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“The death toll from an attack Monday on two government office buildings by heavily armed men rose to 43 people, Public Health Ministry officials said Tuesday.”

“American fingerprints are all over the air war in Yemen, where errant strikes by the Saudi-led coalition have killed more than 4,600 civilians, according to a monitoring group. In Washington, that toll has stoked impassioned debate about the pitfalls of America’s alliance with Saudi Arabia under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who relies on American support to keep his warplanes in the air.”

"The mission for troops in Afghanistan continues as planned, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said amid reports of a partial pullout from the country, while speaking in front of hundreds of U.S. troops gathered at a USO celebrity holiday event Monday."

Major players in and around Syria have started positioning their forces as discussions get under way on how to proceed once U.S. forces vacate the country and their fight against the last remnants of the Islamic State terror group's self-proclaimed caliphate. The pace of troop movements, along with diplomatic outreach, intensified Monday, the same day the Pentagon confirmed outgoing Defense Secretary Jim Mattis ordered U.S. troops to start leaving Syria, without elaborating.

“Assad’s government is doubling down on the killing of political prisoners as the civil war heads toward its conclusion.”

In a tweet late Sunday, Trump said Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan "has strongly informed me that he will eradicate whatever is left of ISIS in Syria...and he is a man who can do it plus, Turkey is right 'next door.' Our troops are coming home!" Trump added.

"The voice of Gen. Mazloum Abdi, the Kurdish commander of the Syrian Democratic Forces militia, is tight and controlled as he describes President’s Trump’s decision to withdraw U.S. troops from the country and leave America’s allies to their fate."

"Just days after Defense Secretary Jim Mattis announced he would step down from that post in late February, President Donald Trump announced he would push the popular Cabinet member out even earlier."

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has announced that Assadullah Khalid, the former head of Afghanistan's National Directorate of Security (NDS), as the country's defense minister and Amrullah Saleh, also a former intelligence chief, as interior minister.

"U.S. military and Afghan officials grappled Friday with President Trump’s order to pull nearly half of all American troops from Afghanistan, a move that will probably focus the war on one of the few military efforts the president says he cares about: counterterrorism."

Reactions are mixed to reports in the U.S. media that U.S. President Donald Trump is mulling over withdrawing within weeks roughly half of the more than 14,000 U.S. troops from Afghanistan.

"The U.S. withdrawal from Syria removes the main obstacle to a Turkish campaign to eradicate Syrian Kurdish forces and could lead to a more dangerous phase of Syria’s civil war."

"The Pentagon is considering using small teams of Special Operations forces to strike the Islamic State in Syria, one option for continuing an American military mission there despite President Trump’s order to withdraw troops from the country."

Resignation letters can be rants. Meltdowns. But mostly they’re boilerplate. One job site advises quitters to be brief, not to burn bridges, and — this above all — “Don’t tell the whole truth in your exit interview.”

"Over the course of 24 extraordinary hours this week, 17 years of American military policy was thrown out the window as President Trump spurned his defense secretary’s plea to keep United States troops in Syria and began the long process of pulling out of Afghanistan."

Continue on for the latest SWJ Call for Papers…

The U.N. Security Council has unanimously endorsed a deal for a cease-fire around the vital Yemeni port city of Hodeida. The agreement was reached last week during U.N.-led intra-Yemeni talks outside the Swedish capital.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s reported plans to withdraw around 7,000 troops from Afghanistan, roughly half the remaining U.S. military presence there, has prompted much discussion about the impact the drawdown could have on the country.

Jibrin Ibrahim and Saleh Bala - USIP Special Report - "Nigeria’s military has largely degraded the capacity of Boko Haram since the peak of the insurgency in 2015. The government and security forces must now focus on winning the peace. This Special Report outlines the insurgency and its aftermath, the challenges facing the Nigerian government, the imperative of national police reform, and ways forward to stable and effective civilian-led governance." Continue on for a summary and a link to the full report.

Today the Department of Defense provided to the Congress the semiannual report “Enhancing Security and Stability in Afghanistan” covering events during the period from June 1 to November 30, 2018. The report was submitted in accordance with requirements in Section 1225 of the Fiscal 2015 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) as amended by Sections 1231 and 1531 of the Fiscal 2016 and Fiscal 2017 NDAA.

"Controversy surrounding the extension and modifications of a crucial law in Colombia shows the continued risks facing the successful implementation of the government’s peace agreement with the FARC guerrillas. This could also jeopardize the already uncertain future of peace talks with the ELN."

"The Trump administration is withdrawing roughly 7,000 troops from Afghanistan in the coming months, two defense officials said Thursday, around half of what the American military has there now."

"Since 2014, the Holocaust Museum and scholars from Dartmouth have mapped the conditions that precede a genocide. They built a database of every mass killing since World War II. Then they went back and looked at the conditions in the countries where the killings occurred just prior to the attacks. And now they use that computer model to analyze which nations currently are at greatest risk."

"Trump has said his instinct is to quit Afghanistan as a lost cause, but more recently he’s suggested a willingness to stay in search of peace with the Taliban. However, the abruptness with which he turned the page on Syria raises questions about whether combat partners like Iraq and Afghanistan should feel confident that he will not pull the plug on them, too."

Continue on for Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis' letter of resignation...