Ambassador Daniel Benjamin, the State Department's coordinator for counter- terrorism, spoke at a conference of military professionals Wednesday on how to eliminate terrorist and extremist groups.
Attendees at the conference included military and civilian practitioners, U.S. academics, policymakers and subject-matter experts. Amb. Benjamin will address groups who are currently evolving including the Taliban, al-Qaida, and the Nepali Maoists.
Later in the day, panel discussions addressed the future of these groups, and methods for disrupting their growth.
This event comes one day after President Obama landed in Afghanistan to sign a security pact with Afghan President Hamid Karzai that covers the relationship between the United States and Afghanistan after 2014 when the current strategic forces agreement ends.
The one-year anniversary of the raid on Osama Bin Laden has many security experts talking about the future of al-Qaida and other terrorist organizations that share it's ideology. Based on a release of some of the documents that were seized in last year's raid, news organizations are reporting that al-Qaida is split between the organization, which has shrunk over the past 10 years, and the ideology, which drives splinter and affiliate groups like al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula in Yemen and Al-Shabab in Somalia.