The Arab Spring displaced several illegitimate regimes in Middle East and North Africa or MENA. In the mist of the shifting political current Islamic extremist organizations quickly seized control of vacant power vacuums. This post explores the Islamic States expansion into Libya. Then the post explores the counterterrorism strategies of…
The unfolding counterterrorism activities inside Africa’s most populist country remains both a fascinating story and one which continues to be grossly underreported. A wealthy state in many ways, Nigeria continues to struggle with its single greatest security challenge—the specter of subnational terrorism. The specific form of terrorism has confounded Nigeria’s…
The US government has created a host of counterterrorism programs to deal with variety of terrorist threats. Overtime, multiple American presidential administrations have used several these programs and initiatives to assist governments in Africa in confronting local and transnational terrorism. Unknown to most, many of these programs are directed…
In a clear indication of a change in strategy, in late March of 2017 “Trump Declares Somalia a War Zone.” This post addresses two questions. First, what is behind the administration of Donald Trump’s decision to target Al Shabaab? And second, how and in what ways is the administration’s…
Thus far, the administration of Donald Trump has not created and released a National Security Strategy document. Similarly, no official in the administration has delivered a speech outlining the president’s counterterrorism strategy. That said, there is available evidence of what constitutes components of a counterterrorism strategy. This post outlines…
The battle for Raqqa is the subject of great controversy. Many counterterrorism experts complained about President Barack Obama’s strategy and the failure to intensify the air strikes while others have argued the former American leader should have increased local and US combat firepower to retake the operational headquarters of…