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.

AFGHANISTAN-US: Govt Withholds Information About Bagram Detainees
By Danielle Kurtzleben
WASHINGTON - The U.S. government continues to withhold even the most basic information about prisoners in the Bagram detention facility in Afghanistan, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a New York-based legal rights organisation.
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AFGHANISTAN: Holbrooke Heralds US Engagement Pre-Election
By Danielle Kurtzleben
WASHINGTON - Facing a worsening security situation in Afghanistan, as well as rapidly approaching elections in that country, the Obama Administration is touting a new, broad approach to winning the fight against insurgent groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
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AFGHANISTAN-US: Mission Essential, Translators Expendable
By Pratap Chatterjee*
WASHINGTON - Basir "Steve" Ahmed was returning from a bomb-clearing mission in Khogyani district in northeastern Afghanistan when a suicide bomber blew up an explosive-filled vehicle nearby. The blast flipped the military armoured truck Ahmed was riding in three or four times, and filled it with smoke. The Afghan translator had been accompanying the 927th Engineer Company near the Pakistan border on that October day in 2008 that would forever change his life.
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RIGHTS-SAUDI ARABIA: Indefinite Detention in the Name of Counterterrorism
By Marina Litvinsky
WASHINGTON - Human rights groups have accused Saudi Arabia of unlawfully detaining thousands of people without trial or conviction under its counterterrorism programme since 2003.
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RIGHTS: Obama Seeks to Block Release of Abuse Photos
By Eli Clifton
WASHINGTON - The United States Supreme Court will hear the U.S. government’s appeal on a lower court ruling requiring the release of photos showing the abuse of prisoners held in overseas facilities.
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RIGHTS: Big Powers Faulted for Abuse of Geneva Conventions
By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS - When human rights groups accused the United States of violating the Geneva Conventions governing the treatment of prisoners-of-war (PoWs) in Iraq and Afghanistan, the administration of former President George W. Bush either displayed arrogance or feigned ignorance of the implications of abusing humanitarian laws.
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POLITICS: Pakistanis See U.S. as Biggest Threat
By Owen Fay*AJ/IPS
KARACHI - A survey commissioned by Al Jazeera in Pakistan has revealed a widespread disenchantment with the United States for interfering with what most people consider internal Pakistani affairs.
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POLITICS: Rights Groups Appeal For UN Investigation of Rendition
By William Fisher
NEW YORK - Charging that the U.S. government was complicit in the forced disappearance of an influential Muslim scholar four years ago, human rights groups in the U.S., the U.K., and Switzerland have asked the U.N. to investigate.
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POLITICS: U.S. Officials Protect Pak Military on Aid to Taliban
Analysis by Gareth Porter*
WASHINGTON - Despite evidence implicating the current Pakistani Army chief, General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, in a major military assistance program for the Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan over the past few years, senior officials of the Barack Obama administration persuaded Congress to extend military assistance to Pakistan for five years without any assurance that the Pakistani assistance to the Taliban had ended.
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RIGHTS-US: Jawad Case Uncertain Despite Release Order
By William Fisher
NEW YORK - One of Guantanamo's youngest prisoners, ordered by a federal judge to be released after almost seven years in detention because his "confession" was obtained through torture, may face further hurdles before being set free.
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POLITICS: U.N. Calls for "Green Zone" in Strife-Torn Somalia
By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS - Somalia, a perpetually violence-prone country described as one of the world's failed states, may go the way of Iraq.
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AFGHANISTAN: Child Rapist Police Return Behind U.S., UK Troops
By Gareth Porter*
WASHINGTON - The strategy of the major U.S. and British military offensive in Afghanistan's Helmand province aimed at wresting it from the Taliban is based on bringing back Afghan army and police to maintain permanent control of the population, so the foreign forces can move on to another insurgent stronghold.
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RIGHTS-US: Judge Slams Govt Over Afghan Detainee
By William Fisher
NEW YORK - A federal judge last week excoriated U.S. government lawyers for advocating the continued detention of a detainee at Guantanamo Bay after his "confession" was ruled inadmissible because it was extracted through torture.
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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.