This Week in War. A Friday round-up of what happened and what’s been written in the world of war and military/security affairs this week. It’s a mix of news reports, policy briefs, blog posts and longform journalism. Subscribe here to receive this round-up by email.
- The resignation of Syrian opposition leader Moaz al-Khatib troubles the movement. although they’ve told him he cannot resign.
- Colonel Riad Al-Asaad, founder of the Free Syrian Army, lost his leg in a car bomb in an assassination attempt. He is recovering at a hospital in Turkey.
- The Syrian opposition government will represent the country at the upcoming Arab League summit in Doha.
- The Syrian opposition has opened its first embassy, in Qatar.
- A former US soldier who served from 2000-03 was arrested upon his return to the US from Syria, where he allegedly took up arms with the Al-Nusra brigade, considered a terror group by the US.
- Israel destroyed a machine gun nest inside Syria after troops in the Golan Heights were shot at twice.
- Human Rights Watch reports on the mass sexual violence and other abuse faced by internally-displaced Somalis.
- Interethnic violence in Nigeria killed at least 27 on Wednesday.
- The UN approved a new combat force, called an intervention brigade, in the Congo.
- Former Congolese rebel commander Bosco Ntaganda, known as “The Terminator,” appeared before the ICC for the first time on charges of rape, murder, sexual slavery and using child soldiers.
- A coup in the Central African Republic and a dissolution of its constitution puts power in the hands of rebel leader Michel Djotodia.
- An appeals court in Bahrain overturned the convictions of 21 medics for treating protesters two years ago.
- The US ceded control of Bagram prison to Afghanistan.
- Russia is currently in negotiations with NATO to set up military bases in Afghanistan after the US departs.
- AP’s Kathy Gannon interviews Afghans who have fled their homes in an attempt to escape the American drones.
- The Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan have threatened the life of former President Pervez Musharraf.
- Pakistan estimates the human losses for its country in the war on terror at 49,000.
- Authorities raided the offices of the Russian headquarters of Amnesty International. This is the latest in a set of moves by the Kremlin to harass and pressure NGOs.
- British police continue to search for clues in the death of Russian tycoon-in-exile Boris Berezovsky.
- Thailand has begun peace talks with southern rebel group Barisan Revolusi Nasional.
- The US and South Korea have signed a pact outlining their communication policies and responses to potential North Korean aggression.
- North Korea has ordered artillery and rockets into ‘combat posture,’ threatening to target US bases in Hawai’i, Guam and the mainland.
- North Korea is cutting off communication with South Korea.
- Iran, Syria and North Korea blocked the arms trade treaty in the UN. Britain and others have requested that the Secretary General put the draft resolution to a vote in the GA to bypass the blockade.
- Newly-released court documents show that Somali Shabab commander Ahmed Abdelkadir Warsame, captured in 2011, has pleaded guilty in a closed court proceeding in Manhattan and has been cooperating by disclosing intelligence on Shabab and Al-Qaeda.
- The US has sentenced Chinese national and former L-3 Communications employee Liu Sixing of exporting military information to China.
- “Out of Sight, Out of Mind,” a visually stunning and well-designed interactive about every drone strike in Pakistan and their victims.
- Photographs taken by Charles Haughey, who served in Vietnam and took photographs for the Army and the press, have been rediscovered and put on display.
- According to a Harvard study, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will ultimately cost taxpayers between $4 and 6 trillion.
Photo: Manama, Bahrain. A girl holds the flag at a rally in solidarity with imprisoned activist Nabeel Rajab. Mohammed Al-shaikh/AFP/Getty.
This Week in War. A Friday round-up of what happened and what’s been written in the world of war and military/security affairs this week. It’s a mix of news reports, policy briefs, blog posts and longform journalism. Subscribe here to receive this round-up by email.
- Recent News: A shooting late Thursday night at Marine Base Quantico has left three dead, including the suspect.
- The Syrian opposition and the Assad government have been trading accusations of chemical weapons use.
- Syrian rebels have overtaken several towns near the border with the Golan Heights.
- Pro-Assad hackers infiltrated the Human Rights Watch website.
- Mohammed Said Ramadan al-Bouti, a senior Sunni cleric and Assad supporter, was reportedly killed in a blast yesterday in Damascus.
- George Butler’s watercolor dispatch from Syria.
- A meeting of EU foreign ministers in Dublin today focuses on action on the Syrian civil war.
- The role of the camera in the human rights situation in the occupied West Bank.
