Peter Bergen

Dude! What a rad plan! Kicking back over drinks at Bungalow 8, the hard-to-get-into Manhattan nightclub, filmmaker Morgan Spurlock hatched the idea of a humorous documentary and book about the hunt for Osama bin Laden. Your average auteur would wake up the next morning back in his Brooklyn crib, reach for the Advil and realize that searching for the largest mass murderer in U.S. history is about as funny as a pounding hangover.

But Spurlock is not an auteur easily deterred.… more

On May 2, The New America Foundation hosted a book event for President and CEO Steve Coll’s new book The Bin Ladens. An MP3 audio recording can be downloaded below, while video is available at right. Coll delivered a talk about the experience of Saudi Arabia, dealing with the pressures and prizes of modernity and globalization, through the prism of the Bin Laden family. He conveyed the diversity of experience that permeated the different members of the… more

CNN Newsroom | Hamid Karzai Survives Assassination Attempt

RICK SANCHEZ (CNN Anchor): An elected head of state survives this assassination attempt today. President Hamid Karzai and the video is incredible out of Afghanistan. He's alive, but three people who were near him this morning are not. Whoever tried to kill him timed it perfectly to make a statement. It was a celebration of Afghan history, progress and pride at the time in Kabul. . .

Peter, people will be watching this at home… more

CNN's Late Edition | Interview on Osama bin Laden

WOLF BLITZER (Host): Six-and-a-half years after 9/11, Osama bin Laden is still in hiding and a grave danger to the United States. What drives him? And what can we predict about what he might do next? For some answers we turn to two men for special insight. Steve Coll's new book is entitled, "The Bin Ladens." He's joining us from Berlin. And with her in Washington, our… more

Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Iran are the primary state players that make life in the Kurdish neighborhood complex, but non-state actors also roil the environment inside Iraq. The Kurdish question remains a major global flashpoint. As Iraq’s civil war rolls on and stability of the multi-ethnic state is called into question, Quil Lawrence believes how the U.S. handles the Kurds and their quest for statehood will define the region for decades to come. Quil Lawrence is the Middle East… more

It's now more than six years since the 9/11 attacks, yet al Qaeda's leader Osama Bin Laden remains at large.

A slew of video and audiotapes, referencing current events and analyzed by the US government, indicate he's still alive. And his recent appearances have silenced most of the rumors about ill health.

The question, then, is should Americans care? After all, Osama doesn't run his terrorist organization as he did before the fall of the Taliban.

Unfortunately, Bin Laden remains all too relevant.… more

"In the wake of September 11, the United States became a nation that practiced torture. Astonishingly-despite the repudiation of torture by experts and the revelations of Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib-we remain one." So begins the special issue of The Washington Monthly. The New America Foundation and the American Security Project are proud to co-sponsor a special lunchtime panel featuring leading experts sounding their urgent call for the United States to end the practice… more

During the last six years, the U.S. Administration has held nearly 800 alleged terror suspects without trial at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. 500 of these men have now been released, but their stories - and the stories of those who remain - are largely unknown. Fragments have emerged in books and interviews, and in declassified accounts from the detainees' lawyers, but until now there has been no comprehensive overview of all their cases. On March 12 the New America Foundation… more

In 2003, Abu Omar was kidnapped by CIA agents in Italy on suspicion of being involved with al Qaeda. He was transported to Egypt, where he was tortured by Egyptian intelligence services. Abu Omar was later released, only to be recaptured after speaking about his experience in Egypt. In the latest issue of Mother Jones magazine, New America Fellow Peter Bergen uses Abu Omar's story to explore the CIA's extraordinary rendition program. Bergen also chronicles the rise… more

For hours, the words come pouring out of Abu Omar as he describes his years of torture at the hands of Egypt's security services. Spreading his arms in a crucifixion position, he demonstrates how he was tied to a metal door as shocks were administered to his nipples and genitals. His legs tremble as he describes how he was twice raped. He mentions, almost casually, the hearing loss in his left ear from the beatings, and how he still wakes… more