The Dark Side - IPS's coverage of terrorism / IPS Inter Press Service

IPS Correspondent Gareth Porter talks to Real News.

The U.S. military establishment believed they could easily pressure President Obama to back down on his pledge to withdraw troops from Iraq within 16 months. Having found Obama unconvinced by their argument, they have now launched a campaign in Washington to blame Obama's withdrawal policy for any future instability in Iraq.

MIDEAST: Lessons from the Karine A -Déjà Vu All Over Again

Analysis by Marsha B. Cohen
WASHINGTON - As Israeli Defence Forces munitions experts sorted through 300 tonnes of weapons found on a German-owned, Cypriot-operated cargo ship flying the Antiguan flag, Israeli politicians were sifting through the various talking points that could be offloaded from the vessel.
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POLITICS: U.S. Seeks to Limit Warlords in Karzai Cabinet

By Gareth Porter*
WASHINGTON - The Barack Obama administration is talking tough to Afghan President Hamid Karzai about the need for decisive action on corruption and governance reform, but its main objective is to prevent particularly corrupt and incompetent warlords from getting plum ministries as rewards for helping clinch his fraudulent reelection, IPS has learned.
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POLITICS-US: No Sunset for Sweeping Patriot Act Powers?
By William Fisher
NEW YORK - The USA Patriot Act, rushed into law by a panicky U.S. Congress in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of Sep. 11, 2001, gave the government broad surveillance powers to spy on innocent citizens. But it also stipulated that three of its more controversial provisions should expire next month unless reapproved by lawmakers.
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Q&A: 'This Calm Will Not Last'
Jon Elmer interviews Palestinian icon LEILA KHALED
AMMAN - Leila Khaled became an instant icon of the Palestinian struggle in 1969, when at 24 she was an operative in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine hijacking of a Boeing 707, the first in a series of high-profile actions intended to put the Palestinians on the political map.
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RIGHTS-US: Another Legal Setback for Arar Torture Case
By William Fisher
NEW YORK - A federal appeals court on Monday dismissed a lawsuit brought against a former U.S. attorney general by a Canadian citizen who sought damages for being unlawfully detained by U.S. authorities in New York and then secretly shipped to Syria, where he was imprisoned for a year and claims he was tortured.
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U.S.: Obama's Outreach to Muslim World Teetering
Analysis by Jim Lobe*
WASHINGTON - U.S. President Barack Obama's extraordinary efforts since his first days in office to reassure Muslims in the Greater Middle East about U.S. intentions in the region have suffered a series of setbacks that threaten to reverse whatever gains he has made over the past 10 months in restoring Washington's badly battered image and influence there.
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RIGHTS-US: Govt Lawyers Seek to Quash Rendition Lawsuit
By William Fisher
NEW YORK - The long road to the proverbial day in court just got longer for five men who claim they were "disappeared" and tortured by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.
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RIGHTS-US: Lawsuit Probes Role of Psychologists in Terror War
By William Fisher
NEW YORK - The state board responsible for licensing - and disciplining - psychologists in Louisiana is accused of turning a blind eye to serious allegations of abuse against one of its members, including complicity in beatings, religious and sexual humiliation, rape threats and painful body positions during his service as a senior advisor on interrogations for the U.S. military in Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib.
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POLITICS: U.S. in Pakistan’s Mind: Nothing But Aversion
Analysis by Muhammad Idrees Ahmad*
PESHAWAR, Pakistan - To the west of Peshawar on the Jamrud Road that leads to the historic Khyber Pass sits the Karkhano Market, a series of shopping plazas whose usual offering of contraband is now supplemented by standard issue U.S. military equipment, including combat fatigues, night vision goggles, body armour and army knives.
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AFGHANISTAN: U.S., NATO Forces Rely on Warlords for Security
By Gareth Porter*
WASHINGTON - The revelation by the New York Times Wednesday that Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, has long been on the payroll of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency is only the tip of a much bigger iceberg of heavy dependence by U.S. and NATO counterinsurgency forces on Afghan warlords for security, according to a recently published report and investigations by Australian and Canadian journalists.
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US-AFGHANISTAN: Kerry Argues for Counterinsurgency Lite
By Jim Lobe*
WASHINGTON - Amid growing speculation and partisan bickering over what President Barack Obama will do about the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, an influential Democratic senator Monday warned against deploying tens of thousands more U.S. troops there.
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RIGHTS: Obama Urged to Fully Comply with Anti-Torture Treaty
By William Fisher
NEW YORK - The fifteenth anniversary of the U.S. ratification of the United Nations Convention Against Torture passed last week with little fanfare and virtually no press attention from the mainstream media here.
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RIGHTS: 'Too Innocent to Try, too Guilty to Fly'
By Jan Lammers
BRUSSELS - Getting blacklisted as belonging to a terrorist organisation is a punitive sanction, even though governments may say it is only an administrative measure, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR).
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Terrorism, and the fight against it, has become all too common in today's news agenda. Reporting news often involves skimming facts from a minefield of propaganda generated on both sides. To find out the facts and reasons behind terrorism, its consequences and the reactions it generates from all over the world, read IPS's global coverage of terrorism.