ON THE FIGHT
Two men suspected of being insurgents linked to Al Qaeda were killed in a drone strike in Yemen’s eastern region of Hadramawt on Friday, a local security official said. The two men were riding a motorcycle west of the coastal town of Al-Sheher when the pilotless aircraft fired at them, the official said.
Welcome to northern Mali, a once-stable region now overrun with Islamic militants and the harshest interpretation of Sharia law.
After the United Nations Security Council authorized a military campaign to retake the region last week, Islamists in Gao, Mr. Touré’s town, cut the hands off two more people accused of being thieves the very next day, a leading local official said, describing it as a brazen response to the United Nations resolution. Then the Islamists, undeterred by the international threats against them, warned reporters that eight others “will soon share the same fate.”
MI5 chief Jonathan Evans’s appointment as a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath comes during a long career dedicated to fighting terrorism. The Security Service director general took the top job almost six years ago at a time of unprecedented public focus on the agency in the wake the 9/11 attacks in the United States and the July 7 Tube bombings in London in 2005. Sir Jonathan said: “It’s a privilege to lead MI5 and I view this honour as a recognition of the significant contribution by the men and women of the Security Service in securing the Olympics this year and the country every year.”
Government soldiers on Friday battled to recapture a city held by rebels, a military official said, as regional negotiators continued to seek a peaceful end to the crisis by arranging for the two sides to talk.
Congress approved a measure Friday that would renew expansive U.S. surveillance authority for five more years, rejecting objections from senators who are concerned the legislation does not adequately protect Americans’ privacy. The bill passed the Senate, 73 to 23. The House approved it in September, and President Obama is expected to sign it before the current authority expires Monday. The lopsided Senate vote authorized a continuation of the government’s ability to eavesdrop on communications inside the United States involving foreign citizens without obtaining a specific warrant for each case. The surveillance has been credited with exposing several plots against U.S. targets but also has drawn fire from civil liberties advocates. “It produced and continues to produce significant information that is vital to defend the nation against international terrorism and other threats,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, who urged her colleagues to approve the extension without amendment so it would not need to be sent back to the House for a vote.
In a distressing video aired on national television stations on Thursday night, an Afghan National Army soldier first has his army identity card stuck in his mouth and is then ordered to say his name out loud, but can only mumble unintelligibly because of the card. The scene cuts and one of the killers stands behind him and shoots him in the head with a pistol, five times. Another man stands off to the side, out of his victim’s view, and fires three bursts from his AK-47 rifle into his torso. It was yet another example of a terrible truth, one that has been a commonplace for so long that it is seldom commented upon: insurgents in Afghanistan rarely take any prisoners.
ON THE FORCE
The hunter-killer approach has worked for the past decade and reached its apex with the Osama Bin Laden raid in May 2011, Robinson argues in a recent essay in Foreign Affairs. U.S. SOCOM Commander Adm. William McRaven is ready to move forward to a new era of fewer raids and more long-term partnerships with friendly nations’ militaries and civilian agencies, she says. The so-called “indirect” approach to combating terrorists, Robinson says, is more effective in the long term and will help U.S. special operations forces regain some balance after a stressful decade of nonstop fighting. “Many people in the special operations community tell me there ought to be a pivot away from direct to indirect approach, relying on partnerships,” Robinson says in a Dec. 18 conference call with reporters. “This is a perfect moment in the post Bin Laden era to pivot away from the extreme focus on drones and unilateral raids to let the special operations community use an indirect approach.”
“The nation’s most skilled terrorist killers want policymakers in Washington to acknowledge that a softer approach is needed in the war against extremist groups.” Military leaders including the commander of U.S. SOCOM are concerned about U.S. overreliance on drone attacks.
ON SECRECY – OR LACK THEREOF
“There’s nothing like a debate over warrantless wiretapping to clarify how the two parties really feel about government.”
Robert Caruso is a veteran of the United States Navy, and has worked for the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, Business Transformation Agency and the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
