Terrorism & Violent Extremism
Counterterrorism
776 Articles
America’s Muddled Approach to Fighting ISIS
Last month, the Los Angeles Times ran a story that helped highlight one facet of the muddled thinking afflicting the US government’s campaign against ISIS: While the military…
Is the US Allowed to Control a Syrian Airfield?
Reports have recently emerged that the US is in control of an airfield in Syria. The details are a bit sketchy and it’s hard to determine their veracity. For their part, US officials…
Instability and Terrorism in Africa’s Sahel: A Primer
Africa’s Sahel region has been in the international news a lot since 2012, largely because of its increasing political instability and insecurity. More recently, the region has…
Latest Guantánamo Transfers May Signal Change in Approach
Politicians and pundits are still fighting over whether President Obama should, can, or will close the Guantánamo Bay detention center before he leaves office. For his part,…
What explains the three-year delay on the Slahi habeas petition?
As Ben Wittes notes over at Lawfare, last week Judge Royce Lamberth denied a motion by habeas petitioner Mohamedou Ould Slahi to require the Department of Defense to expedite…
The Worst of the Worst? What al-Shamiri’s Case Tells Us About Gitmo Detainees
Earlier this month, the US government revealed that Guantánamo detainee Mustafa al-Aziz al-Shamiri was a low-level fighter, not the al-Qaeda courier and trainer the government…
Second Circuit Denies Rehearing En Banc in Turkmen; Is Supreme Court Next?
I’ve written before both here and at MSNBC about the Second Circuit’s immensely significant June 17 decision in Turkmen v. Hasty, which recognized a cause of action…
On Human Rights Day, One Year On: No Apology and No Accountability for US Torture
A year ago yesterday, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released a redacted version of the executive summary of its exhaustive report on the CIA’s detention and interrogation…
The Government’s Surprising (and Flawed) New Attack on Habeas Corpus in Immigration Cases
These days, most discussions of the US Constitution’s Suspension Clause — and the entitlement to judicial review that it codifies — center upon non-citizen terrorism suspects…
Remember Why We Have the Fourth Amendment
The Paris attacks have fueled a debate over surveillance on both sides of the Atlantic that, while not new, has reached a level of hysteria that I have not witnessed since the…
Still Secret: Second Circuit Keeps More Drone Memos From the Public
Secret law has been anathema to our democracy since its Founding, but a federal appeals court just gave us more of it. Almost two centuries ago, James Madison wrote that “[a]…
The insoluble Guantánamo problem (Part Three: Executive disregard of the GTMO-to-U.S. relocation prohibition is not a solution)
In my first two posts (here and here) I’ve described how intransigent (and unjustifiable) political opposition has made it virtually impossible for the President to relocate…