via LobeLog
by Mitchell Plitnick
The saga of the three kidnapped Israeli youths in the West Bank took a tragic, if expected, turn today, when their bodies were discovered near Hebron. None but the most starry-eyed optimist thought the young men would be found alive after all this time. But the story is [...]
via LobeLog
by Thomas Lippman
Has King Abdullah backed away from his longstanding refusal to have anything to do with an Iraqi government that includes Nouri al-Maliki? Reporters who were in Jeddah when Abdullah met with Secretary of State John F. Kerry Friday seemed to think so, based on a background briefing by the [...]
via LobeLog
by Derek Davison
The resurgence of “Salafi-jihadist” terrorist groups is once again at the forefront of national security thinking in Washington. A report released this week by the RAND Corporation, “A Persistent Threat: The Evolution of al Qa’ida and Other Salafi Jihadists,” explains why.
There were 20 active “Salafi-jihadist groups” around [...]
via LobeLog
by Wayne White
Last week, Jasmin Ramsey pointed out how problematic the recent US decision to deliver attack helicopters to Egypt is in terms of US human rights policy. The move also portrays the US as actively taking sides in a conflict pitting a repressive regime against armed opposition, with potentially [...]
via LobeLog
by Aurélie Daher
As the Syrian uprising against the Baathist regime enters its fourth year, it is clear, given the changing balance of power on the ground, that predictions about the imminent collapse of the Assad dynasty, which constituted conventional wisdom from 2011-12, are far from the mark. Once derided [...]
In a rare extended interview with the U.K.’s New Statesman, according to multipleoutlets, an anonymous Taliban commander says the group was “naïve and ignorant of politics and welcomed Al Qaeda into their homes.” That came back to bite the group when Osama Bin Laden’s militants attacked the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001, leading to [...]
via LobeLog
by Wayne White
The Libyan Parliament’s abrupt dismissal last week of Prime Minister Ali Zeidan takes Libya another step closer to even greater confusion and instability. With an oil-starved central government also drifting closer to bankruptcy, Libya’s options going forward have become more daunting. If the international community continues to focus elsewhere [...]
via LobeLog
by Tyler Cullis
Earlier this month the UN Special Rapporteur for Counter-Terrorism and Human Rights, Ben Emmerson, released his annual report to the UN Human Rights Council (the “Emmerson report”). He had been charged with determining best practices for States to respect human rights while engaging in counter-terrorism operations and highlighting [...]
via LobeLog
by Wayne White
When I first walked the streets of Algiers back in 1975, the city was decked out in banners heralding a visit from North Korean tyrant Kim Il Sung. Algeria’s foreign policy radicalism of those days shifted to a far more moderate pragmatism over 25 years ago, but surprisingly, little [...]
via LobeLog
by Tyler Cullis
Today news broke that the Obama administration is considering targeting a U.S. citizen located in Pakistan with lethal force. This quickly restarted the debate over what legal authorities the President has in drone strikes, what policies the administration has put in place to ensure that the targeted individual, [...]
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