I have a long review in the New Republic of Mark Mazzetti’s excellent new book, The Way of the Knife. The first half of the review simply summarizes the book, the main point of which is to demonstrate how … Read more »
Several years ago, in a prescient op-ed in the Washington Post, our colleague John Bellinger argued that the September 2001 AUMF was an increasingly poor fit for the evolving threats facing the United States. It is a theme to which … Read more »
Yesterday, the AP released an English translation of what appears to be a 2011 Al Qaeda tip sheet. (AP journalists evidently found the document in Timbuktu.) Its author, AQAP senior commander Abdullah bin Mohammed, catalogs twenty-two handy methods by … Read more »
My colleague at Brookings, Daniel Byman, and I have written a lengthy paper on the different tools the United States uses in going after citizens abroad believed to have allied themselves with the enemy. The paper is still a draft, … Read more »
In the President’s State of the Union Address, President Obama spent a fair amount of time on foreign policy and Lawfare-related matters. In addition to announcing his cybersecurity executive order, he discussed draw-down plans for Afghanistan, how to deal … Read more »
The Hoover Institution Task Force on National Security and Law is releasing a series of short essays entitled “Second Term Challenges at the Intersection of National Security and Law.” The task force, of which I and several other Lawfare contributors … Read more »
John Brennan, nominated by President Obama to become the next CIA director, will apparently face some tough questioning from Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) at his Senate confirmation hearings (reportedly set for Thursday, February 7, 2:30 pm). Sen. Wyden has sent … Read more »
Whether you support or oppose the broader U.S. war on terrorism, you are likely to use Yemen to prove your point. Those who are optimistic about the struggle contend that the Al Qaeda core has taken repeated body blows in … Read more »
At this hour, Pentagon General Counsel Jeh Johnson is giving the following speech at the Oxford Union in England:
“The Conflict Against Al Qaeda and its Affiliates: How Will It End?”
Jeh Charles Johnson
General Counsel of the U.S. Department
The other day, my Brookings colleague Daniel Byman held an event entitled “Yemen and the Future of a Resurgent Al Qaeda.” One of the two panelists was Gregory Johnsen, the author of the recently-released book, The Last Refuge: … Read more »
Bobby posted a day ago about an important Wall Street Journal news story talking about the US government considering options for pursuing an increasing active and dangerous branch-franchise-affiliate of Al Qaeda, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). They include … Read more »
I have now read through the ACLU-CCR lawsuit on behalf of the Al-Aulaqi and Khan families. Here are my initial thoughts:
First, this lawsuit does not suffer from the prohibitive standing problem that plagued these groups’ earlier efforts to block … Read more »
We will have two final posts in our discussion sparked by Mark Mazzetti’s New York Times Magazine article, The Drone Zone. This one by Michael Lewis, a former Navy fighter pilot and now professor at Ohio Northern State University Pettit … Read more »
Today’s report includes the boilerplate-for-such-documents “consistent with the War Powers Resolution” phrase. It also includes the excerpt below regarding counterterrorism efforts in Yemen and Somalia:
In Somalia, the U.S. military has worked to counter the terrorist threat posed by al-Qa’ida
A correspondent who prefers to remain anonymous point out the following irony. In my recent post on Dan Klaidman’s book, I quoted the following passage:
The discussion continued for close to two hours, with Obama often asking pointed questions
The scope of the leak investigations announced by Attorney General Holder yesterday remains unclear. Holder appointed U.S. Attorneys Ronald Machen and Rod Rosenstein to “direct[]separate investigations currently being conducted by the FBI.” But he did not say what those investigations … Read more »
If you don’t already follow Gregory Johnsen’s Yemen-focused blog, you should. His most recent post, which talks about the complexities associated with attributing AQAP membership to particular persons in Yemen, is typically informative. I have long been interested in … Read more »
A number of sources are reporting the discovery of a complex malware toolkit, mostly described as “Flame,” which appears to have been distributed in a targeted fashion to infect computers in Iran in particular, though also throughout the Middle East. … Read more »
Now sooner did I complain about the lack of editorial response to John Brennan’s speech on drones than the Washington Post has published this editorial on drone strikes in Yemen. The editorial goes on to praise Brennan’s speech and give … Read more »
Over at Opinio Juris, Gabor Rona of Human Rights First offers an extended critique of John Brennan’s speech on the use of lethal force. It is an interesting and provocative post, leading me to share a few thoughts in response.… Read more »
With Anwar al-Awlaki dead, one hears relatively little these days regarding the progress of events in Yemen in relation to AQAP and U.S. involvement there. Which is remarkable, because some very interesting and important things have been happening against the … Read more »
Drone strikes in Southern Yemen killed nine members of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) on Friday, including Ibrahim al-Bana, the terrorist organization’s media chief, and, according to tribal elders in the area, Abdul-Rahman al-Aulaqi, the son of Anwar … Read more »
Yesterday, the New York Times reported that Samir Khan, a 25-year old U.S. citizen from North Carolina, was killed in the same drone strike that targeted Anwar al-Aulaqi. According to Foreign Policy, Khan “helped create the media architecture of … Read more »
Well, yes, in Yemen, in absentia. According to al-Jazeera, the government of Yemen indicted al-Awlaki and his cousin (Othman al-Awlaki) for inciting another man–Hisham Mohammed Assem–to carry out an attack on westerners at an oil facility where Assem worked … Read more »
Friday, May 24, 2013
Coverage of President Obama’s speech yesterday is plentiful: Here are Peter Baker of the New York Times, Karen DeYoung and Greg Miller of the Washington Post, and Mark Mazzetti of the Times with an analysis of the key points of the speech. Scott Wilson of the Post also provides a rundown of the speech, and cites Ben. The Associated Press reports on lifting the transfer ban on Yemeni detainees, and Colleen McCain Nelson, Adam Entous, and Julia E. Barnes… Read more »
