New York Times Magazine – The Saharan Conundrum

Terrorism experts feared that North Africa would be the next Afghanistan: a haven, and a launching pad, for Al Qaeda. Why hasn’t it turned out that way?

New York Times – ‘Terror’ Is The Enemy

Philip Bobbitt gives his views on how the war on terror should be waged in the future.

Foreign Affairs – Marc Sageman claims that al Qaeda’s leadership is finished and today’s terrorist threat comes primarily from below. But the terrorist elites are alive and well, and ignoring the threat they pose will have disastrous consequences.
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New York Review of Books – Ahmed Rashid reviews the current state of the jihad against the West.
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New Yorker – The making of an Al Qaeda homegrown.
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Foreign Affairs – Despite all the ominous warnings of wily terrorists and imminent attacks, there has been neither a successful strike nor a close call in the United States since 9/11. The reasonable — but rarely heard — explanation is that there are no terrorists within the United States, and few have the means or the inclination to strike from abroad.
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Washington Post – Ahmed Rashid shows how in the five years since Sept. 11, the tactics and strategy of Islamic extremists fighting U.S. or NATO forces have improved dramatically. To a degree they could not approach five years ago, the extremists are successfully facing off against the overwhelming technological apparatus that modern armies can bring to bear against guerrillas. Islamic extremists are winning the war by not losing, and they are steadily expanding to create new battlefronts.
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Washington Post – The status of the hunt for Osama Bin Laden.
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New Yorker – An interesting roundtable discussion on the war on terror, and whether America is stronger now.
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Washington Post – Former Navy Secretary and 9/11 Commission member John Lehman reviews the progress of the Long War to date???
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New York Times Magazine – In the year since the July 7 bus and subway terror attacks, Tony Blairís government has tried a combination of hard power (expanding the role of the police) and soft power (reaching out to local Muslim leaders) to prevent a next time. But the more that officials learn, the scarier things seem.
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New Yorker – Osama bin Ladenís first lessons in jihad.
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Washington Post – Last week, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency requested proposals for a new research effort to make sense out of the sea of information. The new PANDA project (for Predictive Analysis for Naval Deployment Activities) seeks to develop a warning system that will automatically evaluate the behavior of maritime vessels worldwide to detect possible terrorist (or criminal) activity.
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New York Times Magazine – A terrorist leader four years ago, Osama bin Laden is now an ideology as well ó and a viral movement.Terrorist attacks worldwide are on the rise. Iraq could well end up a “failed” state. Maybe it’s time to stop fighting on their terms.
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New York Times Magazine – In December 2001, Osama bin Laden was cornered in a mountainous region along the Afghan-Pakistani border. Why wasn’t he captured? And why can’t he be apprehended now?
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Daily Telegraph – Historian Niall Ferguson nicely maps out the connections between terrorism, aid to Africa, global warming, and this week’s G8 Summit.
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New Yorker – A look at the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo.
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Washington Post – A look at what Al Qaeda is morphing into, and how that new form relates to yesterdays terror attacks in London.
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Washington Post – France and the US are fighting terror together, much more closely than generally believed — Funded largely by the CIA, France’s Alliance Base analyzes transnational movement of suspects and develops operations to catch them.
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New Yorker – The secret history of America’s “extraordinary rendition” program.

An interview with the author: New Yorker – Torture by Proxy.
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Frontline – An investigation into the threat radical jihadists pose to Western Europe and its allies – including the U.S. Read the Transcript, and the Interviews, Special Reports, and essay on Al Qaeda Today.
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Wired – Thomas P.M. Barnett on what Dirty Harry can teach the new Geneva conventions.

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Guardian – The chaos of Iraq is giving rise to a new generation of “professional” terrorists who will eventually replace al-Qaida as a global threat, according to a report by the National Intelligence Council. The report warns that the US faces an increasing risk of an attack involving biological agents.

More from the Washington Times – Inside the Ring
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The Atlantic – Where has he been? How did we ever let him get away? Peter Bergen is one of the few Western journalists ever to have met Osama bin Laden and he traces the al-Qaeda leader’s footsteps in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and describes the sometimes hapless American pursuit.

Part 2 of the article.
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The Times – Al Qaeda continues to acquire a fleet.
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