Afghanistan's winters in the north are legendarily harsh, and southern Afghanistan, by contrast, is bleak desert. These difficulties are compounded by the… — Peter Bergen Copy Share Image
9/11 was a sort of hinge event in American history, and all jihadi terrorist plots or attacks are kind of filtered through… — Peter Bergen Copy Share Image
Contrary to what the Americans frequently reiterated, al-Qaeda did not have any relationship with Saddam Hussein or his regime. — Peter Bergen Copy Share Image
Think of ISIS as a pathogen that preys on weak hosts in the Muslim world. In fact, there is something of a… — Peter Bergen Copy Share Image
Sheikh Rahman's fatwa was the first time that anyone associated with al Qaeda had given religious sanction to attacks on American aviation,… — Peter Bergen Copy Share Image
The image we have of bin Laden in his final years in Abbottabad is of an aging man with a graying beard… — Peter Bergen Copy Share Image
Again and again since 9/11, terror attacks in the West have been carried out by second-generation Muslims who are citizens of the… — Peter Bergen Copy Share Image
American jihadists are generally motivated by a mix of factors, including dislike of U.S. foreign policy in the Muslim world. — Peter Bergen Copy Share Image
The reason that Islamist militants can assert that jihad is necessary against the perceived enemies of Islam is that there is sufficient… — Peter Bergen Copy Share Image
One only has to look at the debacle that has unfolded in Iraq after the withdrawal of U.S. troops at the end… — Peter Bergen Copy Share Image
What bin Laden had hoped to achieve in Afghanistan in the post-9/11 period, which was to drag the United States into a… — Peter Bergen Copy Share Image
My quest to meet Osama bin Laden began in North London early in 1997. In the Dollis Hill section, I contacted Khaled… — Peter Bergen Copy Share Image
I've interviewed multiple people who know bin Laden... who tend to have a universal picture of what he's like, which is: modest,… — Peter Bergen Copy Share Image
One of the themes of 'The Longest War,' my book, which came out before the Arab spring happened, was how al-Qaida and… — Peter Bergen Copy Share Image
In February I secured permission to enter Osama bin Laden's compound in the northern Pakistani city of Abbottabad, where he was killed… — Peter Bergen Copy Share Image
The 9/11 attack itself played out around the world, with planning meetings in Malaysia, operatives taking flight lessons in the United States,… — Peter Bergen Copy Share Image
Bush administration officials, of course, deny that they didn't take the threat urgently enough, but there is no debating that in their… — Peter Bergen Copy Share Image
As early as 1993, members of bin Laden's group had been planning an attack on the American Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya. — Peter Bergen Copy Share Image
If the Arab Spring was a large nail in the coffin of al-Qaeda's ideology, the death of bin Laden was an equally… — Peter Bergen Copy Share Image
What did U.S. officials have to lose by saying that bin Laden was being protected by the Pakistanis, if it were true? — Peter Bergen Copy Share Image
Abedi appears to be one of the many thousands of Western Muslims who have embraced militant Islam, often as a way of… — Peter Bergen Copy Share Image
I was the only outsider to visit the Abbottabad compound where bin Laden lived before the Pakistani military demolished it. — Peter Bergen Copy Share Image
Sheikh Rahman had a doctorate in Islamic jurisprudence from al-Azhar University in Cairo, the Harvard of Islamic thought. He also had a… — Peter Bergen Copy Share Image
Bin Laden had come to the delusional conclusion that the United States was as weak as the Soviet Union had once been. — Peter Bergen Copy Share Image
Some might say that that while al Qaeda the organization may be basically dead, its ideology continues to thrive and to inspire… — Peter Bergen Copy Share Image
Western Mosul is the historic heart of one of the oldest cities in the world. Its narrow streets and alleyways are impassable… — Peter Bergen Copy Share Image
Al-Qaeda, which means 'the base' in English, lost its base and training camps in Afghanistan, while its leaders were on the run,… — Peter Bergen Copy Share Image
Bin Laden was intelligent, well-informed, and low key. The people around him treated him with great deference, calling him 'sheikh,' a term… — Peter Bergen Copy Share Image
