Today's Headlines and Commentary

Details are still forthcoming about the two gunmen who were killed Sunday in Garland, Texas after opening fire outside a controversial event featuring a contest for cartoon drawings of the Prophet Muhammad. Before they were downed, the gunmen shot and wounded one security guard; the latter has since been treated and released from a local hospital. The Daily Beast has a report from inside the event, where reporter Randy Potts was sitting as shots rang out. While investigators have not yet specified a motive for the attack, one of the shooters, identified as Elton Simpson of Phoenix, was indicted in 2010 on charges of international terrorism and lying to an FBI agent regarding a previous statement about his desire to travel to Somalia “for the purpose of engaging in violent jihad.” Simpson was sentenced to three years probation. You can find the court order convicting Simpson of making a false statement here, and several other court documents here. The second shooter has now been identified as Nadir Soofi, 34, who the Washington Post reports was Simpson’s roommate. The New York Times shares that shortly before the shooting, a Twitter account posted “May Allah accept us as mujahideen” and used the hashtag #texasattack, after pledging allegiance to Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State. While the account, @atawaakul, has since been de-activated--- presumably by Twitter---Daveed Gartenstein-Ross was able to take a screenshot of the tweets. According to Brookings Fellow J.M. Berger, ISIS Twitter users had been tweeting about the event for days. After the shooting another ISIS propagandist who Simpson had earlier asked his readers to follow tweeted, “Allahu Akbar!!! 2 of our brothers just opened fire.” The U.S. military has pushed back against reports by the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights that U.S.-led airstrikes in Syria last Friday killed 52 civilians. The Times reports that, according to the monitoring group, the attacks in Aleppo Province killed members of at least six families, as well as some ISIS militants. A U.S. military spokesman said the airstrikes in the area killed more than 50 ISIS fighters and that there is presently “no indication that any civilians were killed in these strikes." Agence France-Presse has more. Elsewhere in Syria, the recent successes of rebel groups fighting the Assad regime continue to pile up. Jamie Dettmer writes in the Daily Beast that this momentum is leading some members of Jabhat al Nusra, an al Qaeda affiliate, to consider breaking with al Qaeda. Advocates of the split argue that it could help convince the West to back the rebels’ fight against the Assad regime and to perhaps even enforce a no-fly zone across northern Syria. The ongoing nuclear negotiations between Iran and several world powers present another possible route forward in the Syrian conflict. Indeed, some world leaders are already linking the two developments: the E.U.’s top diplomat said last week that a deal could push Iran to be a positive force in the Syrian conflict, and the U.N. envoy for Syria is reportedly timing an assessment of the prospects for a political solution to conclude near the June deadline for an Iranian nuclear agreement. The Times has more on the connection between the Iran talks and prospects for peace in Syria, as well as on the U.N. envoy himself. Across the border in Iraq, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper made a surprise visit to Baghdad Saturday, where he asserted Canada’s commitment to fighting the militant group in Iraq. The Associated Press reports that the visit coincided with another string of bombings in the country, including two in Baghdad, that killed at least 30 people. Violence also rocked the outskirts of Mosul over the weekend, where CNN reports that at least 200 members of the Yazidi minority were murdered by ISIS. Yet even in the cities liberated from ISIS’s grasp, the Daily Beast reports that the towns are still ruled by gangs of armed gunmen. In Tikrit, schools remain closed, and graffiti covers a ghost town where armed groups, distrustful of one another and each ready to distribute their own mix of vengeance and justice, stalk the city. Finally, Foreign Policy profiles the “shadow warrior leading the fight against the Islamic State.” 