Al Qaeda
July 16, 2019 — Scott Johnson
Taking issue with one of President Trump’s comments yesterday in the controversy of the moment, CNN explains that Rep. Ilhan Omar didn’t actually praise al Qaeda in her 2013 comments (video below). CNN devotes two reporters to the task of reconstruction and offers this grudging concession: “It is possible to argue that Omar was making light of al Qaeda’s crimes in suggesting that its name itself is what makes people
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November 18, 2017 — Scott Johnson
Yesterday the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and FDD’s Long War Journal hosted a panel discussion of the massive cache of Osama bin Laden documents released on November 1 courtesy of CIA Director Mike Pompeo. The conversation featured the incredibly dogged New York Times reporter Rukmini Callimachi as well as FDD’s Tom Joscelyn and Bill Roggio, who were given the opportunity to preview the records, images, audio, and video files
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November 6, 2017 — Scott Johnson
The current issue of the Weekly Standard highlights the release of the bin Laden files that were so jealousy guarded by the Obama administration. Editor in chief Steve Hayes has long called for the release of the documents. He now reports “The big reveal: The story of how 470,000 documents from Osama bin Laden’s compound finally got into the open.” What was the Obama administration hiding? The related editorial explores
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November 1, 2017 — Scott Johnson
The Obama administration suppressed the release of the trove of al Qaeda documents seized in the May 2011 raid on Osama bin Laden’s Abbotabad lair. It released a grand total of 571 documents and sat on the rest. Why so shy? Today the Trump administration released hundreds of thousands of the documents as well as images and computer files recovered in the raid. Tom Joscelyn and Bill Roggio provide an
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July 26, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff
I’ve discussed how President Trump’s collaboration with Russia in Syria is helping Iran. Marc Thiessen shows that it is also inadvertently aiding al Qaeda. Thiessen cites the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) and the American Enterprise Institute’s Critical Threats Project (CTP). They find that “current U.S. strategy empowers al-Qaeda, which has an army in Syria, is preparing to replace ISIS,. . . [and] is more dangerous than ISIS.” How so?
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November 21, 2016 — Paul Mirengoff
For years, Republicans and conservatives have charged that President Obama has shielded embarrassing intelligence and other information regarding Iran in order to limit opposition to the Iran nuclear deal and Obama’s conciliatory approach to Tehran. The charge seems well-founded. After all, it took Sens. Tom Cotton and Rep. Mike Pompeo to discover secret side agreements attached to the nuclear deal. Eli Lake suggests that the Trump administration may well stop
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May 23, 2016 — Paul Mirengoff
I believe it’s widely known, though also widely forgotten, that then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton orchestrated “peace talks” with the Taliban. Clinton discussed her role in some detail in her book, Hard Choices. Robert Potts at the American Thinker provided a good summary of Clinton’s involvement, as described by her, in this article. Clinton’s goals were to “shatter the alliance between the Taliban and al Qaeda, end the insurgency, and
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December 4, 2015 — Paul Mirengoff
President Obama famously characterized ISIS as al Qaeda’s jayvee. This bit of idiocy will long be remembered, to the detriment of Obama’s legacy. But how should we compare ISIS and al Qaeda? A year ago, if I recall correctly, conventional wisdom had it that ISIS was preoccupied with securing and expanding its regional caliphate (sort of like Stalin’s “socialism in one country”), whereas al Qaeda was more internationally focused (Trotsky
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May 21, 2015 — Paul Mirengoff
Being on bin Laden’s bookshelf has become, in a way, the modern version of being on Richard Nixon’s enemies list. Bob Woodward gets a special award. He gained both distinctions, if that’s the right word. Politico contacted some of the authors in question for comment. Warning: Greg Palast’s response is nausea-inducing. What should we make of the bookshelf? Above all, it confirms that bin Laden was obsessed with the United
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May 20, 2015 — John Hinderaker
Today the Director of National Intelligence declassified and posted on the DNI web site 103 documents that were recovered during the raid on Osama bin Laden’s Pakistan compound, along with a variety of other materials. Among those other items is a list of 39 books in English that were found at the compound. Let’s start with the books. While there are some legitimate works of history, the list is heavy
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April 27, 2015 — Paul Mirengoff
The Assad regime has suffered a series of setbacks in its fight against rebel forces to the point that its ability to retain power appears to be in jeopardy, the Washington Post reports. Walter Russell Mead concurs. Both the Post and Mead cite Robert Ford, the former U.S. ambassador to Syria. He says “we may be seeing signs of the beginning of the end.” The most important signs are on
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April 5, 2015 — Paul Mirengoff
According to the Washington Post, former members of Iraq’s Baathist army play a “pervasive role” in ISIS. This is true, says the Post’s Liz Sly, not only in Iraq but also in Syria. ISIS evolved from al Qaeda in Iraq. It was well known that Baathists played an important role in that outfit. Sly says that the former Baathist officers became even more prominent when ISIS rose from the ashes
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March 6, 2015 — Scott Johnson
The Wall Street Journal carries an important column by Steve Hayes and Tom Joscelyn on the status of al Qaeda. The column is “How America was misled on al Qaeda’s demise.” The column is behind the Journal’s subscription paywall but accessible here via Google. One of the central themes of President Obama’s campaign for reelection in 2012 rested on the proposition that he had essentially defeated al Qaeda. By one
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February 13, 2015 — Paul Mirengoff
This week, President Obama proclaimed that ISIS is on the defensive and that its morale is low. He cited no evidence, but if indeed ISIS’s morale had flagged, it will receive a pick-me-up from the capture by ISIS forces of an Iraqi town just a few miles away from a military base where hundreds of U.S. advisers are stationed. The town is called al-Baghdadi. The U.S. base lies only five
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December 23, 2014 — Paul Mirengoff
The United States government has put al Qaeda’s Ibrahim al-Rubaish on a global terrorist list and offered a $5 million reward for information on his whereabouts. Once we knew his whereabouts — Guantanamo Bay detention center. But in 2006, the U.S. released Rubaish to Saudi Arabia where he was to be “rehabilitated.” At the time, Rubaysh was a poster child for the terrorist detainee-sympathizing, anti-Gitmo crew. Marc Falkoff, a lawyer
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December 9, 2014 — Paul Mirengoff
The big news today will be the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on the CIA’s interrogation policy during the Bush years, which has finally been made public. The mainstream media will see to it that the story dominates the headlines. It already dominates the Washington Post’s main page. I expect we’ll have lots to say about the report, whose contents have been leaked over the past months. For now, I’ll link
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November 3, 2014 — Paul Mirengoff
The Free Syrian Army and Harakat Hazm were formed with the intention of fighting the Assad regime. President Obama hoped to convert them into forces that could help degrade ISIS. But over the weekend, both groups found themselves in combat against neither Assad nor ISIS. Instead, they fought Jabhat al-Nusra, al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria. It did not go well. Both groups were routed. Many fighters surrendered. Many more scattered.
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