All Policy Analysis by Jonathan Schanzer

Past administrations have publicized their plans too soon, provoking fury from extremists on both sides.

On December 1, 2004, Jonathan Schanzer and Daniel Benjamin addressed The Washington Institute's Special Policy Forum. Mr. Schanzer, who just completed a Soref fellowship at the Institute, is author of Al-Qaeda's Armies: Middle East Affiliate Groups and the Next Generation of Terror (co-published by the Institute and SPI Books, November

INTRODUCTION America's "War on Terror" has completely consumed the attention of U.S. foreign policy analysts. Countless man-hours have been expended in the pursuit of sensible policies for what will undoubtedly be a protracted and asymmetrical war. Surprisingly, many analysts have yet to come to the inevitable conclusion that this war

At least 13 Iraqis were killed in fighting with U.S. soldiers in the Iraqi city of Falluja on July 30, part of the ongoing U.S. offensive against fighters loyal to Abu Musab al Zarqawi, the man Bush administration officials claim is the most dangerous terrorist in Iraq today. Critics, however

As a result of the 2001 U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, the al-Qaeda network now consists of small, local, and autonomous affiliate groups that attack domestic and Western targets alike. Ties between affiliate groups and the former al-Qaeda core is largely informal. For example, recent attacks have been claimed by affiliates

Yemen has emerged of late as one of the more fertile locations for Al Qaeda activity. Al Qaeda's Yemeni affiliate, the Islamic Army of Aden-Abyan (IAA), has executed a number of spectacular attacks against Western interests in recent years. It was responsible for the 1998 kidnapping of sixteen Western tourists

The State Department released the 2003 edition of Patterns of Global Terrorism last week in accordance with its congressional mandate to provide an accounting of international trends. With several spectacular terrorist attacks, the war in Iraq, and a series of counterterrorism victories, 2003 witnessed profound changes in the arena of

On April 5, Iraqi gunmen attacking U.S. forces in Baghdad's predominantly Sunni al-Azamiya neighborhood were joined by members of radical Shi'i cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's militia, Jaysh al-Mahdi (Mahdi Army). Soon thereafter, posters of al-Sadr, along with graffiti praising the cleric's "valiant uprising" appeared in the Sunni-dominated city of Ramadi. On

The Yemeni media recently reported that thousands of Iraqis who fled Saddam Husayn's brutal regime and have lived in Yemen for more than a decade are now thinking about returning home. Many of these individuals are encouraged by signs of new infrastructure and a recovering economy in Iraq. If and

Tuesday's attacks against Shia targets in Baghdad and Karbala during Ashura, the holiest day in the Shia calendar, have all the markings of the simultaneous and co-ordinated attacks now associated with al-Qaeda. At first glance, it would appear that al-Qaeda is succeeding in its quest to destabilize Iraq. The attacks

A recently intercepted message from Iraq-based terrorist Abu Musab al Zarqawi asking the al Qaeda leadership for reinforcements reignited the debate over al Qaeda ties with Saddam Hussein's fallen Baath regime. William Safire of the New York Times called the message a "smoking gun," while the University of Michigan's Juan

On February 9, 2004, Jeffrey White, Jonathan Schanzer, Patrick Clawson, and Soner Cagaptay addressed The Washington Institute's Special Policy Forum. All four were part of the Institute fact-finding delegation tasked with conducting an independent survey of local security conditions and emerging political currents in Iraq. The delegation traveled throughout Iraq

Months before the Iraq war of 2003, The New Yorker, Christian Science Monitor, and The New York Times published reports about Ansar al-Islam (“Partisans of Islam”), a brutal band of al-Qa‘ida guerrillas based in a Kurdish area of northern Iraq near the Iranian border. U.S. officials pointed to Ansar al-Islam

Today, Yemeni authorities announced the capture of al-Qaeda militant Mohammed Hamdi al-Ahdal. This arrest comes amid a series of statements by Yemeni president Ali Abdallah Salih declaring his intent to release dozens of suspects with links to al-Qaeda in exchange for promises that they would renounce violence. Paradoxically, Salih and

At the heart of this sleepy South American capital of Suriname stand four golden minarets of the Ahmadiyya Anjuman Isha'at Islam mosque. Next to the mosque stands a stately wooden synagogue representing one of South America's oldest Jewish communities, which came to this former Dutch colony via Holland in the

The roadside bomb that killed four Americans recently had to have been imported into the Gaza Strip from someplace. Odds are, it came from underground tunnels between the Gaza Strip and Egypt. Countless other weapons used in terrorist attacks against Israelis in recent years have also arrived via those same

U.S. assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs William Burns visited Algeria on October 25-26, just days after a new Algerian terrorist organization was added to the Treasury Department's list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGT). The visit also came amid reports that several Algerian groups with al-Qaeda ties

Lebanon and occupying Syria have downplayed the threat of Asbat al-Ansar ever since the al-Qaeda affiliate was named a Specially Designated Global Terrorist by the U.S. government on September 23, 2001. Made up of only a few hundred fighters, Asbat was thought to be contained within Ein al-Hilweh, a Palestinian

Along the serpentine road that heads east from the Yemeni capital of Sanaa to the desert, the barrel of a tribe-owned tank peers out over rugged, lawless territory where heavily armed local patriarchs shun government authority and harbor Al Qaeda militants. In the governorate of Ma'rib, a cigarette-smoking 10-year-old carries

With so much recent focus on the West Bank "separation fence," the issue that prompted Israel to build a barrier in the first place has been obscured. But as this week's suicide bombings show, the threat of continued Palestinian terror lingers. And in some cases, that threat literally lingers just