In The News

How to Buy a Gun in Darfur

Daniel Pepper March 10, 2008
The Darfur region of Sudan is home to a series of interconnected conflicts that blend genocide with large-scale rebel armies fighting both the Sudanese and Chad governments. Investigative reporter Daniel Pepper went to Darfur in 2006 to find out how the United Front for Democracy and Change (FUCD), a rebel force seeking to overthrow Chad’s regime, obtains its weapons and equipment. He discovered...

The USS Cole and America's Election

Michael Young March 6, 2008
President George W. Bush is in his final year of office, and there are two ways of looking at the administration’s delaying any reduction of troops in Iraq or elsewhere in the Middle East until after the November election. Keeping a large force in place this year could either be a gift or a curse for the next president: The gift is that the next president can perhaps quickly reduce troop levels,...

Online Terrorists Prey on the Vulnerable

Gabriel Weimann March 5, 2008
Terrorists rely on state-of-the-art techniques from the advertising industry to attract suicide bombers. Rather than broadcast, or use one big message to attract a huge audience, the extremists “narrowcast,” targeting small groups with specific messages that exploit their vulnerabilities. The internet – anonymous and decentralized, reaching the alienated who desperately seek some inspiration or...

New Partners in Pakistan

Matt Phillips February 22, 2008
Long awaited elections in Pakistan, despite violence and low turnout that affected results, produced a strong repudiation of President Pervez Musharraf, whose party came in third place, according to unofficial results. An alliance between the two leading parties, the late Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party and Pakistan Muslim League-N, would fall just short of the two-thirds of...

Unilateral Strike Called a Model for US Operations in Pakistan

Joby Warrick February 19, 2008
The US continues to hunt Al Qaeda operatives in Pakistan, sometimes without Pakistani approval. Instead, US officials notify Pakistan authorities about air strikes, including the recent attack on Abu Laith al-Libi, a senior al-Qaeda commander, only after missions are under way. “When the autonomous US military operations in Pakistan succeed, support for them grows in Washington in probably the...

Bush in Africa: A Continent Adrift

Donald Steinberg February 18, 2008
President Bush’s long-awaited trip to Africa has come at a time when the continent is in turmoil. This is, however, the consequences of internal division that afflicts Africa and the divisive approach taken by foreign powers. Africans watched as their own leaders and the international community designated various players as friends or foe – in terms of natural resources, Cold War allies, those...

Danish Newspapers Reprint Mohammed Cartoon

Rosalind Ryan February 13, 2008
In 2005, the Jyllands-Posten newspaper in Denmark published a set of cartoons, including one of the Prophet Mohammed wearing a turban shaped like a bomb. The cartoons sparked protests and renunciation throughout the Muslim world, while the West defends the right to free speech, no topics off limit. The crisis continues to show how the intentions of any one group often produce the opposite effect...