David Sterman
@davidsterman
Deputy Director, New America Future Security program
Don’t want to overread. Could be a broad reading of Islamist or could be just general reference to conflict zones. But this paragraph’s Yemen reference in Haberman and Swan’s “Regime Change” stood out to me given qs of covert U.S. strikes in Yemen against AQ. www.justsecurity.org/129392/us-ai...
Turns out “endless war” is a concept of relevance for a lot beyond the war on terror. Who would have thought it except anyone familiar with decades of its use in the specific context of Israel’s wars. www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
The anti-ISIS Somalia campaign appears to be in a lull since May but there’s another strike against al-Shabaab. Track the war with our data here: www.newamerica.org/insights/ame...
AFRICOM appears to have edited its 7/13 Qumbi strike press release to refer to a singular airstrike rather than plural airstrikes. Note 1) Title says strikes 2) ChatGPT says it found a search crawl snippet with the plural language 3) Bing appears to have such a snippet still up.
Seems like a pretty significant line about the command relationship re Houthi drone attacks on shipping here. Note source described as close to the Houthis not Israeli/Western/Gulf sources. Arab News link but it’s a Reuters story. www.arabnews.com/node/2651170...
Another Somalia strike(s). Press release uses plural but doesn’t specify number (have a query out on that). Strikes are in line with recent ones vs Shabaab in south, seeming lull in campaign vs ISIS. www.newamerica.org/insights/ame...
Catch @newamerica.org’s Peter Bergen discussing our forthcoming book “All the Presidents’ Wars” and insights on the failures of recent U.S. wars and strategy on NPR. www.npr.org/2026/07/15/n...
Another Somalia strike. And still the lull in strikes against ISIS in Somalia continues. This strike aligns with a press release for Danab ops w 7 militants reported killed. Also AFRICOM confirms to me the 7/8 strike was the last before this new 7/13 strike. www.newamerica.org/insights/ame...
What an ass. As someone who in the immediate aftermath emphasized there’s a longer history and the violence didn’t start on 10/7, how dare you assume my thoughts and put words in my mouth because I name the atrocities that were done.
The same thing as Cenk. Also less directly bad but telling platformed him as part of a “debate” at the start to dismiss the Nazi tattoo.
Another US strike on July 5. Again against Al Shabaab in the south of Somalia. Still no strikes announced vs ISIS in the north / Puntland since the May lull. www.newamerica.org/insights/ame...
Folks may have missed this line in Politico which makes Mehdi’s failure even clearer.
Hating on the NYT sure seems to track with very significant errors/issues. Yes there are fair criticisms. But it does important work and the hate so often covers for worse practices / bs.
Wonder why this might be the case. Not really though. Maybe next time this line should come with a link to the editor’s social media activity?
I mean it’s called Track AIPAC not Track and don’t endorse alleged rapists with Nazi tattoos. Stick in your own lane. Why comment on unfurling moral and political catastrophes.
Two strikes in Somalia over the holiday weekend. Interestingly, we still haven’t seen a strike against ISIS - all the recent declared strikes since a small lull in May have targeted al Shabaab. www.newamerica.org/insights/ame...
Another strike in Somalia. Only about half way through the year and we’ve seen more strikes already than any other year in Somalia except last year. www.newamerica.org/insights/ame...
Our Somalia data is now updated for the latest strike announcements from AFRICOM. After a seeming pause, a spate of strikes against Al-Shabaab. There are a couple unclear references to plural strikes w/o numbers that we are working on clarifying. www.newamerica.org/insights/ame...
Enjoyed this read. Somewhat hidden within here are a couple very perceptive sections on Yemen, some major failures of analysis on it, and the Houthis.
Free speech talk without naming the acts is very telling. Yes there are free speech issues. But when you don’t show things like this it’s notable.
Little skeptical of reporting work in pieces like this when they include sections like this w no discussion of publicly available info on what the ev behind that statement likely was and seemingly no link to the doc to check claims. www.wired.com/story/us-law...
3) Beyond homeland framing, discussion of regional threats, importance of Mogadishu. 4) discussion of causal logic of role of U.S. strikes in Puntland vs ISIS
A May 6 strike in Somalia brings our tally of reported strikes to 64 this year (of which 63 are confirmed by AFRICOM). www.newamerica.org/insights/ame...
There’s a lot of weirdness in the new CT strategy but these paragraphs caught my eye as possibly signaling strikes on AQAP. I’ve written on the lack of transparency (not resolved) here and its dangers. www.justsecurity.org/129392/us-ai...
May 4th brought another strike in Somalia against ISIS. This is the 62nd declared strike this year and 63rd by our tally which includes one reported strike that AFRICOM has denied. www.newamerica.org/insights/ame...