The existence of the committee and the job that it has been assigned was recently made public by Mohammad Dehghan, a conservative member of Iran’s parliament. Analysts consider Mr. Dehghan a reliable source because of the close relationship that he shares with Khamenei.

There is chatter that the presidency, an office chosen by direct election of the people since 1989, could be replaced by an office of prime minister. This transition would make for an easier removal of a defiant head of government should conflict arise between that head and Ayatollah Khamenei.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is Iran’s current president. He will complete his second term in 2013. The Ayatollah and Mr. Ahmadinejad have had an increasingly antagonistic relationship as Ahmadinejad has become more insubordinate in recent years.

Khamenei is no doubt dubious of the power that the office of the presidency holds. Since the position was created by a constitutional amendment in 1989, presidential elections have been a direct route to political power for many of Iran’s most notable reformists.

How the Ayatollah would do away with the office of the president is unclear. The process for amending Iran’s constitution is protracted and could cause a political face-off between Khamenei and many on Iran’s political left.

Osama Bin Laden was probably born in 1957. He was number 17 of 57 children to a father who made his fortune in the Saudi Arabia construction industry.  It is believed that the young bin Laden got his penchant for radical Islamist ideology at his university,  King Abdul-Aziz University, in Jeddah. This is where bin Laden was exposed to Islamist thinkers.

Bin Laden was influenced by the Sunni reformist movements of Deobandi and Salafi. Going forward, Bin Laden and his followers were bolstered by a genuine belief that they were reformulating the global order.

Bin Laden’s personal brand of Islamist ideology encouraged reconsideration of earlier Islamic religious positions. Among the goals of bin Laden were the defense and preservation of Sunni norms and law. Defensive arguments within bin Laden’s Salafi movement, often referred to as jihad, are often accompanied by an unusual degree of openness to departures from past Islamic analysis and understanding. These departures include a call for a more rigid conservatism while promoting a militant vision and culture unheard-of in classical Islam.

The Salafi and Deobandi movements are typically spread through schools run by religious teachers who have little knowledge of or appreciation for traditional Islam. The chief task of these teachers is to promote a jihadist vision that is global in scope, intolerant of competing with other Sunni doctrines, and fanatically anti-Shi’a. A main goal of Salafi and Deobandi schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan is having their pupils spread this form of Islam world-wide.

U.S. intelligence tracked the al Qaeda leader to a 3,000 square foot, custom built compound with high walls and two security gates. The compound is near the Pakistani town of Abbottabad. Bin Laden’s movements were monitored for months until President Obama decided that there was enough evidence for the U.S. military to act.

U.S. operatives moved on the compound early Monday local time. Helicopters descended on the fortified compound in Abbottabad, and a small contingent of the U.S. Navy Seals killed bin Laden in a raid.

President Obama announced the news at the White House. He called the death of bin Laden “the most significant achievement to date” in the war against al Qaeda.

“After a firefight, they killed Osama bin Laden and took custody of his body,” the president said, warning that the U.S. must remain vigilant because al Qaeda will “continue to pursue attacks against us.”

In distance, Libya is the 17th largest country in the world, and it is roughly the size of Alaska. However, the activity in the country is limited to a belt along the Mediterranean coast. This belt is where the population is, where the cities are located, and where there is oil infrastructure.

There have been strong uprisings along this belt both in the east of Libya as well as in the west. In many ways, Gaddafi’s influence has become limited to the capital city of Tripoli.

Tripoli is the largest city in Libya, and the country’s chief seaport.

It is still largely unknown who the rebels are in this uprising. Experts are still unsure how many rebel factions exist, and who makes up the leadership of each group. What is clear is that the opposition is not united, and is therefore not operating as a cogent group.

There are signs that suggest momentum for Gaddafi losing tribal support in Libya. The east side of the population belt is the region that traditionally has had opposition to the current Libyan regime. People here supported the monarchy, and were distressed when Gaddafi rose to power through his coup. Now there are uprisings in the west spurred on by one of Libya’s largest tribes, the Warfalla, that has traditionally supported the authoritarian leader.

Tribal connections in Libya are significant. They are formal networks of allegiances that hold whole communities together. Tribal connections give a sense of solidarity and unity to the Libyan populace, and such connections should not be underestimated as a primary driving force in motivating behavior.

