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.

• The NATO summit is this weekend… and leaders are struggling to come together and present a united front on commitments.
• Col. Michael D. Wirt, a brigade surgeon with the 101st Airborne, has meticulously cataloged a database of the wounds and injuries he’s treated in Afghanistan, with extensive accompanying details. His careful documentation highlights the otherwise scattered nature of our knowledge about the impacts of the last decade of combat.
• NPR’s Morning Edition interviewed the U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, Ryan Crocker.
• As part of economic reconstruction efforts, Afghanistan plans to start pumping oil within five months. This will be the first time the country has done this.
• Pakistan is making rumblings about allowing NATO to begin using the supply route to Afghanistan, which is getting it invited to the upcoming NATO summit. Pakistani negotiators suggested a $5000 per-truck transit fee, an amount which is a “sticking point” in talks.
• The parents of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, a US soldier held by the Taliban since 2009, are now speaking out about their son, and the negotiations process to get him back.
• Nearly half a million Pakistanis have been forced to flee from border regions because of fighting spillover from Afghanistan and nearly a quarter million have registered for aid.
• The Nation’s Jeremy Scahill was on NPR’s Fresh Air, interviewed by Terry Gross about Yemen, AQAP and US drone policy.
• Yemen’s Press and Publication Court is trying two Sana’a-based journalists with Al Jazeera for covering the revolution in a suit filed by Saleh’s regime in June of 2011.
• North Korea has resumed construction of a nuclear reactor.
• The Free Syrian Army is receiving new, better weapons as of late — paid for by Persian Gulf nations and coordinated with assistance by the US.
• The Atlantic’s In Focus photo blog gathered together a stunning and stomach-turning (no, seriously, very very graphic and the graphic photos are shown in full) post of recent photography from the Mexican drug war. 
• Researchers find striking neurological similarities between returning combat soldiers and career pro athletes when it comes to a degenerative brain disease known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy, which is believed to be caused by blast exposure. Traumatic brain injury, confirmed in nearly a quarter million troops, is considered a precursor to CTE.
• On Wednesday, the Army launched a probe of PTSD diagnoses and treatment at all of its medical facilities since 2001.
• Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) has introduced the Gender Equality in Combat Act, which, if passed, would require the Pentagon to set a date by the end of the year for allowing women on the front lines. 
• The top five recipients of GI Bill education funds in the 2010-11 academic were highly problematic for-profit institutions, known to target veterans.
• The Hill is up in arms over the latest defense appropriations bill, the House GOP version of which abandons last year’s attempt at fiscal austerity and ups defense spending by $8m as well as increasing funding for nuclear weapons and slowing down the processes of force reductions. The President has threatened a veto.

Photo: Kabul, Afghanistan. A French soldier reads a book about Afghanistan while waiting at the airport for his flight out. Musadeq Sadeq/AP. 

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.

