New York- On Friday evening, I launched the first issue of my new publication with the Jamestown Foundation called Militant Leadership Monitor. I have the free teaser article about the death of a Moro militant in Waziristan a few weeks ago. It’s a subscription-based site that we are doing for $150 a year for twelve issues ($300 for institutions). Our inaugural issue has profiles of Qais al-Khazali by Rafid Fadhil Ali, Dr. Khalil Ibrahim by Dr. Andrew McGregor, and Ilyas Kashmiri by Arif Jamal plus briefs by yours truly on the surrender of an Oromo Liberation Front leaders in Addis Ababa and the shoot up of Mullah Krekar’s flat in Oslo. I think we’re off to a good start…2010 is shaping up to be an interesting year.

derekhenryflood FATA, Kashmir, Pakistan Abdul Basit Usman, Arif Jamal, Dr. Andrew McGregor, Jamestown Foundation, Militant Leadership Monitor, Rafid Fadhil Ali

New York- While I am in total go mode getting ready to launch my new publication, Militant Leadership Monitor, from the Jamestown Foundation, I want to quickly plug a couple of friend’s projects. Jen Marlowe is still hard at work traipsing around South Sudan, first on the Huffington Post, and now on PBS’s World Focus site with a story titled “In South Sudan, schools still function under trees“ about the difficulties of building a basic school facility (I suppose as ostensibly simple task in other places) in Warrap State, a previously non-existent political entity that was created under the Comprehensive Peace Agreement where the GoSS is to build it’s first oil refinery.

Belén Fernandez is back reporting on the ongoing political crisis in Tegucigalpa where she has been working for Counterpunch and is getting ready to release her book Coffee with Hezbollah, slated for wider release in March, about her and her friend Amelia’s post-war 2006 trip to South Lebanon. I’ll be reviewing it here on TWD when it comes out.

derekhenryflood Hezbollah, Lebanon, South Sudan Counterpunch, CPA, GoSS, Huffington Post, Jamestown, Jamestown Foundation, World Focus

New York- My friend Jen Marlowe heads a grass roots development project in South Sudan called Rebuilding Hope that seeks to bring education, health care, and wells for clean, safe drinking water to remote villages in the region.  Jen also had a post on the Huffington Post last week entitled “South Sudan: Progress and Pessimism” which details both change brought by the relative calm of the North-South Comprehensive Peace Agreement which has just passed the five year mark, and fear on the horizon in regard to the upcoming elections in April and the 2011 referendum that could lead to southern secession and further instability.

Jen’s film Rebuilding Hope: Sudan’s Lost Boys Return Home can be bought from Cinema Libre Studios for $19.95 plus $5 shipping. Order your copy.

“Rebuilding Hope is a riveting and moving portrait…Jen Marlowe provides an essential, human window into the fragility of Sudan’s southern peace.” Leslie Lefkow, Senior Researcher, Human Rights Watch

derekhenryflood South Sudan GoSS, Jen Marlowe, Rebuilding Hope, South Sudan referendum, Sudan elections

New York- My former editor and colleague at Asia Times Online, Charles McDermid, has an article today with local Suleimani-based reporter Rebaz Mahmood on the fourth and perhaps ultimate death sentence for “Chemical” Ali Hassan al-Majid, the most brutal enforcer of the al-Anfal campaign in northern Iraq in 1988. Charles is now working in Iraqi Kurdistan for the Institute for War & Peace Reporting and is gearing up for coverage of the Iraqi general elections to be held on March 7th by the Independent High Electoral Commission of Iraq (which is meant to coincide with the “Status of Forces Agreement” referendum on the future of U.S. troops in the Republic of Iraq). Almost seven years after the United States military and its allies tried to erase the legacy of Saddam Hussein by destroying Iraq in order to try and save it, or remake it into a pro-Israel, emasculated Arab client state of neoconservative folly, the legacy of Ba’athism and Halabja continue to haunt the politics of this shattered post-Ottoman successor state.

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derekhenryflood Democracy, Iraq, Kurdistan Asia Times, Chemical Ali, IWPR, SOFA

Lt. General Abdul Hadi Khalid informs the audience in Washington of his decades long experience serving in various incarnations of Afghanistan's security forces and recommends on-the-ground solutions for the AfPak battlespace. ©2009 Derek Henry Flood

New York- The Jamestown Foundation is selling a jam-packed DVD of its third annual terrorism conference entitled “The Changing Strategic Gravity of al-Qaeda” that was held on December 9th at the National Press Club. This extensive series of presentations covers everything from more mainstream topics like counterinsurgency, de-radicalization and AfPak to far lesser understood topics ranging from Mindanao to the Houthi war in northern Yemen. Jamestown is providing some of the most extensive coverage on all subjects terror related and this DVD is a must for anyone looking to get (way) beyond today’s headlines.

