Choose Your Path
Al-Qaeda Central, its networks, leaders, external operations, and the evolution of a threat that never disappeared.
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Twenty-five years after 9/11, Sarah Adams discusses the danger of counterterrorism gaps as U.S. attention shifts toward great-power competition and al-Qaida rebuilds in Afghanistan.
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Current assessments and intelligence-style work connected to this subject.
Al-Qaeda held footage of Hamza bin Laden recorded as Afghanistan was falling in August 2021 and waited more than five years to release it. The timing…
Read briefAQIS is using the 25th anniversary of 9/11 to explain to a younger audience why it believes America should remain the priority and to connect September…
Read briefFive years after the Abbey Gate bombing, this brief reconstructs the twelve days before the attack: the authorization, the bomber’s release and movement, the network around…
Read briefFive years after Kabul fell, Afghanistan should not be understood simply as the end of America’s longest war. It marked the beginning of another cycle in…
Read briefAl-Qaeda senior operatives and external operations planners, under the direction of the organization’s second generation of bin Laden leadership, originally plotted the next phase of U.S.…
Read briefAQIS released a six-minute video on December 6th titled From Dasht-e-Leili to the Victory of Kabul. Most people will focus on the usual imagery—martyrs, battlefield losses,…
Read briefFor groups like al-Qaeda, deception is not optional, it is a weapon of war. Their doctrine makes this clear. Under concepts such as taqiyya and kitman,…
Read briefThe Bin Laden family is actively shaping operational plans for a large-scale attack on the U.S. homeland—an attack intended to eclipse the strategic and symbolic impact…
Read briefHamza bin Laden, the current leader of Al-Qaeda, continues to direct the group’s plotting and operations from Afghanistan with apparent impunity. Under his leadership, Al-Qaeda has…
Read briefThe concept of an "Islamic Army" or "Army of Imam Mahdi" traces back to Osama bin Laden’s vision of uniting global terrorist groups under a singular…
Read briefFor over two decades, Ayman al-Zawahiri didn’t just evade capture—he ran circles around the West. His success wasn’t rooted in hiding in caves or radio silence;…
Read briefAl-Qaeda and its newly formed Islamic Army have declared their intent to restore the Islamic caliphate. This concept refers to a unified Islamic state governed by…
Read briefThe years that our enemy, the high-value Al-Qaeda detainees, spent in Guantanamo Bay provided them with a unique opportunity to study their captors. These terrorists were…
Read briefIn the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the United States undertook an unprecedented restructuring of its counterterrorism and national security infrastructure. This response resulted in the…
Read briefAugust 28, 2024 Introduction This analysis compares al-Qaeda's leadership, global presence, operational capabilities, financial networks, ideological influence, relationship with the Taliban, recruitment strategies, and alliances in…
Read briefThe merging of al-Qaeda and the Taliban into a single, cohesive entity is a reality that U.S. policy and assessments have yet to fully acknowledge. From…
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Newly declassified 9/11 files show that warnings about Osama bin Laden and attacks inside the U.S. were reaching the highest levels of government years before September…
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Two days before September 11, al-Qaeda assassinated Ahmad Shah Massoud. Sarah joins Ahmad Massoud to examine why his father posed such a threat to al-Qaeda and…
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