Last week, Nathalie and I wrote about the international law questions U.S. executive officials were likely considering while contemplating the continued detention and ultimate fate of the sole known ISIS detainee, and surely must have contemplated in the lead-up to her capture. Now Shane Harris and Nancy Youssef have an article in the Daily Beast titled “U.S.

Critical attention to the Obama Administration’s handling of the ongoing conflict with al Qaeda and associated forces tends to center on debates over drones and targeted killing, not captures. This may be due at least in part to the fact that, over the course of President Obama’s entire tenure in office, the United States has conducted almost no law-of-war capture and detention operations outside of the Afghan theater.

On Tuesday, Ben and Cody noted the apparent tension between President Obama's Memorial Day comments about the end of the war in Afghanistan and the Justice Department's arguments in the Al Warafi case.

Today’s White House statement about last night’s spectacular Special Operations raid into Syria states that “This operation was conducted with the full consent of Iraqi authorities and, like our existing airstrikes against ISIL in Syria, consistent with domestic and international law.” However, the raid raises complicated questions about the domestic and international law basis both for the incursion into Syria, and for the detention of Abu Sayyaf’s wife