• News today: In Syria on Friday, the day after bombings killed 55, Assad’s government is calling for action on terrorism and the opposition is accusing the government of having ties with al-Qaeda forces.
• On Tuesday, the UN released numbers stating that more than 80 Libyan refugees have died so far this year in their attempts to reach Europe.
• Libya quietly passed a controversial amnesty law, offering a blanket pardon to any crimes committed by pro-revolution rebels.
• Egypt seized dozens of heavy weapons bound for the Sinai peninsula at the Libyan border on Thursday.
• Panetta has promised that no troops will be deployed to Yemen.
• The story of the double agent sent by Saudi Arabia to disrupt and foil an Al-Qaeda suicide bomber plot and his successful infiltration strategy.
• Turkey will not extradite fugitive Iraqi VP Tareq al-Hashemi.
• Joost Hiltermann had a longreads piece on sectarian conflict in Bahrain up on NY Books. In Manama, protesters blocked roads with burning tires, demanding the release of female activist prisoners, some of whom have been being held for a year.
• US Ambassador to Pakistan Cameron Munter is leaving his post after not even two years on the job.
• The Red Cross is suspending its work in Pakistan pending a review after a ICRC health program manager was abducted and later killed in Balochistan.
• Pakistan has successfully tested another short-range nuclear capable missile, the Hatf III Ghaznavi, and the second such in two weeks.
• A cabinet of Pakistani officials will meet next week to consider reopening the NATO supply routes.
• Monday, the Pentagon Inspector General released a report expressing concern over the Afghan National Army’s pharmaceutical distribution.
• An AP-GfK poll puts public support in the US for the Afghan war at a record low of 27 percent.
• The US is continuing to search for a Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who was captured by insurgents in Afghanistan in 2009.
• A rare bright news report out of A’stan: the UN is reporting that civilian deaths fell by 20 percent in the first four months of this year.
• Russia is claiming to have foiled a terrorist plot against the Sochi Winter Olympic games in 2014.
• In Honduras, days after the kidnapping and killing of journalist and gay rights activist Erick Martinez, another journalist named Alfredo Villatoro of HRN Radio was kidnapped on his way to work in the capital city of Tegucigalpa.
• The GOP members of the House Armed Services Committee voted to include a provision in the new FY2013 defense budget that would ban same-sex marriage on military bases. HASC’s draft also failed to include mention of sequestration cuts.
• Fearing Iranian nuclear capability, the GOP are pushing an East Coast missile defense shield.
• The prospect of war with Iran is dividing the Israeli defense community, with Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak leading a hawkish charge and numerous former intel chiefs publicly opposing them.
• Reporting by Noah Schachtman and Spencer Ackerman for Wired reveals that the US military held a course (now cancelled) at the Joint Forces Staff College taught officers that “total war” need to be waged on global Islam. The professor’s presentation includes quotes like: “This barbaric ideology will no longer be tolerated. Islam must change or we will facilitate its self-destruction.”
• On Wednesday, the FBI Chief said the recently thwarted bomb plot was a good reason to renew surveillance policies set to expire soon, extending the FBI’s abilities to spy on people abroad without a warrant.
• Here’s your new to-be Chief of Staff of the Air Force: General Mark Welsh.
• The Pentagon ceased cooperation with Marvel Studios on The Avengers because it did not treat military bureaucracy realistically (!).
• Sgt. Major Teresa King, the first female commandant of the Army’s elite drill sergeant school, has been fighting for her job amidst a mix of accusations that she set unfair standards. The Army has now said these accusations aren’t substantiated. King is asserting that her gender was a cause for mistreatment at the hands of her superiors, whom she says actively campaigned against her.

Photo: Dover Air Base, Delaware. An Army carry team transports the body of Master Sgt. Gregory L. Childs of Warren, Arkansas, killed in Afghanistan. Steve Ruark/AP.

Picture of the Day: Sana’a, Yemen. A protester with a flower tucked behind his ear chants slogans calling for Saleh loyalists to be removed from positions of power and authority in Yemen’s new government. 

Credit: Yahya Arhab/EPA. Via.

View more Picture of the Day posts. Submit a photo.

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.

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.

• News this Morning: Two days away from major international talks about Syria, violence continues to flare.
• Women Under Siege is crowd-mapping sexual violence in Syria. An amazing project.
• Foreign companies like KFC, Cinnabon and Four Seasons hotels continue to keep shop in Damascus.
• The discussion continues about Sgt. Bales, what exactly happened that night and what will happen now. The Pentagon has confirmed that it payed family members $50,000 a piece. 
• Yalda Hakim of the Australian SBS network has become the first Western journalist to enter the village where the massacre occurred. She interviewed survivors and Afghan guards on duty that night about what happened.
• A US government audit shows that security costs for the US in Afghanistan are set to rise by as much as 46%.
• Billions of dollars in cash are smuggled out of Afghanistan every year. This year $4.5bn was flown out of the country (compare that to USAID’s assistance to Afghanistan in 2011, which was around 2.5bn.
• Human Rights Watch released a report on the hundreds of women jailed for “moral crimes” in Afghanistan.
• The Arab League came to Baghdad. Check out my round-up on that from yesterday.
• The US has cut off aid to Mali following the coup. Assistance to the Malian government totaled $140m a year.
• Sudan and South Sudan are dangerously close to war. Senior envoys have met in Ethiopia to try and calm the situation.
• The revolution in Yemen has been accompanied by a sharp increase in US attacks against militants inside Yemen.
• Drones are always a popular topic of discussion and reporting, but there was a lot this week in particular. Peter Bergen and Jennifer Rowland of the New America Foundation report that drone strikes inside Pakistan in the first three months of this year are down sharply. PRI’s The World ran a piece on UAV proliferation. The Center for Democracy and Technology has an excellent timeline of the process and planning for implementation of domestic drones in the US.
• The Smithsonian interviewed counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke about Stuxnet.
• A cybersecurity bill has been introduced in the House by Republican sponsors. It parallels a similar Senate bill.
• The Washington Post profiled the heavy smoking, “irascible” convert to Islam who heads the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center.
• The war in Afghanistan has seen a steep drop in public support inside the US. An NYT/CBS poll shows that currently 69% of the population thinks we should not be at war in Afghanistan, up from 53% four months ago.
• A touching and beautifully put-together NYT documentary by Micah Garon profiled USAF Lt. Col. John Darin Loftis who was recently killed in Afghanistan.
• IAVA released its annual survey of members this Monday. Veterans listed as their top concerns in this order: employment, mental health, disability benefits, health care, education, suicide and families.
• NBC has been doing a really nice job this week of focusing on employment for returning veterans.
• And… if you haven’t read Mitch Prothero’s piece for Vice on playing paintball with Hezbollah, you have to.

