Russia might be reluctant to sell lethal equipment to the Taliban amidst its ongoing undeclared war with Pakistan despite the threat posed by ISIS-K to Afghanistan due to concern that they could be used in that conflict at the expense of the hard-earned Russian-Pakistani rapprochement in recent years. The Afghan […]
Phenomenon of Terrorism
From Afghanistan To The Sahel: How Al-Qaeda’s Center Of Gravity Shifted, 25 Years After 9/11 (I)
Twenty-five years after al-Qaeda struck Washington and New York, the organization’s most active theater of operations isn’t in the Middle East or South Asia – it’s in a stretch of West Africa most Americans would struggle to locate on a map. New figures from the conflict monitor Acled show violence […]
America’s Post-9/11 Wars Have Triggered 4.5 Million Deaths, Displaced 38-60 Million People, Study Shows
[This article was originally published in May 2023.] The wars the United States waged and fueled in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, and Pakistan following September 11, 2001 caused at least 4.5 million deaths, according to a report by Brown University. Nearly a million of the people who lost their lives […]
Five Reflections On The 25th Anniversary Of 9/11
It was a defining moment in the modern era that radically changed the course of history. The largest terrorist attack in modern history occurred a quarter-century ago when Al Qaeda operatives hijacked several planes and then crashed them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Everyone remembers where they […]
Will Ukraine Attack Civil Aviation In Russia?
President Volodymyr Zelensky has warned airlines, insurers, and foreign governments that Russian airspace “will be de facto closed” because of Ukrainian drones. He said that while Ukraine does not threaten civil aviation, carriers flying to Moscow, St. Petersburg, or other major hubs must factor in the risk of drones in Russian […]
Russia’s Tactical Pullback From Northeastern Mali Shouldn’t Be Spun As A Retreat
They’re not the same thing, unlike what many might think, and the difference is important. Reports indicate that Russia has withdrawn from three bases in Northeastern Mali, which the local Tuareg call Azawad, after the offensive by “Azawad Liberation Front” (FLA) Tuareg separatists and al-Qaeda-affiliated “Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin” (JNIM) radical […]
Five Questions That Russia Should Consider Amidst The Malian Insurgents’ Outreaches
The common denominator connecting these five questions is the ultimate one about how Russia’s top brass really assesses the conflict’s overall military-strategic dynamics. The latest Malian insurgency took a twist after the terrorist-designated groups, the Tuareg “Azawad Liberation Front” (FLA) and the al-Qaeda-affiliated “Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin” (JNIM), reached out to Russia. Their messages […]
Mali Under Fire: How Russia’s African Corps Became The Decisive Force In A Moment Of State Fragility
Late April 2026 became a defining moment for Mali, when a series of coordinated attacks evolved into a large-scale challenge to the country’s political and military stability. What initially appeared to be another episode in a long-running insurgency quickly revealed a far more ambitious design. Armed groups launched near-simultaneous strikes […]
The West Aims To Achieve Five Goals Through Its Sponsorship Of The Latest Malian Insurgency
If it wasn’t for the Africa Corps’ valiant defense of their positions throughout the country, Mali probably would have already fallen, but it now has a fighting chance to survive and foil this Western power play. Russia’s Africa Corps played an indispensable role in helping Mali thwart last weekend’s terrorist […]
Five Reasons Why Counterinsurgency Remains Such A Challenge For Mali
The solutions are difficult to implement during the crisis, however, but hopefully that’ll happen after (if?) it passes. Saturday’s coordinated attacks across Mali by terrorist-designated Tuareg rebels in the rural north and Islamic terrorists in the urban areas, which were described as “unprecedented” by Al Jazeera and Le Monde, caught the government by surprise. This […]






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