“The US will hunt down and kill new al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri as it did Osama Bin Laden, Washington’s top military officer has vowed. Adm Mike Mullen said al-Qaeda still posed a threat to the US. ‘As we did both seek to capture and kill–and succeed in killing–Bin Laden, we certainly will do the same […]
6/16/2011
“Al Qaeda’s long-serving number two, Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahri, has taken over the leadership after the killing of Osama bin Laden, the group said on Islamist websites on Thursday [June 16, 2011]. Bin Laden’s lieutenant and the brains behind much of al Qaeda’s strategy, Zawahri vowed this month to press ahead with its campaign against the […]
6/15/2011
In a report released in June 2011, “The Costs of War project at Brown University estimates that since 2001, the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan have killed 225,000 people, including soldiers, and created more than 7.8 million refugees. The total cost is estimated at $4 trillion.” [The 15th of the month used for date […]
6/15/2011
“The World Bank, in a [June] 2011 report, said that 97 percent of Afghanistan’s economy was related to international military spending and that once troops pulled out, it would experience a massive depression.” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.] – Ahmed Rashid, Pakistan on the Brink, Page 92 […]
6/15/2011
“A letter Wednesday [June 15, 2011] from 27 senators to [President] Obama called for revising the Afghanistan mission, starting with a ‘significant and sizable’ reduction in U.S. forces there beginning in July. ‘According to our own intelligence officials, al Qaeda no longer has a large presence in Afghanistan, and, as the strike against bin Laden […]
6/15/2011
“A former senior C.I.A. official says that officials in the Bush White House sought damaging personal information on a prominent American critic of the Iraq war in order to discredit him. Glenn L. Carle, a former Central Intelligence Agency officer who was a top counterterrorism official during the administration of President George W. Bush, said […]
6/14/2011
“Some $6.6bn (£4bn) flown into Iraq eight years ago may have been stolen, according to a US official investigating fraud in the country. The missing money may represent ‘the largest theft of funds in national history,’ investigator Stuart Bowen told the Los Angeles Times newspaper. …The cash, which belonged to Iraq, was intended to pay […]
6/11/2011
“Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, Al Qaeda’s leader in East Africa and the mastermind of the American Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, was killed in a late-night shootout at a security checkpoint in Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital, Somali and American officials said Saturday [June 11, 2011]. …’Fazul’s death is a significant blow to Al Qaeda, its extremist […]
6/10/2011
“During an unannounced trip to Pakistan’s capital [Islamabad] on Friday [June 10, 2011], [CIA Director] Mr. [Leon] Panetta met with the leader of the Pakistani intelligence service, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, and showed him satellite photographs and other evidence of what the C.I.A. believes to be two facilities for the manufacture of bombs used […]
6/8/2011
“Ayman al-Zawahiri, Al-Qaeda’s long-time number two, has vowed in a video eulogy to Osama bin Laden that he will pursue his late leader’s jihad against the West, SITE [Search for International Terrorist Entities] Intelligence Group reported on Wednesday [June 8, 2011]. ‘We will pursue the jihad until we expel the invaders from Muslim lands,’ he […]