Today's Headlines and Commentary

Secretary of State John Kerry will meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Geneva over the coming two days in hopes of hammering out a deal to halt hostilities in Syria. Moscow and Washington aimed to announce this deal at the G20 summit on Monday, but the agreement collapsed after the United States accused Russia of reneging on prior commitments. U.S. officials told the Guardian that they remain optimistic but significant technical roadblocks exist between Lavrov and Kerry.

Syrian Kurdish fighters and Turkish soldiers clashed at a Turkish border patrol, according to Reuters. Both the Kurds and Turkey are U.S. allies, but the former has proven to be a more reliable ally on the ground in fighting the Islamic State. Ankara views the Kurdish YPG militia as a terrorist group and an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK), which has carried out a three-decade insurgency in southeast Turkey. Washington has told both sides to focus on defeating common enemies rather than one another.

An Iraqi Shiite militia, Harakat al-Nujab, said it has dispatched more than 1,000 soldiers to fight for the Syrian regime on the frontlines of the battle for Aleppo. The militia’s announcement indicates that yet another foreign party has joined the Syrian civil war at a time when the Syrian government’s siege of Aleppo may be nearing a decisive end. Shiite militia groups, along with Syrian government forces, are often commanded by Iranian military leaders and assisted by Russian air power.

The Associated Press tells us that the Israeli military struck Syrian government mortar launchers after a projectile from Syria hit Israeli-controlled land in the Golan Heights. The Israeli military confirmed that the projectile which hit Israel caused no injuries. Israel has largely stayed neutral during the Syrian civil war, but has carried out similar reprisals on Syrian positions when errant fire has previously landed on its territory.

The international watchdog for chemical weapons, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), said it will investigate reports that the Syrian government dropped barrel bombs containing chlorine on Tuesday in rebel-held parts of Aleppo. A year-long inquiry by the OPCW and the United Nations found that the government had used chemical weapons at least twice before during the civil war, in 2014 and 2015 respectively. Reuters has more.

Politico tells us that Republican Senator James Lankford has written a letter to President Barack Obama with 13 specific questions regarding the United States’ resolution of a financial dispute with Iran. Lankford and other Republican lawmakers have attacked Obama for a $1.7 billion payment made by Washington to Tehran that coincided with a swap of U.S. detainees for Iranian prisoners in the United States. The Oklahoma senator also asked Obama to “detail all direct or indirect payments the U.S. has made to Iran” since the nuclear deal was reached.

In the wake of a Revolutionary Guard vessel’s harassment of a U.S. warship, the Associated Press explains why Washington and Tehran continually face off in the Persian Gulf. America’s strong military presence in the region, the conclusion of the nuclear deal, and the Revolutionary Guards’ influence in the Iranian military have all combined to make the Gulf a consistent hub of controversy between the two nations.

The House of Representatives is slated to vote on a bill that would allow families of the victims of the 9/11 attacks to sue Saudi Arabia in U.S. courts on Friday. The Senate passed the proposal unanimously, but President Barack Obama warned that he would veto this measure if it arrives on his desk. Both the Saudi government and leading national security figures on both sides of the political aisle have denounced this legislation, many speaking out of concern that foreign countries could retaliate by proposing parallel legislation to sue the United States.

The Guardian writes that British MPs on the parliamentary committee on arms export controls are split over plans that would recommend suspending the United Kingdom’s arms sales to Saudi Arabia. A recent parliamentary report asserted that the KSA has almost certainly used British-supplied arms to carry out alleged violations of international law in the ongoing Yemeni civil war. MPs from both major parties have sought to amend the report to soften its tone, including reversing a clause calling for the suspension of arms to Riyadh.

The Taliban launched a surprise surge into Tirin Kot, the capital of the Uruzgan Province in southern Afghanistan. The Taliban’s incursion comes as the insurgency has scored key victories elsewhere in the country and questions about the government’s stability have grown increasingly urgent. Tirin Kot was protected by Dutch and Australian troops for years until the drastic reduction of NATO forces in 2014. The Washington Post has more.

The Post also notes that the Taliban is beginning to launch brutal urban assaults in a spate of violence that indicates the group’s growing ability to attack well-fortified landmarks in the heart of Kabul. Taliban fighters laid siege to the facilities of CARE, an international humanitarian organization, while a Taliban bombing near the country’s Defense Ministry killed at least 40 people and injured over 100 others. The Daily Beast adds that Mullah Sheerin Akhond, the Taliban leader believed to be responsible for the Kabul attacks, believes that it is permissible to kill “anyone who lives in areas controlled by the Afghan government” because, in his view, “they are supporting the Afghan government.”

