Blog Posts

"Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi surfaced Tuesday in a video for the first time in five years, indicating that he has survived the territorial defeat of the caliphate he proclaimed and retains overall control of the group."

"Afghan President Ashraf Ghani opened a four-day Loya Jirga, or Grand Assembly on April 29, with more than 3,200 delegates seeking to agree on a common approach to peace talks with the Taliban."

"... surge of rage and harassment directed at a doctor living abroad may seem inexplicable. But social scientists say it reveals the impulses that lead people, particularly when they feel weak or threatened, to band together to punish a perceived transgressor — and the ways that social media has encouraged those impulses."

"Military spending in Ukraine and several other Central and Eastern European countries rose sharply in 2018, largely in reaction to perceived threats from Russia, a leading research institute says in a new report."

"Khalilzad says that the United States efforts in Afghanistan have led to an international consensus on Afghan peace."

"A week after enduring hideous violence on their holiest of days, Sri Lankan Christians largely stayed away from their places of worship."

Via 'The Idaho Statesman' - "A group of Boise residents has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Air Force, opposing the new urban warfare training program set to happen over the city and the surrounding area."

"When the Wahhabis came, with their austere ideology and abundant coffers, the town of Kattankudy yielded fertile ground."

"Sri Lanka remained on high alert as raids continued to round up people suspected of having involvement in the attacks on churches and hotels last week. The archbishop of Colombo, the capital, who had suspended church services for security reasons, offered a televised Sunday Mass from his home."

"Peace talks are predicated on the notion that the Taliban have fundamentally changed. They haven’t."

“Any terrorist attack is by definition an intelligence failure,” said Raffaello Pantucci, director of international security studies at the Royal United Services Institute for Defense and Security Studies in London. “Intelligence’s job is to stay on top of these problems and stop them from happening.”

"The United States, Russia, and China have agreed on the goal of withdrawing foreign forces from Afghanistan and to seek an "inclusive Afghan-led" peace process, the three countries declared in a joint statement."

"For a military that once spanned the globe, this squad of some 1,000 troops and assorted armor represents the largest British battle group deployed anywhere in the world. Budget cuts have led to sharp reductions in troops, equipment and investment, and analysts warn that Britain is no longer capable of defending its homeland by itself."

"Nearly everywhere US troops go in Syria, the Pentagon-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) provide protection, escorting small units and acting as America’s intelligence collectors on the ground."

"While neither guided bomb nor armored vehicle, a gray oblong water pump sticking out from the brush along a remote dirt road is intended to be just as clear a sign of the United States’ efforts to stop the spread of the Islamic State."

Continue on for links to all the latest CTC 'Sentinel' articles.

"Responding to the recent violence with typical policies to counter violent extremism could make things far worse.'

"The Pentagon will expand the military’s mission along the southern border, sending nearly 300 additional active-duty troops there who will be authorized to have direct contact with migrants entering the United States to provide them food and shuttle them between locations, defense officials said Friday."

"Nobody has a dementia diagnosis yet, but the first hip and knee replacements are on the horizon. So are wheelchair ramps, sleep apnea breathing masks, grab bars on cell walls and, perhaps, dialysis. Hospice care is on the agenda."

"The United States and Turkey are negotiating a plan for their troops to jointly patrol a safe zone about 20 miles wide along Syria’s northeastern border with Turkey, according to officials from both countries."

"Syria’s opposition has pinned its hopes on a new constitution that could allow for political transition in a country devastated by civil war, as it struggles for relevance eight years after an uprising began to oust the Assad regime."

"The question facing the United States and other Western allies is how to deal with challenges in the Middle East without getting sucked into complex and costly civil wars."

"The Easter Sunday bombings in Sri Lanka rank among the deadliest terrorist attacks in modern history, and underscore the metastasising scourge of Islamist violence in Asia. Radical Islamist groups, some affiliated with larger extremist networks, have been quietly gaining influence in an arc of countries extending from the Maldivian to the Philippine archipelagos, and the threat they pose can no longer be ignored."

"The number of security contractors the military employs in Afghanistan is higher now than at any time since President Barack Obama declared an end to combat operations in the country in 2014, Defense Department documents show."

"The Pentagon is preparing to approve a loosening of rules that bar troops from interacting with migrants entering the United States, expanding the military’s involvement in President Trump’s operation along the southern border."