- President Obama made a fairly optimistically toned visit to Israel and Palestine.
- Jailed Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan has declared an immediate ceasefire and withdrawal from Turkish territory.
- Over the weekend, at least 14 journalists in Egypt were attacked by the police and supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood.
- Human Rights Watch released satellite imagery of the human rights abuses and revenge crimes against people in Libya believed to have been loyalists.
- Kenyan President-elect Uhuru Kenyatta is challenging the ICC case against him.
- A car bomb in the Somali capital of Mogadishu killed ten people on Monday, including VOA journalist Mohammed Ali Nuxurkey.
- Abdiaziz Abdinur Ibrahim, a Somali journalist who was arrested for interviewing a rape victim, now freed, speaks out.
- A UN-backed dialogue on a new constitution is ongoing in Yemen.
- Israel’s new housing minister, Uri Ariel, has pledged more settlements.
- March 19th was the ten year anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003: here’s an archived Guardian article from that day. And here’s President Bush’s video announcement of the invasion.
- Jon Lee Anderson: “How We Forgot Iraq.”
- The real story behind the toppling of Saddam’s statue in Firdos Square.
- NPR revisits Iraq with exiled poet Dunya Mikhail.
- As of September 2012 there remained at least 1.3 million internally displaced persons in Iraq.
- George Packer writes eloquently about the anniversary and about his time in Iraq during the war.
- 55 photojournalists share the photo of the last decade of war that is to them most significant or meaningful.
- “Am I a Torturer?” Veterans question themselves after “softening up” detainees.
- Photographer Jo Metson Scott’s new book shows dissenting soldiers in Iraq.
- A selection of AP photographer David Guttenfelder’s photographs from Iraq in 2003.
- A collection of some of the most iconic images of the war taken by Reuters photographers.
- The Kuwaiti parliament passed legislation to naturalize roughly 4000 Bidoon (the “stateless”).
- 18 have been indicted in Iran for involvement in the deaths of nuclear scientists. There have been at least five such killings since 2010.
- Afghan and US officials are working out a deal that will most likely allow elite US forces to remain in Wardak province.
- Pakistani officials arrested militant Qari Abdul Hayee, a suspect in the 2002 murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.
- Clashes between Buddhist and Muslim communities in Meikhtila, Myanmar over the past two days have left 20 dead.
- China is now the world’s fifth largest arms exporter, its arms exports having grown by 162% between 2008 and 2012 in comparison to the previous five year period. Pakistan accounted for 55% of these sales.
- UN negotiators began a final round of talks to complete an international arms trade treaty.
- A new study estimates that 253,000 US guns are smuggled into Mexico every year. 2.2% of gun sales are made to smuggling rings that traffick them into Mexico. Read the full study (pdf).
- Colombian journalist Germán Uribe, the victim of a violent assault, has suspending his writing and reporting as a consequence.
- The Pentagon wants to build a new prison at Guantánamo.
- Quil Lawrence and Marisa Peñaloza report on the threat of rape to female servicemembers.
- A wonderful essay by Brandon Friedman at the New York Times At War blog: “The End of War Stories.”
Photo: Kabul, Afghanistan. A soldier in the Afghan army looks out over the city. Visible is Kart-e-Sakhi mosque. Ahmad Jamshid/AP.
politicsbestrangerthanfiction:
![thepoliticalnotebook:
This Week in War. A Friday round-up of what happened and what’s been written in the world of war and military/security affairs this week. It’s a mix of news reports, policy briefs, blog posts and longform journalism. Subscribe here to receive this round-up by email.
A member of the EU’s Syria delegation was killed in a rocket attack.
A report from the charitable organization Save the Children details the murder, rape, torture and trauma inflicted on the children of Syria. [PDF] UNICEF released a statement calling this generation of Syrian children a “lost generation.”
Rebels released 21 UN peacekeepers on Saturday.
Ankar Kochneva, a Ukrainian journalist captive for several months in Syria, has escaped.
Syria has increasingly lost control of the border with Iraq.
The Guardian investigates why 110 bodies washed up in the river running through Aleppo.
The UN has disputed the claim that BBC video editor Jehad Mashshrawi’s baby son was killed in an Israeli rocket attack. The BBC is challenging this counterclaim, saying there is little evidence that the rocket was instead a Hamas misfire.
Hazem Kandil on deadlock in Cairo in the LRB.
An unemployed man who self-immolated in Tunisia’s capital died on Wednesday.