During his visit to Laos, President Barack Obama said the United States’ tactics during the Vietnam War—including its bombing of Laos—did not necessarily serve American interests. Obama announced a $100 million U.S. initiative to assist Laos in clearing the millions of unexploded ordinances that remain in the country from U.S. bombing. In the Times, Max Fisher writes that Obama’s reflection is the latest in the president’s long string of acknowledgements of U.S. misdeeds, which he has made in an attempt to reframe global conceptions of U.S. power.

President Obama also used the ASEAN summit in Laos as an opportunity to discuss the long-simmering dispute in the South China Sea, even after it became clear that most of the other leaders gathered in the Laotian capital planned to let China off with only a mild rebuke. Obama reaffirmed the United States’ position that the international arbitration ruling against Chinese maritime claims was binding, adding that the United States will work to ensure that all disputes are resolved peacefully. ASEAN has struggled to voice a forceful position on Beijing’s maritime aggression because any remark made by the bloc requires unanimous agreement, which proved challenging as China’s investment in Cambodia and Laos has grown over the past few years. Al Jazeera has more.

The Guardian reports that Chinese officials were angry at Obama’s comments during the summit. Li Keqiang, China’s premier, issued a thinly-veiled warning to the United States to not interfere in regional concerns. But just hours before the summit began, the Philippines’ defence ministry released photographs and a map showing what it said was an increased number of Chinese vessels near Scarborough Shoal, which Beijing seized after a standoff in 2012.

Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe warned that China was attempting to alter the status quo in these waters with dangerous but incremental moves. But the ABC reported that Australia’s Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said there is now “cautious optimism” that a code of conduct can be reached in the hotly disputed maritime territories.

The Associated Press reveals that Chinese officials will not attend a security dialogue in Seoul amid an ongoing row over South Korea’s decision to deploy a powerful U.S. missile defense system. China has angrily denounced plans by the South Korean government to permit the United States to deploy a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system on the Korean peninsula. Washington and Seoul claim the THAAD system is a response to North Korea’s growing ballistic and nuclear missile capabilities, but analysts in Beijing and Moscow fear that the THAAD system may be directed towards them.

The Pentagon disclosed that a Russian fighter plane came within 10 feet of a U.S. reconnaissance plane, a maneuver that the DoD lambasted as “dangerous and unprofessional.” But Russia’s defense ministry dismissed this criticism, arguing that the U.S. plane had entered Russian airspace.

The New York Times relays a warning by Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter that the Russian government is demonstrating a “clear ambition to erode” the international order. He also cautioned Russia to stay clear of the U.S. electoral process. Carter’s rhetoric was harsh and reminiscent of the threats U.S. policymakers routinely made towards the Soviet Union during the Cold War: “The United States does not seek a cold, let alone a hot, war with Russia. But make no mistake, we will defend our allies, the principled international order, and the positive future it affords all of us.”

Reuters reports that French police have arrested two couples in relation to the discovery on a car packed with seven gas cylinders, six of which were full, near Notre Dame cathedral in Paris. Authorities are now looking for the daughter of the couple who owns the car, who is known to police to wish to join ISIS in Syria.

Carol Rosenberg of the Miami Herald tells us that Guantanamo Bay is downsizing by closing down one prison and cutting 400 troops. The U.S. military will convert the ersatz prison to a clinic and psychiatric ward as part of its efforts to comply with President Barack Obama’s order to close down the detention center.

The Associated Press tells us that Uruguay is searching for another country to house Abu Wa’el Dhiab, a former Guantanamo detainee who is threatening to die on a hunger strike if he is not allowed to reunite with his family abroad. Uruguay took in Dhiab, along with five other detainees from Guantanamo, in 2014. The Uruguayan government liaison for the Guantanamo transferees said Dhiab’s family is allowed to settle in Uruguay but Dhiab has refused it for reasons that are unclear.

The Hill quotes Tom Kean, the former New Jersey governor and co-chairman of the 9/11 Commission, as telling reporters that the United States is not winning the war against militant Islamist groups but is merely “at a stalemate.” He argues that while the United States has not suffered a major attack since 9/11, the situation is more dangerous across the world because of numerous small attacks that have become almost routine in Europe and the Middle East. Kean plans to launch a new study on U.S. anti-terrorism as the fifteenth anniversary of 9/11 approaches.

ICYMI: Yesterday, on Lawfare

Michael Specter weighed in on the “Going Dark” debate in the context of recent events.

Quinta Jurecic posted a statement by Mark Martins, the military commission’s chief prosecutor, to commemorate the upcoming anniversaries of the 9/11 and 2000 USS Cole attack.

Paul Rosenzweig flagged a recent case where digital researchers were able to monetize on a software bug and asked whether this poses a bigger problem than the one it solved.

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