As the Arab Spring has transformed itself into the long, hot Islamic summer, optimism about the Arab world has had to undergo a significant reality check in America and the West. First off, the sobering results of a recent poll, taken by  Zogby International together with the Arab American Institute; this poll, which was...
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The U.S-backed Afghan President Hamid Karzai and other members of his government reportedly are meeting with members of the Taliban to discuss a possible peace deal. According to The New York Times, the meetings apparently include members of the Taliban’s highest authority, the Quetta Shura, as well as members of the Haqqani network, although...
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An interesting article (h/t Jihad Watch) from the Wall Street Journal, which discusses how it’s more than Opium money which keeps the Taliban financially solvent: U.S. officials recently concluded that the Afghan Taliban may receive as much money from foreign donors as it does from opium sales, potentially hindering the Obama administration’s strategy to...
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Terrorism Expert, Walid Phares goes inside the mind of the Jihadis to lay out how Jihadist strategies have evolved Post-9/11 to today. It’s hard to pick an excerpt, because Walid tends to pack alot of information into every sentence, but I’ve settled on this section, where...
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I’m a bit slow on getting this Bolton piece on Pakistan up, but if you haven’t seen it yet, it’s worth giving your undivided attention: Often known as Pakistan’s “steel skeleton” for holding the country together after successive corrupt or incompetent civilian governments, the military itself is now gravely threatened from within by rising...
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The Telegraph tells us that the Sharia law peace deal in the Pakistani Northwest is threatening to break(H/T Ace of Spades): The fragile agreement, in which the government said it would allow Islamic law in the region in exchange for militants laying down their arms, was left in tatters when a soldier was killed...
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Article from Islamist Watch about Taliban spokesman Muslim Khan, who, when he’s not giving interviews to CNN about extending Sharia law to all of Pakistan, is a painter, who lived for a time in Boston: All of a sudden, what has been depicted in the media as the cancer of Taliban extremism half way...
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