US Army paratroopers prepare to load into a CH-47 Chinook helicopter during an air-assault mission to detain a known militant in the Bermel district of Paktika province, Afghanistan. The paratroopers are assigned to the 25th Infantry Division’s Company B, 3rd Battalion, 509th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team. US Army photo by Private First […]
A Pakistani general exchanges a Koran with a tribal leader during a prior peace deal in Waziristan. Photo from The Associated Press. It has been known for some time that the government brokered an agreement with North Waziristan Taliban leader Hafiz Gul Bahadar just prior to the operation that was launched against the Mehsud branch […]
Bajaur Taliban leader Faqir Mohammed. Some interesting news has emerged from Bajaur, where unmanned US aircraft pounded a Taliban and al Qaeda planning session, killing 27 Taliban and al Qaeda operatives. Eleven “foreigners” were reported killed. Some of developments from the Bajaur strike from The News: 1) One of Faqir Mohammed’s nephews (Zahid) and a […]
As seen through a night-vision device, Coalition forces and Afghan commandos cordon and search a compound during Operation Raven for an improvised explosive device cell operating in the area east of Khost City, Afghanistan, Aug. 31, 2009. US Army photo by Specialist Matthew Freire. The Wall Street Journal has a good article on the situation […]
Sheikh Ali Mohamed Hussein (right), during a prior press conference in Mogadishu. One day after a vicious exchange of mortar fire in Mogadishu that killed more than 30 people, Shabaab threatened to carry the fight to the capitals of Burundi and Uganda, two countries that have provided the bulk of the African Union peacekeepers in […]
On Oct. 22, As Sahab, al Qaeda’s media production company, released a videotape of Pakistani Taliban leader Hakeemullah Mehsud and South Waziristan commander Waliur Rehman Mehsud to Al Fajr Media Center, al Qaeda’s distribution network. The video was published on the Islamic Al Fallujah Forums and then distributed to the network of other jihadi web […]
Andrew Exum linked to my recent Threat Matrix post in his own post about drone strikes — as an example of how “careless readers of [Exum and Kilcullen’s] argument mistakenly assume we agree with open-source reporting out of Pakistan.” A few points in response. First of all, I have a lot of respect for Andrew […]
Nek Mohammed, the former leader of the Taliban in South Waziristan, speaks to his followers after being showered with gifts by the Pakistani Army after a peace agreement on April 24, 2004. Nek was later killed in a US Predator strike, and was replaced by Baitullah Mehsud, who was killed in another Predator strike on […]
Aden Hashi Ayro, the deceased leader of al Qaeda-linked Shabaab, the terrorist youth movement of Somalia’s Islamic Courts Union. Photo from IntelCenter Over the past several years, an ongoing lack of internal order has left Somalia vulnerable to the rise of hard-line Islamist groups, of which the latest is al Shabaab (“the youth”), which has […]
An emergency personnel checks an army jeep with bullet holes splattered on the windshield after it was attacked by gunmen in Islamabad. A brigadier general was killed in the attack. AP Photo. The Taliban have struck again in Islamabad, and have killed another senior Army officer. The BBC reports: A Pakistani army brigadier and his […]
Click image to view The Long War Journal’s data related to the US air campaign in Pakistan. Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedemann have published an analysis for the New America Foundation about US drone strikes in Pakistan. Citing previous analyses of drone strike statistics, including the recent report in The Long War Journal, Bergen and […]
The Taliban have taken credit for yesterday’s suicide attack at the International Islamic University in Islamabad. As noted in yesterday’s report on the attack, the Taliban have no problems with striking at mosques and other religious institutions and events. I’ve received several questions as to why the Taliban would strike at an Islamic university. Dawn […]
Shamsia Husseini, right, was among 15 girls and women in Kandahar, Afghanistan, who were splashed with acid last November. Photo from The New York Times. The recent arguments over Afghanistan have focused on “going all in” with properly resourced counterinsurgency vs. keeping al Qaeda diminished via Predator strikes and super-secret squirrel (commando) raids. Seemingly lost […]
South Waziristan Taliban leader Mullah Nazir. Click to view. While it was clear more than a week ago that the Pakistani Army had sidelined South Taliban commander Mullah Nazir and was in the process of dealing with North Waziristan warlord Hafiz Gul Bahadar, Pakistani intelligence officers and even the top military spokesman have confirmed that […]
An Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps poster. Photo from Trends Magazine. Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari, the commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, is blaming the US and Britain for yesterday’s suicide attack that killed five senior IRGC commanders, including Brigadier General Nour Ali Shoushtari, the deputy commander for the IRGC’s ground forces, Brigadier Rajab […]
