When the Friends of Yemen group meets Wednesday in Riyadh, representatives from the US, the EU and Gulf states are likely to focus on this week’s suicide bombing in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, that killed nearly 100 soldiers and shook the fledging transition government. But international attention should not only be focused on al Qaeda and its affiliates—the need to hold human rights violators to account and a deepening humanitarian crisis should also be high on their agenda.
Andrea Prasow writes on Huffington Post regarding the significance of the military commission arraignment of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks.
A Congress that cannot agree on many things that Americans want came together last week to approve something virtually no one was demanding: It decided to give the United States military the authority to arrest and imprison suspected terrorists, potentially even on U.S. soil, and to allow the government the permanent power to detain without trial people suspected of involvement in terrorism.
Al-Shabaab claims it struck Kampala as retribution for attacks on civilians by the African Union peacekeeping force, led by Ugandan soldiers who are propping up Somalia's internationally backed transitional government. As investigators continue to sift through the evidence and talk of more arrests, international policymakers and governments in the region should work just as urgently to revise their failed Somalia strategies.
Stories of abuse are shockingly routine in Somalia, where the beleaguered, US-backed Transitional Federal Government is pitted against powerful insurgents including al-Shabaab, a radical Islamist group with some ties to Al Qaeda.
One got a glorious homecoming. The other was left to rot. Bill Frelick on the paradoxes of justice, Libya-style-and the perils of pretending Gaddafi has changed his stripes.
Andrea Prasow writes on Huffington Post regarding the significance of the military commission arraignment of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks.