Pleading the Fourth (Estate)...
In spite of last year's Tulip Revolution in Kyrgyzstan, press freedom there remains largely muzzled, as the results of the Freedom House survey demonstrate. Of all the "revolutions" in the former Soviet Union, Kyrgyzstan's was the least satisfying in both scope and results:
As an executive director of the TV channel NTS that strives to survive and retain its right on the independent opinion and coverage Andrey Tsvetkov, for instance, admits that old practices of intimidating phone calls and indirect threats from officials are again very much in place. He emphasizes: “Authorities keep interfering into mass media business trying to manipulate journalists.
One result of the destruction of terrorist-training camps in Afghanistan is the diffusion of jihadi theorists internationally. The Washington Post details the story of one such individual - Mustafa Setmariam Nasser, a Spaniard of Syrian origin:
With the Afghanistan base lost, he argued, radicals would need to shift their approach and work primarily on their own, though sometimes with guidance from roving operatives acting on behalf of the broader movement....Nasar, 47, outlines a strategy for a truly global conflict on as many fronts as possible and in the form of resistance by small cells or individuals, rather than traditional guerrilla warfare. To avoid penetration and defeat by security services, he says, organizational links should be kept to an absolute minimum.
An illuminating example of the spasmodic nature of al-Qaeda, as highlighted by scholars like Jessica Stern in her excellent 2003 piece in Foreign Affairs.
"Think-tanks" are a dime-a-dozen here in Washington DC. One of the real McCoys is SITE: the Search for International Terrorist Entities, which trolls international media and websites to track the latest developments in Jihadia. One of their researchers, Rita Katz, is profiled in the most recent New Yorker:
Katz, who was born in Iraq and speaks fluent Arabic, spends hours each day monitoring the password-protected online chat rooms in which Islamic terrorists discuss politics and trade tips: how to disperse botulinum toxin or transfer funds, which suicide vests work best. Occasionally, a chat-room member will announce that he is turning in his user name and password and going to Iraq to become a martyr, a shaheed. Several weeks later, his friends will post a report of the young man blowing himself up. Katz usually logs on at six in the morning. When she has guests for dinner, she leaves a laptop open on the kitchen counter, so she can check for updates. “It is completely addicting,” she says. “You wake up thinking, I’ve been offline for seven hours, but the terrorists have been making plans.”
One of GWOT's many foot-soldiers...
Finally, Andrew Sullivan has an inspiring quote from Tony Blair - who will be speaking this week at my university, although I can't attend due to my summer job commitments.
As an executive director of the TV channel NTS that strives to survive and retain its right on the independent opinion and coverage Andrey Tsvetkov, for instance, admits that old practices of intimidating phone calls and indirect threats from officials are again very much in place. He emphasizes: “Authorities keep interfering into mass media business trying to manipulate journalists.
One result of the destruction of terrorist-training camps in Afghanistan is the diffusion of jihadi theorists internationally. The Washington Post details the story of one such individual - Mustafa Setmariam Nasser, a Spaniard of Syrian origin:
With the Afghanistan base lost, he argued, radicals would need to shift their approach and work primarily on their own, though sometimes with guidance from roving operatives acting on behalf of the broader movement....Nasar, 47, outlines a strategy for a truly global conflict on as many fronts as possible and in the form of resistance by small cells or individuals, rather than traditional guerrilla warfare. To avoid penetration and defeat by security services, he says, organizational links should be kept to an absolute minimum.
An illuminating example of the spasmodic nature of al-Qaeda, as highlighted by scholars like Jessica Stern in her excellent 2003 piece in Foreign Affairs.
"Think-tanks" are a dime-a-dozen here in Washington DC. One of the real McCoys is SITE: the Search for International Terrorist Entities, which trolls international media and websites to track the latest developments in Jihadia. One of their researchers, Rita Katz, is profiled in the most recent New Yorker:
Katz, who was born in Iraq and speaks fluent Arabic, spends hours each day monitoring the password-protected online chat rooms in which Islamic terrorists discuss politics and trade tips: how to disperse botulinum toxin or transfer funds, which suicide vests work best. Occasionally, a chat-room member will announce that he is turning in his user name and password and going to Iraq to become a martyr, a shaheed. Several weeks later, his friends will post a report of the young man blowing himself up. Katz usually logs on at six in the morning. When she has guests for dinner, she leaves a laptop open on the kitchen counter, so she can check for updates. “It is completely addicting,” she says. “You wake up thinking, I’ve been offline for seven hours, but the terrorists have been making plans.”
One of GWOT's many foot-soldiers...
Finally, Andrew Sullivan has an inspiring quote from Tony Blair - who will be speaking this week at my university, although I can't attend due to my summer job commitments.
posted by Saket Vemprala at
4:34 PM
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