Today's Headlines and Commentary

The Islamic militant group Boko Haram has claimed responsibility for a string of terrorist attacks that killed more than 150 people in Nigeria. The New York Times, CNN, and BBC have the story. Daniel Klaidman at Newsweek reports that the Obama administration is "planning to reveal publicly the legal reasoning behind its decision to kill the American-born leader of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Anwar al-Awlaki." John C. Dehn, Assistant Professor in the Department of Law at the United States Military Academy at West Point comments on this development at Opinio Juris. Warning to would-be assassins: If you're thinking of taking out President Obama, you probably don't want to write a newspaper column about it. CNN informs us that "Andrew Adler, owner and publisher of the Atlanta Jewish Times, wrote a January 13 column about the threat of Iran to Israel." Apparently one of his solutions to counter the Iranian regime is "a hit on a president in order to preserve Israel's existence." Now the Secret Service is "looking into" the matter. Voice of America reports that the U.S special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Marc Grossman, "has urged Taliban insurgents to denounce ties to international terrorists and support Afghan peace initiatives" during "two days of extensive talks with Afghan leaders in Kabul." According to the Lebanese Daily Star, President Karzai met with Afghan insurgents over the weekend in an attempt to assert his authority over the peace talks. Dan Morse at the Washington Post describes the dismal state of affairs in Iraq, as detailed in Human Rights Watch's recently-released World Report 2012. Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch has the following money quote:

Iraq is quickly slipping back into authoritarianism as its security forces abuse protesters, harass journalists and torture detainees. . . . Despite U.S. government assurances that it helped create a stable democracy, the reality is that it left behind a budding police state.

CBS News tells us that Navi Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, says that President Obama's failure to close Guantanmo Bay is a "clear breach of international law." As Bobby reported here, the FBI arrested an Uzbek by the name of Jamshid Muhtorov at Chiacago's O'Hare International Airport. Muhtorov was planning to go overseas to fight for the Islamic Jihad Union, says the Chicago Tribune. From the Department of Drones: The Times reports that a drone strike has killed a senior Al Shabab commander in Somalia. And another drone stike has killed at least five suspected militants, says the BBC. And Peter W. Singer of Brookings argues in this op-ed in the New York Times that drones are "transforming the way our democracy deliberates and engages in what we used to think of as war. " National Public Radio has this story on the CIA's Open Source Center, whose role is to analyze the massive volume of information on social networking sites in order to predict big world events. Fareed Zakaria interviewed President Obama on Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, China and a host of other foreign policy issues for Time magazine. Read the complete transcript here. Hat tip to a Lawfare reader: If you've been wondering what the source of all the "mysterious explosions" at Iranian nuclear facilities have been, today's Moment of Zen has the answer (click "CC" for subtitles if your Hebrew is subpar). For more interesting law and security-related articles, follow us on Twitter, visit the Georgetown Center on National Security and the Law’s Security Law Brief, Fordham Law’s Center on National Security’s Morning Brief, and Fordham Law’s new Cyber Brief. Email us noteworthy articles we may have missed at wakeman.lawfare@gmail.com and singh.lawfare@gmail.com.