Articles

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/07/03/jihadistan

By Peter Bergen A common refrain since the spring from some of the country’s leading policy makers and defense intellectuals is that Pakistan is going to hell in a hand basket. As a frequent visitor to Pakistan since 1983 I just don’t buy this pessimism but it’s a view held by an impressive array of […]

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) — Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud likely has been killed in a U.S. drone attack, a top Pakistani official said Friday. Villagers gather at the rubble of houses belonging to supporters of Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud.

Editor’s note: Peter Bergen, CNN’s national security analyst, is a fellow at the New America Foundation, a Washington-based think tank that promotes innovative thought from across the ideological spectrum,and at New York University’s Center on Law and Security. He’s the author of “The Osama bin Laden I Know: An Oral History of al Qaeda’s Leader.” Katherine Tiedemann is a policy analyst at the New America Foundation.

Editor’s note: Peter Bergen, CNN’s national security analyst, is a fellow at the New America Foundation, a Washington-based think tank that promotes innovative thought from across the ideological spectrum,and at New York University’s Center on Law and Security. He’s the author of “The Osama bin Laden I Know: An Oral History of al Qaeda’s Leader.” Katherine Tiedemann is a policy analyst at the New America Foundation.

T hroughout his campaign last year, President Barack Obama said repeatedly that the real central front of the war against terrorists was on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. And now he is living up to his campaign promise to roll back the Taliban and al-Qaeda with significant resources. By the end of the year there will be some 70,000 American soldiers in Afghanistan, and the Obama administration is pushing for billions of dollars in additional aid to both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

This experiment almost certainly occurred at the Derunta training camp near the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad, conducted by an Egyptian with the nom de jihad of “Abu Khabab.” In the late 1990s, under the direction of Al Qaeda’s number two, Ayman Al Zawahiri, Abu Khabab set up the terrorist group’s WMD research program, which was given the innocuous codename “Yogurt.” Abu Khabab taught hundreds of militants how to deploy poisonous chemicals, such as ricin and cyanide gas. The Egyptian WMD expert also explored the possible uses of radioactive materials, writing in a 200120memo to his superiors, “As you instructed us you will find attached a summary of the discharges from a traditional nuclear reactor, among which are radioactive elements that could be used for military operations.” In the memo, Abu Khabab asked i f it were possible to get more information about the matter “from our Pakistani friends who have great experience in this sphere.” This was likely a reference to the retired Pakistani senior nuclear scientists who were meeting then with Osama bin Laden.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Afghan President Hamid Karzai discussed his sometimes-turbulent relationship with the United States on Friday as more details emerged about U.S. airstrikes in his country that killed dozens of people this week.

Karzai reflected on the past seven years of his leadership of Afghanistan and characterized his relationship with the United States as having “serious bumps along the way, especially in the conduct of the war on terror.”

(CNN) — Afghan President Hamid Karzai travels to Washington this week to meet with President Obama and with his Pakistani counterpart Asif Zardari.

There will be much to discuss — principally, of course, how to reverse the rising tide of Talibanization on both sides of the Afghan/Pakistan border, which is a key foreign policy challenge for the Obama administration.