Today’s Headlines and Commentary

Charlie Savage of the New York Times reports on the hunger strike at Guantanamo Bay. The official number of hungry detainees as of yesterday morning stood at twenty eight. Benjamin Weiser of the Times tells us that---under our very noses---Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame, the Al Shabab commander captured in the Gulf of Aden, secretly pleaded guilty in 2011 and has been cooperating with authorities ever since. Here are Jeremy Herb of the Hill, Sari Horwitz of the Washington Post, and Bobby on the matter. Here’s the plea agreement. In the spirit of the mixed messages and continued vagueness surrounding the type of military and non-military aid the Obama administration is providing to Syrian rebels, the Associated Press now reports that the American fighters have been secretly training Syrian opposition forces in Jordan for the last few months. Speaking of Syria, Walter Pincus has this op-ed in the Post arguing that the talk about Syria from lawmakers on Capitol Hill reflects how little we have learnt from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. North Korea is continuing to be North Korea: The country’s official news agency released a statement today saying its forces were “assigned to strike bases of the U.S. imperialist aggressor troops in the U.S. mainland and on Hawaii and Guam and other operational zones in the Pacific as well as all the enemy targets in South Korea and its vicinity.” The AP has the story. David Kang and Victor Cha have this piece in Foreign Policy about five assumptions most of us hold about North Korea. Make sure to check out why Kim Jong Un isn’t as insane as we all think he is. From the Winding Down the War Department: Australia will withdraw most of its troops from Uruzgan province in southern Afghanistan by the end of this year, says Reuters. Secretary of State John Kerry, who made an unannounced trip to Afghanistan to meet with Afghan President Hamid Karzai after the handover of Bagram prison, also met with women at the American embassy in Kabul to discuss their concerns about their security and treatment after troops depart next year. The AP has more, as does the Post. Mosi Secret of the Times reports that Abdel Hameed Shehadeh of Staten Island was convicted of lying to the feds about his plans to join the Taliban. It’s not just a majority of Americans that support the use of drones to target foreign terrorist suspects, as Ben discussed this morning; RT.com tells us that fifty-four percent of Britons support it too. And just in case you thought a swarm of quadcopter drones has no utility for movie production companies promoting Star Trek films, Paramount Pictures is out to prove you wrong with today’s Moment of Zen (h/t Alan). For more interesting law and security-related articles, follow us on Twitter and check out the Lawfare News Feed, visit the Georgetown Center on National Security and the Law’s Security Law Brief, Syracuse’s Institute for National Security & Counterterrorism’s newsroll, and Fordham Law’s Center on National Security’s Morning Brief and Cyber Brief. Email Raffaela Wakeman and Ritika Singh noteworthy articles to include, visit the Lawfare Events Calendar for upcoming national security events, and check out relevant job openings at the Lawfare Job Board.