Blog Posts

"Taliban insurgents assassinated one of southern Afghanistan’s most powerful leaders, and narrowly missed the top U.S. commander in the country, in the latest deadly attack to deal a setback to U.S. efforts to show progress in America’s longest-running war."

The United States is pushing back against claims by Russian President Vladimir Putin that the Islamic State terror group is starting to execute hundreds of hostages in Syria, including U.S. and European nationals.

"The 2nd Security Forces Assistance Brigade, the Army’s second brigade built of specially trained combat advisers, will deploy to Afghanistan next year, Army officials said Thursday."

Today by the 'Weekly Standard' - America has lost the war in Afghanistan. Washington may not want to admit it, and the U.S. military insists the conflict is a “stalemate.” But make no mistake: The original 9/11 war has been lost.

“Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy, 1945-1975” is a product of Max Hastings’s prodigious research and his aptitude for pungent judgments. It is an unsparing look, by a warm friend of America, at the mountain of mendacities, political and military, that accumulated as the nation learned the truth of the philosopher Michael Oakeshott’s axiom: “To try to do something which is inherently impossible is always a corrupting enterprise.”

"Gen. Abdul Raziq, the powerful police chief of the southern Afghan province of Kandahar, long seen as a bulwark against the Taliban, was killed on Thursday, Afghan officials confirmed. He was shot and killed as he was leaving a meeting in Kandahar City that was also attended by the commander of American forces in Afghanistan, Gen. Austin S. Miller, and the rest of the provincial leadership."

“Have you been wondering whether U.S.-Saudi arms deals can survive allegations the Saudi government killed Washington Post writer Jamal Khashoggi? Yeah, so are we.”

“More than 2,500 candidates are running for 249 seats in Afghanistan’s parliament in Saturday’s elections, despite campaign violence that has killed 10 candidates and scores of supporters, Taliban threats to sabotage the polls, accusations of pre-election rigging, and public cynicism after years of legislative vote-buying and obstructionism.”

"In the past 17 years of war and crisis in Afghanistan, no one remembers a season quite like this one, with peril and hopelessness at every turn. People here struggle for words to explain how it feels."

"Since declaring victory over the Islamic State late last year, Iraq has grappled with a host of issues emanating from the drawn-out war to uproot the militant group: billions of dollars in damage to cities and towns, more than a million people still displaced and millions more struggling to rebuild their lives."

"U.S. national security would suffer greatly without Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and several top Pentagon leaders slated to leave their posts next year, a key senator said Wednesday."

“When Central African Republic (CAR) pleaded for help last year to fight marauding militias, former colonial ruler France offered guns it had seized off Somalia. But Russia objected and donated its own weapons instead. By early February, Russia had sent nine planes with weapons along with dozens of contractors to train local soldiers and secure mining projects, marking the start of its highest-profile military foray in sub-Saharan Africa for decades.”

“It’s not about winning the war. It’s about winning the peace,” was an expression heard often today at the Counter Violent Extremist Organizations Chiefs of Defense Conference here today. Marine Corps Gen. Joe Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, hosted the gathering, which drew representatives from 83 nations, including all the U.S. combatant commanders and commanders of counter terrorism operations from around the world.

"The U.S. military’s top general warned Tuesday that the international community must maintain its focus on the terrorism threat even as the Islamic State nears defeat on the battlefields of Syria and other security challenges rise around the world."

“When the Army unveiled its Security Force Assistance Brigade plan in 2017, leaders laid out a program that would include five active duty brigades and one manned by the Army National Guard. The Guard, according to its website, is getting ready to fill those spots.”

“The U.S. sanctioned a multibillion-dollar network of Iranian companies, banks and funds accused of financing the country’s elite paramilitary unit, ratcheting up global pressure on Tehran and sending a warning to governments and companies considering continued engagement with Iran.”

Continue on for a full transcript of the Attorney General's remarks to include a listing of the criminal groups identified as the United States' top transnational organized crime threats.

“The Defense Department is still struggling to develop an Afghan military that can sustain itself, despite the U.S. having spent nearly $84 billion on Afghan security over the past 17 years, according to a new report.”

"Pakistan said Tuesday its military forces were working closely with those of neighboring Iran to locate more than a dozen Iranian security forces that militants kidnapped in a pre-dawn raid along the border."

"Niamey, Niger - Diplomats, spies and hostage negotiators gather nightly on the moonlit terraces of colonial-era hotels in this remote desert capital to trade intelligence on security threats. Foreign bases and vast new embassy complexes are rising along sand-caked streets. In the shadows, smugglers move migrants, guns and drugs across lawless territory."

"Militants in Syria's Idlib Province failed to meet an October 15 deadline for vacating a buffer zone created under a Russian-Turkish cease-fire deal, prompting a threat from the Syrian government to resume its military campaign."

"The U.S. needs to make critical and time-sensitive decisions regarding the future of its wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen – as well as in its broader struggle with terrorism and extremism, and its dealings with Iran. The U.S. is now trapped in four “failed state” wars where there are no clear prospects for lasting “victory” unless the current threats can be defeated at the military level and the host country can both develop forms of politics and governance that can create an enduring peace and also make enough progress in recovery and development to sustain peaceful stability."

"Based in three trailers near the Gaza border, with advanced computers and technologies, is 'the lab': 10 soldiers—some of whom finished their physics degree in high school—who already found 15 terror tunnels, the latest neutralized this week; when the need arises, they go out to the field and under the ground; 'finding a tunnel is not a scavenger's hunt. It's a game of chest against Hamas,' says one."

"Militants in Syria indicated tepid support for a demilitarized zone in the country’s final opposition stronghold, even as they appeared to defy an internationally brokered deadline Monday for their withdrawal."

"Not long after Defense Secretary Jim Mattis took over at the Pentagon, he set out to transform the U.S. military into a better-equipped, deadlier force that would waste less money, deepen alliances around the world, and evolve to counter Russia and China."