Frustratingly vague accounts indicate that a contingent of US Special Forces sent to fight ISIS in Libya were chased off by a local militia. The troops chose to leave "in an effort to avoid conflict," a US Africa Command spokesman told the BBC, but doesn't tell us much about the hostile militia. Stars & Stripes says the US troops were sent to an airbase near the ISIS-held town of Sabratha, in Libya's west, but doesn't tell us which of the country's rival regimes controls the base. Libya Herald names the base as al-Wattiyah, controlled by forces loyal to the government of Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thinni. That is the internationally-recognized government, based in the eastern city of Bayda, with its parliament in Tobruk. Sabratha and al-Wattiyah are actually west of Tripoli, seat of the Libya Dawn coalition that controls most of the country's west, but appears to be a western pocket loyal to the Thinni government—now threatened by ISIS. It appears uncertain if the hostile militia was ostensibly loyal to the eastern regime. Representatives of the rival regimes signed a deal in Morocco on this week, agreeing to form a national unity government—but the incident at al-Wattiyah indicates how tenuous their actual control of ground forces is, even in areas ostensibly under their control.

On the evening of Dec. 10, International Human Rights Day, activists gathered at New York City's Columbus Circle, overlooked by the Trump International Hotel, for a rally in solidarity with Iraqi and Syrian refugees—under the slogan "Human Rights TRUMP Oppression." Favored chants included "Say it loud, say it clear; Refugees are welcome here!" and "Dump Trump!"—an exhortation aimed at the GOP over the candidate's call for banning all Muslims from entering the US, but the latest in his relentless barrage of xenophobic bluster. Featured speakers included representatives of the Arab American Association of New York, MENA Solidarity Network, Queer Detainee Empowerment Project, Black Lives Matter—and a group of Syrian Americans, accompanied by a refugee recently arrived from war-torn Homs, whose comments in Arabic were translated. This group spoke against a backdrop of Syria's rebel flag and led chants of "Assad, ISIS, they're the same; Only difference is the name!"

The mutual hypocrisy of the Russo-Turkish game for control of Syria continues to become more grimly amusing. Turkey's Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu today accused Russia of attempting "ethnic cleansing" with its air-strikes in northern Syria. "Russia is trying to make ethnic cleansing in the northern Latakia [region] to force [out] all Turkmen and Sunni populations who do not have good relations with the [Syrian] regime," Davutoglu told reporters in Istanbul, according to the BBC News. He added that the Russian air-strikes are "strengthening" ISIS. Turkmen areas in Latakia have indeed been coming under vicious Russian aerial bombardment, and it is plausible that these air-strikes are ethnically taregted. But Turkey has also been conniving with ISIS and other jihadist forces that are bent on "cleansing" Kurds, Yazidis and Assyrians. The fact that Moscow (for its own propagandistic purposes) is now making such charges doesn't mean that they aren't true! And Turkey's plans for a "buffer zone" in northern Syria are clearly aimed at expunging the Kurdish autonmous zone in the region. What's more, Turkey is arguably already commiting ethnic cleansing in its renewed counter-insurgency campaign against Kurdish rebels within its own territory.  

Human Rights Watch is calling on the Obama administration to cancel a pending arms sale to Saudi Arabia in the absence of serious investigations into alleged laws-of-war violations in Yemen. On No. 17, the Pentagon announced that the State Department had approved a sale of $1.29 billion worth of air-to-ground munitions such as laser-guided bombs and "general purpose" bombs with guidance systems. "The purchase replenishes the Royal Saudi Air Force's current weapons supplies, which are becoming depleted due to the high operational tempo in multiple counter-terrorism operations," the Pentagon statement said. But HRW's Joe Stork countered: "The US government is well aware of the Saudi-led coalition's indiscriminate air attacks that have killed hundreds of civilians in Yemen since March. Providing the Saudis with more bombs under these circumstances is a recipe for greater civilian deaths, for which the US will be partially responsible."

Well, here's a bizarre irony. Iraq's Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi today warned Turkey that "only 24 hours" were left for Ankara to remove forces it sent into the north of his country. "We must be prepared and ready to defend Iraq and its sovereignty," said Abadi. "The air force has the capability...to protect Iraq and its borders from any threat it faces." (Al Jazeera) Turkey says it has deployed the 150 soldiers to the town of Bashiqa to train Kurdish Peshmerga forces fighting ISIS. (BBC News) So Iraq's Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and its strongman Masoud Barzani have invited in Turkish forces, while the Baghdad regime is demanding that they leave. Turkey is doubtless motivated by the need to police northern Iraq against the growing influence there of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). The KRG and PKK are ostensibly allied against ISIS. But the KRG is shamefully acquiescing in Turkey's bombing of PKK fighters within its own territory—a terrible blow to Kurdish solidarity and the anti-ISIS struggle. Now this contradiction has just become clearer—and more urgent.

Russia's National Anti-Terrorist Committee announced Nov. 29 that security forces in Dagestan killed three militants who had sworn allegiance to ISIS, including one who had returned from Syria earlier this year. The three, identified as members of the "Suleiman-Stal bandit group," were slain when they fired on troops sent to arrest them in the district of that name. A "security alert" was insated throughout Dagestan Republic for 48 hours. The raid may have been realted to a Nov. 7 incident in which unidentified gunmen opened fire on railway workers who were inspecting tracks near Novy Khuchet village on the outskirts of Makhachkala, killing one and wounding another. Security forces responded, and the assailants were killed when the refused to surrender. (TASS, Nov. 30; TASS, AP, Nov. 29; TASS, Nov. 7)

OK, here we go. Get ready for the tiresome semantic debate about whether the San Bernardino massacre was "terrorism," or not. As if that's the most important question we should be grappling with.... Was this yet another random "mass-shooting" motivated by some personal grudge and rooted in America's homegrown culture of vigilantism and personal revenge? (This kind of thing is so commonplace that the same day's shoot-up in Savannah, Ga., barely made the news because only four people were shot, one fatally, the WaPo says.) Or was it inspired or even directed by an extremist political tendency of one stripe or another? This question is pathologically politicized...

The Independent cites a report from the UN Security Council finding that ISIS is preparing a "retreat zone" in Libya as coalition air-strikes (and a ground offensive by Kurdish-led forces, as the account fails to note) threaten the group's territory in Iraq and Syria. The Libyan affiliate is said to  be the one ISIS franchise actually operating under the direction of the leadership in Iraq and Syria. The leadership is said to view Libya as "a potential retreat and operational zone for Isil fighters unable to reach the Middle East." The Libya franchise is said to have between 2,000 and 3,000 fighters. Franchise leader Abu al-Mughirah al-Qahtani is quoted boasting of the country's importance due to its proximity to southern Europe and its abundance of resources "that cannot dry."