Terrorism Archive

President Benigno Aquino of the Philippines surprised many when he covertly met Murad Ibrahim, the leader of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), in Tokyo on August 4. The meeting was a clear step forward in a peace process that has haltingly dragged on for some 14 years. Yet the ripple effects it generated exemplify the intractability of the Moro issue and have added a new sense of urgency to the process. Although the content of the meeting remains unreported, it is generally agreed that the event was at least a useful trust-building exercise between warring parties struggling to overcome […]

Recent violence in the China’s western Xinjiang province has resulted in more than a dozen deaths and prompted an aggressive security response by Chinese authorities, who assert the unrest is being driven by Muslim separatists trained in Pakistan. The accusation, leaked to China’s state media Monday, came as the head of Pakistani intelligence was making a visit to Beijing and exposed a potential sticking-point in the oft-celebrated alliance between the two countries. According to Kerry Brown, who heads the Asia program at Chatham House in London, it also shed light on the delicate balance that characterizes the three-way relationship between […]

Allegations of Russian involvement in a bombing targeting the U.S. embassy compound in Tbilisi, Georgia, have sent diplomatic shockwaves through international policy circles and threaten the Obama administration’s carefully calibrated “reset” program with Moscow. While the details of the incident underscore the Caucasus’ still-smoldering volatility, they are consistent with Russia’s longtime activities in the region. The reactions were quick and vigorous following Eli Lake’s July 22 report in the Washington Times, in which official Georgian sources accused Russian agents of complicity in a September 2010 explosion near the American Embassy in Tbilisi. According to the Georgian Interior Ministry, an Abkhazia-based […]

Despite the rush right now to declare important milestones or turning points in the fight against terrorism, the best handle we can get on the situation seems to be that al-Qaida is near dead, but its franchises have quite a bit of life in them. The implied situational uncertainty is to be expected following Osama Bin Laden’s assassination, as he was our familiar “handle” on the issue for more than a decade. But although it is normal that we now seek a new, widely accepted paradigm, it is also misguided: In global terms we are, for lack of a better […]