Judge Waits ascends the bench and the hearing once more comes to order.  It seems Al-Hadi is here, along with attorneys for both sides. Housekeeping: The military judge explains that yesterday and this m...

It's a chilly afternoon here at Fort Meade---the venue for today's closed circuit television broadcast of pre-trial litigation down at Guantanamo.  Proceedings in the military commission case of United S...

A brief history of the Islamic State in the form of an animated video from my Brookings colleague Bruce Riedel. Bruce is the director of The Intelligence Project at Brookings, and he spent 30 years at th...

The current flap about President Obama's plan to proceed without Congress on immigration matters isn't really about national security law. But it is about the law of presidential power and thus of inhere...

The week before Thanksgiving features a few Congressional hearings of note for the Lawfare readership. Tomorrow at 10:00 AM, there is a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on ways of  "cou...

In AE18, Lt. Col. Tom Jasper seeks, on behalf of Al-Hadi, to compel discovery into certain communications---those between the Convening Authority and Defense Department brass, regarding the release of Pr...

Got a problem with Iranian UAVs threatening your ships? Want to remotely start fires on small boats? The US Navy has just what you need: the 30 kilowatt-class Laser Weapon System (LaWS). [caption id="" ...

We return from recess, and Clayton resumes his argument in opposition to AE19---a motion to strike common allegations from the charge sheet against Al-Hadi. Clayton refers to Stirk’s suggestion that the...

In motion AE19, the defense asks the court to strike certain common allegations from the charge sheet. One of Al-Hadi’s lawyers, Maj. Ben Stirk, explains why. The incorporation of “common allegations” i...

The military judge, Capt. Keith Waits, calls our session to order.  All parties are present, including the accused.  That means a quick colloquy about Al-Hadi’s right to be present, the consequences of k...

You'll find it here.  Brig. Gen. Mark Martins' remarks begin as follows: Good evening. Before turning to the proceedings scheduled for this coming week, I wish to update observers interested in United S...

Today marks the first of a possibly three-day, pre-trial motions hearing in the military commission case of United States v. Abd. Al Hadi Al-Iraqi.   Y'all know the drill: from 9 a.m. onward, video and a...

In January 2014, two French teenage boys ran away from their homes in Toulouse in search of adventure. Like a few hundred other young Frenchmen and over 2,000 Europeans, they looked for that adventure in...

[Cross-posted at Just Security] The three of us have coauthored an Op-Ed in Sunday’s Washington Post on the topic of congressional authorization for the use of force against ISIL and the 2001 AUMF.  We ...

The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights has just released a report on the condition of civilians living under ISIS rule.  The document is based largely on first-hand victim and witness ac...