Edmund Fitton-Brown — outgoing coordinator of the UN Security Council Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring team and longtime friend of the show — joins Bill to discuss the killing of Al Qaeda emir Ayman Zawahiri, who died in a U.S. drone strike last Sunday.
Zawahiri’s death is being hailed as a counterterrorism success, but that masks the fact Afghanistan has become a safe haven for top Al Qaeda leaders.
In this episode, Bill flies solo and expands upon his recent article in FDD’s Long War Journal, “Ayman al Zawahiri is alive; Taliban and Al Qaeda ‘remain close,’ UN reports,” noting that reports today (August 1, 2022) of Zawahiri’s death inside of Afghanistan underscore the country’s role as a safe-haven for Al Qaeda.
This policy both limits the effectiveness of anti-Taliban resistance and reduces the U.S. military and intelligence communities’ ability to monitor and strike Al Qaeda, the Islamic State and other regional and global terror groups based in Afghanistan.
Abu Hamzah al Yemeni, a senior leader and military commander in the Al Qaeda-linked Hurras al-Din, was the target of the strike. CENTCOM claims he was killed, but al Yemeni was also reported killed in a U.S. strike in Sept. 2021.
The presence of Abdul Haq al Turkistani, a veteran Al Qaeda leader, in Afghanistan contradicts the Taliban’s claims that there are no foreign fighters based in the country.
Nelly Lahoud’s new book reportedly draws from 6,000 Abbottabad raid documents. But the book suffers from major analytical problems.
A Tajik commander in the Al Qaeda-linked Jamaat Ansarullah who was appointed to lead several districts in northern Afghanistan continues to celebrate the group’s ties to the Taliban.
Al Qaeda’s central leadership remains organized with its branches actively carrying out orders passed down from Ayman al Zawahiri who sits at the helm and remains an influential figure in Jihad. Host Bill Roggio is joined by Long War Journal contributor Caleb Weiss to discuss the state of Al Qaeda under Zawahiri’s leadership.
The U.S. military continues to recycle stale estimates of Al Qaeda’s strength in Afghanistan, and elevate the Islamic State as a greater threat.
The Haqqani Network, an integral part of the Taliban whose leader, Sirajuddin Haqqani, is the Taliban’s deputy emir and minister of the interior, is reported to have facilitated the negotiations.
Host Bill Roggio briefs listeners on some of the latest news related to Afghanistan — including a few buried headlines you might have missed.
Shabaab again highlights operations from its urban assassination unit in Mogadishu. In doing so, it places these killings in the context of the wider global jihad.
One week after a series of suicide bombings in Mogadishu, the US conducts its first drone strike against al-Shabaab since August 2021.
Sanaullah Ghafar, who is also known as Shabab al-Muhajir, has been identified as an “ambitious new leader” of the Islamic State Khorasan Province. His challenge is to hold off the vastly superior Taliban, which controls Afghanistan.
Bill Roggio is joined by Edmund Fitton-Brown, Coordinator of the United Nations Security Council Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team, to discuss the findings from his team’s latest report on the statuses of ISIS and al-Qaeda.
On Feb. 2, Bill Roggio testified before the House Committee on Homeland Security at a hearing titled, “The Dynamic Terrorism Landscape and What It Means for America.” His testimony focused on the state of Al Qaeda, the Islamic State, the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban, state sponsors of terrorism such as Iran and Pakistan, and the growing threat of global jihadism.
Two new videos from Ansaru, or al Qaeda’s franchise in Nigeria, demonstrate the group’s continued ideological affinity and connections to the global jihadist network.
As violence continues to spread across the Sahel, particularly in Burkina Faso, the violence is now seeping into the states of Ivory Coast, Togo, and Benin.
Haji Mali Khan was a top Haqqani Network and Taliban leader when he was detained by the U.S. in 2011. He was freed in 2019 in exchange for a U.S. and an Australian professor who were kidnapped in Kabul in 2016.
Hosts Tom Joscelyn and Bill Roggio discuss Tom’s recent testimony before the Senate, why the Islamic State bombed a mosque in Kunduz, and the Pakistani Taliban’s ongoing jihad. Powered by RedCircle Take a look around the globe today and you’ll see jihadists fighting everywhere from West Africa to Southeast Asia. They aren’t the dominant force […]
Sudan’s intelligence service has reported three raids on suspected Islamic State cells in Khartoum in the last week. However, details remain murky surrounding the details of the Islamic State’s purported network inside Sudan.
Note: On September 30, 2021, Thomas Joscelyn testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee at a hearing titled, “To receive testimony on Afghanistan.” You can watch a recording of the hearing here, and you can read his full written testimony here. An excerpt, without footnotes, is below. Chairman Reed, Ranking Member Inhofe, members of the […]
The Taliban appointed former Guantanamo Bay detainee Mullah Abdul Qayyum Zakir as a deputy minister of defense, while Ibrahim Sadr, who has worked closely with Iran in the past, was named a deputy minister of the interior for security.
Mullah Sangeen Zadran, a senior Taliban and Haqqani Network leader, was intricately linked to Al Qaeda. he viewed the two groups as inseparable “brothers.” The U.S. killed Sangeen and an Al Qaeda bomb maker in a drone strike in Pakistan in 2013.
After a lengthy absence from the screen, Zawahiri returns to promote his vision for global jihad in a new video titled, “Jerusalem Will Not Be Judaized.”
The Taliban has announced the “interim” leadership of its newly restored Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. FDD’s Lpng War Journal profiles 22 of these figures, many of whom were sanctioned by the U.N. in 2001, are designated terrorists, or are former Guantanamo detainees. Multiple Taliban leaders have worked with al Qaeda.
The Taliban launched attacks on three mountain passes that lead to Panjshir province, the last bastion of resistance in Afghanistan. The National Resistance Front repelled the assault.
Al Qaeda’s central media arm, As Sahab, released a two-page statement praising the Taliban’s “historic victory” in Afghanistan. Al Qaeda fought alongside the Taliban to resurrect its Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.
The video of Dr. Amin al Haq is evidence that Al Qaeda commanders now feel secure enough to appear publicly in a Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.
