Terrorism

WASHINGTON, March 19, 2008 – Winning the war on terrorism will be a long, slow process predicated on earning the loyalty of people insurgents want to control for their own ends, according to one of the U.S. Army’s premier counter-insurgency experts.

“We are not going to kill or capture our way out of this,” Army Lt. Col. John A. Nagl told reporters on Fort Riley, Kan., March 17.

Army Lt. Col. John A. Nagl, commander of 1st Infantry Division’s 1st Battalion, 34th Armored Regiment: Defense Dept. photo by Gerry J. Gilmore    » read more »

March 17, 2008 -- Today, the Department of Justice’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) issued a report entitled “Audit of the Department of Justice’s Consolidated Terrorist Watchlist Nominations Processes.” The report references many of the effective practices used by the FBI in the terrorist-screening process. In response, FBI Assistant Director John Miller made the following statement:

“We are working with the Department of Justice and our partner agencies to evaluate the OIG’s recommendations to ensure the proper balance between national security protection and the need for accurate, efficient, and streamlined watchlisting processes.    » read more »

March 17, 2008 -- Since 2001, Congress has provided the Department of Defense (DOD) with hundreds of billions of dollars in supplemental and annual appropriations for military operations in support of the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT).    » read more »

13 March 2008 -- The U.S. Defense Department has released a study of 600,000 documents from Saddam Hussein's archives concluding that while he supported many terrorist groups he did not have a "direct connection" with al-Qaida. But the department's spokesman says that is not a new conclusion.    » read more »

09 March 2008 -- A top Chinese official says suspected militants captured and killed by police in January were planning a terrorist attack on this year's Beijing Olympics.

Wang Lequan, the top Communist Party official in the western region of Xinjiang, told reporters Sunday that materials seized in the January 27 raid in the regional capital of Urumqi showed the gang had plotted to sabotage the Olympics.

Wang was speaking on the sidelines of China's national parliamentary session in Beijing. He provided few details of the alleged plot, but said the goal of the gang was very clear.    » read more »

February 25, 2008 -- (This is a revised version of the original letter sent to the editor of Rolling Stone magazine in response to their article, The Fear Factory, which appeared in the February 7, 2008 edition. Rolling Stone printed an edited version to comport with their word limitations in the February 22, 2008 issue.)    » read more »

10 February 2008 -- The commander of NATO's military forces is disputing critics who say the alliance is losing in Afghanistan, but he said it is not winning fast enough, and he called for member nations to provide more troops. In Munich, General John Craddock spoke to reporters attending the annual European Security Conference.

General Craddock added his weight to repeated calls by U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates for European nations to send more troops to participate in the NATO mission in Afghanistan.    » read more »

Without Immediate Action, "Forgotten War" in Afghanistan Will Continue To Spiral Out of Control

01/30/2008 -- WASHINGTON D.C. – Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Senator Norm Coleman (R-Minn.), Chairman and Ranking Member of the Near East and South and Central Asian Affairs Subcommittee, introduced three new reports that conclude that a major new effort is needed to succeed in Afghanistan.    » read more »

January 30, 2008 -- Washington, DC — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid made the following statement today in response to a report sponsored by the nonpartisan Center for the Study of the Presidency, concluding that Afghanistan could fail as a state as violence there grows while international support declines:    » read more »

Washington, D.C. -- January 29, 2008 -- Landmark bipartisan legislation authored by Senator Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ) and Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) to provide justice for victims of state-sponsored terrorism was signed into law yesterday by President Bush. The law will give victims their day in court and help them pursue the assets of countries that support terrorism. The measure was included in the final conference version of the FY 2008 Department of Defense Authorization bill.    » read more »

23 January 2008 -- U.S., British and Afghan officials opened this year's World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Wednesday with calls for greater effort to fight global terror and find peace in the Middle East.

Afghanistan's president Hamid Karzai told over 2,000 forum participants that more needs to be done to combat terrorism. Terrorists, he said, have become bolder in recent months, as evidenced by the assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. He said terrorism in Pakistan and Afghanistan has no legitimate ideology.    » read more »

January 21, 2008 -- WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) today released the following statement on reports that the Bush Administration intends to drastically reduce funding for state and local counterterrorism and first responder efforts in the President's Fiscal Year 2009 budget despite repeated requests by the Department of Homeland Security and Congress for increased funding.    » read more »

16 January 2008 -- An explosion ripped apart a bus carrying school children in rural Sri Lanka and authorities say it appears to have been a Tamil Tiger attack. The blast killed at least 23 people and injured nearly 70 others.

A bomb or land mine planted on the side of a rural road is believed to have caused the explosion Wednesday morning in a remote town in southeastern Sri Lanka.

The bus was carrying scores of school children, many of whom were killed or injured.    » read more »

06 January 2008 -- Pakistan says it will not permit the United States to unilaterally hunt terrorists on its soil, despite a common desire to defeat radical Islamist militants. The statements from Pakistani officials follow a U.S. media report that the Bush administration has considered expanding U.S. military and intelligence operations in Pakistan's tribal regions, thought to be a possible hiding place for Osama bin Laden.    » read more »

21 December 2007 -- Pakistani officials say at least 50 people have been killed in a suicide bombing at a mosque in the restive northwest, during prayers for the Muslim Eid al-Adha festival.

Officials say dozens more were wounded in the blast that took place Friday at the mosque inside the residential compound of former interior minister, Aftab Sherpao, in Charsadda - a district in North West Frontier Province.

Local police say the attacker blew himself up in a row of worshippers behind Sherpao and his son. A spokesman said both father and son escaped unhurt.    » read more »