Terrorism

Yesterday, the Associated Press (AP) reported that thousands of Turkish troops had crossed into northern Iraq to pursue members of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), an organization on the State Department's list of foreign terrorist organizations. Later, the AP corrected this, reporting that only a few hundred Turkish troops were

The United States and Europe have long disagreed on how to categorize Hezbollah. While the U.S. government designated Hezbollah as a terrorist organization a decade ago, the European Union has not. Doing so would require the consensus of all 27 member states, and several countries have been opposed, including Spain

Media headlines following the April 30 release of the State Department's annual report on global terrorism developments, Country Reports on Terrorism 2006, focused on the theme of increased terrorism. But the 335-page document, along with its accompanying statistical assessment produced by the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), also contained important insights

Economic sanctions have long been at the core of the international community's efforts to deal with rogue regimes and terrorist organisations. Iraq, Iran, Libya and Sudan have faced sanctions, as have terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda and Hamas. For such a frequently used tool, sanctions are not well regarded. Critics

On April 14, suicide bombers unsuccessfully targeted the U.S. consulate and an American cultural center in Casablanca, four days after another group of bombers blew themselves up in a confrontation with city police. On April 11, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (formerly the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, or

On April 1-5, the seventeen Arab members of the Middle East and North Africa Financial Action Task Force (MENAFATF) met in Jordan to discuss terrorism financing and money laundering in the region. Although the task force's record to date shows some promise, the organization can do far more to address

In response to recent revelations about the FBI's misuse of national security letters - administrative subpoenas issued by the FBI without having to go through a judge, a longtime FBI tool enhanced by the Patriot Act - some members of Congress are threatening to scale back the FBI's authority to

On March 8, 2007, a French court ordered the Wiesenthal Center's director for international relations in Paris to pay a symbolic €1 fine in a defamation suit brought by a U.S.-designated Hamas front organization. The Comité de Bienfaisance et de Secours aux Palestiniens (Committee for Welfare and Aid to the

On February 23, 2007, Matthew Levitt and Todd Hinnen addressed The Washington Institute's Special Policy Forum. Dr. Levitt recently rejoined the Institute as a senior fellow and director of the Michael Stein Program on Terrorism, Intelligence, and Policy. From November 2005 to January 2007, he served as deputy assistant secretary