Today's Headlines and Commentary

According to Military Times, “Air Force drones in Turkey have received the OK to join the fight” against ISIS. While Ankara is not allowing the use of manned aircraft from Incirlik Air Base, it will allow the use of unmanned aircraft for reconnaissance. Incirlik is home to 1,500 US military members, as well as the 414th Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadron, which flies the MQ-1B Predator. Reuters, in conjunction with other news sites, is reporting that Saddam Hussein’s former pilots are training ISIS militants to fly fighter jets captured from the Syrian military. The report by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says that three flight-capable MiG-21 and MiG-23 jets are in the hands of ISIS, although it remains “unclear if they are equipped with missiles.” Fighters from the militant group have reportedly been flying them “over the captured al Jarrah military airport east of Aleppo.” There are new heroes in Kurdistan: the PKK. The separatist group’s success in repelling ISIS is galvanizing support from Kurds throughout the region, which puts the Iraqi Kurdistan government in an “awkward position.” Al Jazeera has more. Stephen Walt at Foreign Policy asserts that “Washington is making all its favorite mistakes in (another) Iraq war. Amid continuing gains by ISIS forces in Iraq’s perennially-restive Anbar province, the Iraqi government has decided to impose a curfew on Friday in its capital, the imperiled western city of Ramadi. The curfew is “part of an effort to limit movement in and out of the city as government forces prepare to eliminate pockets of resistance there.” Ramadi is the linchpin of the Sunni-majority province, and is located only 70 miles west of Baghdad. Al Sharq Al Awsat has more. The Washington Post reports on the danger ISIS poses to Baghdad. Iraqi officials worry that the disintegration of governmental control over Anbar province will “provide momentum for an assault on the outskirts of the capital.” Officials are especially concerned about the defensibility of Abu Ghraib, a noted weak point where “sympathy for the radical fighters is growing” due to the “heavy-handed actions of Shiite militias.” Bloomberg writes that despite the threat of ISIS, most Baghdadis are staying put, reckoning that it is “better defended than cities such as Mosul.” Analysts agree, pointing to the fact that the city is Shiite-dominated, has a number of government forces and allied militias surrounding it, and also boasts the presence of US military warplanes. Still, the report says ISIS does not have to overrun Baghdad to cause damage there; suicide bombings in the capital have killed dozens recently, including one on October 11th that killed more than 43 people in the Shiite districts of Shula and Kadhimiya. Yesterday, US Secretary of State John Kerry called for an immediate resumption of peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians. The Times of Israel reports that Kerry made the remarks shortly after returning from a trip to Europe and Egypt, where he also “attended a conference on the reconstruction of Gaza.” He appeared to connect the ongoing deadlock over peace talks with the emerging threat posed by ISIS: “there wasn’t a leader I met with in the region who didn’t raise with me spontaneously the need to try to get peace between Israel and the Palestinians, because it was a cause of recruitment and of street anger and agitation...people need to understand the connection of that. And it has something to do with humiliation and denial and absence of dignity.” His remarks provoked a veritable firestorm in Jerusalem, where Economy Minister Naftali Bennett responded by saying, “even when a British Muslim beheads a British Christian, someone will always blame the Jew.” Likud Minister Gilad Erdan, reportedly Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s pick for Interior Minister, wrote the following in Hebrew: “I actually respect Kerry and his efforts, but every time he breaks new records of showing a lack of understanding of our region and the essence of the conflict in the Middle East, I have trouble respecting what he says.” Al Sharq Al Awsat reports that ISIS’s black market oil smuggling is thriving “despite escalating air strikes targeting the group’s positions.” The news outlet quotes “local and regional sources” as saying the oil is being smuggled into Iran, Turkey and Syria, but that the majority is being sold within Iraq. According to Kurdish Iraqi businessman Hoshang Barzanji, “ISIS sells one barrel of oil for between 10 and 12 US dollars, while brokers or dealers can subsequently sell this on for between 25 and 30 dollars.” The price for a barrel of Brent crude stands at ~84 US dollars. Speaking of oil smuggling, Al Monitor divulges that Turkey has opened its first case of oil smuggling from Syria. Turkey has been under intense pressure worldwide to cut down on the flow of smuggled oil between it and ISIS-dominated areas. Finally, Avi Issacharoff of the Times of Israel warns that “while the world watches” ISIS, Iran is quietly advancing its interests across the region. He asserts that Tehran is “gaining control over larger chunks of territory,” including “Lebanon, parts of Syria and Iraq, and now Yemen, where a vital