There are more than twenty major tribal groups in Libya, and the bulk of the population is Sunni Muslim.

Known Libyan groups opposing Gaddafi include: The National Transitional Council (comprised of tribal groups including the Zuwayya and the Majabra), The Libyan Peoples Army (composed of Cyrenaica tribes like The National Transitional Council), and The National Conference for the Libyan Opposition (notable for being composed of members living outside Libya). Experts are still trying to deduce the various relationships that Libyan tribes may be developing with these and other emerging groups during the uprising.

The armed wing of Islamic Jihad, a Palestinian Islamist group, claimed responsibility. It has vowed to continue targeting cities far within Israel.

Small metal ball bearings that were packed within the bomb were found more than twenty feet from the explosion.

Israelis and Palestinians have engaged in quid pro quo violence for the last several weeks in the Gaza strip and the West Bank. Over the last week, Palestinian militants have fired more than 60 rockets into southern Israeli towns. Israel has threatened to retaliate with a large scale attack in Gaza should the violence continue.

Since 1980, suicide bombings have been identified with a variety of religious and secular ideologies. These ideologies include: the Hindu BKI in India, the LTTE in Sri Lanka, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the SSNP in Lebanon, the PFLP in the Palestinian territories, al-Qaeda in Iraq, the Taliban in Afghanistan, and the PPK in Turkey.

Salafi, Deobandi, and Marxist ideologies are three of the most common belief systems that are associated with suicide bombings. Marxism is a socio-political and economic worldview that is not historically associated with religion. This would suggest that suicide bombings are at least not completely a product of religious extremism.

Focusing on the Deobandi and Salafi movements, both of which I have written on in this blog before, neither Deobandi nor Salafi are unified belief systems. There is no single authority on either. Quintan Wiktorowicz has written in Studies in Conflict and Terrorism that “(t)he divisions within the Salafi community, in part, represent a generational struggle over sacred authority–the right to interpret Islam on behalf of the Muslim community.” In other words, Wiktorowicz claims that there is no single and exclusive understanding within Salafi ideology regarding actions such as suicide bombings. With this knowledge, one can assume that other ideological factors other than religion are also contributors in the making of a suicide bomber. We can come to this conclusion, because there is no homogeneous authority within a belief system like Salafi to encourage every believer into becoming a bomber. If there were, the world would have experienced millions more of these bombings.

Suicide bombers seek to coalesce their religious beliefs to existing socio-cultural views influenced by their economic status, national identity, and political views. Therefore, they may seek out extreme religious ideologies because they are in line with their pre-existing socio-cultural worldview. This would indicate that religious extremism is not a catalyst in creating a suicide bomber as much as it is an approbation.

Individuals associated with suicide bombings tend to experience a progressive radicalization. A better understanding of what role religious extremism may play (and may not play) in that experience could save future lives. However, it is important to not sensationalize religion’s influence on acts of suicide bombings.

A lack of data on successful suicide bombers is a contributing factor to the ambiguity that religion plays in these events. Many groups that plan the bombings put off releasing the bomber’s identities in order to protect their families and larger community from revenge. Yet, data from failed suicide bombers is available, and it is conclusive. There are plenty of instances where groups like the Taliban recruited uneducated youths and indoctrinated them with an extreme religious ideology to incite and encourage them. However, there are just as many instances where failed bombers turn out to be extremely educated, and these people are just as likely to cite nationalistic and economic inducements as they are to espouse religious ones.

One of the few consistent factors in suicide bombings is that the bombing itself is an act of contesting authority.

Suicide bombers are reactionary. They are reacting to their socio-economic-cultural realities. They are disgruntled by factors (both real and perceived) within their community, region, or nation state.

I think it is pragmatic to state that suicide bombings are not singularly a product of religious extremism. But, for those instances where religious extremism is a factor, it would be beneficial to ask if suicide bombers (who we know are religious) subscribe to an extreme religion because they are already disgruntled, or does an extreme religion advance their militancy?

After several military coup attempts against Gaddafi during his reign, Gaddafi has marginalized the Libyan military. It became routine for Gaddafi to execute all of his officers after an attempt to overthrow him, and replace them with people who had some kind of allegiance to him, most notably through tribal connections.