Photo: Soldiers wait in a transport plane to depart from Afghanistan to a transit station in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Vyacheslav Oseledko/AFP/Getty.

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.

• News this morning:A NATO helicopter crash in Kabul killed 12 in the helicopter and 4 civilians on the ground. A previously unreported shooting last month has been revealed in which an Afghan shot and killed a Marine.
• Jeremy Scahill wrote an excellent piece for the Nation on why President Obama has been behind the continued detention of a Yemeni journalist.
• Syria marks the one-year anniversary of its revolution’s beginnings.
• The Guardian has obtained several thousand of the private emails of Bashar and Asma al-Assad.
• Human Rights Watch reports that Syria is laying landmines along its borders with Lebanon and Turkey.
• Clashes have erupted once more in Bahrainon the one-year anniversary of a government crackdown on the revolution.
• Bahrain plans to retry 20 medics who were originally convicted and sentenced to prison terms for assisting protesters, among a number of charges of anti-state activity. 
• Israel saw its latest flare-up with Gaza as a warm-up act, or practice run, for an impending war with Iran.
• The US eyes former NSC official Brett McGurk for the position of US ambassador to Iraq.
• The Afghan who crashed his pick-up truck near Secretary Panetta’s plane has died of his injuries.
• Matthieu Aikins examines a confidential NATO report on the Taliban in Afghanistan for GQ.
• The Taliban have pulled out of preliminary peace talks with the US and called off plans to establish an office in Doha.
• The suspect in the massacre of Afghan civilians has been flown to Kuwait.
• New poll numbers show that the American public’s confidence in US military power has declined, as has specific support for the Afghan war.
• Pakistan has told the US that it may no longer make use of its airspace for drone strikes.
• Lt. Gen. Zaheerul Islam will replace ISI Chief Shuja Pasha as Pakistan’s spymaster on March 18th.
• The ICC has handed down its first ruling: Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga is convicted of conscripting child soldiers.
• A secret squadron of Australian special forces have been at large in Africa performing spy operations in a number of countries.
• Houston plans to honor the returned Iraq war veterans with a parade next month.
• Female soldiers stationed in the US prove their mettle against their male counterparts in cagefighting tournaments. 
• Army mental health workers are discouraged from official diagnoses of mental health problems in war zones.
• Back injuries and chronic back pain are troubling veterans.

Photo: Diraz, a village west of Manama, Bahrain. March 10th. Protesters are silhouetted by a flaming barricade they’ve set up as they clash with riot police after Fadhel Mirza’s funeral procession. Hamad I Mohammed/Reuters

Picture of the Day. Sana’a, Yemen. Protesters demonstrating for the release of fellow activists wear blindfolds and chains as a symbol of their demand.

Read: A piece up at MERIP on the war breaking out in the south of Yemen between Ansar Al-Shari’a and government forces.

Photo Credit: Yahya Arhab/EPA. Via.

View more Picture of the Day posts. Submit a photo.

Picture of the Day. Sana’a, Yemen. A soldier stands guard as women line up, awaiting their turn to vote out President Saleh.

The story: Despite violence, Yemenis still turn out to vote out President Saleh in a one-man race for the presidency. Read Adam Baron’s pre-election piece for McClatchy about the separatist politics of the southern election boycott and FP’s Middle East Channel on what this election might actually mean.

Photo Credit: Ahmad Jadallah/Reuters. Via.

View more Picture of the Day posts. Submit a photo.

Picture of the Day. Sana’a, Yemen. February 10. Protesters paint beautiful graffiti reading “My heartbeats remain Yemeni” on a city wall ahead of a planned rally.

The Read: “The Yemeni Revolution: Beyond Saleh” by Jamal Jubran at Al Akhbar.

Photo Credit: Khaled Abdullah/Reuters. Via.

View more Picture of the Day posts. Submit a photo.

Yemen. An anti-government demonstrator wears a blindfold and gag to protest the torture of detained protesters.

Credit: Khaled Abdullah/Reuters

[via]