Journalists are on strike in Mali to demand the release of Boukary Daou, editor of the Le Républicain.
Kurdish rebels released 8 Turks in a promising move for the peace process.
Western weapons are the tools of a crackdown in Azerbaijan.
Seymour Hersh notes the tenth anniversary of the bombing of Iraq.
The Guardian tracks down the stories from the most iconic images of the Iraq War.
The New York Times’ Lens Blog reprints Dexter Filkins’ introduction to Photojournalists at War, an oral history of the war from the photojournalists who saw from the front lines.
The family of Amir Hekmati, an Iranian-American former Marine who has been held in Iran for the last 19 months, is pleading for his release.
On the two year anniversary of the Saudi-led intervention, clashes between protesters and security forces have erupted in Bahrain.
The USAF is no longer reporting drone strike data from Afghanistan.
The Atlantic In Focus has a collection of stunning black and white photos (like the one above) taken of anti-Taliban militia activity in Afghanistan.
Mazar-i-Sharif is facing a wave of suicides, particularly young women.
A suicide bomber detonated at a buzkashi game on Wednesday in the province of Kunduz, killing ten.
Monday was the deadliest day so far this year for American troops in Afghanistan: 5 soldiers were killed in a helicopter crash in the east.
Over this weekend, Staff Sgt. Bales will begin a court-ordered sanity review.
Parveen Rehman, a well-known Pakistani aid worker and the head of the Orangi Pilot Project to help people escape poverty, was killed by four gunmen on Wednesday.
Former President Pervez Musharraf will return home to Pakistan after four years of self-imposed exile in Dubai.
Gunmen kidnapped two Czech tourists in southwest Pakistan.
Peace talks may have begun with FARC and the economy may be looking up in Colombia, but the Afro-Colombian population seems to have been left behind.
A Chilean court has ordered the exhumation of Pablo Neruda as part of an investigation into allegations that he was poisoned following the 1973 military coup that replaced Salvador Allende with Gen. Augusto Pinochet.
Remembering when journalists became part of the story during Northern Ireland’s Troubles.
Gen. Keith Alexander, the chief of the newly-created Cyber Command, testified before Congress this Tuesday alongside top intelligence official James R. Clapper Jr.
Court documents from the failed federal prosecution of Blackwater reveal a previously secret CIA past.
Kenneth Roth of Human Rights Watch asks what rules ought to govern drones.
Listen to Bradley Manning’s leaked court statement.
Secretary Hagel has ordered a review of the overturning of a jury conviction of an Air Force Lt on charges of aggravated sexual assault.
Senators like Kirsten Gillibrand grilled military leaders over this case and sexual assault in the military in a senate hearing.
If you would like to receive this round-up as a weekly email, you can sign up through this form, or email me directly at torierosedeghett@gmail.com.
Photo: Logar Province, Afghanistan. Farzad Akbari, the young son of anti-Taliban militia commander Farhad Akbari, poses armed for a photograph. Vikram Singh.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/439add47d69c32041aced22e71401ac8/tumblr_mjnazrC38P1qchhhqo1_500.jpg)
This Week in War. A Friday round-up of what happened and what’s been written in the world of war and military/security affairs this week. It’s a mix of news reports, policy briefs, blog posts and longform journalism. Subscribe here to receive this round-up by email.
- A member of the EU’s Syria delegation was killed in a rocket attack.
- A report from the charitable organization Save the Children details the murder, rape, torture and trauma inflicted on the children of Syria. [PDF] UNICEF released a statement calling this generation of Syrian children a “lost generation.”
- Rebels released 21 UN peacekeepers on Saturday.
- Ankar Kochneva, a Ukrainian journalist captive for several months in Syria, has escaped.
- Syria has increasingly lost control of the border with Iraq.
- The Guardian investigates why 110 bodies washed up in the river running through Aleppo.
- The UN has disputed the claim that BBC video editor Jehad Mashshrawi’s baby son was killed in an Israeli rocket attack. The BBC is challenging this counterclaim, saying there is little evidence that the rocket was instead a Hamas misfire.
- Hazem Kandil on deadlock in Cairo in the LRB.
- An unemployed man who self-immolated in Tunisia’s capital died on Wednesday.
- Journalists are on strike in Mali to demand the release of Boukary Daou, editor of the Le Républicain.
- Kurdish rebels released 8 Turks in a promising move for the peace process.
- Western weapons are the tools of a crackdown in Azerbaijan.
