Al-Qaida chief Ayman al-Zawahiri The Coordinator 2017 Part 19-138-Caliphate- The State of al-Qaida-45-Our Performance-63

CdW Intelligence to Rent In Confidence

Al-Qaida chief Ayman al-Zawahiri The Coordinator 2017 Part 19-138-Caliphate- The State of al-Qaida-45-Our Performance-63

Al-Qaida Isn't 'Decimated'; It's Back - While the Islamic State got all the attention, our old nemesis grew.

Fifteen years after the U.S. invasion, Afghanistan is in a “stalemate” that will require several thousand more Western troops to break, the war’s top U.S. commander told Congress.

Al-Qaida laid low when the focus of attention swung to the Islamic State. The wannabe caliphate cut a huge swath through the Middle East, seizing territory, massacring nonbelievers and taking the media by storm. While ISIL called down the thunder of U.S. and allied air strikes, al-Qaida got back to work, building networks and connecting with local populations. The group’s strategy comes straight from bin Laden

“We’ve got to get inside the minds of the jihadis” and understand the doctrinal justification for “the cult of killing, the worship of death” and why they, literally, “eagerly drink the blood of their dying enemies,”

“We can’t win this war by treating Radical Islamic terrorists as a handful of crazies and dealing with them as a policing issue,” President Trump’s national security adviser retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn writes.

“To defeat the enemy, we must understand who he is”: The primary failure has been to ignore and deny the motivating ideology behind jihad terror. It was even official Obama administration policy to remove all mention of Islam and jihad from counterterror training. This was self-defeating in the extreme: one cannot defeat an enemy one does not understand.

Yes, it is. The Islamic State’s belief system is held by other Muslims. Defeating the Islamic State is important, but will not extinguish its motivating ideology…..

Flynn: “If we can’t tackle enemy doctrines that call for our domination or extinction, we aren’t going to destroy their jihadis”FEBRUARY 8, 2017 2:47 PM BY ROBERT SPENCER71 COMMENTSIt is so refreshing to see this realism and common sense after eight years of Obama’s denial and willful ignorance. “Flynn’s plan to beat radical Islam starts with schools and social media,” by Paul Sperry, New York Post, February 4, 2017:President Trump’s national security adviser wants to fight not just Islamic terrorists but the “radical ideology of Islam,” and he plans to do it from the grass roots up, starting with our children at schools while also using social media.Dealing with the global Islamist threat on a tactical level through drone strikes and arrests hasn’t worked, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn argues, according to his largely overlooked 2016 book, “The Field of Fight: How We Can Win the Global War Against Radical Islam and Its Allies.” He wants to combat it more broadly, using informational warfare, among other things, on a scale not seen since World War II.

1The farther back you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see. –Winston ChurchillCees de Waart: CdW Intelligence to Rent Page 1 of 8

03/05/2023


But first, he writes, the government has to overcome the political taboo of tying Islamic violence to the religion of Islam, including its sacred texts, which he says the enemy is using as a manual of warfare…. “If we can’t tackle enemy doctrines that call for our domination or extinction,” Flynn writes, “we aren’t going to destroy their jihadis.”… “It’s long past time for us to denounce the many evils of Radical Islam,” he writes, while highlighting the many defeats of ISIS and al Qaeda to show potential recruits that “the Almighty has changed sides in the holy war.”Fired by former President Barack Obama from the Defense Intelligence Agency for taking such stands, Flynn vows to reverse the longstanding government practice of whitewashing the violent nature of the enemy’s faith through pleasant platitudes like, “The terrorists are hijacking a religion of peace” and other apologia. He calls such policies “Islamophilia,” and complains they border on appeasement.“I firmly believe that Radical Islam is a tribal cult, and must be crushed,” he writes.In his book, Flynn says the Islamist enemy studies our culture “very carefully” and excels at “identifying our weaknesses,” while we, on the other hand, have done very little to exploit weak points in their ideology. We suffer pangs of guilt just “calling them by name and identifying them as fanatical killers acting on behalf of a failed civilization.”That “failed civilization,” he notes, is Islam, and he says the government must publicly point out its failures, from depressed economies to high illiteracy rates to oppression of women, while supporting “a complete reformation of the Islamic religion” throughout the Muslim world.He suggests working closely with the president of Egypt, who has called for a renewal of Islam. He also praises reforms pushed by Singapore to convince Muslims that there’s no requirement to follow Sharia in a secular state and that Allah hasn’t blessed jihad against the West. He also cites the half dozen countries that have banned Islamic headscarves around the world.“We’ve got to get inside the minds of the jihadis” and understand the doctrinal justification for “the cult of killing, the worship of death” and why they, literally, “eagerly drink the blood of their dying enemies,” Flynn writes. What in their scripture brainwashes them into thinking, “We love death more than you love life?” Once that doctrine is exposed, it can be undermined to the point where it loses its potency….“The war against Radical Islamists must begin at home,” he writes. “Muslims want to apply Sharia law by using our own legal system to strengthen what many believe to be a violent religious law that has no place in the United States,” he writes, adding the government must stop implying Islamic and Western civilizations “are morally equivalent.”“Let us accept what we were founded upon: a Judeo-Christian ideology built on a moral set of rules and laws,” he writes. “Let us not fear, but instead fight those who want to impose Sharia law and their Radical Islamist views.”…“We can’t win this war by treating Radical Islamic terrorists as a handful of crazies and dealing with them as a policing issue,” he writes. “The political and theological underpinnings of their immoral actions have to be demolished.”

