This report examines how improved integration of skilled U.S. civilians can improve nation building and counter-insurgency efforts.

CFR’s Noah Feldman says outgoing U.S. Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales harmed the Department of Justice, especially abroad, by allowing it to become increasingly politicized.

The departure of U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales highlights pressing questions about the Justice Department’s role in U.S. counterterrorism efforts.

European efforts to create a common counterterrorism policy continue in fits and starts, with some fearing an erosion of civil rights, and others an uncoordinated system that opens the way for tragedy.

Michael Jacobson, Senior Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, explains that Europe’s counterterrorism efforts are uneven, despite recent terrorist attempts.

The fate of the terrorist suspects held at Guantanamo Bay hangs in the balance as detainees look to challenge their detentions in U.S. federal courts.

Cops in New York and Los Angeles offer America two models for preventing another 9/11.

A few years ago, with little fanfare, the United States opened a base in the horn of Africa to kill or capture Al Qaeda fighters. By 2012, the Pentagon will have two dozen such forts. The story of Africa Command, the American military's new frontier outpost.

U.S. efforts to staunch the spread of terrorism across northern Africa have increased. But some experts warn excessive focus on counterterrorism there could be counterproductive.

This commentary by William Tucker published in The American Spectator says that Iraq is a colonial war, and compares it to the US experience in the Philippines.

Facing domestic unrest and an increasingly untenable situation in the northern “tribal lands,” Gen. Pervez Musharraf has signed another controversial pact with tribal militants even as Washington demands a crackdown.

Congress is considering legislation to shore up security along U.S. railways, but the system’s need for openness makes it inherently vulnerable to terrorist attack.

Daniel Markey, a former State Department specialist on South Asia for the Policy Planning Council, says relations between Pakistan and the United States have fluctuated widely in recent years. The United States now needs Pakistan badly to help stem the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

Amnesty International reports that the United Kingdom authorities are attempting to deport more than 15 Algerian men considered to be a ‘threat to national security’ to their country of origin, contrary to the prohibition of sending persons to countries where they face a real risk of serious human rights violations, including torture or other ill-treatment. Amnesty says it is concerned that the UK authorities’ claims against these men are based on secret information, including intelligence material, never disclosed to the individuals concerned or their lawyers of choice.

President Bush appears to have softened his stance on wiretapping U.S. citizens, but some critics say his concessions do not go far enough.

The “war on terrorism” is often portrayed as playing out on the streets of Baghdad or in the mountains of Afghanistan. But New York City is another important battleground and could provide lessons for how other U.S. localities deal with counterterrorism.

Responsibility for safeguarding the homeland often falls to state and local governments in spite of the increased federal role after 9/11. Of these thousands of agencies, New York City has moved the most aggressively, creating a counterterrorism bureau complete with overseas agents and intelligence analysts.

According to this report from Amnesty International, in cooperating with the US-led "war on terror", the Pakistani government has committed human rights violations against hundreds of Pakistani and foreign nationals. Hundreds of people have been arbitrarily arrested and detained in secret; becoming victims of enforced disappearance. Many have been tortured, with their families subjected to harassment and threats. The right to habeas corpus has been systematically undermined, and hundreds of detainees have been unlawfully transferred (sometimes in return for money) to other countries. Amnesty argues that such transfers violate Pakistan’s Extradition Act and the principle of ‘non-refoulement,’ which prohibits the transfer of people to countries where there is a risk of them being subjected to serious human rights violations such as torture and other forms of ill-treatment or enforced disappearance.

Richard A. Posner and Juliette Kayyem debate whether a domestic intelligence agency, such as Britain's MI5, would benefit U.S. counterterrorism efforts.