Today's Headlines and Commentary

Nuclear negotiations with Iran have been extended through the weekend. According to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, the United States is prepared to keep working toward a deal but will “call an end to the process” if the deadlock cannot be broken. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told Iran’s state-run news station, “Unfortunately we have seen changes in the position and excessive demands...by several countries,” making the task of securing a deal much harder. One Iranian negotiator said, “It’s not like a multilateral negotiation. It’s like we’re doing five bilateral negotiations.…Everyone now has their own red line.”

The Washington Post reports that negotiations today have been less rushed than yesterday, when envoys were pushing to reach a deal by the end of the day. After meetings ended this morning, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius departed Vienna for Paris, another sign that a deal is not imminent. Kerry has asserted that negotiators “will not rush and will not be rushed.”

Bloomberg reveals that a nuclear deal with Iran could create a jackpot for U.S. defense contractors, “who already are benefiting as the Obama administration tries to assuage Israeli and Gulf Arab concerns by cutting deals for more than $6 billion in military hardware.” William Hartung, director of the Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy writes that “In theory, an Iran deal could lead to a reduction in tensions in the region that would reduce the demand for advanced weaponry.... In the short-term, a deal could actually boost the demand for arms.” Iran currently has an estimated $100 billion in Iranian oil revenue currently frozen by sanctions and “will make possible an Iranian military shopping spree that it will be near-impossible for Israel to keep up with.”

In a last ditch effort to avoid the “Grexit,” Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras submitted a bailout reform plan to eurozone creditors on Thursday, hours before the EU-imposed deadline. Members of the Greek parliament were to vote today on bailout reform plan that requests 3.5 billion euro loan over the next three years in return for concessions to creditors, including tax hikes, spending cuts, and pension savings. The European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund will send their assessment to eurozone finance ministers ahead of a Eurogroup meeting on Saturday, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Al Arabiya lets us know that Turkish officials arrested 21 suspected members of ISIS, including 3 foreigners, in pre-dawn raids on Friday. The raids were carried out in major cities across Turkey, including Istanbul. The suspects are accused of helping the terrorist group recruit members across Europe.

A humanitarian ceasefire in Yemen begins today. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon urged that, “Full and unhindered access by humanitarian agencies to all parts of the country, including through sea and airports, should be ensured with a view to reaching people in need, including with essential medicines, vaccinations, food and water.”

In his first speech on the job, the new leader of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) called for (you guessed it) attacks on the United States, Reuters reports. The former military commander of AQAP, Nasser al-Wuhayshi, was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Yemen's south-eastern city of Mukalla last month. The United States considers AQAP to be al Qaeda’s most dangerous affiliate.

British tourists in Tunisia are coming home after the U.K. Foreign Office tightened its travel advice in response to the terrorist attack at a beachfront hotel that left 30 Brits dead. Tunisian Prime Minister Habib Essid criticized the Foreign Office’s decision to recommend departure, arguing that tourist flight from the country is “what the terrorists want.” The Guardian has the story, along with footage of the gunman walking along the beach with a Kalashnikov assault rifle.

Iraqi Shiite militia fighters have initiated the first stage of an offensive to take back the ISIS-held city of Fallujah, Reuters explains. The Iraqi military vowed to quickly take back Anbar’s capital Ramadi after Islamic State captured it last month. However, plans to retake Ramadi were shelved and it has its sights set on Fallujah, “a city located further downriver and closer to Baghdad, meaning supply lines for a counter-offensive would be less vulnerable…[Iraqi] commanders concluded that Fallujah would be ‘a dagger pointed at the army in Ramadi’ unless it was tackled first.”

Reuters tells us that the Syrian army is closing in the ancient city of Palmyra, which is now under ISIS control. The city is home to some 50,000 people and has some of the most extensive and best-preserved Roman ruins in the world.

The Daily Beast notifies us that ISIS has come to Russia. Last month, one of the most important rebels in the Northern Caucasus pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, stating in a Twitter post, “We testify that all Mujahideen of the Caucasus...are united in their decision and we do not have differences among ourselves.” Terrorism is Russia is not new: the Chechen struggle for independence that began in the 1990’s has slowly developed into an insurgency throughout the region.

Iran’s most important proxy group is taking a beating in Syria, Foreign Policy reports. Hezbollah is shouldering a heavy burden in the war on behalf of the Assad regime with roughly 7,000 fighters on the ground. U.S. officials believe the group has suffered close to 1,000 casualties, a major blow to the group.

FBI director James Comey announced that counterterrorism officials foiled multiple attacks leading up to the July 4th holiday. He declined to say how many people had been involved or reveal what the plots entailed but described that those arrested “are products of this ISIL online recruiting, motivating, directing effort.” The New York Times has more.

The Post has more news on the death of Shahidullah Shahid, the former Taliban spokesman turned ISIS leader killed in a U.S. drone strike in eastern Pakistan earlier this week. Afghan officials have stated that over twenty ISIS fighters, along with Shahid and one other ISIS leader, were killed in American drone strikes on Tuesday. The Post suggests that U.S. use of drones and other airstrikes are on the rise in Afghanistan, perhaps indicating increased U.S. efforts to prevent ISIS from gaining yet another foothold in the embattled region.