“To defeat the enemy, we must understand who he is”: An interview with Robert SpencerFEBRUARY 8, 2017 2:24 PM BY ROBERT SPENCER11 COMMENTSHere is an interview I did with the Italian publication L’Informale, about President Trump’s attempts to curb unrestricted immigration, and more. “To defeat the enemy we must understand who he is: Interview with Robert Spencer,” by Niram Ferretti, L’Informale, February 7, 2017: Following the much contested executive order on immigration issued by President Donald Trump we wanted to hear the clear voice of Robert Spencer, the director of Jihadwatch, who we already had the pleasure to interview in the past.Among his many books on jihadism and Islam we wish to remind The Complete Infidel’s Guide to the Coran (2009), Not Peace but a Sword (2013), The Complete Infidel’s Guide to Iran (2016).


03/05/2023


I would like to start with a question related to President Trump executive order banning the citizens of seven Muslim countries from entering the United States for a period of three months in order to improve screening and security measures. Do you think this order was necessary, and if yes why?Yes, it is necessary. The choice is clear: either bar some legitimate travelers from entering the country for a temporary period, or allow in refugees among whom there will certainly be an unknowable number of Islamic jihadi, who will murder Americans. Those who oppose the ban don’t seem to care that refugees have already carried out jihad terror attacks in Europe and the U.S.President Trump executive order has created an uproar of large dimensions in the United States and many rebuttals also here in Europe. It has been called a “Muslim ban”, which obviously it is not, as the countries in the list are just seven Muslim countries among at least 51 worldwide. Furthermore, these same countries had already been listed by the Obama administration as potentially dangerous. Would you like to comment on this?The President was completely within his rights as delineated by American law. He has the responsibility, in fact, to restrict immigration for national security purposes. Those who are calling this a “Muslim Ban” are trying to whip up hysteria against Trump in order to discredit him and destroy his ability to act.Different people in the United States but also in Europe have also criticized the executive order for it does not includes countries such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar. We know that Saudi Arabia is an allay of the United States from 1945 but we also know it has been sponsoring terrorism together with Wahhabism. Qatar has been financing terror groups such as Al-Qaeda, Jabhat Al-Nusra and Hamas. Why, according to you, they have not been included in the list?I don’t know why they are not on the list but Reince Priebus has stated that other countries could be added. That is a very clever move: it gives the U.S. leverage over putative allies such as Saudi Arabia.In a recent interview I had with Raymond Ibrahim when I questioned him about the longtime alliance between the United States and Saudi Arabia he replied that “it is a sickening and disgraceful alliance”. Is this also your opinion?Absolutely, yes. The Saudis are primarily responsible for spreading the jihad ideology around the world, especially into Muslim communities where a cultural Islam that deemphasized it had been developed. They have set the world on fire, and are not true allies of the U.S. in any sense.As one of the leading experts on Islamic Jihad what do you see as a main failure of anti jihad policies in the United States up to now?The primary failure has been to ignore and deny the motivating ideology behind jihad terror. It was even official Obama administration policy to remove all mention of Islam and jihad from counterterror training. This was self-defeating in the extreme: one cannot defeat an enemy one does not understand.On the 15th of February, the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, will come to Washington to visit President Trump in their first official meeting after the elections. Israel has been in the forefront of combatting Islamic terrorism from its inception as a Jewish state. How much, according to you, could the USA and Europe benefit from Israel knowledge about the issue?Israel no doubt has a great deal of tactical counterterror experience that would be helpful to the US and European countries.Benjamin Netanyahu has been a staunch opponent of President Obama nuclear deal with Iran. He still thinks it is a very bad deal, posing a big threat not only to Israel but to the entire region. Do you agree? And if you do, why?Yes. I detail all that is bad about the deal in my book The Complete Infidel’s Guide to Iran. It essentially gives a full green light after ten years to Iran’s nuclear program, and the restrictions on it within the ten-year period are toothless. Also, the sanctions relief has flooded the mullahs with