Israeli sea route is now threatened.” On the Ebola front, the New York Times reports that Obama on Friday named Ron Klain, a Chief of Staff to two Vice Presidents, as the country’s “Ebola czar.” His appointment comes as lawmakers “pummeled” Dr. Thomas Frieden, the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, on Capitol Hill yesterday for perceived mistakes in the virus’ containment. The collective anxiety of the nation ratcheted up again recently after family members of Amber Vinson, the second healthcare worker infected with the virus, said she may have been symptomatic as early as Friday, when she flew on a plane to Cleveland, and that “she had appeared remote and unwell” during her entire trip to Ohio. According to Foreign Policy, US Secretary of State John Kerry had to fly commercial back from Iranian nuclear negotiations in Vienna after his Air Force jet was grounded due to “a problem with its fuel tank.” In the words of Elias Groll: “surely this is a metaphor for something.” Today, Al Sharq Al Awsat carries an exclusive interview with Libya’s Foreign Minister, Mohamed Al Dairi. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it focuses on Libya’s destabilization and evolution into an “arena for proxy struggles.” And what’s a proxy struggle without Iran? In Al Sharq Al Awsat’s Op-Ed section, Amir Taheri analyzes Tehran’s “dangerous game in Libya.” In response to the glut of articles yesterday over the collapse in the price of Brent crude, Keith Johnson of Foreign Policy retorts that while “oil prices have fallen sharply,” that “doesn’t mean that oil is cheap -- and it doesn’t spell doom for everybody.” In Milan on Friday, the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France will reportedly hold a discussion in the “Normandy format” on the instability in eastern Ukraine. RIA has more on the meet. The Guardian reports that four men that were arrested “during counter-terrorism raids in London over the last fortnight” have been charged with terror offenses. The men, all between the ages of 20 to 24, are alleged to have plotted “a terrorist attack”, “sworn an oath to ISIS, acquired a gun, silencer and ammunition, and carried out “hostile reconnaissance” on locations including a police station and army barracks. Relatedly, the UK’s top counterterrorism officer, Scotland Yard assistant commissioner Mark Rowley, said yesterday that police efforts to prevent extremist attacks is “at its highest level for years.” He also noted that “several plots this year to murder people on Britain’s streets ‘directed by or inspired by terrorism overseas’ have already been disrupted.” His statement further revealed that there have been 218 “terror-related arrests” this year, 16 people have been charged “after returning from Syria,” “1,000 pieces” of illegal content are removed from the Internet each week (“80%” of which is related to Iraq and Syria) and there are 100 Syria-related “preventative activities” per week. In India on Friday, military forces test-fired the “indigenously developed” nuclear capable cruise missile Nirbhay from a test range at Chandipur. According to Livemint, the missile can strike targets from 700 km away; the results of the test remain unclear. Elsewhere in the subcontinent, the BBC reports that India is planning to build a new road near the country’s border with China. The 1,118 mile all-weather road will stretch from “Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh” to the two countries’ border marker with Myanmar. New Delhi asserts the $6.5 billion project will “connect sparsely populated and poorly-connected hill communities living” in the country’s “frontier districts,” but Indian military officials also say the road “will help consolidate Indian defenses.” The road could “ignite fresh tensions between India and China,” and Chinese foreign office spokesperson Hong Lei did say the plan could “complicate” the two countries’ boundary dispute. China’s People’s Liberation Army announced yesterday that it was rolling out “more stringent auditing regulations for officers and expanded the scope of those put under scrutiny.” The South China Morning Post writes that the moves were geared towards “strengthening supervision of army personnel and advancing ‘military-style discipline.’” At 38 North, Roberta Cohen analyzes whether or not North Korea’s recent “intriguing gestures...on human rights” are “real or illusory.” Yesterday, in the case of Obama v. Dhiab, US District Court Judge Gladys Kessler “granted the Obama administration a month-long pause” regarding the declassification of videotapes showing Dhiab, a hunger striking Guantanamo Bay detainee, undergoing forced feedings and cell extractions. The Guardian has more. Finally, Shane Harris of Foreign Policy examines FBI Director James B. Comey’s remarks yesterday at the Brookings Institution, especially his admonition to revamp the 20-year old Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, or CALEA. Email the Roundup Team noteworthy law and security-related articles to include, and follow us on Twitter and Facebook for additional commentary on these issues. Sign up to receive Lawfare in your inbox. Visit our Events Calendar to learn about upcoming national security events, and check out relevant job openings on our Job Board.