This fascinating story from ABC News details the capture last month in Afghanistan of Dr. Aafia Siddique (or “Siddiqui”; Ar. عافية صديقي), the only woman ever named by the FBI as a top al-Qaeda operative.

Also significant was the “treasure trove”…

Obama’s highly anticipated overseas tour, which includes visits to countries throughout the Middle East and Europe, has generated a flurry of news coverage in the U.S. and around the world. One sign of the attention being paid to Obama’s trip:…

I have previously translated Arabic al-Jazeera articles (and comments) in order to give readers of The Platform some idea of how the election is being followed around the world. Despite some alarming stories about what’s happened to other bloggers who have…

In a widely discussed op-ed in the New York Times this morning, Barack Obama laid out his plan for Iraq.

The major centerpiece of Obama’s policy in the War on Terror is that Iraq has been a “distraction” from the more important…

Not good: “‘More than 100 terror camps’ in operation in northwestern Pakistan”

A few days ago I wrote about the deteriorating situation in northwestern Pakistan and the rise of Taliban power and influence there. Apparently the situation is even worse than the…

The situation in Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP), which borders Afghanistan, has been going steadily downhill since 2006, when the Taliban began their campaign against the provincial and national Pakistani governments there.

To make a long story short, Pervez Musharraf’s government responded with a schizophrenic…

My column today pulls together and reflects on last week’s three major developments in America’s ongoing effort to understand how the Bush administration came to approve and use abusive interrogation techniques on prisoners — something that violates every principle of…

The Supreme Court yesterday extended rights to U.S. prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay detention center in Cuba. The ruling, granting habeas corpus to the prisoners, is seen as  a rebuke to the Bush administration. The White House rejected that notion,…

At 3:00PM this afternoon I participated in an editorial conference call with U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Zalmay Khalilzad (former ambassador to Afghanistan and later Iraq). During the call, Ambassador Khalilzad addressed a broad range of topics, including repression in…