The U.S. plans to withdraw all of its troops from Syria, a senior Pentagon official tells NPR. About 2,000 U.S. troops are currently in the northeastern part of the country, near the Turkish border. The decision to remove all troops from Syria was made by the White House late last week and sent to Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, the official says. The Joint Chiefs of Staff held a meeting on Monday about the issue, and officials at U.S. Central Command will work on a timetable for the withdrawal. Officials are considering also reducing troops in Afghanistan. A State Department...

For the first time since fleeing his home when civil war broke out in South Sudan five years ago, Raan Bona is daring to plan for the future. Seated at a restaurant in Bentiu town, the 29-year-old teacher said life has started to change “with peace.” He is opening a printing shop with the hope it will make enough money for him to leave a United Nations site where, like hundreds of thousands of others across the country, he has been sheltering for years. Just months ago, planning ahead in South Sudan seemed impossible. Now, after warring sides signed a new peace...

Robin Wright explains where things stand after a bipartisan group of senators voted to pull military support from Saudi Arabia's war in Yemen, and to tie the country's leader to a journalist's death.

Representative Ed Royce absorbed the importance of the United States’ role in the world at an early age. His father served in the army during World War II and was among the U.S. forces that liberated the concentration camp in Dachau, Germany, in 1945. His photos of the emaciated bodies and gas chambers are still being used to teach about the horrors of the Holocaust. His father’s experience had a profound impact on Royce, who is retiring from U.S. Congress after serving as a Republican representative from California for 26 years, the last six of which he was...

A decade ago, the world watched in disbelief as terrorists from the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba group ripped through the Indian financial capital of Mumbai. By the time the 10 attackers were stopped four days after the assault began, they had killed 164 people—Americans and other foreign nationals among them—and left over 300 injured. India’s 9/11, as the Indian media dubbed it, had unfolded. India, having long seen the Lashkar-e-Taiba as a direct proxy of the Pakistani intelligence outfit, the Inter-Services Intelligence, blamed the Pakistani state for...

On December 10, the U.S. Institute of Peace joins the world in commemorating the 70th year since the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, an historic achievement affirming every person’s right to dignity, justice and peace.

Human Rights

In the 17 years since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, U.S. law enforcement has prevented another large-scale terrorist attack on the homeland. The militaries of the United States and its allies have relentlessly pursued terrorists overseas, killing Osama bin Laden and dismantling the Islamic State. Despite these achievements, the global struggle against extremism is not over. In the past five years, over 150,000 people have been killed in terrorist attacks, six times the number killed in the five years following Sept. 11. Since 2001, attacks worldwide have increased fivefold...

Fragility & Resilience

Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Global Fragility and Violence Reduction Act (HR 5273) with a large majority but little fanfare. Buried under news about party and committee leadership races, the legislation signals an important bipartisan consensus on the need for a different approach to tackling some of our most pressing national security challenges. Over a decade and a half ago, as chairs of the 9/11 Commission, we called for a strategy that would prevent the creation of a new generation of terrorists, in addition to safeguarding...

Fragility & Resilience