War again shocked us all

In July 1973, I visited a young, 25-year-old Israel, seemingly well-recovered from the threatening June 1967 Six Day War, for a happy sporting event – the four-yearly Maccabiah Games, the so-called “Jewish Olympics”. 

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Afghanistan’s ISKP remains primarily a regional threat for now

It may well be that my 2021 assessments on ISKP’s future will eventually turn out to be correct. Yet for now, just over two years since the US withdrawal, the Taliban crackdown is mostly keeping the group in check and there still seem to be enough intelligence sources in and around Afghanistan to disrupt any plots – if any concrete plots, as opposed to aspirations, even exist – directed at the West. 

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