Terrorism Archive

At some point in the next year, the Trump administration should release its first official National Security Strategy. In the past, many of these reports were simply extended self-congratulations or a litany of unrealistic aspirations of little value to the government agencies that had to implement them. It is vital for the inaugural Trump effort to avoid these pitfalls by identifying realistic and attainable midterm goals. The key word here is “realistic.” In the midterm—from four to 10 years—the United States is not going to eradicate the self-styled Islamic State, al-Qaida or the Afghan Taliban. Nor will it engineer the […]

Vast ungoverned spaces, weak security institutions, corrupt administrations and scarce economic opportunities are all factors contributing to the entrenchment of Islamist extremism in West Africa and the Sahel. Regional governments have struggled to respond to the threat and ensure security, and in some cases their actions have only made things worse. Could the planned “G5 Sahel Joint Force” represent a turning point? This WPR Special Report assesses what’s at stake. Purchase this special report as a Kindle e-book. The Roots of Conflict How West Africa Became Fertile Ground for AQIM and ISIS Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb and the so-called […]

On May 23, militants linked to the self-proclaimed Islamic State ambushed soldiers in the southern Philippines seeking to apprehend Isnilon Hapilon, the leader of the Islamic State’s affiliates in Southeast Asia. Within a matter of hours, over 400 militants from the Maute Group had completely seized the city of Marawi, launching a major operation to occupy city buildings, recruit sympathetic locals, take hostages and project the power of the Islamic State. The seizure of Marawi represents the greatest challenge Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has faced since taking office last year, and one of the most significant and concerted attempts by […]

The world’s newest mega-dock opened last month in Djibouti, the strategic real estate agent to world powers that is leasing access to the highest bidder. In a move to widen its African investment portfolio, China fronted the $590 million needed for the 1,700-acre Doraleh Multi-Purpose Port, the first of four docks and other infrastructure projects in Africa that are central to China’s grandiose Maritime Silk Road master plan. This comes as Djibouti gets more crowded. The small, strategically located country in the Horn of Africa already hosts U.S., French and Japanese military bases and will soon add a Saudi military […]

On Saturday, June 17, the upscale Centro Andino shopping center in the Colombian capital, Bogota, was teeming with families, mostly women and children shopping the day before Father’s Day. At about 4 p.m., a powerful bomb went off in the women’s bathroom. The explosion killed three people, including a French woman, and injured 11 others. It also laid bare the obstacles along Colombia’s path to a sustainable peace. The immediate question, and one that authorities have not been able to answer, is who built and planted the bomb. But as investigators run down the clues and explore various theories, the […]

As the fight against the so-called Islamic State approaches its endgame, the United States seems to be stumbling its way up the escalation ladder in Syria. Repeated U.S. airstrikes against Syrian forces and allied militias in southeastern Syria had already caused alarm that the U.S. might be drawn deeper into the country’s civil war. The downing of a Syrian warplane by a U.S. fighter jet over the weekend punctuated those concerns. In response, Russia announced it would suspend the use of a communication channel to “deconflict” air operations over Syria—that is, avoid unintended confrontations between Russian and American jets—although the […]

Buoyed by his party’s resounding success in last weekend’s parliamentary elections, France’s new president, Emmanuel Macron, is off to a strong start. While some were skeptical of his youth and inexperience—not to mention his brief participation in the unpopular government of his predecessor, Francois Hollande—Macron’s party, La Republique En Marche, is poised to become a dominant force in French politics. As one of its candidates told the Financial Times, “I’m again proud to be French.” That enthusiasm is no surprise: The French were tired of Hollande, who left office with dismal approval ratings and 10 percent national unemployment—a rate that […]

Last week, while a great deal of attention was focused on the aftermath of the terrorist attack in central London, another wave of jihadi killings unfolded a continent away, in the heart of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The perpetrators of the June 7 operation in Tehran struck directly at regime targets, hitting the country’s parliament and the shrine to its founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, killing 17 people and wounding more than 50. The so-called Islamic State quickly took responsibility for the attacks in both London and Tehran, adding evidence to the theory that as it loses ground in Syria […]

CAIRO, Egypt—In November 2016, Egypt’s major cities experienced something that has become rare since a military coup led by then-Gen.—and now President—Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi in July 2013: protests. In the streets and at universities in Cairo, Alexandria and Port Said, Egyptians took great risks in sight of the police to gather and demonstrate against price hikes and bread shortages. Until then, the country had appeared to have settled into a period of relative calm. Five years after the uprisings that brought down former President Hosni Mubarak, and three years on from the coup that felled his democratically elected successor, Mohamed Morsi, […]

The attacks have been small in scale, but they’ve come at a steady pace: On May 24, eight security officials were killed in a pair of roadside bombings in eastern Kenya. A week later, seven officers and one civilian died when their armored personnel carrier hit an improvised explosive device in Mangai, near the coast. And last week, the victims were four aid workers driving near the Dadaab refugee camp. In all, according to the Associated Press, at least 34 people, 20 of them police officers, have died in a recent string of explosions near the border with Somalia claimed […]

The crisis in America’s foreign policy apparatus entered a stunning new phase this past week with President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement, followed yesterday by his comments on Twitter essentially taking Saudi Arabia’s side against Qatar in an intra-Gulf dispute. In between, reports emerged that during his visit to Brussels two weeks ago, Trump removed a passage from his speech explicitly confirming his commitment to NATO’s collective defense clause, Article 5, without notifying his national security adviser, Gen. H.R. McMaster, Defense Secretary James Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, all of whom had argued […]

This past week brought some further clarity to the underlying assumptions that drive U.S. President Donald Trump’s foreign policy. There’s now enough information to determine that the Trump team’s worldview is based on deeply held premises about the nasty, brutish nature of the human condition. He and his team are systematically walking away from the U.S. government’s decades-long emphasis on international cooperation and the architecture that supports it. The shift will have particularly dire consequences for the global community’s capacity to confront terrorism and climate change, with its impact on nuclear nonproliferation still an open question. In the aftermath of […]

Is there any reason to feel good about this year’s miserable British election campaign? The process has been messy, cantankerous and punctuated by appalling acts of terrorism. With the opposition Labour party unexpectedly gaining ground on the ruling Conservatives, it is possible that this Thursday’s poll will leave Great Britain looking even more confused, less united and less consequential on the global stage. Liberal internationalists should nonetheless take a soupcon of comfort from this rather poor exercise in democracy. Despite the storm of Brexit, the campaign has at least for now defused fears that the United Kingdom could renege on […]

When Donald Trump became the U.S. president in January, it was not clear if his foreign and national security policy would reflect the unorthodox ideas of his campaign or whether once in power he would move closer to traditional Republican positions. Trump’s just-completed foreign trip did not fully clarify that, but his prickly, almost hostile interaction with America’s NATO allies demonstrated that a foreign policy and national security revolution may be coming. As Ivo Daalder, the former U.S. envoy to NATO, put it, “This seems to be the end of an era.” Should such a transformation occur, the clearest signs […]

The text message read as follows: “Boko Haram recruits young people from 14 years old and above. Conditions for recruitment: 4 subjects at GCE, including religion.” Sent among university students in the central African nation of Cameroon, it was intended as a satirical commentary on the difficult job market they faced: Competition is so fierce, even a notoriously brutal Islamist militant group will demand to see your test scores—“4 subjects at GCE”—before hiring you. The government, however, was not amused. In December 2014, when a teacher saw the joke on a student’s phone and reported it to police, that student […]