thepoliticalnotebook:

This Week in War. A Friday round-up of what happened and what’s been written in the world of war and military/security affairs this week. It’s a mix of news reports, policy briefs, blog posts and longform journalism.

• At least 6 have been killed in recent fighting between UN forces and militias in western Central African Republic.
• Sudan has bolstered its military strength along the border with South Sudan.
• Sudan denied UN access to a village in Darfur to investigate the possibility of a mass rape.
• Deadly clashes sparked in the Kenyan city of Mombasa after a mosque closure.
• Young people 18 to 24 are fleeing from Eritrea to Ethiopia to escape a new conscription drive.
• A terrible attack on the northeastern Nigerian village of Azaya Kura that left 45 dead is being attributed to Boko Haram. 
• This Sunday, ISIS released a video showing the severed head of Abdul-Rahman Kassig, whose life they threatened in early October after the beheading of Alan Henning. In the video, they also beheaded 18 Syrian fighters in their goriest on-screen yet. Unlike previous hostage videos, Kassig’s murder was not shown and he did not speak. 
• ISIS’s last remaining American hostage, an aid worker, has never appeared in a propaganda video — nor has her name been released to the media.
• President Obama has reportedly ordered a hostage policy review.
• Simon Cottee on ISIS and the intimate kill. 
• A new video from Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb shows Dutch and French hostages. 
• Fighters with loyalties to ISIS control the Libyan city of Derna.
• The UN warns that ISIS has a large enough stockpile of weapons for two years worth of fighting.
• The UN Security Council added Libyan militant group Ansar al-Sharia to its Al Qaeda sanctions list. 
• A Somali-American man from Minnesota was killed by Al-Shabab in Mogadishu.
• Egypt’s closure of the Rafah border to the Gaza Strip strands thousands of Palestinians on the Egyptian side.
• An attack on a mosque in Jerusalem by two Palestinian cousins left four rabbis dead (three of them Americans) and one policeman. Retaliation, of course, follows.
• An interview with Iraqi Kurdish journalist Nawzat Shamdin, who has lived in Mosul for 40 years. 
• The battle for Kobani has become a publicity war.
• The Iraqi army has retaken control of the Beiji oil refinery after a months-long battle with ISIS.
• US airstrikes against the Islamic State target construction equipment.
• Young people in Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan photograph their daily lives for a workshop — one assignment was to document their sports activities.
• Gregoy Johnsen on his near-kidnapping in Yemen.
• For Haleh Esfandari, watching Jon Stewart’s new film about the detention of Maziar Bahari is a reminder of her own time spent in solitary confinement in Iran’s Evin prison.
• Film-making and cultural battlefields in Iran.
• Steve Coll on drone war, civilian casualties and new phases in the war on terror and an excellent personal essay by Elliot Ackerman on the CIA and assassination.
• 82% of terrorist attack deaths in 2013 occurred in 5 countries: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria, Iraq and Syria.
• Four suicide bombers attempted an attack on Kabul’s Green Village, killing only themselves. 
• An insider’s account of Pakistani censorship.
• Two senior leaders in Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) were killed in a recent US operation along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
• Chinese journalist Gao Yu went on trial on Friday accused of leaking state secrets. The proceedings of the trial are closed-door.
• The government is arresting Thai protesters who have adopted the three-fingered salute from The Hunger Games movies.
• The leader of the Luhansk People’s Republic, Igor Ploznitsky, has challenged Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko to a duel.
• The Swedish navy now has solid proof that a foreign submarine, almost surely Russian, breached its waters back in October (in response, Russian newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta called the commander of the Swedish armed forces unmanly).
• Gideon Rachman notes an increase in threatening nuclear references from Russia.
• Azerbaijan will increase military spending by 25% next year as tensions rise with Armenia.
• Colombia has suspended peace talks with FARC over the kidnapping of Brigadier General Ruben Dario Alzate Mora.
• Thousands marched in the streets in Mexico City in protests that turned violent over the massacre of 43 trainee teachers abducted by corrupt police.
• The US insists it does not stockpile so-called zero days (secret software vulnerabilities it can use against targets).
• An NSA reform bill failed in the Senate.
• A provision of the Patriot Act could let NSA phone data collection to continue even if the law explicitly allowing it expires. 
• The CIA director is considering significant organizational changes. 
• The CIA torture report will supposedly be released by the end of the year.
• The library of the Imperial War Museum is under threat of closure due to budget cuts — prompting a petition signed by thousands to keep it open.
• A British court ruled that Pakistani Yunus Rahmatullah can sue the British government for his detention and torture.
• The US transferred five Guantánamo Bay detainees to new homes in Slovakia and Georgia.
• The American Nurses Association is backing the Navy nurse who refused to participated in force-feedings at Guantánamo Bay.
• Reuters Graphics presents the Committee to Protect Journalists’ data on journalist deaths.
• A new UN resolution will condemn attacks on journalists and lack of justice for their murderers and aggressors. 

Photo: Kabul, Afghanistan. Security forces patrol the Green Village — home to UN workers and contractors, and the site of a suicide bombing on Wednesday. Shah Marai/AFP/Getty.