“For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind” — Hosea 8:7 It may be surprising to hear, but it is a plain historical fact that modern international jihad originated as an instrument of US foreign policy. The “great menace of our era” was built up by...
Where Does ISIS Get Those Wonderful Toys?
In the 1989 film Batman, after the caped crusader rescues a damsel in distress from the Joker using a fancy zipline gun, the clown prince of crime, played by Jack Nicholson, asks in bewilderment: “Where does he get those wonderful toys?” Especially upon seeing...
Salafists Gaining Ground
The main impact of US intervention in the Middle East has been to destabilize, polarize, and radicalize the region. Especially, it has fomented a vast, multi-country, new sectarian civil war between Sunni and Shiite Muslims. On each side, the most sectarian forces...
The Israeli-Jihadist Alliance
It's seems counterintuitive, to say the least. Indeed, it seems quite mad. And yet we now have all the evidence we need to point to a de facto Israeli alliance with Al Qaeda. The bombing of Damascus suburbs by Israeli jets – purportedly in order to prevent the Syrians...
Did Anyone Ever Bother to Get the Pakistani Perspective?
The U.S. targeting of Abu Yahya al-Libi, the number-two man in al-Qaeda, continues the American quest to kill its way out of its terrorist problem using pilotless drones, Special Forces raids, and other secret methods. Gen. David Petraeus, former commander of the U.S....
US Treasury Claim of Iran-al-Qaeda ‘Secret Deal’ Is Discredited
The U.S. Treasury Department's claim of a "secret deal" between Iran and al-Qaeda, which had become a key argument by right-wing activists who support war against Iran, has been discredited by former intelligence officials in the wake of publication of...
Crackpot Anti-Islam Activists, ‘Serial Fabricators,’ and the Tale of Iran and 9/11
Behind a mysterious Dec. 22 Associated Press story about "finding of fact" by a district judge in Manhattan Friday that Iran assisted al-Qaeda in the planning of the 9/11 attacks is a tapestry of recycled fabrications and distortions of fact from a bizarre cast of...
Why al-Qaeda Won
With the 10th anniversary of the crime that was 9/11, the question inevitably crops up: Who won, the United States or al-Qaeda? According to the politically correct answer, although al-Qaeda has been decimated, it has been a Pyrrhic victory for Washington. In...
Al-Qaeda’s Project for Ending the American Century Largely Succeeded
A decade after its spectacular Sep. 11, 2001 attacks on New York City's twin World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon and despite the killing earlier this year of its charismatic leader, Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda appears to have largely succeeded in its hopes of...
Al-Qaeda Lost the Battle Long Ago
Osama bin Laden didn't live to see the 10th anniversary of 9/11. And his organization, according to many U.S. government insiders, is on its last legs since his death at the hands of U.S. Special Forces in May. "We're within reach of strategically defeating al-Qaeda,"...