Counter-Terrorism and Counter-Insurgency Initiative

The US government is pressing the new Pakistani civilian administration to back off efforts to remove Pervez Musharraf from the presidency.

But if the United States truly wanted to shore up democracy and help fight terrorism inside Pakistan, it would pursue the exactly opposite policy: the United States should publicly back the immediate removal of Mr Musharraf. A new public opinion survey shows why.

More than the ailing economy, the survey, conducted by Terror Free Tomorrow in collaboration with the… more

Does Osama bin Laden matter anymore? You could be forgiven for thinking he doesn't. In recent months, an impressive cast of terrorism experts and counterterrorism officials around the world has coalesced around the notion that al-Qaeda's leader is no longer an active threat to the West. They point out that he has not been able to strike on U.S. soil since 9/11 or in Europe since the London bombings three summers ago. In Iraq, his most successful franchise operation is… more

On June 20th the New America Foundation’s American Strategy Program hosted the release of Terror Free Tomorrow’s groundbreaking new surveys of Pakistani public opinion, presented by Terror Free Tomorrow’s President Ken Ballen. New America scholars Peter Bergen and Nicholas Schmidle then provided expert analysis of the data and the detailed the implications of the report for future American policy toward Pakistan and the war in Afghanistan. American Strategy Program Deputy Director Patrick Doherty moderated the discussion. An MP3… more

In a great journalistic coup, Michael Ware and the CNN team in Iraq have unearthed the largest collection of al Qaeda in Iraq material outside the hands of the US military. What they found in this collection of videos and memos underlines a key aspect of the al Qaeda organization in Iraq; it is highly organized, and not simply a loosely-knit collection of jihadists.

A debate has recently erupted in the pages of Foreign Affairs, the leading American journal of international… more

...Steve Coll, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who has just published a book titled The Bin Ladens, wrote: “Pakistan’s new democratic government should now be motivated to prove its case. Delivering Bin Laden – which Musharraf’s government so conspicuously failed to do – would be a coup of global proportions for Pakistan’s new civilian leaders, and it would bring considerable political and other rewards to Islamabad.”

He pointed out that most senior al Qa’eda targets arrested or killed in Pakistan have been… more

Less than a day after Republican presidential candidate John McCain promised that if he won the presidency Osama bin Laden would be captured or killed by 2013, a message from al Qaeda’s leader appeared on jihadist websites reminding the world that he is alive and well.

Bin Laden’s audiotape message commented on the recent 60th anniversary of the founding of the state of Israel; promised that he would fight for the liberation of Palestine, and told his Muslim listeners that they… more