03/05/2023


billions that they are using and will use for their global jihad terror network.In these last years IS , the so called caliphate, has turned into a sort of Islamic Boogeyman, up to the point that many think that if it will be defeated we will not have much to worry. Do you think, like me, that this way of thinking is deeply delusional?Yes, it is. The Islamic State’s belief system is held by other Muslims. Defeating the Islamic State is important, but will not extinguish its motivating ideology…..

Lewis Morris · Feb. 8, 2017

One of the most harmful mistakes of Barack Obama’s administration will be his deliberate and politically motivated underestimation of the terrorist threat. He was re-elected in 2012 partly on his bold assertion that al-Qaida was “on the run.” Osama bin Laden was dead, so Obama declared the fight against al-Qaida over, much like he did in Iraq, and he walked away. Donald Trump thus inherits a bucket of craziness with Iraq (and the Middle East in general), but he will need to get wise about al-Qaida right away. Terrorist watchers in the military and among private contractors largely believe that al-Qaida is on the rebound.Taking out Osama bin Laden and a string of high-level commanders in Iraq, Africa and Asia severely disrupted the terrorist group’s ability to operate. They lost territory, support and their ability to communicate with one another. This, if you will remember, was one of the Bush administration’s instructions for going after al-Qaida way back in 2001. Neutralize them so they can no longer do any damage. Then go in for the kill. Obama skipped the kill part, choosing instead to walk away from Iraq, from the threat of al-Qaida, all of it. But he didn’t miss the opportunity to create a campaign narrative that made him strong on foreign policy — in spite of even Benghazi — long enough to win re-election. Sadly, it worked.Obama’s actions in Iraq and regarding al-Qaida are the worst foreign policy decisions of his administration. Leaving Iraq early spun it into chaos at the very moment it was beginning to stabilize.Al-Qaida laid low when the focus of attention swung to the Islamic State. The wannabe caliphate cut a huge swath through the Middle East, seizing territory, massacring nonbelievers and taking the media by storm. While ISIL called down the thunder of U.S. and allied air strikes, al-Qaida got back to work, building networks and connecting with local populations. The group’s strategy comes straight from bin Laden, and it calls for getting involved with local groups, spreading the message of jihad, and essentially converting them to the cause. It can be a long process, but for a culture that thinks in terms of centuries, not weeks, it’s easy to see why al-Qaida isn’t going to quit. History will be the final judge of just how bad Obama’s decisions were, or how much damage will ultimately be done. But Trump has to deal with the blowback now. Al-Qaida is still a force to be dealt with, in large part because Obama chose to declare victory, walk away from the conflict and move on to other things. Obama was never the commander in chief to make a courageous, tough call for American security. But it’s a good bet that Trump is more vested in America’s national security.

Official: U.S. ‘aggressively’ targeting ISIS, al-Qaida in AfghanistanCharlsy Panzino, Military Times Published 5:22 p.m. MT Feb. 8, 2017 | Updated 14 hours ago

U.S. forces in Afghanistan continue to target al-Qaida and the Islamic State in Khorasan, steadily decimating their ranks over the last 12 months.(Photo: U.S. Army Photo/Capt. Grace Geiger) U.S. forces in Afghanistan continue to target al-Qaida and the Islamic State in Khorasan, steadily decimating their ranks over the last 12 months. This time last year, American troops were given authority to go after the Islamic State in Khorasan, or ISK, which is part of the Islamic State movement that’s active in Afghanistan and Pakistan, said Brig. Gen. Charlie Cleveland, a top spokesman for U.S. Forces-Afghanistan.