Libya has a very small population. Even though it is the 17th largest country in the world, Libya only consists of about six and a half million people. This population is very divided along old tribal lines. These loyalties often resemble a convoluted web of allegiances which have assisted in keeping Gaddafi in power. Some tribal alliances date back to pre-World War II rebellions against the Italian colonial forces who ruled Libya at the time.

Gaddafi’s own tribe, the Qaddadfa tribe, has historically been an unimportant tribe in Libya prior to Gaddafi’s rule. It did not play a meaningful part in the uprisings against colonialism. Other than his own, the tribe that has the most enduring loyalty to Gaddafi is the Magariha tribe. Should a new coup arise, the Magariha tribe may be in the best position to succeed in overthrowing Gaddafi. Many of its members are placed in senior positions within the Libyan government and military.

Since the 1970s, tribal authority has been extremely meaningful in Libya. Tribal allegiance has been important with regards to obtaining employment in many sought after occupations.

In order to bolster the current Libyan government’s influence beyond existing tribal connections, the government has used state television to blame the opposition uprisings on illegal immigrants. Here, the Libyan government is attempting to redirect any native anger that may exist concerning Gaddafi towards migrant workers who can be portrayed as outsiders to all of Libya’s tribes.

The International Organization for Migration estimates that before fighting began in mid-February, some two and a half million migrants lived in Libya. Most came seeking employment in the country’s oil industry.

By creating cultural scapegoats, the Libyan government hopes to unite fragmented groups of the population and galvanize forces.

Similarly, Gaddafi has referred to the coalition bombardment of his country as an invasion by foreign infidels. Doubtlessly, this language was chosen in a deliberate attempt to build pan-Arab support for his regime. It may have the effect of drawing foreign fighters into his country to fight by his side. Similar language was used by members of the regimes in Taliban controlled Afghanistan as well as Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. In both cases, foreign fighters poured into those countries to assist in waging a religious jihad against the invading outsiders.

There is a very real danger that the United States’ involvement in enforcing a no-fly zone in Libya could instigate renewed attacks against America and its assets. One of the objectives of a new jihad, from Libya’s point of view, would be to turn the ire of the opposition against the United States and away from Gaddafi.

Demonstrations erupted around Pakistan the day after the attack. The Pakistani government claims that the meeting was a peaceful one intended to resolve a mining dispute, and that the meeting should not have been targeted.

The U.S. has been conducting a covert program using unmanned drones in Pakistan since 2004. Members of the Pakistani government have publicly condemned the attacks while secretly approving them.

Tribal elders declaring a renewed jihad against the U.S. is unsurprising.

An August 23, 2009 al-Jazeera poll found that 60% of Pakistanis identified the United States as Pakistan’s greatest threat. This is troubling considering that Pakistan’s traditional enemy, India, received only 18% of the vote and the Pakistani Taliban received only 11%.

Anger towards the alliance between the U.S. and Pakistan helped to remove Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf in 2008, and this acrimony has continued to be an important factor in Pakistani politics.

The post- Musharraf election season was volatile and targeted Pakistani politicians. Since then, this targeting of state officials has continued, and anyone viewed as a “tool of U.S. influence” is marked for assassination by the Pakistani Taliban, al-Qaeda, and others. This political reality is complicated by the close relationship between segments of the Pakistani military establishment and Taliban-affiliated militants. Many within Pakistan’s military are sympathetic to the Taliban’s cause.

How much longer the Pakistan government will approve of unmanned drones operating within their borders is unknown. As more members of the Pakistani populace turn against the U.S., the easier it will be for insurgents to engineer a government more supportive of their causes and actions.

While the U.S. continues to have a presence in Pakistan, more admonishments from the Pakistani government will likely be coming. The Pakistani army and politicians will be taking a partly pragmatic approach–they are worried about making themselves a target for the populace’s growing anger and the various militant’s growing influence. The Pakistani military insists that it lacks the resources necessary to fight the entire amplitude of insurgent groups inside Pakistan.

The aim of the United Nations sanctioned mission is to protect civilians.

The “rebel” opposition in Libya is an assemblage of groups that have been pulled together by their common desire to overthrow Gaddafi. Exactly who makes up this amalgamate aggregation is largely unknown to Western forces. It has yet to be revealed if this opposition is benign to longterm U.S. interests.

Libyan state television has persistently claimed that the opposition movement is largely made up of elements from al Qaeda. Libyan state television has also claimed that bombings from the allied coalition have taken the lives of civilians including children. Both assertions cannot be independently verified.

