I’m part of the US SOF unit responsible for Syria and Iraq, and we definitely don’t train the PKK. We train the YPJ and YPG, along with the PrISF and Asayish that fall under the SDF umbrella.
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Bruce Hoffman
@hoffman_bruce
Bruce Hoffman has been studying terrorism & insurgency for 4+ decades and is a senior fellow at . My own opinions. Retweets not endorsements.
Bruce Hoffman’s Tweets
Peggy Noonan in today's WSJ: "Congress is right to want to know exactly what’s in all those documents, what danger their cavalier handling posed, & ... They should also look at the classification process itself. Do we overclassify or underclassify things?"
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"With Nazis Involved, Nuance Is Problemic." Headline of article in today's NYT Arts section. Nearly 75% of Dutch Jews perished in the Holocaust. Is "nuance" really "problemic"? A more interesting "nuance" might be why over 90% of Danish Jews survived.
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The invasion of Iraq was supposed to end state-sponsored terrorism. And, did have a salutary effect on Libya at the time. But it's clearly back--and increasing. And, Iran is again (see my 1990 RAND report) is its foremost practitioner.
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Look at the caption of this photo on p. 2 of today's WaPo. Does US SOF really "provide military training" to the PKK--a group listed as a foreign terrorist organization by the US State Dept since 1997??? I think/hope that it is the Kurdish forces in the YPG or SDF.
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The United States needs a functioning democracy to pass needed legislation, maintain a robust economy, & preserve stability at home & broad-but Americans will only get one if rights are balanced with obligations. Hence my new book: The Bill of Obligations.
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Fascinating article with profound legal implications and nuances. Neglects to note his ties with the 7/7/05 London transport suicide bombings.
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always brilliant and inspiring
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In case you missed it in the holiday madness: and I analyzed the key threats and trends in domestic and international terrorism heading into 2023, for the Sentinel’s 15th anniversary edition.
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Shameful.
Congress Lets Down Afghan Allies
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Remembering Austin and all the other US citizens cruelly still in captivity on Christmas Day
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Is the terrorist threat over?
A must read by my fabulous colleagues and .
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"The lesson, then, is that as much as we might wish that the terrorist threat to the homeland has subsided, it has not."
With @hoffman_bruce in @CTCWP Sentinel's 15th anniversary issue. ctc.westpoint.edu/the-terrorist-
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All more reason congress needs to pass the Afghan Adjustment Act.
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Honored to write the cover article for the Sentinel’s 15th anniversary issue: an overview of domestic and international terrorism threats and trends, co-authored with .
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Vitally important legislation. And the right thing--"Retired military leaders press Congress to pass Afghan resettlement bill"
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If you missed our annual Terrorism Watch Week event earlier this week, you can now watch all three panels on Youtube.
Panel one: "The Future of Al-Qaeda After Zawahiri" with Dr. Bruce Hoffman and Dr. Michael Vickers:
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At least 2 alumni in today's Washington Post: terrorism expert Bruce Hoffman '76 () on the importance of having a suspect in the Lockerbie bombing now in U.S. custody.
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Report of the Commonwealth of Virginia Commission to Combat Antisemitism was released today (I was one of 15 commissioners appointed by Governor Youngkin). commonwealth.virginia.gov/media/governor
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This is false information. At least do a simple fact-check. Iran's government has not abolished anything but a sense of morality and human decency.
Iran Has Abolished Morality Police, an Official Suggests, After Months of Protests
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Nick Fuentes is a gleeful Holocaust denier and an absolutely vile public figure. That is public information, easily accessible. Perhaps Trump really didn't know who he was. I have a hard time believing that. But he surely knows who Ye is. He invited him. And that's bad enough.
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"The transfer of thousands of children is a stark reminder that this is not a typical armed conflict. These may be war crimes. They should be a wake-up call to Americans and Europeans fatigued by support for Ukraine."
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"But Republicans, having blocked requests for next-generation vaccine funding since the spring amid complaints about how the White House spent earlier pandemic aid allocations, have shown no signs of dropping their resistance."
Fascinating--but immensely disturbing--NYT article on how rogue regimes enlist sometimes unwitting private detectives to spy on expatriate dissidents: with the intent to kidnap and perhaps kill them.
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MAGA on the ropes?
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"Sixty-three percent of religious hate crimes in the country target Jewish people, who make up 2.4 percent of the American population, [FBI Director Christopher] Wray said."
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Fascinating. Especially the tidbit that the Secret Service ordered fighter jets into the skies around Andrews AFB on 9/11--& that neither Bush nor Cheney were aware of it until 2004.
Bush 9/11 Interview Gives New Details on That Day
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Interesting comparison of headlines.
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Of course
“more people have been killed in terrorist attacks committed by the Far Right in the United States since 2001 than by Muslim extremists.”
- “Inside Terrorism” (pg 115)
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"The U.S. government is simply not bringing sufficient urgency or force of will to this task." Bring Austin Tice home
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“'That’s what I wrote, but it’s not what I meant,' Rhodes ultimately conceded at one point during a grueling three-hour cross-examination."
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I finally found the time to read this insightful piece from and - The Accelerating Threat of the Political Assassination warontherocks.com/2022/08/the-ac Recent events unfortunately confirm the authors' claims...
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A new paperback edition of ‘Al Qaeda’s Revenge. The 2004 Madrid Train Bombings’ is about to appear this year 2022 and can already be pre-ordered here: cup.columbia.edu/book/al-qaedas
Book published jointly by and #11M #jihadism #terrorism #Spain #Europe
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The pattern of terrorism in recent years has arguably been trending in a direction where elected or appointed officials and political candidates face a heightened risk, especially in the United States, write and Jacob Ware.
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Couldn't agree more.
Adding Trump’s comments to West's and others', I would have never believed antisemitism would become so mainstream in America in my lifetime.
Everyone—Jew and non-Jew alike—must *actively* and *unambiguously* reject this hate. It will only grow if we don't.
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"For Jews in America, things are tense indeed." Something I once thought was relegated to the past: antisemitism. Another thing I could never have imagined: it is again front page news.
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