Swat After the Offensive (CSM)
Nine months after Pakistan’s military cleared the Swat Valley of a brutal Taliban occupation, the region has made steady gains in improving security and rebuilding infrastructure. But its progress remains vulnerable, threatened by sporadic militant attacks, stilted economic recovery, and growing frustration among residents at the strong military presence.

Al Qaeda the Media Organization (New America Foundation)
Al-Qaeda Central, the organization led by Osama bin Laden and likely based somewhere in Pakistan, is today primarily a media phenomenon. Since the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, it has not succeeded in carrying out a similarly ambitious operation, although it has been effective at spreading its message globally over the Internet. But it now faces a triple communications challenge: staying prominent in an ever more competitive online environment, explaining how its current entanglement in the Afghanistan-Pakistan nexus makes sense in the global jihadist narrative, and trying to change increasingly negative views of suicide bombing and al-Qaeda itself in the Arab-Muslim world.

Islamo Erotica(?) (Daily Beast)
While the Koran does not specifically ban nude art, the almost universal opinion of religious leaders is that Islam forbids it. However, a handful of Muslim artists have been daring to depict nudity.

Linguistic anthropologist Flagg Miller (as interviewed by Chronicle writer Thomas Bartlett) is unearthing the mundane but none the less intriguing details of daily life with Osama Bin Laden.

Money quote: Mr. Miller was fascinated by how the conversation flows from the serious to the jocular, from the mundane to the theological, from discussions of food to the vocabulary of martyrdom. During the following back-and-forth, Abu Hamza accidentally spills water on the cook's sleeping mat:

Cook (chuckling): Abu Hamza ... like this, huh? You spill water on the place I sleep? Now I see a wet dream!

(Everyone laughs, including Hamza.)

Abu Hamza: I seek God's forgiveness.

Cook (chuckling): God willing ... In the rivers of paradise ... we'll see Abu Hamza swimming in the rivers of paradise.

The outside world is rarely privy to those kinds of conversations. We usually hear prepared rants, aggressive posturing, and homicidal threats. But the tapes capture men attempting to square their grandiose visions with their humble reality. They have, in some cases, traveled a long way in order to fight for the cause, and here they are struggling with a kerosene stove.

Full article here.

Cracks in the Jihad, by Thomas Rid, The Wilson Quarterly, Winter 2010. Rid analyzes the current state of Islamist militancy.

Money quote:

War, in Clausewitz’s eminent theory, was a clash of collective wills, “a continuation of politics by other means.” When states went to war, the adversary was a political entity with the ability to act as one body, able to end hostilities by declaring victory or admitting defeat. Even Abd el-Kader eventually capitulated. But jihad in the 21st century, especially during the past few years, has fundamentally changed its anatomy: Al Qaeda is no longer a collective political actor. It is no longer an adversary that can articulate a will, capitulate, and be defeated. But the jihad’s new weakness is also its new strength: Because of its transformation, Islamist militancy is politically impaired yet fitter to survive its present crisis.

Since Yemen has been in the news quite a bit of late, I figured I'd post one of my favorite sources for information on that recondite nation. Maintained by Yemen watchers Gregory D. Johnsen and Brian O'Neill, Waq al-Waq is the premier source on all things Yemeni. For example:

Western papers are leading with the news that Yemeni forces have killed two al-Qaeda suspects. Not so fast says Mareb Press, which actually names the two individuals killed - Nur al-Din Muhammad Ahmad al-Haniq, 17-years-old and Balal 'Ali Ahmad al-Marani, 22-years-old.

According to Mareb Press both men were members of the Arhab tribe, which is increasingly coming into conflict with the Yemni security forces. The problem with raids like this, as I detailed in a recent piece for the CTC Sentinel, is that it actually expands al-Qaeda's support within Yemen.

Both the US and Yemen should be extremely careful about whom they target in Yemen, as going after the wrong people risks turning a two-sided conflict between the government and al-Qaeda into a much more murky and multi-faceted conflict that could potentially involve a number of tribes in what would become a war that could never be won.

Check it out.