With tentative success achieved in peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban and more talks on the horizon after Ramadan, Foreign Policy considers how negotiations might---and might not---lead to a lasting deal for peace. The Afghanistan Peace and Reintegration Program, or APRP, has been tasked with developing a peace process but remains isolated from the Afghan population and saddled with a maddeningly vague mandate. As the clock ticks toward the APRP’s expiration, it will be up to President Ashraf Ghani to develop a new blueprint for the Afghan peace process.

A Buzzfeed report does some knee-deep muckraking on U.S. education aid to Afghanistan, and concludes that U.S. efforts to establish schools and educate Afghan children have been “hollowed out by corruption.” The education aid program, supposedly crucial in winning the “hearts and minds” of Afghans in the counterinsurgency effort against the Taliban, is riddled with schools that have low to no attendance or were never even built. “The U.S. government,” the story argues, “has known for years that it is peddling hype.”

India and Pakistan have come to a rare accord, agreeing to cooperate in fighting terrorism in South Asia. While the meeting between Pakistani President Nawaz Sharif and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi may represent a thaw in the often-frosty relations between the two countries, the Journal cautions against excessive optimism. “Expectations should never be too high,” the paper quotes a retired Pakistani general as saying. “That would be unrealistic.”

Violence continues in Burundi in the wake of President Pierre Nkurunziza’s decision to seek a third term in violation of the constitution. The U.N. human rights chief issued a warning yesterday that the country is at a high risk for escalating political violence.

The United States has rejected South Sudanese President Salva Kiir’s move to unilaterally renew his regime for three more years in the absence of elections. National security advisor Susan Rice called instead for the establishment of a transitional government to ease the nation out of its 19-month civil war. As of yesterday, South Sudan has now been independent for four years.

At his confirmation hearing yesterday for his new position as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joseph Dunford described Russia as “the greatest existential threat” to the United States, saying that Russian military activity and arms buildup is “nothing short of alarming.” General Dunford also listed China as a potential threat. NPR has excerpts from the hearing.

Possibly in response to Chinese aggressiveness in the South China Sea, Japan may seek to join a NATO missile building consortium. Reuters writes that the U.S. navy is supporting Japan’s involvement in the hopes that it may lead to greater military ties between U.S. allies in Asia. As China has continued to build islands across the disputed South China Sea, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has worked to develop security cooperation between other Asian nations threatened by China’s expansion.

Speaking of China, President Xi Jinping is weathering a “rare backlash” among the political class as Chinese markets continue to struggle. The Wall Street Journal reports on how market turmoil may affect the president’s previously strong hold on authority.

The remembrances of Srebrenica continue this week, on the twentieth anniversary of the infamous massacre. Foreign Policy examines how Srebrenica’s role as “a brutal symbol of the price of inaction” has shaped U.S. and U.N. approaches to foreign intervention. On Wednesday, Russia vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning the killings, and the magazine also considers the implications of the Kremlin’s reluctance. The Atlantic has more on the role of the United Nations during the crisis in the former Yugoslavia and now.

As of Friday afternoon, the Director of the Office of Personnel Management, Katherine Archuleta, has resigned. Her decision to leave her post comes after news that the recent OPM hacking compromised the data of 22 million people, a dramatic increase over previous estimates. The Post writes that not only federal employees and contractors, but also their families and friends, have been affected by the breach, and that every single OPM file related to a security clearance application for the last fifteen years was included in the hack. Interestingly, among government agencies, the CIA appears to have been comparatively unaffected. The Times has more.

Both Foreign Policy and Politico have in-depth stories on cyberwar. At Foreign Policy, David Kenner examines (with the help of some nifty graphics) the constant stream of DDoS attacks across the globe and the arrival of projects devoted to providing protection. At Politico, August Cole and Peter W. Singer study what cyberwar looks like now and what shape a global cyber conflict might take in the future.

Honeypot: Wired provides commentary on the recent hacking of the Italian firm Hacking Team, which resulted in the loss of two zero-day exploits that the firm possessed as well as controversial information on the company’s sales of surveillance software to various governments. The lesson, Wired argues, is that companies stockpiling zero-days should probably invest in higher levels of security than Hacking Team did, since zero-days will be an obvious target for hackers.

The U.S. District Court in Washington DC is preparing to order the accelerated release of videotapes showing force-feeding of Guantanamo detainees, the Guardian reports. The Department of Justice has fought to prevent the tapes’ release on the grounds that their disclosure would be needlessly inflammatory. On Thursday, Judge Gladys Kessler referred to the DOJ’s previous challenge to a release order as “among the most frivolous I’ve ever seen” and announced her plans to “move as fast as we can” in ordering the release of the tapes.

Parting shot: Is your information safe from hackers? Probably not, but you can take a look at this Guardian flowchart to find out how concerned you should be.

ICYMI: Yesterday, on Lawfare

Herb Lin posted a brief response to Paul’s proposal yesterday on allowing government “backdoors” to be built into encryption.

Paul continued to publish excerpts from his upcoming lecture series on privacy, this time drawing on the works of Plato and Jeremy Bentham.

Suzanne Maloney considered the five main issues at the center of the Iran negotiations.

Ben discussed FBI Director James Comey’s recent “public offensive” on the matter of encryption and “going dark.”

Bobby wrote about the rise of “preventative prosecution” in U.S. law enforcement.

Aaron Zelin posted a statement from the Taliban “Concerning its Political Affairs.”

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