While all eyes are on the fight in Afghanistan and the showdown with Iran, danger to American interests mounts elsewhere. Pakistan is being terrorized by brazen militant attacks against civilian and military targets; in Yemen, al Qaeda fighters, secessionists, and al Houthi rebels threaten to destabilize the country; and, in Somalia, al Shabaab aspires to establish an Islamist state with global ambitions.

Following an introduction by AEI's vice president of foreign and defense policy studies Danielle Pletka and a detailed, up-to-date briefing on the one-month-old conflict in Waziristan—a region in northwest Pakistan along the Afghan border that is home to the Pakistani Taliban and a number of al Qaeda and Afghan Taliban-linked militants—expert panelists will discuss the status of the Waziristan operation and its impact on regional security concerns. Shuja Nawaz, director of the South Asia Center of the Atlantic Council, Hassan Mneimneh, al Qaeda expert and senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, and Ali Al-Ahmed, director of the Institute for Gulf Affairs, will participate in a panel moderated by Frederick W. Kagan, director of AEI's Critical Threats Project.