“Though [CIA Director Leon] Panetta believes terrorists continue to plot attacks on the U.S., he also estimates that the number of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan is actually very small–’50 to 100, maybe less.’ ‘We’ve taken down more than half of their Taliban leadership, of their Al Qaeda leadership,’ he said. ‘We just took down number […]
6/27/2010
“CIA director Leon Panetta said Sunday [June 27, 2010] that it’s been almost a decade since the agency had ‘precise information’ on Osama bin Laden’s whereabouts. In an interview with ABC’s This Week, Panetta admitted the last time the CIA had good intelligence on bin Laden’s location was ‘the early 2000s.’ ‘He is, as is […]
6/27/2010
CIA Director “Mr. [Leon] Panetta admitted that despite the C.I.A.’s aggressive campaign against Al Qaeda in Pakistan’s tribal areas–primarily using missiles fired from drone aircraft–the hunt for Osama bin Laden had made little progress. He said the last precise information on the Qaeda leader’s whereabouts came in ‘the early 2000s.’ ” – Scott Shane, “Pakistan’s […]
6/23/2010
“…in late June of 2010, Rolling Stone magazine ran an article entitled ‘The Runaway General’ that featured behind-the-scenes remarks by [top U.S. and NATO Commander in Afghanistan General Stanley] McChrystal and his staff. The NSC [National Security Council] adviser, retired Gen. Jim Jones, was depicted as a ‘clown,’ [Special Representative to Afghanistan Richard] Holbrooke as […]
6/23/2010
In late June [23] 2010, after accepting [top U.S. and NATO Commander in Afghanistan] General [Stanley] McChrystal’s resignation in the wake of the controversial Rolling Stone article, [President Barack] Obama appointed General David Petraeus as commander of the Afghan war; the second American president to pick the cerebral strategist to turn around a war that […]
6/15/2010
“UN figures showed that in the spring of 2010, there were on average seven assassinations of public officials every week across the country [Afghanistan], but between June and September 2010, the number jumped to twenty-one a week.” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.] – Ahmed Rashid, Pakistan on the Brink, […]
6/15/2010
“In June [2010], Afghanistan officially outpaced Vietnam as the longest war in American history…” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.] – Michael Hastings, “The Runaway General,” Rolling Stone, July 8-22, 2010 […]
6/13/2010
A report by the London School of Economics on June 13, 2010, claimed that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) was supporting the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan. “Mr. [Matt] Waldman is a fellow at Harvard University who worked in Afghanistan previously for the humanitarian organization Oxfam. ‘Without a change in Pakistani behavior, it will be difficult […]
6/13/2010
A report by the London School of Economics on June 13, 2010, claimed that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) was supporting the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan. ” ‘This is not a big surprise. This is consistent with 15 years of history,’ said Bruce Riedel, a former C.I.A. analyst and now a senior fellow at the […]
6/13/2010
“Pakistan’s main intelligence agency continues to provide financing, training and sanctuary to Afghan Taliban insurgents and exerts a far greater influence on Taliban strategy than previously thought, according to a report prepared by the London School of Economics. Drawing on interviews with Afghan Taliban commanders and former Taliban ministers and officials, the report suggests that […]