New York- The Avtomat Kalashnikova assault rifle, known popularly as the AK-47 or Kalashnikov, became one of the defining symbols of Third World national liberation movements and a physical manifestation of anti-imperialist thought in the second half of the twentieth…
Category: Afghanistan
Such Great Heights
New York- I was doing some writing yesterday about my experiences in Afghanistan and Central Asia in the months after 9/11. Delving into the assassination of Massoud, the death of an Italian colleague, meeting the Taliban, and all of the…
Afghanistan at Peace
Afghanistan – touch down in flight from Augustin Pictures on Vimeo.
Daylight in Paris
Paris- I will be speaking at Maison de la Chimie tomorrow for the Fondation pour la Recherche Stratégique’s conference entitled “Dix ans après les attentats du 11 septembre 2001: bilan et perspectives de la lutte contre le terrorisme.” I will…
My Ten Year Photography Retrospective of Ground Zero New York
New York- What began as one horrific day turned into a decade long quest. 9/11 did not change the course of my life, it merely accelerated it at hyper speed. In the weeks before the suicide attacks on New York,…
Said Bahaji Ten Years After 9/11
Barcelona- I have written an extensive profile of Said Bahaji, one of the last members of the Hamburg cell still on the run (the other being Zakariya Essabar) in the new issue of Militant Leadership Monitor. Bahaji was a core…
La Dulce Vida
Barcelona- I’ve got a new feature length piece in this week’s edition of Terrorism Monitor on this vague, ill formed concept of reconciliation with the Quetta shura Omar-led Taliban and what it could mean for the future of inter-ethnic and…
Pakistani TV Coverage of Abbottabad
New York- There is some interesting coverage on a few of the global Pakistani satellite channels (if you comprehend Urdu to a degree) of the Abbottabad raid. Highlights include what appears to be the tail of the downed Navy SEAL…
Buh Bye
New York- A-B-C-ya!
Suicide Bombing at Kabul Mall-Does Anyone Even Care?
New York- There was an under reported suicide attack at the entrance of the Kabul City Centre/Safi Landmark Hotel today where the attacker detonated at the semi-secure entrance killing himself and two guards. I used to frequent this mall complex…
Watch Silencing the Song this Wednesday at 8pm on HBO2
New York- Friends and filmmakers Havana Marking and Phil Stebbing have a follow-up to their award-winning documentary Afghan Star called Silencing the Song: An Afghan Fallen Star, in which they follow Setara, one of the primary characters from the first…
My Media Round Up This Week
New York- I had kind of a busy week with (background) appearances on PBS Frontline on Tuesday with Canadian journalist Martin Smith’s interview with Amrullah Saleh where they wove in shots from the fourth annual Jamestown terrorism conference at the…
Watch Frontline at 9pm on Tuesday
NewYork- This Tuesday, PBS Frontline will be airing a segment on Amrullah Saleh who was a the keynote speaker at our December 9th annual terrorism conference and departed the Karzai administration in June of last year. There should be some…
No Dayton For AfPak
New York- With the death of Richard Holbrooke, will the idea of a Dayton-style negotiated settlement die with him? Last Wednesday when I arrived on the Acela in D.C. from New York I was talking with a colleague (the day…
“What Is The Plan B For Afghanistan?”
Washington D.C.- This past Thursday was our annual Jamestown Foundation terrorism conference at the National Press Club and amazingly it all worked out considering the incredible amount of logistics involved (wholly unbeknownst to our audience) of getting a wide range…
“We Still Seek No Wider War?”
New York- I appeared on Saudi state television’s KSA 2 Friday to discuss the extension and, I suppose, expansion of the American war in Afghanistan (and to a lesser extent Pakistan) from the initially trumpeted July 2011 withdrawal to sometime…
Cutting the Fuse in the Capitol
Washington D.C.- The University of Chicago’s Chicago Project on Security and Terrorism (CPOST) and the New America Foundation hosted a conference in the Capitol’s subterranean auditorium entitled “Cutting the Fuse: Moving Beyond the War on Terror” which was a day-long…
One Night in Singapore
Singapore- After finally moving on from KL, I’m passing though Singapore’s Little India for a night en route to Bali. Little India (Little Tamil Nadu) is probably the most sanitized Indian neighborhood on the globe and not bad for it.…
New Blog Post on Central Asia
Another Day in the Very Uneven Distribution of Wealth and Democratization
Abu Dhabi- To get from Tajikistan to Abu Dhabi was a bit of an arduous trip via Kabul and Dubai and no sleep. Here are a few random shots from the Blackberry from 24 hours in my often bizarre life.…
The Buddha Sleeps in Dushanbe
Dushanbe- I took a quiet stroll through Tajikistan’s Museum of National Antiquities this morning after a friend here told me about a giant sleeping Buddha there in what I guessed would be the incredible Hellenic-Buddhist fusion of the now long…
Afghanistan Then and not Now…
Los Angeles- The AfPak Channel has an incredible photo essay that Messr. Mohammed Qayoumi, president of Cal State East Bay, gave them after he scanned a 1950’s era image book published by the Afghan Ministry of Planning in the now…
A Trip Down Our Collective Memory Lane
New York- Photojournalist Jason Florio had a slideshow at the Apple Store in the South of Houston street district tonight where he took the audience through over a decade of adventure and memory spanning Islamic Asia and Africa with 9/11…
Kabul-remixed
New York- I’ve remixed my Afghanistan video with the A Place to Bury Strangers track “Keep Slipping Away” from the Exploding Head LP. Check it! Support Skateistan!
End of a Peshawari Mystery?
New York- In October of 2004, I received a strange call from an FBI agent at their Manhattan headquarters named Teresa Meehan. Agent Meehan has apparently been tailing me and clipped her business card to a piece of my mail…
New Issue of Militant Leadership Monitor
New York- The new issue of Militant Leadership Monitor is online over at the Jamestown site. In our 2nd issue, I have another article on a recently killed Abu Sayyaf leader named Albader Parad who was recently taken down in…
The Pirates of Puntland
New York- Jason Florio has a big photo essay in the current Winter 2010 issue of the Virginia Quarterly Review called The Pirate Port about the quasi ragtag Somaliland coast guard in Berbera and their dealings with pirates based out…
The End of Charlie Wilson’s War
New York- I saw on the news yesterday that former Texas congressman of Hollywood legend, Charlie Wilson, died. In a way, I suppose his passing kind of represents the end of an opaque era. For some reason, the story, and…
The Changing Strategic Gravity of Al-Qaeda DVD
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…
The Changing Strategic Gravity of al-Qaeda
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,…