Today's Headlines and Commenary

The Washington Post tells us that after two Palestinian attackers gunned down four Israelis last night in a crowded Tel Aviv market, Israel has deployed more troops to the West Bank and frozen 83,000 permits for Palestinians to enter Israel. The permits had initially been introduced as a goodwill measure to permit Palestinians easier travel during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. The shooting, which occurred the night before the anniversary of Israel’s seizure of the Golan Heights and which the Israeli government has labeled a terrorist attack, comes at a time when, according to Foreign Policy, Hamas operatives claim to be readying for another war.

Life under the Islamic State is apparently “hard,” at least that is the takeaway from the Post’s Matt Zapotosky profile of Mohamed Khweis, a Virginia native who left the United States to join the Islamic State. Khweis, who deserted ISIS and was then captured by the Kurdish peshmerga, was flown back to the United States this morning, where he will likely be charged in Alexandria’s federal district court with conspiring to provide material support to terrorists. While a recent congressional report estimated more than 250 Americans have tried or succeeded in joining ISIS, Khweis is the first American to be captured on the battlefield. The news comes on the heels of a recent interview FBI Director James Comey gave on Tuesday claiming that the Bureau is investigating roughly 1,000 ISIS-related cases across the nation. The Minnesota Star Tribune has more.

Violence continues to rock the Iraqi capital today. The Associated Press reports that two suicide bombs near Baghdad killed at least 31 people and wounded dozens more. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for both attacks. The first suicide attack, which claimed 19 lives and wounded 46 people, was launched in the Shiite-dominated neighborhood of New Baghdad. The second suicide bomber rammed his explosives-laden car into an Iraqi army checkpoint, killing at least 12 people including five soldiers and seven civilians.

As Iraqi security forces come closer to recapturing the Islamic State-controlled city of Fallujah, the Post discloses that the recent gains by Iraqi Shiite militias have triggered a surge in fundraising campaigns in Saudi Arabia, sending “charitable” funds to Sunni terrorist groups in the country. Saudi Major-General Mansour al Turki told the newspaper that while his country “cannot control the sympathies of people,” the KSA could clamp down on potentially fraudulent campaigns to raise money in “the name of the children of Fallujah.” The Saudi government has tightly regulated private donations earmarked for philanthropic causes abroad since 2004, and the kingdom seems particularly concerned with the latest uptick given the ongoing debate in Washington whether to declassify information in a 2002 congressional report on 9/11 that might closely link Saudi actors with the operatives — many of whom were Saudi — who carried out the 9/11 attacks.

The Times documents airstrikes that hit three hospitals in the rebel-controlled city of Aleppo, including a pediatrics center supported by the United Nations, on Wednesday. The air strikes all occurred within the space of three hours. While the exact casualty number has not been disclosed, the Times quotes one human rights group as claiming at least 10 Syrians, including children, were killed. The attack comes a day after President Bashar al Assad pledged to the Syrian Parliament that war would continue until he had retaken control of “every inch” of territory that his adversaries currently occupy.

As Western-backed rebels in Syria look to reclaim the city of Manbij from the Islamic State, AFP reveals that France has deployed special forces to advise the Syrian Democratic Forces. Echoing a similar prohibition for U.S. forces on the ground, a defense military official said French special forces are not supposed to engage in combat against Islamic State fighters. This is the first disclosure of France’s on-the-ground involvement in Syria, but the French government had previously acknowledged its presence in Iraq as a partner for Iraq’s Kurdish peshmerga.

Forces affiliated with Libya’s unity government clashed with Islamic State fighters in Sirte, the terrorist group’s principal stronghold in the country. Mohamed al Gasri, a military spokesman for the U.N.-backed Government of National Accord, said, “We think that Sirte will be liberated in days not weeks.” The GNA forces have already claimed control of a number of strategically significant sites in Sirte including the air base and several military barracks. The loss of Sirte would constitute a major blow to the Islamic State’s aspirations outside Iraq and Syria.

But despite the Islamic State’s setbacks in Sirte as well as the ongoing sieges in Fallujah and Manbij, the Associated Press records that U.N. Undersecretary-General Jeffrey Feltman asserted on Wednesday that the Islamic State has not been weakened irreversibly. Feltman delivered this warning while presenting U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon’s report on ISIS activities over the last four months to the U.N. Security Council. He said the threat posed by the group “remains high and continues to diversify.” As the organization suffers defeats and territorial losses in the Middle East and North Africa, Feltman suggested that the Islamic State could elevate the role of its affiliates, move funds overseas, and conduct “complex, multi-wave, and international attacks.”

Nancy Youssef writes in the Daily Beast that U.S.-armed rebels in Aleppo are paying the price for bureaucratic infighting between the CIA and the Department of Defense. DoD officials have told Youssef that they are unwilling to support Aleppo’s rebels because of their affiliations with al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria, Jabhat al Nusra, while the CIA rejects this assertion as an instance of ideological purity at the expense of battlefield pragmatism. Youssef writes that the divide marks the two bureaucracies’ competing Syria strategies. Jennifer Cafarella, a Syria analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, commented that, “the U.S. has two isolated programs that are not mutually supporting each other and are actually sometimes at odds with each other.”

