
New York- My fieldwork among the Amazigh rebels in the Jebel Nafusa region of Libya’s Tripolitania region who were then in armed revolt against the regime of Mu’ammar al-Qadaffi in mid-2011 was cited by the University of Texas Press at…
New York- Three years ago today a bloody revolution kicked off in earnest in Benghazi, Libya which ended the rule of Muammar Qaddafi, longest dictatorial regime in post-colonial Africa surpassing even that of Omar Bongo in Gabon who ruled that…
Barcelona- Partly out of boredom and partly out of the itch to simply create something new out of old, I threw together this photo montage over the weekend. In this era of digital photography where one shoots thousands of frames…
Barcelona- I have a new article out today in the July issue of the Combatting Terrorism Center at West Point’s Sentinel publication. I am honored to have been awarded the cover story for the second time this year. The story…
Bamako- Though everyone, myself included, were talking about how Libya differed from Syria at the outset of 2012, I’m now thinking how Mali differs from Libya in terms of working. In Libya nearly as soon as I arrived in Benghazi,…
Barcelona- I finally was able to upload this Libya mash-up video I had been working on in NYC from here in Catalunya. For technical reasons beyond my knowledge or control, I was having a devil of a time getting the…
New York- It’s been quite a while since I’ve managed to slug out a blog update due to bouts of sickness, busy-ness, and relaxing-ness. None of that is to say that TWD hasn’t been busy though. Where to begin…well things…
Istanbul, Köln, & New York- It’s been a while since I’ve been able to do an update after about three weeks of nonstop travel and work. I’m just going to post a mishmash of backlogged things of no particular importance.…
Thira- Today is my last day stranded in paradise here in Santorini. It has been a fantastic couple of weeks living in a volcanic cave at the aptly named Caveland in Karterados village. Soon I will be in the humdrum…
Thira- I have no two new articles out today. I felt compelled to write something on the ignominious death of Qaddafi in Sirte yesterday. Funnily I was actually going to do a piece on the unrest here in Greece if…
Barcelona- TWD made onto CNN.com today after new developments in Tripoli stoked even more interest in the now solidifying concept of a post-Qaddafi Libya. In other news, TWD made it onto wikipedia.org in entries for Jalal al-Digheily who had a…
Barcelona- I appeared on CNN today discussing some of my observations about my recent trip to Jebel Nafusa. Produced by Tim Lister in Atlanta. (CNN) — Six months and more than 17,000 air sorties after it began, NATO’s Operation Unified…
Barcelona- It is never not a strange, sometimes awkward transition from a war in the third world to the oft petty tranquility of the first. Unable to get a flight from Tunis directly to Catalunya, my best bet was flying…
Nalut- Spent a very quiet day working in the rebel media center after a long day yesterday. Nalut is a hot, dusty, empty town but in some odd way I feel rather comfortable here. My Amazigh (Berber) hosts are incredibly…
Nalut- Made it from Djerba all the way to Nalut. One long hot day down the coast and into the Sahara. Incredible Berber hospitality here. Lots of questions though. Not quite as stable as I would have hoped or thought.…
New York- I have become increasingly interested in the gradual opening up of large swaths of western Libya in the peaks and valleys of the Nafusa Mountains. Until recently, this Berber populated area was one of the more under reported…
New York- I was pleased to see my publication Militant Leadership Monitor, referenced in the endnotes of Bruce Riedel’s new Brookings book Deadly Embrace: Pakistan, America, and the Future of Global Jihad. This is the first citation of MLM in…
Washington D.C.- For anyone in the DC area tomorrow, I will be presenting “The Mitsubishi War” about my recent Libya sojourn at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace at 11am near the corner of Massachusetts Avenue and 17th Street.
Cairo- I had one of those accidentally fantastic days in Cairo today. Spent most of the day lazing around Zamalek, shot a few phot’s of some killer post-revolutionary street murals, and all I ate were two heaping bowls of mega…