20 ‘reconnaissance’ troops from the Saudi-led coalition fighting Houthi rebels in Yemen have landed in the country, the AP reports. The troops, who arrived in the southern port city of Aden, will help train forces fighting on behalf of exiled President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, according to Yemeni military officials. The ground landing in Aden, the first by coalition forces, comes as Egypt has acknowledged that it has deployed troops in the Gulf region and in the Red Sea as part of the coalition. The ‘reconnaissance’ troops entering Aden followed the arrival of Yemeni fighters who are believed to have received training and weapons in Saudi Arabia and possibly other countries in the Persian Gulf, according to multiple sources in Aden. The Times notes that the claim, which could not be independently verified, would represent a shift in the Saudi-led campaign’s tactics after five weeks of bombing that have not achieved the campaign’s goals. According to Human Rights Watch, the coalition has also begun using cluster munitions from the United States in Yemen. The Times reveals that the munitions, which are banned by much of the world but not by the United States, Saudi Arabia, or Yemen, were reportedly used at least twice in northern Yemen, though it remains unclear whether their use resulted in any casualties. This alleged use of cluster munitions comes after Saudi Arabia has faced increasing international criticism for the high civilian death toll of the campaign is it leading. Indeed, Secretary of State John Kerry will visit Riyadh to push for a “humanitarian pause” in the fighting, the AP adds. As the fighting continues, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula continues to take advantage of the chaos. The BBC has an in-depth look at how the group has continued to grow in the country despite consistently losing fighters to drone strikes and its own suicide operations. Outside the U.S., those worried by a potential Iran nuclear deal are taking a different tack in expressing their views. The Wall Street Journal reports that leading Gulf states plan on requesting new weapons systems and security guarantees from the United States in exchange for supporting a deal with Iran. Leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council will reportedly use a meeting with President Obama to make the requests, and one Democratic lawmaker said he would be surprised if at least some of the requests aren’t granted. The requests, however, put the administration in a difficult position, as it wants to show its support for these allied regimes while also ensuring that Israel maintains its “qualitative military edge.” While considering steps to mollify worried Gulf countries, the administration also tried to assuage Israeli fears over the deal over the weekend. Secretary Kerry appeared in an interview on Israeli television on Sunday to discuss the negotiations, reassuring Israelis that any deal wouldn’t limit the United States’s options in countering an Iranian move toward the bomb. Moreover, he guaranteed that any suspicious Iranian nuclear activity would be detected, saying "We will have inspectors in there every single day.” The AP has more. Also complicating the negotiations for a nuclear agreement is Iran’s aggressive activity in the Persian Gulf, which included the seizure of a Marshall Islands-flagged commercial vessel in the Strait of Hormuz. James Kraska, a professor at the U.S. Naval War College, argues in DefenseOne that the defense given by the Iranians---that the ship was seized “to fulfill a court judgment in favor of Iran Ports Authority --- is a “vacuous legal rationale … incompatible with the rules set forth in the customary international law of the sea and reflected in the Law of the Sea Convention.” Moreover, the move brings Iran closer to the “red line” President Obama drew regarding the Strait in 2012, Politico reports. Indeed, administration officials have indicated that Iran is nearing that line, forcing the Pentagon to respond: four U.S. ships have already been accompanied through the Strait by U.S. naval vessels. But while President Obama threatened a swift military response to any Iranian attempt to close the shipping channel, U.S. officials were careful to note that the current operation is “nothing more than benign but prudent accompanying of already-scheduled ships. It is not designed to send a signal.” Even as tensions in the region rise, in the United States, Senate leadership is expected to close debate on the Iran review bill and clear the way for its passage this week, Politico reveals. The move would shut down attempts by various critics of a nuclear agreement with Iran to force votes on contentious amendments that would likely have sunk the legislation. Unofficial talks in Qatar between representatives of the Afghan government, the Afghan Taliban, and the United Nations have produced agreement that the Taliban should open a political office for negotiations, Reuters reveals. However, a ceasefire between the Taliban and Afghan security forces remains elusive, as the ongoing presence of 10,000 U.S. military personnel continues to be a sticking point. The talks ended yesterday with a promise to reconvene at a later date, but fighting in Afghanistan continues. Across the border in Pakistan, the Post writes, anti-American sentiment appears to be ebbing. Indeed, a Pew poll from just two years ago found that 80 percent of Pakistanis held negative views of the United States; in August, a Pew poll found that that number dropped to just 59 percent. Analysts add that conspiracy theories about U.S. involvement in the region have dwindled, and have been replaced by “a more tolerant form of skepticism.” The shift in opinion, the Post notes, is a result of Pakistanis looking inward to find