,000 classified US government documents by Wikileaks has raised fresh questions about the US strategy in Afghanistan. Leaking of classified information, particularly on this scale, has the potential to damage US national security interests and in general should be discouraged. Much of the information from the classified US government documents released over the weekend by Wikileaks was already known to those observing the war over the last nine years. The challenges the US faces in fighting a counterinsurgency war in Afghanistan and in obtaining full Pakistani …
The Washington Post reports today that Gen. Stanley McChrystal, U.S. commander in Afghanistan, apologized for an upcoming article in Rolling Stone magazine that portrays him and senior officials on his team as dismissive of top Obama administration officials. As a result, General McChrystal has been summoned to the White House to explain his comments. It is a case of poor judgment on the part of the general and his staff to air comments on the character of senior civilian leaders to a reporter, but both the White House and the …
A front-page story on Afghan-Pakistani relations in today’s Washington Post indicates that Afghanistan and Pakistan are discussing a peace settlement for Afghanistan. While a genuine thaw in relations between the two countries would be welcome, the idea that the U.S. would take a back seat in any effort to negotiate an end to the war in Afghanistan defies logic. The U.S. has not lost over 1,000 U.S. soldiers in battle and invested billions of U.S. dollars in Afghanistan only to allow Pakistan to re-install its violent proxies there. President Karzai …
