ISIS

U.S. Special Operation Forces are helping the Syrian Kurdish police known as Asayish in their task to provide security to the newly liberated town of Manbij.

Why is this important? The intelligence community deals with such a large amount of data, you can’t always assume people who have the “need to know,” and who should have access to the data, have seen all of the available information on any topic. The challenge of the intelligence professional is to rapidly sort through all of the data in order to develop usable intelligence analysis, enabling decision makers and warfighters to make informed decisions. Depending on the scenario, these decisions sometimes have to be made within minutes. Sometimes seconds.

Think of someone shoving you into a room filled with thousands of puzzle pieces, and then telling you to put it together in a few hours.

The U.S. military is in principle all about metrics and assessments. Here at West Point, we have binders full of metrics on every cadet, from their physical training prowess to their math scores. Yet strangely in Iraq and Afghanistan we lack basic feedback mechanisms to determine whether our spending has the desired effect on the ground.

As an evidence-based approach to stability and reconstruction operations, tactical economics seeks to measure the impact of economic programs, in a manner similar to the “impact evaluations” that the international development community began employing over the past decade. If a program is not producing results, rapid assessment of the data can allow the resources to be conserved so military units can try a different approach.

In a recent hearing, the Senate Armed Forces Committee, Cyber Command head said that ISIS is the most adaptive group to cyber he’s seen in 35 years. “ISIL remains the most adaptive target I’ve ever worked in 35 years as an intelligence professional,” Adm. Michael Rogers told the Senate Armed Services Committee. At a time when cyber […]

The Ranger training program, led by Company A, 1-502nd, is one of the multiple building partner capacity missions the around 1,800 member strong task force leads in Iraq.

“This program is important because it lays the foundation for an elite Iraqi unit,” said Capt. Peter Jacob, commander of Company A. “Students start at day one as an individual and come away at the end of this course as part of a team.”

The president of the Philippines just asked for US forces to leave his Southern region. Duterte cites security concerns for both his people and US forces. Duterte also claimed that peace in the Southern portion is unlikely as long as there is a military presence. Relations in East Asia are becoming more complicated all the […]

What began as a desperate, stopgap campaign by Iraqi leaders to stem Islamic State forces from overrunning Baghdad and other major cities in the country is now fueling a new era of sectarian violence, as a formidable array of Shiite militias casts a dark shadow over the Iraqi military’s recent battlefield successes.
American commanders have become increasingly wary that the more integral the militias become to the battle plan, the weaker Baghdad’s ability will be to rein in the paramilitary force — which now numbers over 120,000 fighters.

One of the extremists who had communicated online with Aaron Driver, the would-be suicide bomber killed by police in Strathroy, Ont., on Aug. 10, was a British 15-year-old, he said. The youth has since been convicted for his role in a terror plot in Australia.

Juvenile terrorists are not new. Four members of the Toronto 18 terrorist group, arrested in 2006 for plotting bomb and gun attacks in Ontario, were minors. But Cabana said the trend has worsened over the past two to three years.

“Nobody believes in it. You’re like, ‘Fuck this,’” a former Green Beret says of America’s covert and clandestine programs to train and arm Syrian militias. “Everyone on the ground knows they are jihadis. No one on the ground believes in this mission or this effort, and they know they are just training the next generation of jihadis, […]

There’s a chance things might get better in Syria. The Kurds are doing the heavy lifting. They protect Americans. They’re pragmatic. We owe the Kurds increased solidarity. The Kurds are like a girlfriend that never gives up on you. They very well might the best shot we have at eliminating ISIS if we openly support […]

The investigators for Italy’s antidrug unit were used to measuring the flow of hashish from Moroccan fields to European shores one speedboat or Jet Ski at a time. So when the phone rang with a tip that an enormous freighter loaded with hashish was plying international waters south of Sicily — bound for Libya, hundreds of miles […]

The U.S. and other Western nations view the U.N.-backed government in the capital as the best hope for unifying Libyans and defeating the extremist group. Libyan forces loyal to the U.N.-backed government are currently battling a powerful Islamic State affiliate in the central city of Sirte with the help of U.S.-led airstrikes. Martin Kobler, the U.N. envoy to Libya, expressed concern over the general’s seizure of the terminals. He later called for a cease-fire and recognition of the U.N.-brokered government.