- Seymour Hersh notes the tenth anniversary of the bombing of Iraq.
- The Guardian tracks down the stories from the most iconic images of the Iraq War.
- The New York Times’ Lens Blog reprints Dexter Filkins’ introduction to Photojournalists at War, an oral history of the war from the photojournalists who saw from the front lines.
- The family of Amir Hekmati, an Iranian-American former Marine who has been held in Iran for the last 19 months, is pleading for his release.
- On the two year anniversary of the Saudi-led intervention, clashes between protesters and security forces have erupted in Bahrain.
- The USAF is no longer reporting drone strike data from Afghanistan.
- The Atlantic In Focus has a collection of stunning black and white photos (like the one above) taken of anti-Taliban militia activity in Afghanistan.
- Mazar-i-Sharif is facing a wave of suicides, particularly young women.
- A suicide bomber detonated at a buzkashi game on Wednesday in the province of Kunduz, killing ten.
- Monday was the deadliest day so far this year for American troops in Afghanistan: 5 soldiers were killed in a helicopter crash in the east.
- Over this weekend, Staff Sgt. Bales will begin a court-ordered sanity review.
- Parveen Rehman, a well-known Pakistani aid worker and the head of the Orangi Pilot Project to help people escape poverty, was killed by four gunmen on Wednesday.
- Former President Pervez Musharraf will return home to Pakistan after four years of self-imposed exile in Dubai.
- Gunmen kidnapped two Czech tourists in southwest Pakistan.
- Peace talks may have begun with FARC and the economy may be looking up in Colombia, but the Afro-Colombian population seems to have been left behind.
- A Chilean court has ordered the exhumation of Pablo Neruda as part of an investigation into allegations that he was poisoned following the 1973 military coup that replaced Salvador Allende with Gen. Augusto Pinochet.
- Remembering when journalists became part of the story during Northern Ireland’s Troubles.
- Gen. Keith Alexander, the chief of the newly-created Cyber Command, testified before Congress this Tuesday alongside top intelligence official James R. Clapper Jr.
- Court documents from the failed federal prosecution of Blackwater reveal a previously secret CIA past.
- Kenneth Roth of Human Rights Watch asks what rules ought to govern drones.
- Listen to Bradley Manning’s leaked court statement.
- Secretary Hagel has ordered a review of the overturning of a jury conviction of an Air Force Lt on charges of aggravated sexual assault.
- Senators like Kirsten Gillibrand grilled military leaders over this case and sexual assault in the military in a senate hearing.
Photo: Logar Province, Afghanistan. Farzad Akbari, the young son of anti-Taliban militia commander Farhad Akbari, poses armed for a photograph. Vikram Singh.
Milky Way Panorama from Mauna Kea
Image Credit & Copyright: Wally Pacholka (TWAN)
(Source: perfectionwithinimperfection, via pax-cafune)
“Now, Afghans are fighting Afghans.” — And in Afghanistan, that counts as progress. (via sunnyinkabul)
[video]
[video]
‘Batman’ delivers wanted man to police in England
BBC News: A man dressed as Batman has handed over a wanted man at a Bradford, England, police station before disappearing into the night.
Police said: ‘The person who brought the man in was dressed in a full Batman outfit. His identity remains unknown.’
Photo via West Yorkshire Police
This Week in War. A Friday round-up of what happened and what’s been written in the world of war and military/security affairs this week. It’s a mix of news reports, policy briefs, blog posts and longform journalism. Subscribe here to receive this round-up by email.
Notice: This Week in War, both the post and the newsletter, will be on hiatus next Friday.
- French photographer Olivier Voisin died on Sunday of wounds sustained in Idlib, Syria last Thursday.
- More than 40,000 people flee Syria every week, and the UN says that the total number of refugees is set to reach a million within the month.
- The US will more than double its support of the Syrian opposition and offer “non-lethal aid.”
- Saudi Arabia has funneled a large amount of infantry weapons purchased in Croatia to rebels in Syria in hopes of ending the stalemate.
- The Syrian opposition claims to have captured a former nuclear site.
- Palestinian prisoner Arafat Jaradat died in prison over the weekend. Palestinian officials have claimed torture, as evidenced in autopsy findings, which Israel disputes. He was given a hero’s funeral this week.
- Two Palestinian prisoners have ended their hunger strikes.
- A Turkish draft plan to end the 28-year Kurdish insurgency has met with promising response. Jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan has promised to withdraw militants by August if the promised reforms are pushed through in Ankara.
