Experts from the U.S. Institute of Peace provide the latest analysis and perspective on the world’s critical hot spots, U.S. and global security and issues involved in violent conflict, based on the Institute’s work on the ground and with key individuals, governments and organizations. They give interviews and background briefings to journalists and write for news outlets around the world.
My recent journey through northern Iraq revealed how fragile the region remains, and how extremism could once again take root. Last month, as I traveled through Baghdad and northern Iraq on a trip facilitated by the United Nations Refugee Agency, the Iraqi...
ISIS has lost its leader, but that doesn't mean the world is any safer.
NPR's Noel King talks to Mona Yacoubian, formerly with the State Department and now with the U.S. Institute of Peace, about the pause in hostilities in northern Syria.
The U.S. acquiescence to Turkey’s invasion abandons an effective Kurdish partner, but also a creative model that was working. Turkey’s military incursion into northern Syria carries grave implications for the United States’ Syrian Kurdish partners, the war on ISIS, and the humanitarian crisis...
American troops are pulling back from positions in Northern Syria under an order from the White House. The move precedes an expected incursion but Kurdish allies believe the U.S. has abandoned them. Mona Yacoubian, who is a senior advisor at the U.S. institute of peace for Syria, Middle East and North Africa, joined CBSN to discuss the impact of the withdrawal.
After the Syrian revolution began in 2011, the Kurdish people formed their own semi-autonomous area in Syria called Rojava. Their alliance with the U.S. has kept Syrian and Turkish forces out of the region and bolstered territorial gains. But questions over...
With the Islamic State’s once-extensive caliphate now in ruins, the hunt is now on for the terror group’s elusive leader — Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Amid fears Islamic State will return to its roots as a terrorist guerrilla operation, the reclusive Islamic State founder has not been seen publicly since...
When the Syrian conflict began, in March 2011, Bashar al-Assad seemed likely to be ousted, like other strongmen swept away by the Arab Spring. Eight years later, Assad is still president, but of a fractured, demolished country. Now one big question is: Who will pay to rebuild Syria? The bill is large. The United Nations estimates...
President Trump addressed the Defeat ISIS coalition at the State Department on Wednesday, reassuring them the U.S. remains committed to the fight despite his decision to withdraw troops from Syria.
Hawks in the Republican Party are fuming over President Trump's abrupt decision to pull some U.S. troops from Syria, a move they say he made without consulting him. And the White House and Pentagon are offering sparse details on how such a withdrawal will work, with the White House and the Pentagon referring questions to each other Wednesday in the wake of the announcement. "It's a catastrophic disaster," one senior administration official told CBS News "Face the Nation" host Margaret Brennan of the fallout from the president's decision, saying the national security...