Dr. Andrew McGregor paints a highly detailed picture of violent Islamist movements in the fractured Somalia region. ©2009 Derek Henry Flood

Jamestown brings together indigenous experts and former government officials from the troubled states in question along with top Western area experts in an attempt to present the widest picture of the global threat spectrum as possible. From ideology to insurgent logistics, this DVD has it all. No one who seeks to truly understand the dangers posed to the global community by non-state actors can settle for thinking they have a handle on all the necessary knowledge by focusing on one area such as the Afghanistan-Pakistan theater when the next attack is conceived in, and launched out of, Yemen or Somalia. The insight provided therein constantly seeks to enhance the intellectual agility of those trying to grapple with a globalized insurgency.

Order your copy here for $29.95

derekhenryflood Afghanistan, Middle East, Non-state warfare, Pakistan, Pashtunistan, counterinsurgency Bruce Riedel, Daniel Benjamin, Glen Howard, Jamestown DVD

Washington D.C.- I’ll be moderating the South & Southeast Asia panel from 1:30 to 3 p.m. tomorrow at the National Press Club for the Jamestown Foundation’s third annual terrorism conference. Speakers on my panel will be Animesh Roul, Zachary Abuza, and Noor Huda Ismail.  More to come…

derekhenryflood Afghanistan, Pakistan Jamestown conference

From Greece to Iraq-via Turkey: From West to East.

Abu Dhabi, UAE- Well it’s that time again. The end of the road. I’ve been going non stop for almost four months. The timeline goes something like this: Depart NYC July 30th-Arrive Abu Dhabi, Six nights at my friend Arif’s in climate controlled villa, bus to Dubai, fly Dubai to Kabul and arrive in Afghanistan on the 8th of August-Depart Kabul on the 2nd of September to Dubai, take a taxi from Dubai to Sharjah (neighboring emirate), stay one night at Sharjah youth hostel, next day fly one way to Athens, Greece, immediately take bus to Piraeus port upon landing, play brickbreaker on my Blackberry on steps of massive Greek cathedral to pass the time, then try to sleep hiding on chairs on deck of coffee shop until I get woken up by ouzo-smelling cleaning crew, take 7:15am ferry to Ios island, 10 days of whooping it up on Ios and finishing up writing from Kabul, then overnight ferry trip to Turkey via Paros and Samos (spot group of African and other assorted migrants being dragged out of the Aegean and marched to Samos’s detention center and get asked by Greek policeman not to pay attention to them),

Greek Island Zigzag.

Arrive in Kusadasi, Turkey the following morning of September, 15th, two nights there, then bus to Fethiye, 2 nights there, bus to Antalya, 4 nights there, bus to Adana, 1 night there, overnight bus to Cizre near Iraq border, cross Turkey-Iraq border on foot/taxi, Kurdish guy I’m ordered by Turkish soldier to get in taxi with gets in fisticuffs on zero line at border, take taxi from Zakho on Iraq side 3 hours to Erbil on September 25th, travel to Qandil mountains on Iraq-Iran border, cross back to Turkey on October 7th, take bus to Mardin, 2 nights there, take bus to Erzurum, 1 night there, over night bus to Turkey-Georgia border, arrive in Tbilisi following morning on October 11th, 17 days in Georgia, travel to Chechen border for book research, fly Tbilisi-Dubai, arrive Dubai on October 28th, one night at Dubai youth hostel, get another Afghan visa the next day, buy 3:30 am ticket to Kabul, arrive back in Afghanistan on October 30th, fly back to Dubai on November 9th, paid random Keralite guy at airport to drive me to Arif’s in Abu Dhabi, spent the last 2 weeks here doing the better part of nothing, flying to Dublin tomorrow, 2 nights there, then arriving back in NYC on November 24th. Phew! It’s been a long one.

From Iraq to Georgia- via Turkey: From South to North.

derekhenryflood Afghanistan, Georgia, Iraq, Turkey, U.A.E.

Abu Dhabi, UAE- I have a new piece in today’s Asia Times about the overall decline of the security environment in Kabul and the collective West’s political will to do something about it. Five more years of Karzai rule is a bitter pill to swallow for anyone who considers themselves to give a damn about Afghanistan. My friends Raymond Pagnucco and Spencer Mandell made an excellent film about the first imposed democratic experiment in 2004 and all the fraud that accompanied that mess entitled God’s Open Hand. Swap Yunus Qanooni for Dr. Abdullah (and figure in that Qanooni was one of Abdullah’s strongest backers in this year’s destined to be flawed contest) and the electoral mess of 2004 begins to resemble this year’s fiasco. One might even go so far as to make a comparison between the 2000 and the 2004 Bush “victories” in the United States. Democracy is imperfect everywhere but in Afghanistan these imperfections yield deadly consequences.

derekhenryflood Afghanistan, Democracy, U.A.E., counterinsurgency