Mother of Dragons

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.

Political detainees in Egypt are dying of neglect in prison, being refused life-saving medical treatments.

Egypt’s young activists are disappearing into Egypt’s detention system, taken off the streets by plainclothes security forces.

The US sent more troops to Sinai to boost the security of the peacekeeping operation.

Human rights violations are escalating in the Congo ahead of elections.

Human Rights Watch says a government militia in Darfur is guilty of mass rapes and killings of civilians over the past two years.

The South Sudanese parliament unanimously voted to approve a peace deal to end fighting between President Salva Kiir and his former deputy Riek Machar.

Former Chadian dictator Hissene Habre was forcibly dragged into Senegalese court for the resumption of his war crimes trial.

Guinea-Bissau’s prime minister announced his resignation after two days in office.

Elections in the Ivory Coast next month are being preceded by violent clashes between protesters and police.

Two people were killed in a grenade attack in the Central African Republic’s capital.

Burundi’s army chief survived an assassination attempt in the capital, Bujumbura.

The Pope will visit Kenya, Uganda and the Central African Republic in November.

A resident of the Libyan city of Derna chronicled months of terror as Al Qaeda and the Islamic State battled for control.

Mali has arrested three suspected militants in connection with attacks on the UN and police and threats to journalists.

Turkey and the Kurds are trading fatal blows.

Palestine won approval to fly their flag in front of UN headquarters.

The US Treasury Dept sanctioned Hamas officials.

The Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen may be setting its sights on a ground offensive on Sana’a.

Yemen peace talks are set to resume next week.

Russia lifted objections to a UN probe into culpability for chemical weapons attacks in Syria.

Russian forces are now participating in military operations in Syria, according to a Reuters investigation.

Government forces in Syria have killed more people this year than the Islamic State has.

Al Nusrah Front, an Al Qaeda affiliate in Syria, claims it has taken a Syrian regime air base in Idlib.

The Islamic State is advancing on the Deir al-Zour military base in Syria.

Footage of coalition airstrikes shows the destruction of an Islamic State operating base/staging area near Ramadi.

The battle to retake Ramadi is still pretty slow-going.

Australia will join in airstrikes against the terror group.

The Islamic State has published images of two hostages: a Chinese national named Fan Jinghui and a Norwegian graduate student named Ole Johan Grimsgaard-Ofstad. 

A senior Iraqi Justice Ministry official was kidnapped in a daytime ambush.

11 officers in Afghanistan’s counternarcotics police force were killed in a “friendly fire” airstrike in the Garmsir district of Helmand.

The Dutch government says an aid worker kidnapped in Afghanistan in June has been released after 81 days.

The Taliban’s leadership struggles may be a recruitment boon for the Islamic State.

Terrorist attacks have been significantly reduced in Pakistan this year.

Pakistan used drone technology in combat for the first time, killing three militants in a strike in the Shawal Valley in the country’s northwest.

Pakistan is intimidating and harassing refugees into returning back to crisis in Afghanistan.

12 people have been convicted and face the possibility of the death penalty for the July 2006 bombings of seven Mumbai commuter trains. 188 people died and 800 were injured.

The militant group Abu Sayyaf is the first to be designated a terrorist organization by the Philippines. 

A man has been given more than two years in prison by a Russian court for painting a star in Ukrainian colors on a skyscraper in Moscow.

Russia is building a large military base near the Ukrainian border.

A summit will be held in Paris in October over the crisis in Ukraine.

Some Belarusian opposition activists are rallying against the October election in which Alexander Lukashenko, “Europe’s last dictator,” looks set for re-election.

Countries in Europe, as well as the US and Australia, have upped the number of refugees they will take in as streams of people displaced by violence travel long and dangerous journeys to find some safety.

Europe has another refugee crisis: the 2 million people displaced by conflict from their homes in eastern Ukraine.

For the first time, a Serbian court has charged eight people in connection with the Srebrenica massacre.

The Guardian reports “highly unusual” and frequent contact between Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and a military intelligence officer currently implicated in the inquiry into whether or not intelligence assessments about the war on the Islamic State were manipulated.

There is concern that the CIA may have abandoned a lead that could have lead to Al Qaeda hostage Warren Weinstein (killed in a US airstrike in January) because the agency prioritizes hunting terrorists.

Two murders have sparked a political crisis in Northern Ireland.

Talks in Northern Ireland over power-sharing will include the possibility of bringing back a ceasefire monitoring body.

British authorities say the number of people being arrested on suspicion terrorism involvement is at a record high.

Venezuelan opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez is jailed for nearly 14 years for “inciting violence” during last year’s protests.

The drug war heats up in the Caribbean.

Senate Democrats blocked a Republican effort to kill the Iran deal.

An article of mine for VICE News – “If the US Won’t Sell You Weapons, France Might Still Hook You Up.” 

Any fin is possible.

The denouement of a 35-year-drama takes place Thursday at the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan. And I trust that my father, virtuoso violinist Roman Totenberg, who died three years ago, will be watching from somewhere.

For decades he played his beloved Stradivarius violin all over the world. And then one day, he turned around and it was gone. Stolen.

While he was greeting well-wishers after a concert, it was snatched from his office at the Longy School of Music in Cambridge, Mass.

My father would dream of opening his violin case and seeing the Strad there again, but he never lay eyes on it again. He died in 2012, but the Stradivarius lived on — somewhere.

Then, on the last day in June, I got a call from FBI Special Agent Christopher McKeogh.

“We believe that the FBI has recovered your father’s stolen violin,” he said.

A Rarity Reclaimed: Stolen Stradivarius Recovered After 35 Years