the causes of the country’s struggles. Al Qaeda’s branch in the Indian subcontinent has claimed responsibility for the murder of Avijit Roy, an atheist Bangladeshi-American blogger who was murdered in February, the Times reports.The claim came in a new video released by the group on Saturday, in which the leader of the al Qaeda affiliate, Asim Umar, takes responsibility for the killings of several people who he declared blasphemers while calling on his followers to conduct more attacks. In the northeastern Indian state of Nagaland, separatist militants killed at least eight Indian soldiers, the Times reveals. An Indian official noted that the militants were probably members of the Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagaland, a group that also reportedly killed three Indian soldiers in another northeastern state last month. The hundreds of women and girls rescued from Boko Haram militants by the Nigerian military have begun arriving at refugee camps after days of traveling, the AP reports. However, stories of their rescue continue to develop, and the AP writes that “even with the crackle of gunfire signaling rescuers were near, the horrors did not end.” Instead of surrendering the women and girls, Boko Haram militants chose to stone some captives to death while crushing others under armored cars. In France, a new law that would grant French intelligence services greater surveillance powers is being opposed by Internet service providers, civil liberties advocates, journalists and others. But, the BBC notes, the law is nonetheless still expected to pass through the French parliament easily and be on the books by July. According to the BBC, the law will, among other things, “Authorise new [intelligence-gathering] methods, such as the bulk collection of metadata via internet providers.” Here in the United States, the Justice Department has indicated that it will begin revealing more details regarding how the government uses secret cell phone tracking devices, the Wall Street Journal reveals. The Department has also initiated a review of how law-enforcement agencies use the technology. While there is reportedly little agreement within the Department on how much information to reveal, senior officials have indicated that they need to disclose more to the public about how and why the technology is used. Already, FBI investigators have begun obtaining search warrants from judges to use the technology, although there are still many instances in which law enforcement does not get a warrant first. The Hill provides a rundown of the biggest winners and losers in the $612 billion defense bill approved by the House Armed Services Committee. Among the winners, per the piece: the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and military sexual assault reformers. And among the losers: President Obama and the Air Force. In the Senate, some lawmakers are looking into using their own defense spending bill to shift control of the U.S. drone program from the CIA to the military. The charge to change control, a change proposed by President Obama back in 2013, is being led by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. He told reporters last week that, ““It’s what the president announced. It needs to be done. We’ll be looking at some kind of legislation on the defense authorization bill to see that that accelerates.” The Hill has more. In a new book, Mike Morell, the former deputy director of the CIA, takes U.S. intelligence agencies to task for failing to anticipate al-Qaeda’s ability to take advantage of the Arab Spring. In the book, The Great War of Our Time, Morell also defends the enhanced interrogation techniques used by the CIA, the Obama administration’s response to the attacks on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, and apologizes to Colin Powell for the CIA’s faulty pre-war assessment of Iraq’s weapons programs. The Post carries more coverage. A new poll by the Wall Street Journal and NBC News finds 27 percent of Republican voters think national security should be the government’s top priority, while just 13 percent of Democrats listed the same issue at the top of their priorities. Both numbers indicate a jump in the issue’s salience over the past several years: in March 2012, just 6 percent of all adults said national security should be the government’s top priority. Parting Shot: This weekend, Edward Snowden teleconferenced in to a conference at Princeton. Ross Anderson, the Head of Cryptography at Cambridge University, shares this summary of the session’s conversation.

ICYMI: This Weekend, on Lawfare

John Mueller and Mark Stewart asked ‘Can terrorists be scared straight?’ in this week’s Foreign Policy Essay. Cody posted the newest episode of the Lawfare Podcast (Episode #121), which features audio from a conversation on whistleblowing, leaks, and security secrets with Bob Litt, General Counsel of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Ken Dilanian, Dr. Gabriel Schoenfeld, Steve Vladeck, and Mark Zaid. 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.