03/05/2023


Then, there were close to 3,000 ISK members operating in 10 or 12 districts in Nangarhar province near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, Cleveland said. Now there are about 1,000 in two districts, he said. The U.S. counterterrorism mission also eliminated about 200 al-Qaida fighters in 2016. “We view that as pretty successful,” Cleveland said. He declined to provide specifics about the counterterrorism mission, but he did say the U.S. “aggressively” targets members of the two terror groups. “What we can do is as soon as we identify individuals as members of [those organizations], we have the authority to try to capture or kill them,” he said. But even as the U.S. cites progress in its counterterrorism mission, conditions overall in Afghanistan appear bleak, according to a new report from John Sopko, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, or SIGAR.

In his first report to the Trump administration, Sopko, whose office monitors billions of dollars in aid to Afghanistan, said the Afghan government controls barely half the country, its security forces numbers are on the decline, and drug production is on the rise, the Associated Press reported. Sopko did note a noticeable drop in corruption when procuring goods and services, the AP reported Feb. 1. He also called for “continued donor support, plus mentoring and limited tactical support from the U.S. military.”

Training and advising For the U.S. troops deployed to train, advise and assist the Afghan National Security Forces, a mission that is often overshadowed by the ongoing fight in Iraq, there is progress on the ground. Afghan forces took responsibility for their own security in 2015, the first year U.S. troops weren’t involved in a combat mission in Afghanistan. That first year was challenging, Cleveland said, but there are constant improvements. “The Afghans were able to prevent the Taliban from achieving specific goals, like capturing the provincial capital,” he said. The Afghan National Army started out with zero fixed-wing aircraft. Now they have eight to conduct attack missions, and that number will increase to 16 by the end of 2017, Cleveland said. They also went from a handful of MD530 attack helicopters to 27. This past winter, U.S. soldiers went through a campaign to train the Afghan troops, generate capability, develop leadership and counter corruption. Sgt. 1st Class Jeremy Graham, a fire support specialist with 3rd Cavalry Regiment at Fort Hood, Texas, mentors troops in the 201st Afghan National Army Corps. The 201st is in eastern Afghanistan, including Nangarhar, Kunar and Nuristan provinces. Graham said he works with the Afghans on field artillery and air integration. “We’re helping them build capability and capacity and encourage them to work together to deliver lethal air and fire strikes against the enemies of Afghanistan,” he said. The Afghans have made significant progress in both areas, Graham said. “When we first got here, they were struggling with executing air-to-ground operations,” he said. “Since then, we’ve been able to really move them forward by recommending different [tactics, techniques and procedures] to use.”

‘Really bright guys’ U.S. trainers helped Afghan forces during one incident where the weather made it difficult for an ANA helicopter to identify its target, Graham said. The advisers suggested firing an artillery smoke round at the objective area, and the Afghan tactical air controller was able to guide the helicopter to engage the enemy. “They come to us and say, ‘Hey, this is what we’re thinking of doing,’” Graham said. “’What would you do in this scenario?’ And we help them come up with their own solutions.” First Lt. Adam Wiener, also with 3rd Cavalry Regiment, is the deputy training adviser and regional corps battle adviser. He works with the local Afghan army schoolhouse to conduct training instead of sending Afghan troops farther out to the national training center. He also


03/05/2023


advises Afghan commanders and instructors and observes training to help them make corrections and refine their skills. “The Afghan instructors are really bright guys,” said Wiener. “Sometimes they just need a quick lesson.” One major effort he’s been working on is establishing a collective training cycle. The 30-day cycle helps the 201st Corps at the company level “so they’re better trained to go back and fight and more effectively engage the enemy,” he said. Wiener oversaw the first two cycles, and they’re about to start the third. “There’s still a lot of work to be done,” Cleveland said. “But when we compare 2015 to 2016, [the Afghan National Army] made progress.” Charlsy Panzino covers the Guard and Reserve, training, technology, operations and features for Army Times and Air Force Times.