Due to the claims of civilian casualties, The Arab League at one point over the weekend condemned the coalition force’s broad bombing campaign.  However, the Arab League has since reasserted its support for an imposed no-fly zone over Libya. This sort of political flip-flop has caught some in the West by surprise.

It is important to remember that the Arab League is vulnerable to the sway of the masses. Leaders of the Arab states that make up the regional organization cannot be seen as being Western puppets or as being too soft to foreign aggression. The penalty for such actions in today’s political reality include the risk of being overthrown and replaced along with Gaddafi. Therefore, while the Arab League is needed for regional legitimacy for a no-fly zone, it would be a mistake to expect a full commitment to the campaign by Arab leaders.

Had there not been an intervention by coalition forces, there could have been an extensive massacre in Libya. Going forward, a quick exit strategy will need to be in place by the end of the conflict. It will be important to avoid any long term troop commitment to Libya. With an operation like this that involves several powers, it will be valuable to gain a provision for U.N. mandated elections. The quicker that the Libyans can stabilize their country, the more expeditiously coalition forces can depart.

The bombings killed more than 70 people who were watching the World Cup final.

Al Shabab is based in Somalia, and it is believed that the group has links to al Qaeda. The attacks on Sunday mark the first time that al Shabab has struck outside Somalian borders.

Al Shabab likely struck in Uganda because of the country’s leadership in the African peace keeping mission in Somalia. The Ugandans have around 3,200 troops in Somalia, and it is this contigent of soldiers that has made up the primary obstacle to al Shabab taking over the Ugandan government.

The bombings on Sunday consisted of two simultaneous attacks which is traditionally a hallmark of al Qaeda. The bombings appear to have been the work of suicide bombers, and seem to have been organized at the last minute.

There is a substantial Somali community in Uganda, and al Qaeda has frequently passed through Ugandan borders; therefore, Sunday’s bombings didn’t come as a complete surprise to security experts.

Like all suicide bombings associated with al Qaeda, the bombings in Uganda were designed to sow fear and induce economic damage.

In recent years, al Qaeda and its affiliates have gone from using large 9/11 type attacks to using smaller scale bombings. This has caused academics and security officials to question whether this change has been a conscious decision, or is the result of al Qaeda’s incapability to realize an attack on a grand scale like it once did.

The linakges are very tight between al Qaeda and its Islamist affiliates operating in Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia. All of these groups are Sunni, and they have ideological origins in Pakistan. They come out of the Deobandi tradition, and have gained power with the support of many in the governments of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

The ties between al Shabab and al Qaeda raises the question of where the terrorist problem really resides. Al Shabab undoubtedly picked Uganda as a target for reasons personal to the group; however, al Shabab could not have achieved Sunday’s bombings without benefitting from al Qaeda’s terrorist network and training. Therefore, al Qaeda is the primary threat to security in this case, and al Shabab’s attack in Uganda is merely a symptom of a much larger problem.

NATO forces have so far been facing the most resistance in the Taliban haven of Marjah. U.S. troops have been plagued by sniper fire and improvised explosive devices (IEDs). However, British and Afghan troops are reported to be making better progress in the neighboring district of Nad Ali.

The aim of the Marjah offensive is to rid the area of militant insurgents and drug traffickers before a handover of security to Afghan police.

The Marjah offensive is part of a larger strategy known as Operation Moshtarak (Operation Together in the Dari language) which is the largest coalition attack in Afghanistan since the Taliban fell in 2001. Moshtarak is considered the first major test of U.S. President Barack Obama’s new “surge” strategy. Afghan officials have said that the offensive appears to be working.

Many experts credit the Obama administration for its current counter-insurgency strategy where an emphasis is being put on protecting civilians as opposed to the former strategy in Afghanistan of focusing only on the mantra of clear, build, and hold.

The current NATO effort in Afghanistan is designed to provide an atmosphere where President Hamid Karzai’s federal government can successfully come in and install itself in the region. General Stanley McChrystal, Commander of U.S. Forces Afghanistan, was quoted last week saying that when the military phase of this current operation is concluded, Afghanistan has “a government in a box ready to roll” indicating that the Afghan government is ready to start providing services to Southern Afghanistan’s population. An efficacious transfer of power in the region could go a long way towards keeping the Taliban from returning to the area.