National Security Blog

National Security Updates
By Ryan Mauro

Breaking the Taliban

The war in Afghanistan may have reached a decisive tuning point this week. Just as a U.S. offensive into Helmand Province is making progress, a joint Pakistani-American raid has resulted in the capture of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the second-in-command of the Taliban. [more…]

The Mullahs Make the Green Revolution Invisible to the Media

On the 31st anniversary of the coming to power of the current Iranian regime, Khamenei and Ahmadinejad have successfully used unprecedented measures to make some Western media outlets lose faith in the opposition's fight for freedom and democracy. [more…]

Jihad Tactics From Elementary School

No one ever said that jihadists have to be mature. According to The Jerusalem Post, the police in Judea and Samaria are receiving 30-40,000 prank phone calls from Palestinians per month, forcing them to install screening software and to train their staff on how to distinguish fake calls from real ones. The police say that without the software, they'd receive between 90,000 and 100,000 "abusive" calls. [more…]

Obama The Hawk

Say what you will about President Obama's foreign policy, but he's sure no pacifist when it comes to Pakistan. He's dropping more bombs on Pakistan than his cowboy warmongering predecessor - in fact, three times as many. On average, the U.S. is launching three drone strikes on Pakistani territory per week, a dramatic increase from the once per week average before he came into office. [more…]