Speaking of bureaucratic politics, the Pentagon has shifted its command structure to give the Special Operations Command added responsibilities in the fight against transnational terrorist groups. One senior defense official told the Wall Street Journal that this initiative will task SOCOM’s commander, General Raymond Thomas, with making recommendations for operations and resources to his superiors based on what he is told by the geographic commanders. Previously, the geographic commanders would directly lobby up the chain of command. This shift comes at a time when U.S. commanders across the globe are competing for new technologies such as unmanned aircraft and adversaries such as Boko Haram and the Islamic State are growing across the geographic boundaries drawn up by the Pentagon command structure. But the move also underscores the growing centrality of special forces for U.S. power projection, as Bobby Chesney noted last year.

Sirajuddin Khadmi, a senior leader of the Sirajuddin Haqqani network that provided weapons for insurgents, was killed in a US drone strike in Paktika province, reports Pakistan’s Tribune. The Afghan Taliban denied Khadmi’s death, dismissing the report as “part of the enemy’s propaganda” and suggesting the strike killed a vehicle of “locals.”

The United State’s effort to push for India to be included in the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) has gained steam, with several opponents agreeing to compromise. China, however, remains unmoved in its opposition on the grounds that India never signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Other countries opposing the move argue that including India would both undermine efforts to minimize proliferation and infuriate Pakistan, a rival of India’s and an ally of China’s, which has responded to India’s potential membership with a membership bid of its own.

India, in the meantime, has intensified its efforts to sell an advanced cruise missile system to Vietnam. According to Reuters, India has approximately fifteen other markets to which it can sell weapons. This spike in its missile export drive comes at a time in which India is increasingly concerned over China’s growing military assertiveness, with China recently expanding its presence in the Indian Ocean, docking ships in Sri Lanka and aiding Pakistan.

Japan expressed “serious concern” to China’s ambassador to Tokyo after a Chinese naval ship sailed close to what Japan considers its territorial waters in the East China Sea. The naval deployment makes the first time in which either Japan or China has dispatched a warship to the contested waters, causing Japanese officials to complain that the “action raises tensions to a higher level.” While China maintained that “sailing ships through waters our country has jurisdiction over is reasonable and legal,” the United States acknowledged previously that the territory, controlled by Japan, is included under its security treaty with Tokyo to defend Japan from attack. Complicating matters further is that the Chinese ship was accompanied by three Russian naval vessels, raising concerns that Beijing and Moscow could be operating together.

The Homeland Security Committee voted to approve a bill that would turn the National Protection and Programs Directorate (NPPD) into an “operational agency,” similar to TSA, writes Defense One. The NPPD would be renamed the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection Agency, an effect that would take place under the next White House administration. According to Michael McCaul, Chairman of the committee, this change “realigns and streamlines the department’s cybersecurity and infrastructure protection missions” as a means of more effectively protecting against “cyberattacks that could cripple the nation.”

Sabrina De Sousa, a former CIA agent, will be extradited to Italy for her involvement in the 2003 kidnapping of Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, an Egyptian cleric, who was brought from Milan to Egypt for questioning in the wake of 9/11. De Sousa, one of twenty-six people convicted in the kidnapping, faces a six-year sentence. In a letter provided to Reuters, De Sousa wrote that Italy guaranteed she will “have the opportunity to counter the charges” against her.

The Washington Post reports that approximately 12 detainees released from Guantanamo Bay under the Bush administration are responsible for attacks in Afghanistan that resulted in the deaths of about a half-dozen Americans. The news comes on the heels of a senior Pentagon official’s acknowledgement in March that former Guantanamo detainees were involved in attacks against Americans overseas. Lawmakers already wary about the Obama administration's unwillingness to release classified information and plans to close the prison have seized on the news, calling for the president to abandon his plan to close the facility. Nearly 700 inmates have been released from Guantanamo since 2002, the Post reports, thirty percent of whom are suspected or confirmed of reengaging in the fight.

Meanwhile, The Guardian tells us that military lawyers prosecuting Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-proclaimed architect of the 9/11 attacks, rejected his defense counsel’s claim that the prosecution colluded with a military judge to destroy evidence. In a recently released military commission filing, prosecutors accused the defense team of bad faith and of attempting to undermine the credibility of the military trial system. The filing, however, does not include an explicit denial of the allegation, but a denial that such destruction occurred secretly, instead referencing moves to “preserve and/or substitute” information in the case.

Parting Shot: In what is clearly the headline of the day, “Hungry special forces foil Hamburglars at French McDonald’s.” That’s right, an attempt to hold up a McDonald’s in eastern France backfired rather violently, when two robbers failed to notice eleven French commandos eating lunch in the restaurant. Not wanting to make a scene, the commandos waited for the robbers to walk outside before apprehending them, opening fire when the two men refused to surrender. Read more about the suspects “being McGrilled by authorities” from NBC News.

ICYMI: Yesterday, on Lawfare

Ben Wittes provided an ethical calculation for career lawyers in the Justice Department faced with the prospect of working in a Trump administration.

Elena Chachko analyzed the Israeli Supreme Court’s order for Israel’s Foreign Ministry to disclose the names of participants of a seder dinner hosted by Ron Dermer.

Stewart Baker interviewed Kevin Kelly on the latest Steptoe Cyberlaw Podcast, in which they discuss emerging technology trends.

Susan Hennessey rejected the narrative arc of VICE’s Snowden exclusive.

Yishai Schwartz examined Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon’s resignation and its implications on the ethics of the Israel Defense Forces.

Kenneth Propp discussed the impending threat to Trans-Atlantic data transfer agreements.

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