Hina Shamsi writes: On Friday night, in response to transparency lawsuits filed by the ACLU and the New York Times, the Biden administration released a redacted version of President Trump’s rules for the use of lethal force against terrorism suspects abroad. During the Trump administration, the Times and other media reported that the Trump rules… Read More »
The Washington Post reports: Taliban checkpoints have proliferated across key parts of Afghanistan as U.S. forces have withdrawn over the past year, leaving Afghan towns and cities increasingly isolated and impeding the Afghan government’s ability to function. Dozens of temporary Taliban checkpoints now dot the main highways leading into and out of the Afghan capital,… Read More »
Garrett M. Graff writes: On the morning of May 1, 2011, most Americans had never heard of Abbottabad. By that night, the dusty midsize city near the mountains of northwest Pakistan was the center of the biggest story in the world. A team of U.S. Navy SEALs had just descended by helicopter on a high-walled… Read More »
The Wall Street Journal reports: Russia has moved warplanes to Crimea and bases near Ukraine to an extent greater than has previously been disclosed, adding to its capability for political intimidation or military intervention, according to commercial satellite photos of areas being used for the military buildup. The photos, which were reviewed by The Wall… Read More »
Wesley Morgan writes: The senior U.S. officer in the Pech, Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Ryan, surprised me when I interviewed him about his battalion’s mission. Forty-one years old but with less gray in his short haircut than some of his company commanders, Ryan was a West Point graduate from Pearl River, New York, and he had… Read More »
The Daily Beast reports: Hours after the Biden administration announced that the remaining 3,500 American troops will return from Afghanistan by the twentieth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, a Taliban spokesperson announced a refusal to join U.S.-facilitated peace talks between the Islamic group and the Afghan government. “Until all foreign forces completely withdraw from… Read More »
Al Jazeera reports: As the world marked 10 years since the start of the uprising in Syria last week, renewed efforts are under way to hold President Bashar al-Assad’s government accountable for abuses in the war-torn country. Canada announced this month that it is joining the Netherlands in an international effort to seek justice under… Read More »
The Washington Post reports: Russia is steadily massing its largest military presence in years near the Ukrainian border — on land and at sea — as the Kremlin tests Western support for Kyiv and its battles against pro-Moscow separatists less than three months into the Biden administration. Russia’s motivations for the buildup are still unclear… Read More »
Christopher Miller reports: The staccato crack of gunfire rang out across the cloudy night, startling residents of a modest enclave in southwestern Florida. Lee County sheriff’s deputies, responding to a flood of 911 calls, raced to the area, but in the dark they were unable to find where the shooting had taken place. It wasn’t… Read More »
The New York Times reports: The Taliban’s swagger is unmistakable. From the recent bellicose speech of their deputy leader, boasting of “conquests,” to sneering references to the “foreign masters” of the “illegitimate” Kabul government, to the Taliban’s own website tally of “puppets” killed — Afghan soldiers — they are promoting a bold message: We have… Read More »
Charles Lister and Jeffrey Feltman write: From Syria’s northwest, one of the biggest humanitarian crises in the world can look a lot like an endless traffic jam. Every day, lines of trucks loaded with food, water, clothes, medical supplies and construction equipment wait to cross from Turkey into the Syrian hills. Once they manage to… Read More »
An open letter from a group of Syrian writers and intellectuals and others who stand in solidarity with them, says: Since the beginning of the Syrian uprising ten years ago, and especially since Russia intervened in Syria on behalf of Bashar al-Assad, there has been a curious and malign development: the emergence of pro-Assad allegiances… Read More »
A British professor corresponded for months with a man called only “Ivan”, seeking assistance to discredit an organisation that helps bring Syrian war criminals to justice. He also asked “Ivan” to investigate other British academics and journalists. The email exchange, seen by the BBC, reveals how, a decade on from the start of the Syrian… Read More »
In an editorial, The Observer says: He turned his country into a graveyard. Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed, including 25,000 children. Millions more have been forced to flee. Terrible crimes – war crimes, crimes against humanity, widespread torture, indiscriminate bombing, chemical attacks – have been committed in his name, and continue to… Read More »
Judy Batalion writes: In 1943, Niuta Teitelbaum strolled into a Gestapo apartment on Chmielna Street in central Warsaw and faced three Nazis. A 24-year-old Jewish woman who had studied history at Warsaw University, Niuta was likely now dressed in her characteristic guise as a Polish farm girl with a kerchief tied around her braided blond… Read More »
The Washington Post reports: With his gaunt frame, haunted face and copious tears, Mazen al-Hamada became a poster boy for the suffering of Syrian torture victims. After escaping from Syria to the Netherlands, he traveled widely, sharing with audiences across the United States and Europe stories of the horrors he endured in a Damascus prison.… Read More »