Today's Headlines and Commentary

The New York Times reports that Human Rights Watch has accused Russia and the Syrian regime of using napalm-like bombs in rebel-held areas, including the contested city of Aleppo. Human Rights Watch’s claims point to from Russian state-media that showed the bombs clearly labeled on an attack aircraft in Syria, along with similar casings found at attack sites. Incendiary bombs, unlike chemical weapons, are not banned, but 113 countries (including Russia, but not Syria) have signed an international agreement forbidding their use on densely-populated civilian areas.

The Associated Press reports that more than 17,000 Syrians have died in detention facilities run by their government in the last five years. Amnesty International, which documented the atrocities in a new report, argues that, “with tens of thousands of people forcibly disappeared in detention facilities across Syria, the real figure is likely to be even higher.”

The Washington Post revealed that a top Chinese military official visited Syria’s Defense Minister this week, in a sign of Beijing’s support for Syrian President Bashar al Assad’s embattled regime. Chinese Rear Admiral Guan Youfei also met with the Russian general tasked with coordinating Moscow’s military strategy with Syria’s army. Chinese state media said Guan expressed China’s willingness to boost its military cooperation with the Syrian regime.

Hussein Ibish writes in the New York Times that the group formerly known as Jabhat al Nusra, al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria, has become the indispensable leader of the rebel coalition that is fighting Iranian- and Russian-backed Syrian forces. The group, which now calls itself Jabhat Fatah al Sham, is angling to control large swathes of Syria after the civil war ends. Ibish argues that the United States should Jabhat Fatah al Sham by calling on it to repudiate key tenets of al Qaeda’s ideology.

The Times also offers a heartbreaking portrait of Omran Daqneesh, the five-year old boy in Aleppo whose picture has stunned the world. The photograph, which captures Daqneesh’s shell-shocked gaze and bloodied body, has gone viral in the same manner as the photograph of Alan Kurdi, the Syrian toddler whose lifeless body washed up on a Turkish beach last year. The two photos have captured the gruesome realities of the Syrian civil war.

Reuters tells us that Turkish authorities detained nearly 200 people, including some of the country’s leading businessmen. Turkish state media said the assets of the detainees were also seized. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has vowed to choke off any businesses connected with Fethullah Gulen, a U.S.-based Muslim cleric whom Erdogan has accused of inciting the failed coup attempt last month.

Erdogan also told a group of Islamic civil society leaders on Thursday that the United States should not delay Gulen’s extradition. The president said that the United States should not “make things hard for its strategic partner,” adding that the United States should reciprocate Turkey’s past willingness to extradite terrorists to the United States in the past without asking for documentation. U.S. officials have so far refused to extradite Gulen without evidence of the cleric’s involvement in the coup.

In remarks prompted by Kurdish bomb attacks that killed 10 people on Wednesday and Thursday and wounded more than 300 others in Turkey’s southeast, Erdogan also linked followers of Gulen with the most recent round of pro-Kurdish violence. Turkish officials have been quick to attribute these strikes to PKK militants. Turkey's southeast has been scorched by violence since a two and a half year ceasefire with the PKK collapsed in July last year. The Associated Press has more.

The Wall Street Journal continues its coverage of the U.S. government’s decision to settle an outstanding financial dispute with Iran at the same time it was negotiating a detainee swap. According to the Journal’s latest coverage, the U.S. government refused to let Iran take control of a $400 million payment in January until a Swiss Air Force plane carrying three American prisoners left Tehran. President Barack Obama’s administration has repeatedly refused to characterize the payment as a ransom for the released American detainees, an assertion that has been rejected by both Republican lawmakers and leading Iranian officials.

An Afghan official disclosed that a mortar attack killed two people and wounded more than 50 in the eastern province of Kunar. The shells struck a crowded market in the provincial capital of Asad Abad after people had congregated to celebrate their country’s independence day.

The New York Times profiles the reunion of an Afghan father and son who previously fought against each other during the ongoing war between the Taliban insurgency and the government. The son, who had joined the Taliban rather than succumb to his family’s pressure to get married, recently rejoined his father’s militia in the northern province of Faryab.

The BBC reports that four suspected terrorists have been killed by Russian special forces during a raid on an apartment block in St. Petersburg. Russia’s counterterrorism committee claimed the men were ringleaders of a “terrorist underground" active in Kabardino-Balkharia region of the North Caucasus.

The Financial Times tells us that Russia may be escalating tensions with Ukraine precisely because Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to settle the protracted dispute on more favorable terms when the G-20 convenes on September 4. Moscow and Kiev have engaged in a war of words in recent days as Russia has accused Ukraine of sponsoring efforts to destabilize Crimea and stoke terrorism in the region. Both sides have expanded their military footprints on the border.

Activists have accused the Nigerian government of imprisoning the children that its security forces liberate from Boko Haram. Amnesty International claims that dozens of children have been arrested and detained by Nigerian forces as they fight the terrorist organization. The Nigerian military says it only detains people it suspects of being Boko Haram sympathizers. Boko Haram has a history of forcing captives, including children as young as eight, into acting as suicide bombers. The New York Times has more.

South Sudan’s top opposition leader and a former first vice president, Riek Machar, has fled the country after surviving a botched assassination attempt. Analysts say that without Machar’s participation or explicit support, ongoing negotiations between his forces and those that support the country’s president, Salva Kiir, are unlikely to succeed. South Sudan has been sliding into another round of conflict despite the presence of 13,000 UN peacekeepers in the wartorn country.

The Wall Street Journal writes that the defection of a top North Korean diplomat offers South Korea a rare opportunity to understand the underlying dynamics of Pyongyang’s elite. But academics cautioned that Thae Yong Ho, who served as the number 2 diplomat in North Korea’s British embassy, did not make policy despite his strong ties with the ruling dynasty in the Hermit Kingdom.

Japan is readying to develop a new tactical ballistic missile system that would reset Chinese military strategy around disputed islands in the East China Sea. Plans for the surface-to-ship weapon, which would be the longest-range missile ever built by Japan, have emerged after Tokyo and Beijing have clashed for months over competing territorial claims.

The Post provides further reporting on the hack and leak of NSA information over the weekend. The leaked cache, which contains stockpiled software vulnerabilities, has shined a spotlight on the government’s process for determining whether to release vulnerabilities or keep them hidden for future use.

A new UN report indicates that terrorist groups are increasingly using the “dark web” and encrypted messaging to communicate with potential recruits and with foreign fighters returning home, raising concerns over intelligence agencies’ ability to monitor their communications. As a result, the report writes that governments are “potentially losing much of their previous technological advantage over terror groups.” The Post has more.

Twitter has suspended 360,000 accounts for threatening or promoting terrorism since mid-2015. According to Reuters, 235,000 of those accounts were suspended since February 2016, and most of the suspensions were regarding content involving the Islamic State. The platform has struggled with how best to respond to the use of its service to disseminate ISIS-inspired propaganda.

German authorities have granted an early release from prison to a German man imprisoned for planning to bomb US targets in Germany, the Times reports. Fritz Gelowicz, who trained in Pakistan with an al Qaeda offshoot, was sentenced to 12 years in prison in 2010, but has been released on the grounds that he is no longer a danger.

ICYMI: Yesterday, on Lawfare

Benjamin Wittes drew our attention to an old podcast episode of Invisibilia that shed light on how Danish authorities prevent Islamic radicalization.

Corri Zoli offered three suggestions for how we can transcend the simplistic framework through which we currently understand contemporary terrorism as a “lone wolf” problem.

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