Today's Headlines and Commentary

President-elect Donald Trump continued to attack the intelligence community in tweets last night and early this morning, backing Wikileaks founder Julian Assange’s assertion that Russia was not involved in the DNC hack and asserting that an intelligence briefing on Russian hacking had been rescheduled to Friday in order to give intelligence officials “more time … to build a case.” Officials clarified that the briefing had always been scheduled for Friday and described Trump’s tweet as “adversarial,” NBC writes. The New York Times has more.

A group of former defense and intelligence officials have signed a letter calling for a bipartisan commission into Russian election interference, Buzzfeed reports. Signatories include former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, former Acting and Deputy Director of the CIA Michael Morrell, and former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul.

Turkish authorities have identified the gunman in the New Year’s Day shooting attack on an Istanbul nightclub, though the individual is still at large, the Times reports. The man’s name has not been publicly announced. Police have detained 20 people in the port city of Izmir, many of whom are believed to be linked to ISIS, in connection with the investigation. The Islamic State previously claimed responsibility for the shooting.

The Turkish parliament has extended the country’s state of emergency by an additional three months, the AP writes. Turkey’s government has been operating with expanded emergency powers since the failed coup attempt in July.

Turkey’s ongoing offensive against the Islamic State’s presence in the Syrian town of al-Bab will soon be finished, according to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who also declared that Turkey will begin efforts to clear the nearby town Manbij of ISIS as well. Reuters has more. Meanwhile, the AP tells us that Turkey’s defense minister suggested that a lack of NATO support in the al-Bab offensive may lead the country to reconsider its giving permission to the United States to use Incirlik Air Base in the campaign against the Islamic State.

In Germany, police have searched two residences inhabited by associates of the Tunisian man who rammed a truck into a Berlin Christmas market last month. The Wall Street Journal tells us that that a second Tunisian immigrant, whom the truck driver met with at length on the night before the attack, has been taken into custody in connection with the investigation.

German prosecutors are also bringing a case against a Syrian man accused of helping the Islamic State plan attacks within the country, Reuters reports. The man applied for asylum after fleeing Syria, where he is believed to have fought for the Islamic State.

The United States does not believe North Korea is capable of “tipping” an intercontinental ballistic missile with a nuclear warhead, Reuters writes. On Sunday, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un announced that Pyongyang was nearing an ICBM test-launch, eliciting a castigating tweet from the President-elect, who declared that the launch “won’t happen!” even as he put forward no plan for stopping it.

Chinese state media is unhappy with Trump’s use of Twitter to criticize Beijing on its handling of North Korea and trade, the Times reports. A recent headline in Xinhua declared, “An obsession with ‘Twitter foreign policy’ is undesirable.”

China is holding military drills in the South China Sea this week to test weapons and equipment in exercises including a group of warships and an aircraft carrier. Last month, the fleet skirted Taiwan and Japan, and Taiwanese media are now reporting that the fleet may enter into Taiwanese waters after the conclusion of the exercises. Reuters has more.

Two Russian warships are making a visit to the Philippines this week in an effort by the Kremlin to court President Rodrigo Duterte, who has recently drawn back from his country’s defense ties with the United States in favor of strengthening Manila’s connections to Beijing. The Russian visit represents the first official navy-to-navy contact between Russia and the Philippines.

ICYMI: Yesterday, on Lawfare

Jack Goldsmith and Benjamin Wittes invited us to the January 9th Hoover Book Soiree with Jameel Jaffer on The Drone Memos: Targeted Killing, Secrecy, and the Law.

Dan Byman argued that the vague term “radical Islam” is contradictory and ultimately meaningless.

J. Dana Stuster provided a new edition of the Middle East Ticker.

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