Nir Rosen

Again the Israelis bomb the starving and imprisoned population of Gaza. The world watches the plight of 1.5 million Gazans live, on television. The western media justifies it. Even some Arab outlets equate the Palestinian resistance with the might of the Israeli military machine. None of this is a surprise. The Israelis just concluded a round-the-world public relations campaign to gather support for their assault, gaining the collaboration of Arab states like Egypt. The international community is guilty for this latest massacre. Will it

I’m in the driver’s seat of a 2.5-ton armoured truck somewhere west of Baghdad in December 2007, navigating a main supply route used by the American military. Next to me is a Lebanese private security contractor named Abu Layla, who is monitoring the roadside for potential bombs. Suddenly, we get ambushed – a “contact,” as contractors call a violent encounter with Iraqi insurgents, sectarian fighters or al Qa’eda. I hit the panic button on the dashboard, and our signal alerts the nearest US military unit. I take… more

One day in Iraq, a friend picked me up from the house in Baghdad's Mansur district and took me to the Shaab district of east Baghdad. We drove past checkpoints manned by "Awakening" militias created by the Americans to counteract the Shiite-led Mahdi Army militia. My friend, a Shiite himself from Shaab, put a tape in the cassette player. "Now we are the Mahdi Army," my friend laughed, as the singing started. The songs praised populist anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and the Iraqi militia loyal to him,… more

In August of this year I flew in to Kabul, a bustling city undergoing a construction boom, with shopping malls, new banks, restaurants and traffic jams, where I stayed in a hotel catering to weary journalists and aid workers. I arranged to meet two Taliban commanders who agreed to take me to their province, Ghazni – about 100 miles south of the capital. They picked me up one day from a posh Kabul neighbourhood in an innocuous-looking car and we headed south. We drove past barren… more

The highway that leads south out of Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, passes through a craggy range of arid, sand-colored mountains with sharp, stony peaks. Poplar trees and green fields line the road. Nomadic Kuchi women draped in colorful scarves tend to camels as small boys herd sheep. The hillsides are dotted with cemeteries: rough-hewn tombstones tilting at haphazard angles, multicolored flags flying above them. There is nothing to indicate that the terrain we are about to enter is one of the world's deadliest war zones. On… more

As the U.S. engages in a simmering war as well as in continued attempts at building infrastructure, the conference will consider a wide-ranging set of questions in order to clarify policy choices regarding both military and civilian investment in the country. What is the current state of the Taliban? What might the reversion of Afghanistan into failed-state status mean? How prevalent -- and how effective -- has counterinsurgency been in the country? What are the possibilities for increasing the size… more

Investigative journalist Nir Rosen has just returned from Afghanistan, where he embedded with the Taliban and traveled far from capital city of Kabul, “Afghanistan’s version of the Green Zone.” He doesn’t think the US-led NATO occupation is winning in Afghanistan. His latest article for Rolling Stone magazine is “How We Lost the War We Won: A Journey into Taliban-Controlled Afghanistan.” LINK to video and transcript

When journalist Nir Rosen traveled to Afghanistan last summer, his plan was to travel with a group of Taliban fighters for 10 days and report on their activity. Instead, he was detained by a rival Taliban commander and accused of being a spy. Rosen describes his experiences to Robert Zeliger of the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. LINK to audio and transcript

Panel 1: The Future of Al-Qaeda

Frances Fragos Townsend noted that the two foiled Al-Qaeda plots in 2004 and 2006 prove that Al-Qaeda ought to still be taken seriously. She stated that “North Africa is more significant than most people talk about…[and] is a threat to the U.S. because of immigration through Western Europe.” The recent attacks on the Marriot Hotel in Islamabad,

Washington, DC - The next U.S. president, whether Republican or Democrat, will face serious questions about American policy toward the threat of Islamist extremism, one of the most important security challenges of the 21st century.

On October 10, six panels of leading policymakers, journalists, law enforcement officials, and scholars will explore and debate what steps the next administration should take in combating al… more