- Tunisia has captured their suspect in the murder of Chokri Belaid.
- A Swiss woman held for a year by armed tribesmen in Yemen has been released.
- Qatari poet Muhammad al-Ajami’s life sentence for encouraging the overthrow of the government has been reduced to a fifteen year sentence.
- Discussions resumed over Iran’s nuclear program for the first time since July.
- Lawmakers introduced harsh new Iran sanctions to Congress on Wednesday.
- The National goes inside Tehran’s Evin prison.
- According to the UN, Iran has stepped up arrests, torture and executions of prisoners.
- Former Iranian prosecutor and Ahmadinejad ally Saeed Mortazavi has been charged with being an accessory to murder in the deaths of anti-government protesters.
- Farmers in Esfahan province clashed with Iranian police sent to provide security for a pipeline destroyed last week amidst a water dispute between Esfahan and Yazd.
- Karzai ordered US special forces out of Wardak province due to allegations against the special forces of disappearances and torture.
- What kind of merit do these allegations have? Nobody seems able to cut beyond rumor and the US isn’t being forthcoming.
- A joint Afghan-NATO inquiry will explore these claims.
- The Wall Street Journal obtained access to an internal UN report which says that the UN Development Program has allowed procurement fraud to flourish in its $2.5 billion Law and Order Trust Fund for Afghanistan, which bankrolls the Afghan police.
- On Tuesday, Taliban militants poisoned and then shot 17 people in a government outpost in Ghazni province, Afghanistan.
- Recently reported statistics on drops in Taliban attacks were apparently incorrect due to a clerical error.
- Gunmen killed veteran Pakistani journalist Malik Mumtaz in north Waziristan. The Tehreek-e Taliban have denied involvement in his murder.
- Founder and former leader of militant group Lashkar e-Jhangvi Malik Ishaq was detained by Pakistani police.
- The groundbreaking for a Pakistan-Iran gas pipeline, which has been in the works on and off since 1994, will be March 11th.
- Thailand has agreed to talks with the Barisan Revolusi Nasional rebel group.
- Dennis Rodman and Vice Mag have had just a lovely time visiting North Korea.
- Mexico estimates that 26,000 people have gone missing since 2006.
- A rule of law argument against a “drone court.”
- Confirmed and sworn in, Hagel has begun his duties as Secretary of Defense.
- One of the documentaries given an Oscar nod last weekend was Invisible War, which seeks to shed light on military sexual assault.
- Former Air Force recruit Virginia Messick is speaking out about her assault at age 19 by Staff Sgt. Luis Walker.
- A Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on military sexual assault has been planned.
- Returning female veterans face a growing problem with homelessness, PTSD and substance abuse.
- CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou reported to prison yesterday to begin his 30-month prison term.
- Bradley Manning pleaded guilty to ten charges on Thursday and offered a defense and explanation of his actions.
- Earlier this week, the Pentagon bowed to pressure and released 84 previously unpublished trial documents from the ongoing Manning proceedings. Here are the documents themselves.
- A New York Times Room for Debate section on what an act of cyberwar might actually be.
- The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected a challenge to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act which broadened the government’s eavesdropping abilities. This shows the difficulty in challenging anti-terrorism measures in court, and probably means that the Supreme Court will never take up consideration of FISA’s constitutionality.
- An interesting new Gallup poll results show that although most Americans (more Republicans than Democrats) think that it’s important that the US have the number one military, only 50% of the country thinks we actually are number one militarily. This is a significant drop from 2010, when 64% thought we were.
Photo: A Bahraini protester waves the national flag at demonstrations sparked by the funeral of teenager killed during protests in the village of Jabalat Habshi. Mohammed Al-Shaikh/AFP.
If you’re not reading @trdeghett’s “This Week in War”, you should.
A halo — caused by moonlight being refracted by ice crystal in the atmosphere — appears around the moon in Kvæfjord, Troms, Norway, on Feb. 19, 2013. (Photo: Steve Nisen via NBC News)
politicsbestrangerthanfiction:
today he must feel like:
but tomorrow he’ll probably feel more like:
RETHINKING SECURITY: The Real Sources of American Militarism -
In my blogs and Tweets, I have generally pooh-poohed the idea that mil-style gear equates to police militarization or that domestic use of unarmed unmanned aerial vehicles is a harbinger of Predator strikes on Main Street. In general, we can criticize the human cost and mistakes of poor national…
