Afghanistan
362 Articles

Was the Kunduz Strike a War Crime?
As reports poured in over the weekend that the United States bombed a Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, killing at least 12 MSF staff members and…

A Short (Yet Still Forlorn) Reply in the Taliban Sources Project Debate
It appears from the reply of Shaheed Fatima to my earlier post that the UK’s counterterrorism legislation is engendering ever deeper difficulties in gauging its meaning and impacts.…

The British Library and the Taliban Sources Project: A Short Reply to Professor Walker
I was surprised, after reading Professor Clive Walker’s post The British Library Did Not Need to Self-Censor to find that his “assurance” to the British Library – that…

The British Library Did Not Need to Self-Censor
I enjoyed reading Shaheed Fatima’s excellent post from last week about the British Library’s decision not to accept the digital archive of materials collected by the Taliban…

When Do Countries Have to Investigate War Crimes?
In late August, the New York Times and others reported that the US Army had reopened a criminal investigation into the murders of at least 17 civilians in Afghanistan in 2012 and…

Self-Censorship in Action: The British Library Rejects Taliban Archive
This post is the latest installment of our “Monday Reflections” feature, in which a different Just Security editor examines the big stories from the previous week or looks…

A Missed Opportunity: DOD’s Law of War Manual & Applying Law as a Matter of Policy
Editor’s Note: This post is the latest in Just Security’s “mini forum” on the new Defense Department Law of War Manual. This series includes posts from Sean Watts,…

Is al-Qaeda v Islamic State the Right Question?
Which terrorist group is a bigger threat to the United States, al-Qaeda or the Islamic State (IS)? It almost sounds like the sort of question you’d put to a child comparing movie…

The Reason Why the UK Lost the Serdar Mohammed Case
The United Kingdom Court of Appeal handed down its judgment in Serdar Mohammed v. Ministry of Defense last Thursday. The decision, which assessed the lawfulness of the 110-day…

Judge Lamberth decides Warafi
As Jen noted, Judge Lamberth today denied Mukhtar Yahia Naji al Warafi’s renewed habeas petition challenging his continued military detention at Guantánamo. As I have previously explained,…

Letter to the Editor: The Geography of the War Against al-Qaeda
Nathalie Weizmann’s compendium of various views on the geographic scope of a non international armed conflict (NIAC) is extremely useful. In addition to the listed papers,…

al Warafi’s active hostilities
As Marty Lederman’s earlier post explains, a D.C. district court is now considering the habeas petition of Guantanamo detainee Mukhtar Yahia Naji al Warafi, found in an earlier…