Daily Times (Pakistan)

America Looking for Fivisions in Taliban | Daily Times

Cecille Isidro — Sun, 24 May 2009 17:10:00 -0400

“This is the key to moving forward,” said Peter Bergen, a specialist on radical terrorism at the New America Foundation. Part spy-craft, part history research, the project is an attempt to re-create the successes in Iraq in 2007 and 2008, ...

Reinstatement Reinforces Primacy of Civilian Govt: US Experts | Daily Times

Cecille Isidro — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 18:26:00 -0400

... is to succeed in the complex, mostly political operations that will be necessary to contain and roll back the insurgency, it is going to require a capable, motivated civilian government to do that,” author and journalist Steve Coll said.

US takes ‘War of Ideas’ to Social Networking Websites | Daily Times

Communications — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 18:51:00 -0500

... to follow productive paths that lead away from terrorism,” Glassman said in a speech at the New America Foundation, a Washington-based think-tank. ...

Peter Bergen in the Daily Times | 'Al Qaeda Killing More Muslims Than ‘Infidels’'

Cecille Isidro — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 13:59:00 -0400

Al Qaeda is killing more Muslims than what it calls ‘infidels’, something that is going to be a ‘game changer’ for the terrorist group, according to Peter Bergen of the New America Foundation. He was speaking at a one-day conference on Al Qaeda organised by the Foundation and the New York University Centre for Law and Security. Al Qaeda, Bergen said is losing public support in Muslim countries and one thing is certain: will never become Hezbollah or Hamas. Al Qaeda, he added, has ‘no Plan B’. It attacked a far enemy, the United States, to get a near enemy, an Arab regime. Al Qaeda was now trying to become a mass movement riding on the back of the Taliban. LINK

Anatol Lieven in Daily Times | 'Conspiracy Theories Do Not Lead to Effective Policy'

Communications — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 10:15:00 -0400

Failed policies and poor strategic choices have overstretched the American military and economy, argues Anatol Lieven, professor at the Department of War Studies, Kings College, London...

...In his view, the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq demonstrate the desire of the US to remain a global hegemonic power. This, he said, is being challenged by the resurgence of Russia and China, and the failure of the Iraq war. The current economic crisis and the upcoming presidential election in the US may prompt a change in the American policy. LINK

Anatol Lieven in Daily Times | 'Pakistan Needs Economic Assistance Urgently'

Communications — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 10:19:00 -0400

According to Anatol Lieven, writing in the International Herald Tribune, the fear is that by the time a new US administration has begun to work out its plans, it will be next spring, which may be too late, some Pakistanis feel. “If the government here cannot do something serious to help the population economically within six months, it will be finished,” a newspaper editor told Lieven. The new president Asif Ali Zardari is seen as too pro-American. His government’s prestige is being damaged still further by intensifying American raids into the Tribal Areas. LINK

Peter Bergen in the Daily Times - Pakistan | 'Is Osama No Longer the Threat He Once Was?'

Communications — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 10:47:00 -0400

... While counter-terrorism officials no longer consider Osama Bin Laden a threat to the West, his popularity in the Muslim world has waned. Terrorism expert Peter Bergen writes in the new issue of Time magazine that the jihad has moved beyond Bin Laden and Al Qaeda. According to former CIA official Marc Sageman, two decades since its founding in Peshawar, Al Qaeda remains a source of inspiration for certain extremists around the world, but it is far from clear that Bin Laden commands them. If Bin Laden has any role in the jihad, say the Europeans, it is merely as an icon...

...Bergen believes that the best available evidence suggests that the threat posed by Bin Laden’s acolytes has not been extinguished - and his own influence over them is greater than many analysts acknowledge... LINK

Pakistan's Daily Times Interviews Peter Bergen

Communications — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 14:35:00 -0400

The United States decided against striking Al Qaeda locations in Pakistan in 2006 because it was afraid the strike would destabilise General Pervez Musharraf and his government.

According to Peter Bergen of the New America Foundation, who is also the CNN’s terrorism expert, “America has handed $10 billion to the Pakistani government since September 11, 2001. Yet the Taliban and Al Qaeda remain headquartered in Pakistan. A U.S. military official in Afghanistan with access to intelligence information told me this spring that Taliban leader Mullah Omar ‘is still in Quetta,’ ... And a Western official based in Pakistan told me that ‘target folders’ about the locations of high-value Taliban and Al Qaeda targets were provided by the U.S. government to Pakistan in late 2006 – but never acted upon. Moreover, the Bush administration has, at least on one occasion, refused to do what Pakistan will not.”

Rumsfeld nixed attack: “This July, the New York Times reported that Donald Rumsfeld nixed a proposed 2005 attack on a meeting of Al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan - a meeting thought to include Zawahiri - in part because the operation, which would have involved several hundred special forces and CIA personnel, could have destabilised… more