The dictionary defines a “kris” as “a Malayan and Indonesian stabbing or slashing knife with a scalloped edge.” On this site, however, The Way of the Kris is not some new Mark Mazzetti book about Obama administration counterterrorism … Read more »

The Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington, DC hosted an excellent discussion yesterday on targeted killing in which “[p]anelists evaluated issues like the current frameworks regarding the use of drones, the ramifications of a ‘drone court,’ the targeting of U.S. citizens … Read more »

While we are on the subject of Mark Mazzetti’s The Way of the Knife, and for that matter while we are speaking of Mali, check out this Washington Post report on U.S. boots being on the ground in … Read more »

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 »

I wonder what Ben Emmerson was thinking when he watched CNN this evening. Emmerson, the UN Special Rapporteur on Counterterrorism and Human Rights who is conducting an investigation into the legality of the U.S. targeted killing program, concluded after a … Read more »

The New York Times has posted a lengthy and very interesting article by reporter Mark Mazzetti entitled “Rise of the Predators: A Secret Deal on Drones, Sealed in Blood,” which will appear on tomorrow’s front page. The piece is an … Read more »

As Ben and Gregory McNeal posted earlier, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Counterterrorism and Human Rights, Ben Emmerson, issued this statement on March 14 after a three-day visit to Pakistan, in which he concluded that U.S. drone strikes are, … Read more »

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Scott Shane, Mark Mazzetti, and Charlie Savage of The New York Times have this lengthy article on the hunt for Anwar Al-Aulaqi.  Their piece describes, among other things, the legal analyses that approved of Al-Aulaqi’s killing.

Interestingly, the … Read more »

Laurie Blank, professor at Emory Law School and director of its International Humanitarian Law Clinic, gives Lawfare the last in the series of guest comments on Mark Mazzetti’s New York Times Magazine article, “The Drone Zone.”  Although the initial hook … 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 »

Continuing the discussion surrounding issues of personal risk and combat in relation to drone warfare (Anderson on Mazzetti, Corn, and Rona, we add this comment from Charles Dunlap, professor at Duke University Law School and a … Read more »

Gabor Rona, international legal director of Human Rights First and esteemed commenter on several Lawfare posts, sends us this further comment on the Lawfare discussion around Mark Mazzett’s New York Times Magazine piece from last weekend, The Drone Zone.  (Ken … Read more »

Geoffrey Corn, professor of law at South Texas College of Law and former JAG officer and chief of the law of war branch of the international law division of the US Army, sends in the following comment on Ken Anderson’s … Read more »

Mark Mazzetti is a fine reporter at the New York Times and I follow his work closely on the front pages, but reading his new piece in the Sunday New York Times Magazine this week, “The Drone Zone,” it … Read more »

Yesterday I noted that a series of recent news articles suggest that only the CIA can lawfully conduct strikes without the host-state’s consent, and that this is one reason (in addition to various policy considerations) why CIA soon will join … Read more »

A series of articles over the past few days have discussed plans for the CIA to operate armed drones in Yemen, where U.S. armed forces already have been using lethal force against AQAP targets (cruise missiles, missiles from piloted aircraft, … Read more »

Mark Mazzetti has a very important story in the Times noting that, far from backing away from using lethal force against AQAP targets in Yemen during this time of political instability, the US has stepped up its operations over the … Read more »

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Mark Mazzetti and Salman Masood for the New York Times report an immensely disturbing development in Pakistan.  A Pakistani lawyer named Mirza Shahzad Akbar has filed a complaint with Pakistani authorities requesting legal action against the … Read more »

There are several reports circulating in the media concerning Monday’s drone strike in Pakistan, the one said to have killed a group of men from Germany linked to recent warnings of an impending attack in Europe. Interestingly, they are inconsistent … Read more »