With the Pakistani military focusing on eliminating the Taliban in South Waziristan, the Taliban are countering by openly raising money in Arakzai, Kurram, Kohat, and Bannu. From Dawn: Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan has started a fund-raising campaign in the Arakzai Agency and parts of the Kurram Agency and Hangu. Sources said the TTP men were asking tribesmen […]
Click to view slide show of the Haqqani Network. Pictured is a composite image of Siraj Haqqani. New York Times reporter David Rohde writes about his kidnapping by the Haqqani Network and seven-month captivity. Rohde tells us three things that longtime readers of The Long War Journal and more recently Threat Matrix already know: 1) […]
An Iraqi Air Force Mi-17 helicopter takes off from Landing Zone Washington, in Baghdad’s International Zone, during the first night flight outside the air base at Taji since the new Iraqi Air Force was formed. Photo by William Lovelady, Multi-National Security Transition Command – Iraq Public Affairs. I’ve argued that beyond the political patina of […]
Italian troops patrol outside of Kabul. EPA photo. According to the The Times of London, Italian intelligence secretly paid the Taliban thousands of dollars to keep the peace in an Afghan area under Italian control, without informing NATO allies. After French forces took control of the sector in 2008 the Taliban mounted a savage ambush […]
The body of a government worker at the Federal Investigation Agency killed by a Taliban assault team is carried out by rescue workers.. EPA photo. Before the smoke even cleared from the terror assaults on three police centers in Lahore, a senior police official has pointed the finger at India’s intelligence agency for masterminding the […]
Colonel Imam. Photo from the Irish Times. Pakistan’s The News provides a [likely unintentional] humorous rebuttal to Hamid Mir’s report that Ilyas Kashmiri was a member of the Special Services Group, Pakistan’s elite commandos. This is with reference to Hamid Mir’s report (Sept 20) titled “How an ex-commando became a terrorist”. It is total disinformation […]
Ilyas Kashmiri, the leader of the Harakat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami and al Qaeda’s Brigade 313. The Asia Times‘ Syed Saleem Shahzad has published his interview with Ilyas Kashmiri, a senior al Qaeda leader and longtime Pakistani jihadi with strong ties to Pakistan’s military and intelligence services who was thought to have been killed in a US airstrike in […]
Earlier, I noted that the Pakistani military’s lack of response to the assault on Army General Headquarters in Rawalpindi is going to have serious repercussions. A comment from a former Pakistani Army officer, passed along from my friend Ravi Rikhye at Orbat.com, drives the point home. The note below was written by Agha H. Amin, […]
Aftermath of the Shangla suicide attack. AP photo. The Taliban have taken credit for the Shangla suicide attack against a military convoy as well as the assault on the Army General Headquarters in Rawalpindi. Dawn reports on the Taliban taking credit for the Shangla attack: A boy aged about 13 and wearing a suicide vest […]
Taliban fighters in South Waziristan. Reuters photo. With four large-scale Taliban attacks in Pakistan since Oct. 4, including the brazen assault on the Army General Headquarters in Rawalpindi, the Pakistani government and military are still talking about considering discussing the possibility of issuing orders to provide for a principled decision to launch an offensive against […]
This news shouldn’t surprise the readers of the Threat Matrix and The Long War Journal. The Lahore High Court has dismissed terrorism charges against Lashkar-e-Taiba / Jamaat-ud-Dawa leader Hafiz Saeed. From The Times of India: Pakistan’s Lahore High Court on Monday dismissed the FIRs lodged under anti-terrorism act against JuD chief Hafiz Mohd Saeed, who […]
Soldiers from Bravo Troop, 1st Squadron, 91st Cavalry Regiment (Airborne), patrol outside of Forward Operating Base Keating in Nuristan province, Afghanistan, March 1, 2008. Photo by Staff Sergeant Brandon Aird. At The Best Defense, Tom Ricks published an “earwitness account” of the battle at Camp Keating in Kamdish in Nuristan province. The account comes via […]
Wanted flyer for Swat Taliban leaders. A Pakistani court has ordered the release of Syed Muhammad Javed, the pro-Taliban commissioner of the Malakand Division, the region that encompasses the Swat Valley. Javed openly aided the rise of the Taliban in Swat after being appointed commissioner in February. He openly facilitated the Taliban takeover of neighboring […]
Six days after the deadly battle in the Kamdish district in Nuristan, the US military has withdrawn from the two combat outposts that were attacked. From an ISAF press release: ISAF forces have completed their repositioning from two combat outposts (Combat Outposts Keating and Fritsche) in Kamdesh district, Nuristan province, to other areas in eastern […]
Photo from March 2008: Afghan national army soldiers and Marine embedded tactical trainers struggle up the last part of a patrol from Forward Operating Base Keating to Combat Outpost Warheit in Nuristan province, Afghanistan, March 2. The patrol originated on the valley floor and ended near the top of the mountain. Photo by Staff Sergeant […]