Deadly U.S. raid in Yemen reveals strength of al-Qaida affiliate Washington Post A U.S. commando raid in Yemen that set off a fierce firefight revealed the growing strength of an al-Qaida affiliate that has targeted both the United States and Europe in recent years.Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, as the branch is known, had collected enough intelligence to anticipate the raid last weekend, Yemeni officials and analysts said. The militants also had the firepower to counterattack from their bastion, which was surrounded by land mines and other traps. By the end of the raid, a Navy SEAL was dead and three other American troops were wounded. Yemeni officials said that as many as 30 civilians, including 10 women and children, were also killed. Among them was the 8-year-old daughter of Anwar al-Awlaki, the Yemeni American al-Qaida leader who was killed in a U.S. drone strike in 2011. The Pentagon initially said it could not confirm reports of civilian casualties, but it acknowledged on Wednesday that civilians were "likely killed" in the raid, which took place in remote Bayda province. The raid and civilian casualties have triggered widespread anger across Yemen toward Washington, adding to tensions over President Donald Trump's travel ban on citizens of Yemen and six other majority-Muslim countries. Yemenis have posted photos on social media of children purportedly killed in the attack.In the capital, Sanaa, where anti-American slogans are scrawled on billboards and walls across the city, the raid appeared to unify Yemenis, a rare occurrence these days in the fractured country. "What happened caused more anger and hatred toward America," said Bassam Mahmoud, 40, a government employee. "America has no right to carry out any military action in our country. This a serious violation for our country's sovereignty and is totally unacceptable."On Thursday, the watchdog group Amnesty International called for Secretary of Defense James Mattis to launch an investigation into the civilian deaths, and, if appropriate, "prosecute those responsible." The raid was the first counterterrorism operation greenlighted by Trump, and he hailed it as a success. But regional analysts say it could help AQAP gain sympathy and support from local populations. "The use of U.S. troops and the high number of civilian casualties ... are deeply inflammatory," April Longley Alley, a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group, wrote on its website this week, "and breed anti-American resentment across the Yemeni political spectrum that works to the advantage of AQAP."The militant group, which U.S. officials consider al-Qaida's most dangerous branch, seized large swaths of southern Yemen in the wake of the 2011 Arab Spring revolts that topped longtime autocrat Ali Abdullah Saleh. Now, with Yemen cripped by a two-year-old civil war, AQAP has expanded its reach even more, gaining territory and recruits and deepening its influence and networks among local tribes. Al-Qaida in Yemen "is stronger than it has ever been," the International Crisis Group said, adding that the militants are "thriving in an environment of state collapse, growing sectarianism, shifting alliances, security vacuums and a burgeoning war economy." AQAP was behind some of the most audacious assaults against the West in recent years, including a failed attempt to blow up a U.S.-bound airliner over Detroit on Christmas Day in 2009. It also asserted responsibility for the deadly 2015 shootings at the satirical Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris. Also of concern is an emerging


03/05/2023


Islamic State affiliate that has staged numerous suicide bombings against Yemeni military and government officials in the south, especially in the port city of Aden. Together, the groups "emerged arguably as the biggest winners of the failed political transition and civil war that followed," the report said. The ill-fated raid was an indicator of how much the political fallout from the Arab revolts has weakened U.S. counterterrorism efforts in Yemen. As the nation slid toward civil war, Washington scaled back on counterterrorism training, intelligence-gathering and advising of Yemeni forces. The conflict pits an alliance of northern rebels known as Houthis and Saleh loyalists against forces nominally loyal to President Abed Raboo Mansour Hadi, who is leading a government in exile. The United States, along with a regional coalition led by Saudi Arabia, is seeking to restore Hadi to power.Today, a small contingent of U.S. special operations forces is helping Hadi's government and regional units combat AQAP and the Islamic State. U.S. counterterrorism efforts during the Obama administration mostly involved drone strikes targeting the radical groups. Many AQAP leaders and operatives were killed, but the overall strategy did little to neutralize the radical groups. Analysts say it is unclear what broader strategy the Trump administration will employ, but that it appears he might also heavily rely on drones and special operations. "Yet drone attacks have shown limited effectiveness and a propensity to backfire politically when they cause high civilian casualties," wrote Alley, adding that the strikes have "failed" to stop AQAP's "rapid growth - in large part because the opportunities provided by the war outstrip its losses."AQAP has forged alliances with influential Sunni groups and tribes, often with cash payments. It earns revenue from smuggling goods into Yemen, where an air, sea and land blockade is being enforced by the Saudi-led coalition. In particular, the militants are covertly embedded into local community and within militias battling the Houthi and their allies. To prevent alienating people, the group has stopped enforcing its rigid Islamic codes in some areas, wrote Michael Horton, a Yemen analyst, in last month's issue of CTC Sentinel, a magazine published by the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point. Horton, who described AQAP as "better funded and armed than at any point in its history," said the group is bolstering its intelligence and counterintelligence cells, while creating a network of informants and sympathizers, even in areas were the group no longer rules. In Bayda, where the U.S. raid unfolded, AQAP exploited tribal rivalries, "leveraging its access to arms, funds, and the military acumen of some of its ranking members in exchange for safe havens," according to Horton. But many of the tribesmen were likely supporting AQAP because of its fight against the Houthis and Saleh loyalists and not because it has targeted the West. In fact, the United States is providing weapons, intelligence and other support to those fighting the Houthis and Saleh. But even U.S. allies condemned the raid, which left as many as 13 militants dead, including an AQAP leader named Abdulra'oof Aldahab."Killing outside the law and killing civilians is a condemned act and supports terrorism," Abdulmalik Almekhlafi, the foreign minister in Hadi's government, said in a tweet this week. The Washington Post Ali Al-Mujahed in Sanaa, Yemen, contributed to this report.

