pakistan

Farhi Saeed bin Mohammed, an Algerian national who was captured in Pakistan and turned over to the U.S. military after fleeing from Afghanistan, was ordered released from the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay by a U.S. District Court judge yesterday, according to the human rights group CagePrisoners. Judge Gladys Kessler’s written opinion is still [...]

Marc Ambinder has a seriously detailed curtain-raiser on a turf war that’s roiled the intelligence community for months. Dennis Blair, the director of national intelligence, and Leon Panetta, the director of the CIA, have clashed over who controls the top U.S. intelligence officer in various foreign countries. But Ambinder goes way deeper to provide a [...]

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that this great New York Times story about President Obama’s Pakistan decision-making isn’t worthwhile, but there’s a quote buried in it that deserves a lot of elaboration:
During Mr. Obama’s Situation Room briefings on his alternatives, those advocating a minimal commitment of new troops in Afghanistan have argued that the [...]

The New York Times reports that President Obama is considering sending a far smaller number of additional troops to Afghanistan than previously mentioned:
Pentagon officials said the low-end option of 10,000 to 15,000 more troops would mean little or no significant increase in American combat forces in Afghanistan. The bulk of the additional forces would go [...]

I don’t know if this is wishful thinking or solid intelligence work. But Josh Partlow at The Washington Post has a spectacular story today from Kabul about possible fissures between al-Qaeda in Pakistan and elements of the Afghan Taliban coalition. Partlow’s sources indicate that the relationships are undergoing a transition:
[O]fficials and observers here differ over [...]

Check out this New York Times piece about the Afghanistan debate’s latest shifts in the White House. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert Gates are now on board with a 30,000-troop increase*, as is Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The president is said to be [...]

The officers’ involvement signals the debate has moved past a rigid choice between expansive counterinsurgency missions and narrowly tailored efforts to find and kill terrorists.

Josh Rogin at Foreign Policy thinks he sees light at the end of the Obama administration’s strategy and resource review tunnel:
Reliable sources tell The Cable that the review has entered its final stages, with Defense Secretary Robert Gates and National Security Advisor Jim Jones now taking the lead and putting on the final touches.

In an interview with Pakistan’s Dawn-TV, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton laid out some goals for her trip this week to Pakistan. “I talk about people-to-people diplomacy,” she said, “because for me, being Secretary of State is not just going somewhere and sitting in a government office or a conference room talking across the [...]

President Obama will host this morning what’s expected to be his final meeting with his national security team on Afghanistan strategy ahead of a revision of/re-commitment to what the strategy will be and how to resource it. Attendees will include the chairmen of the military services, which means that this meeting will focus on how [...]