Latest Articles about Middle East
GSPC Leader Issues New Threat to U.S. Military Bases in North Africa
A recent threat from a prominent Algerian jihadist may expand Algeria's 14-year-old Islamist revolt to include U.S. military targets in the African Sahara and Sahel. The statement, issued by Mukhtar Bilmukhtar (Khaled Abu al-Abbas), comes at a time when the movement is under intense pressure... MORE
RUSSIA’S VIRTUAL MILITARY MIGHT SHIELD AGAINST U.S. CRITICISM
Russian President Vladimir Putin's address to parliament last week was perhaps less interesting in its "how-to-spend" content than in what was left out. The secrecy around the drafting of the speech had been tighter than around Stalin's war plans or Brezhnev's health bulletins, but observers... MORE
PUTIN’S NEW DEAL: KREMLIN PLAYS UP NATIONALIST CARD
The annual address Russian President Vladimir Putin gave to the Federal Assembly on May 10 has already been billed by some Kremlin spin-doctors as Russia's version of the New Deal -- the set of policies pursued by Franklin D. Roosevelt in the wake of the... MORE
PUTIN REPORTEDLY SIDES WITH ALKHANOV—FOR NOW
Kommersant published an article on May 6 confirming that the Kremlin had sided with Chechen President Alu Alkhanov following the reported shoot-out between members of his security service and members of security forces loyal to Chechen Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov (see Chechnya Weekly, May 4).... MORE
Al-Suri’s Treatise on Musharraf’s Pakistan
Ayman al-Zawahiri's new video release, titled "Message to the People of Pakistan," closely meshes with the work of Abu Musab al-Suri (also known as Mustafa Setmariam Nasar), one of the chief political thinkers of al-Qaeda, who was arrested last November in Pakistan (Terrorism Focus, March... MORE
Reinforcing the Mujahideen: Origins of Jihadi Manpower
Much is written about how non-indigenous, would-be Islamist fighters enter the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan to join the mujahideen fighting U.S.-led coalitions in both countries. Do they enter Afghanistan from Pakistan? Or Iran? Perhaps Central Asia? What about Iraq? Which border is the most... MORE
Iraqi and U.S. Officials in Secret Talks with Iraqi Insurgents
In their continued effort to curb the Iraqi insurgency and drive a deeper wedge between homegrown Iraqi insurgents and al-Qaeda in Iraq, top U.S. and Iraqi officials announced that they had held secret talks with indigenous Iraqi insurgents over the past several months. Recent statements... MORE
CHENEY VISIT SPOTLIGHTS KAZAKHSTAN’S PIVOTAL ROLE
U.S. Vice President Richard Cheney's May 5-6 visit to Astana -- and an overlapping visit by European Union Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs there -- achieved a long-overdue rebalancing of Western policy priorities regarding Kazakhstan and, by implication, the region as a whole. At the joint... MORE
AFTER VILNIUS, PUTIN HAS TO RECONSIDER HIS PROSPECTS
U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney used his speech at last week's conference in Vilnius to address Russia in a blunt new tone. Prior to the conference, Russian President Vladimir Putin's advisers had assumed that the maximum extent of U.S. criticism had been set by the... MORE
VILNIUS CONFERENCE ON EUROPE’S COMPLETION IN THE EAST
U.S. Vice President Richard Cheney joined the presidents of the three Baltic states, Poland, Ukraine, Moldova, Romania, Bulgaria, and Georgia, as well as other high-level European officials, for a conference on "Common Vision for a Common Neighborhood" on May 3-4 in Vilnius. The common neighborhood... MORE