New York- I regretfully haven’t posted here on TWD since I was in Dammam last month and it’s time for that to change. Since I began my Fabled City vlog series back in January I’ve found it tough to keep…
Category: Uncategorized
Back in Baghdad: Iraq 20 Years On
Baghdad- I returned to the Iraqi capital by road via a nearly identical route I took twenty years ago, two weeks from now. It was the utterly avoidable, wholly unnecessary war we could have avoided. Somewhat similar to Afghanistan, Iraq…
Generation-X Takes the Reins in Cyprus
Aqaba- I have a new article out this week for Janes Intelligence Review (behind a paywall) about last month’s election of Nikos Christodoulides in Cyprus. The election marks a generational shift in [Greek] Cypriot politics as he will be the…
Fabled City Beirut Episode Now Up
Amman- After being here in Jordan a good few days now I’ve finally gotten my first Lebanon episode up on my Fabled City channel. Had a number of tech snafus in recent days with my iPhone flying out the car…
Fabled City Episode 3 Is Now Live
Beirut- I’ve got my very short Athens excursion up on my still new-ish Fabled City channel embedded above. I had a very short layover in the Hellenic capital the other week between Barcelona and Larnaca the other week and spontaneously…
I’ve Launched a Youtube Channel for 2023
New York- After the past three years of my life were largely wasted in terms of career, I’m finally taking the plunge back into the wider world. Since 9/11 until March 2020, I had made a name for myself, not…
Pakistan’s One-Man Noah’s Ark in Troubled Waters
New York-I appeared on a Twitter Spaces panel by The Redline Podcast‘s Francis Leach and Michael Hilliard about the current state of prime ministerial politics in flood-embattled Pakistan.I spoke alongside Michael Kugelman, Sahar Kkan, and Fereeha M Idrees. Khan was…
The Pariah Becomes Paramount
New York- I’m featured in this week’s episode of Noiser Podcasts‘ Real Dictators series about Gaddafi’s escalating feud with the United States and to a lesser extent the United Kingdom in the 1980s. The north African strongman had famously, if…
Nineteen
New York- Yesterday was the nineteenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the United States by al-Qaeda. The plot involved numerous Saudis and adhered to a zero sum Egyptian ideological backbone in which the ummah, or global Islamic community, is…
Bodhisattva Vow
Kandy- For years I’ve wanted to visit this city in central Sri Lanka and its nearly mythical Sri Dalada Maligawa (Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic) where one of Siddhartha Gautama’s four canine teeth is stored for veneration by Buddhists…
A City with Stories to Tell
Erbil- I arrived in the capital of Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) from Beirut as yet another plot point in my journey toward Syria. I made it a point today to visit the city’s magnificent citadel just before it…
Unfrozen
New York- I have an article out for IHS Jane’s Terrorism & Insurgency Monitor entitled “A dangerous thaw – Nagorno-Karabakh heats up” after the recent clashes in the most hotly disputed territory in the South Caucasus. Nagorno-Karabagh, a Russian-Turkic-Iranian word mash meaning (Nagorno…
The Walls Have Ears
It’s the middle of winter here in NYC and I’m staying busy cleaning out my laptop and here I happened upon another unpublished story from my archives that I later used as the background for an article “Motivations and Methods…
#ParisAttacks Heavy gunfire in Saint-Denis
New York- A hail of bullets can be hear in the video during an anti-terror police operation in the northern commune of Saint-Denis approximately 12 kilometers from central Paris. Here is a map of the precise location according to Youtube user trystero19.
The Intervention
Murşitpinar- Another quick blog entry with some images from Kobane and environs and recent days. The media narrative on the siege has shifted from predictions of the city’s imminent fall to IS being on the back foot in the battle…
Peace In Light of War
Barcelona- I realized the other day that going to wars for years and years affects perhaps not only the psyche over the long term but also the synaptic algorithms that are part of an unending string of decision making processes…
Pakistan Triptychs in Barcelona
Barcelona- I installed two triptychs here in Barcelona the other day from when I was conducting my senior thesis in Peshawar, Pakistan back in the autumn of 2000. The one above was on an abandoned storefront in El Clot while the…
Diplomats and Hors d’Oeuvres on the River
New York- I attended a Georgian diplomatic party marking the restoration of Georgian independence this week hosted by Ambassador Kaha Imnadze. Georgia was briefly independent from 1918-1921 following the 1917 Bolshevik revolution and the collapse of the Romanov dynasty. The…
Anbar-Insurgency Redux
New York- I have an article out now for IHS Jane’s Islamic Affairs Analyst on the eruption of violence in Iraq’s sprawling western al-Anbar Governorate that borders the relatively calm governorates of Ma’an, Amman, Mafraq, and the somewhat sketchier Zarqa in…
Scenes From an Enclave
Erbil- Here are a handful of snapshots from my iPod from my day running around the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan while trying to get situated.
Kachin Days
Guest blogger: Raymond Pagnucco Follow Raymond on Twitter at @RaymondPagnucco See Raymond’s site here New York- I’ve known Ray Pagnucco for some twenty years now. Ray is constantly on the move in Asia and Africa, often interested in uncovering the world’s lesser…
Syria Rough Cut
DHFlood_Syri
TWD Inside Free Syria
Antakya- I have a new article out in today’s edition of Asia Times Online on my journey into rebel-held northern Syria. In over a decade of jihads, war zones and civil unrest, I think this was the most difficult thing…
War’s Antidote
Barcelona- This hilarious article came out in the Daily Mail about show jumping rabbits here in Europe, something I never knew existed. So as not to get overly exercised about certain frustrating geopolitical constructs, one need only to picture Snoopy…
Rumba de Barcelona
Barcelona- I’ve just come back to Barca for the first time since 2008 and the town is as vibrant as ever. Everyone is so thin and bronzed that coming from the bowels of outer borough New York City, one may…
June Issue of Militant Leadership Monitor Out
New York- Got the new issue of MLM out yesterday. In this one we have a profile of Saudi jihadi ideologue Faris al-Zahrani by Murad Batal al-Shishani, sketchy Malaysian JI/AQ operative Marwan by Jacob Zenn, the real Sajid Mir of…
“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…
May Issue of Militant Leadership Monitor Online
Los Angeles- The May issue of MLM is out. Worked hard on this one. Enjoy! If you’re not already enjoying, subscribe!
Increased Security for NYC?
New Issue of Militant Leadership Monitor
New York- The new issue of Militant Leadership Monitor is online. In this issue we have two pieces from two of Yemen’s three fronts. A profile of Adel al-Abbab of AQAP by Murad Batal al-Shishani and a bio of Abdulmalik…