Radical Movements Archive

CAMP KHELAGAY, BAGHLAN, Afghanistan — What most impressed the Hungarian army captain about his Afghan army counterparts wasn’t so much their proficiency at maneuvering and holding their own under enemy fire — they’ve been at it for a while, after all. Rather, it was their increasingly apparent ability to plan and execute entire operations almost on their own that impressed the captain, whose name must be withheld under standard Hungarian army media rules. The Afghans have proven capable of conducting difficult and dangerous missions such as finding and disposing of deadly roadside bombs laid down by the Taliban, the biggest […]

One of the worst-case scenarios looming over the West and moderate Muslims in Arab countries is that extremist groups could hijack the current wave of pro-democracy revolutions or otherwise take advantage of the unrest to expand their footprints and strengthen their operational capabilities. Nowhere are those fears better-founded than in Yemen, where conditions have for years made the country a prime candidate to succeed Afghanistan as a base of operations for al-Qaida. While an outcome that benefits al-Qaida is far from assured, there are strong reasons to believe this is a plausible scenario and clear factors that would make such […]

This is the first of a two-part series examining diversification efforts by Latin American drug-trafficking networks. Part I examines the FARC’s illegal gold-mining operations in Colombia. Part II will examine Mexican drug traffickers’ use of oil-tapping to generate revenues. For more than 40 years, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, has waged a bloody war against the Colombian government, financed largely through cocaine trafficking. Over the past decade, as the Colombian government marshaled U.S. military assistance to greater effect, the FARC has seen its guerilla ranks diminished by about half. Meanwhile, coca eradication programs in the Colombian countryside […]