August 25th, 20220ALBUQUERQUE, NM — In the case of four murdered Muslim men in Albuquerque, Muhammad Syed, an Afghan refugee, has now been charged with the murder of three of the victims.
New Mexico prosecutors used cell phone evidence to link Syed, 51, to the Aug. 5 murder of truck business owner Naeem Hussain. Police previously charged Syed with...
August 9th, 20220NEW MEXICO — After the shooting deaths of four Muslim men in Albuquerque in what authorities suspected to be related cases over nine months, police said they had a suspect in custody and announced charges on Wednesday in two of the shootings.
Muhammad Syed, 51, was taken into custody a day earlier after a traffic stop more than 100...
April 21st, 20220DETROIT — The newly formed Detroit Refugee Network (DRN) is looking to increase resources for refugee clients of three major resettlement agencies that provide support services to refugees from Afghanistan and other nations as they resettle in Detroit.
Samaritas, the Detroit-based statewide health and human services organization...
January 12th, 20220Although 2021 is now behind us, there are many issues that will linger for a while, or much longer, and will certainly dominate much of the news in 2022 as well. These are but a few of the issues.
NATO-Russian brinkmanship
Exasperated with NATO expansion and growing ambitions in the Black Sea region, Moscow has decided to challenge...
September 10th, 20210— This article by Abdul El-Sayed originally appeared in the newsletter The Incision. It has been edited for style. Subscribe to The Incision here: incision.substack.com
Saturday marks the 20th anniversary of the horrific terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. Nearly 3,000 people lost their lives on that fateful day. We...
September 8th, 20210DOHA — Amid the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, an all-female Afghan robotics team were evacuated to Qatar and will continue their education uninterrupted.
The girls’ education will be supported through scholarships from the Qatar Foundation (QF) and Qatar Fund for Development (QFFD). The team will study at the Qatar...
September 6th, 20210For 20 years, two dominant narratives have shaped our view of the illegal U.S. invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, and neither one of these narratives would readily accept the use of such terms as “illegal”, “invasion” and “occupation.”
The framing of the U.S. “military intervention” in Afghanistan, starting on...
August 27th, 20210— This article by Abdul El-Sayed originally appeared in the newsletter The Incision. It has been edited for style. Subscribe to The Incision here: incision.substack.com
Back in June, well before any of us knew the sordid 20-year American adventure in Afghanistan would come to a crashing end just a few months later, I was asked to...
August 20th, 20210The Taliban called on Afghanistan's imams to urge unity when they hold their first Friday prayers since the Islamist group seized control of the country, as protests against the takeover spread to more cities on Thursday, including the capital Kabul.
Several people were killed when Taliban militants fired on a crowd in the eastern...
August 17th, 20210— This article by Abdul El-Sayed originally appeared in the newsletter The Incision. It has been edited for style. Subscribe to The Incision here: incision.substack.com
On Sunday, our wayward 20-year war effort in Afghanistan suffered its final death blow. The Taliban rode the U.S.-manufactured Humvees captured from Afghan...
August 16th, 20210KABUL — Afghans rushed onto the tarmac of the capital’s airport on Monday as thousands tried to flee the country after the Taliban seized power with stunning speed. Some clung to the side of a U.S. military transport plane before takeoff, in a widely shared video that captured the sense of desperation as America’s 20-year war...
April 14th, 20210WASHINGTON D.C. — In an address to the nation on Wednesday, President Biden announced his decision to withdraw troops from Afghanistan by Sept. 11.
"It is time to end America’s longest war," he said. "It is time for American troops to come home."
By doing so, this will end America’s military involvement in the country on...
March 10th, 20210“That’s certainly our goal and our intention.” This was the non-committal answer given by White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki when, on February 12, she was asked by a reporter whether the new Joe Biden administration intends to shut down the notorious Guantánamo Bay Prison by the end of the president’s first term in...
October 3rd, 20190Although Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar still is home to thousands of Americans, the ability to carry out command and control functions from South Carolina means that the chances of a “Pearl Harbor” type of strike by the Iranians on the base is limited but not completely avoidable. It also perceived that it won’t take the U.S. seven...
January 31st, 20190WASHINGTON, DC - In a rebuke of President Trump, the Republican-led U.S. Senate advanced largely symbolic legislation on Thursday opposing plans for any abrupt withdrawal of troops from Syria and Afghanistan.
The Senate voted 68-23 in favor of a non-binding amendment, drafted by Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, saying it...
March 2nd, 20180Fifteen years ago this week, while the Bush Administration was busy beating the drums for an invasion of Iraq, I submitted a resolution calling on the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to oppose this rush to war. The resolution, which was also endorsed by then Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr., who served with me on the DNC, warned that...
February 23rd, 20180Over the next few weeks, I want to take a look back to February and March of 2003, to those fateful days leading up to the Bush administration's disastrous invasion and occupation of Iraq. I remember all too well the lies that were told, the hysteria that was created, the bullying tactics that were used to silence debate and the mass...
February 9th, 20180WASHINGTON — A Saudi man who attended flight school in Oklahoma was charged on Tuesday with visa fraud for allegedly having lied about attending an al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan in 2000, the U.S. Justice Department said.
A federal grand jury returned a three-count indictment against Naif Abdulaziz M. Alfallaj, 34, after his...
October 20th, 20170
KABUL- Suicide bombers attacked two mosques in Afghanistan on Friday, killing at least 72 people including children, officials and witnesses said.
One bomber walked into a Shi‘ite Muslim mosque in the capital Kabul as people were praying on Friday night and detonated an explosive, one of the worshippers...
August 22nd, 20170WASHINGTON — President Trump committed U.S. troops to an open-ended war in Afghanistan, a decision the Afghan government welcomed on Tuesday but which Taliban insurgents warned would make the country a "graveyard for the American empire".
Trump offered few specifics in a speech on Monday but promised a stepped-up military campaign...
April 13th, 20171The United States dropped a massive GBU-43 bomb, the largest non-nuclear bomb it has ever used in combat, in eastern Afghanistan on Thursday against a series of caves used by ISIS militants, the military said.
It was the first time the United States has used this size of bomb in a conflict. It was dropped from a MC-130 aircraft in the...