Trump is wrong - Saudi Arabia, not Iran is the world's 'number one terrorist state'

9 Feb, 2017 Donald Trump is proving himself a President prone to unleashing inconvenient truths side by side blatant falsehoods. One of the most scurrilous of those falsehoods is his recent claim that Iran is the “number one terrorist state.” Throughout his campaign for the White House in 2016, and since assuming office in January, Trump has made Iran the focus of his ire, to the point where the Iranians are more than justified in preparing for the very real prospect of military confrontation with the US - and sooner rather than later.


03/05/2023


The Trump administration’s consistent and ongoing demonization of Iran flies in the face of reality in which Iran has stood, alongside Syria, Russia, the Kurds, and the Iranian-backed Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah, as a pillar against the very same Salafi-jihadist terrorism that poses a threat to the American people. It is a struggle in which the Iranians have expended both resources and blood in recent years, and as such justice demands that the world, including the United States, acknowledges that it owes Tehran a debt of gratitude.In truth, and as most people are only too aware, the real number one terrorist state in the world today is not Iran it is Saudi Arabia, America’s friend, and ally. What is more, Washington has long been well aware of the fact. In a September 2014 email from John Podesta to Hillary Clinton (one of the many among the batches of emails exchanged between John Podesta, chair of Hillary Clinton’s campaign for the White House, and Clinton that were released by Wikileaks) Podesta writes, “While this military/para-military operation is moving forward, we need to use our diplomatic and more traditional intelligence assets to bring pressure on the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIL and other radical Sunni groups in the region.”Further evidence about the role of the Saudis and other Gulf States in actively and materially supporting terrorism is the 2015 sworn testimony of Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called 20th 9/11 hijacker, claiming that members of the Saudi royal family had supported Al-Qaeda. As part of a civil case that was brought against the Saudis by the 9/11 families, Moussaoui went as far as naming the specific members of the Saudi royal family who had donated money to the terrorist group in the lead up to 9/11.

Regards Cees***

Fifteen years after the U.S. invasion, Afghanistan is in a “stalemate” that will require several thousand more Western troops to break, the war’s top U.S. commander told Congress.Gen. John “Mick” Nicholson’s testimony laid on Donald Trump’s desk the first major war decision - surge troops or not? - just three weeks into his new and tumultuous administration, which so far has focused more intently on U.S. border security than overseas military engagements. The commander of NATO’s Operation Resolute Support said he expected Defense Secretary James Mattis to present the request to alliance defense ministers when they meet next week in Brussels. “I believe we are in a stalemate,” Nicholson told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday. He said the current Western coalition has a “shortfall of a few thousand” troops. But rather than the 30,000 combat-brigade soldiers sent by President Barack Obama in 2009, Nicholson said he wants more “advise and assist” troops to help Afghan forces, who incurred heavy losses in 2016 as they beat back various terrorist offensives. The general said his forces have enough equipment and resources for the mission but needed more “expeditionary packages” of advisors to deploy across Afghanistan. The desired troops would come “below the corps level” and could be American or come from allied nations of the NATO training mission.“We’re going to be able to discuss this in greater detail,” at NATO next week, Nicholson said…


03/05/2023

Documents

Al-Qaida chief Ayman al-Zawahiri The Coordinator 2017 Part 19-138-Caliphate- The State of al-Qaida-45-Our Performance-63