Afghanistan

Chairwoman Harman, committee members, thank you for the opportunity to testify today. My testimony aims to address the evolving threat from al Qaeda to the homeland, to include the threat from al Qaeda itself, groups affiliated or allied to al Qaeda, and those "homegrown" militants influenced by al Qaeda ideas who have no connections to any formal jihadist group. This testimony does not aim to be exhaustive but to cover the most serious cases of recent years and to provide some overall threat assessment.

Before President Obama releases his strategy for Afghanistan, he should think twice about fully re-embracing Hamid Karzai.

By rigging the first round of elections with more than a million fraudulent votes, rigging the second round of elections with more than 500 'ghost' polling places to generate another flood of fake ballots and refusing to reform the electoral system, incumbent President Hamid Karzai abused his office to steal a democratic election from the people of Afghanistan.

... based on their prior strategic choices," says Sameer Lalwani, a Pakistan watcher at the New America Foundation, a Washington-based think tank. ...

CNN terrorism analyst Peter Bergen disagreed with Hoh's assessment of Afghanistan. "It's not that our presence there is causing the problem," he said. ...

... very, very temporary allegiance," said Nicholas Schmidle, an expert on the Afghanistan-Pakistan region for the nonpartisan New America Foundation. ...

Militancy expert Peter Bergen of the New American Foundation said the fact that the passports were found in Taliban compounds showed how the two ...

The Obama administration has dramatically ratcheted up the American drone warfare program in Pakistan. Since President Obama took office, U.S. drone strikes have killed about a half-dozen militant leaders along with hundreds of other people, a quarter of whom were civilians.

As a result of the unprecedented 42 strikes by drone aircraft into Pakistan authorized by the Obama administration, aimed at Taliban and al Qaeda networks based there, about a half-dozen leaders of militant organizations have been killed.

Peter Beinart, who recently wrote an article called "Bury the Vietnam Analogy" on thedailybeast.com, has said there is a real sense of national identity for ...

A new study from the New America Foundation found that with 41 drone strikes under his watch in Pakistan, President Obama has "dramatically increased" the ...

The most vital region in this world today, for U.S. interests at least, remains a maze of cloud-shearing piles of rock and sweeping valleys, both checkered by impoverished towns and men clutching AKs-- but this pile is hundreds of miles from Kabul.