Keeping a relatively small, predominantly U.S. Special Forces presence in Afghanistan to continue to train the Afghan army past December 2016 is… — Peter Bergen Copy Share Image
The deep problems that afflict the Middle East are not easy to fix, but they must be dealt with if we are… — Peter Bergen Copy Share Image
Without U.S. forces in the country, there is a strong possibility Afghanistan could host a reinvigorated Taliban allied to a reinvigorated al… — Peter Bergen Copy Share Image
When Abu Zubaydah was shown a series of photos of al Qaeda members by Soufan, he identified one of them as the… — Peter Bergen Copy Share Image
In the past, Joint Special Operations Command, or JSOC, of which SEAL Team 6 is a key component, has only launched ground… — Peter Bergen Copy Share Image
The special reverence that al Qaeda had for Sheikh Rahman was underlined by a two-hour propaganda videotape that the group's media division… — Peter Bergen Copy Share Image
Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein brutally repressed all forms of opposition to his regime, and before the Iraq War, al Qaeda had no… — Peter Bergen Copy Share Image
Because 9/11 was carried out by 19 foreign-born Arab hijackers, many assume that all terrorists who attack the West are foreigners. — Peter Bergen Copy Share Image
The centerpiece of the Bush administration's case for going to war in Iraq was Secretary of State Colin Powell's presentation to the… — Peter Bergen Copy Share Image
Islam is, to be sure, a big tent, and the one and a half billion Muslims in the world run the gamut… — Peter Bergen Copy Share Image
It is hard to imagine two more final endings to the 'war on terror' than the popular revolts against the authoritarian regimes… — Peter Bergen Copy Share Image
Certain Gulf Arabs support proxy jihadist Sunni groups such as al Qaeda's affiliate in Syria, while Iran supports Shia militant forces such… — Peter Bergen Copy Share Image
So Pakistan is a country that I'm very fond of and have spent a lot of time, but it is a country where conspiracy… — Peter Bergen Copy Share Image
The Trump administration launched the cruise missile strikes in Syria, an act of war, without a U.N. resolution or Congressional authorization. — Peter Bergen Copy Share Image
The deep problems that afflict the Middle East are not easy to fix, but they must be dealt with if we are not to… — Peter Bergen Copy Share Image
The dirty little secret of the intelligence world is that much of what you really need to know isn't exactly a secret anyway. — Peter Bergen Copy Share Image
Abedi appears to be one of the many thousands of Western Muslims who have embraced militant Islam, often as a way of trying to… — Peter Bergen Copy Share Image
Trump has claimed he knows more about ISIS than America's leading generals. Clearly, this is also total nonsense; he doesn't seem to have done… — Peter Bergen Copy Share Image
If you don't understand what al Qaeda was trying to do on 9/11, if you don't have a sense of who Osama bin Laden… — Peter Bergen Copy Share Image
As early as 1993, members of bin Laden's group had been planning an attack on the American Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya. — Peter Bergen Copy Share Image
The reality is that Trump's focus on immigrants is to misconceive of the terrorist problem that exists in the United States. — Peter Bergen Copy Share Image
ISIS despises the Russian government for its support of the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, and so it's no surprise that ISIS began targeting Russia… — Peter Bergen Copy Share Image
The Sunni militants that make up ISIS are not the underlying problem in Syria and Iraq, but rather they are a symptom of other… — Peter Bergen Copy Share Image
Keeping a relatively small, predominantly U.S. Special Forces presence in Afghanistan to continue to train the Afghan army past December 2016 is a wise… — Peter Bergen Copy Share Image
One of the themes of 'The Longest War,' my book, which came out before the Arab spring happened, was how al-Qaida and bin Laden… — Peter Bergen Copy Share Image
Because 9/11 was carried out by 19 foreign-born Arab hijackers, many assume that all terrorists who attack the West are foreigners. — Peter Bergen Copy Share Image
I was the only outsider to visit the Abbottabad compound where bin Laden lived before the Pakistani military demolished it. — Peter Bergen Copy Share Image
