Kuwait's Supreme Court on June 15 upheld the two-year jail sentence of an opposition online activist for writing tweets found to be offensive to the country's Emir. After the ruling, activist Hejab al-Hajeri said on his Twitter account that his "determination is bigger than their jail." Al-Hajeri, a law student in his early 20s, was sentenced by the emirate's lower court last April after it found that comments he made on his Twitter account were critical of the emir, Shaikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah. The appeals court upheld the sentence six months later. Al-Hajeri has been out on bail, but now must serve the jail term, as the high court's verdicts are final. Criticizing the emir is illegal in Kuwait, and carries a jail term of up to five years.

Israel's Haaretz reported June 14 that a "Pamphlet Number 1" issued in the name of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and circulated around Hebron is claiming responsibility for the abduction of three Israelis in the West Bank—but the statement's authenticity is in doubt. The account notes that a "similar case occurred two years ago, when Palestinian groups carried out operations under the banner of the Nusra Front," which similarly rose to prominence in the Syrian civil war as the leader of the Islamist rebels. In other words, aspiring local jihadists may be adopting the names of the Syrian Qaedists to cash in on their cachet. Of course given al-Qaeda's franchise model, real organizational ties may follow appropriation of the name. Other groups operating in Sinai and Gaza such as Ansar Beit al-Maqdis claim affiliation to al-Qaeda, "while Arab governments sometimes term Salafi groups in their territories as Al-Qaida to legitimize their suppression." Algemeiner reports that Reuter's Jerusalem bureau fielded a call from one "Dawlat al-Islam," identified as an ISIS branch operating in Hebron, claiming responsibility for the abductions.

Iraq's military claims to have retaken most of Salaheddin governorate and even parts of Nineveh from the ISIS militants who have swept south towards Baghdad in recent days. But the claims are disputed by anonymous "security officials in Baghdad and Samarra" who told CNN that up to 70% of Salaheddin remains in ISIS hands. The Pentagon has ordered the aircraft carrier USS George HW Bush into the Persian Gulf from the north Arabian Sea, in apparent readiness to launch air-strikes agianst ISIS-held territories. Even the very name of the carrier seems designed to antagonize and humiliate Iraq's Sunnis, augmenting the propaganda assistance that will be loaned to ISIS with every US missile that falls.

US drone strikes on two targets in North Waziristan June 12, ending a nearly six-month halt in the Pakistan drone campaign. The  strikes killed at least 16 presumed militants in the villages of Dargah Mandi and Danda Darpa Khel, both outisde the tribal districts' main town of Miramshah. Dargah Mandi is said to be a stronghold of the Haqqani Network. Four of the six killed there were said to be Uzbeks. The strikes came just days after the Taliban launched a deadly attack on Karachi airport that killed 37 people. That attack ended a tentative peace process with the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan, who in 2007 launched an insurgency that has claimed thousands of lives. (Dawn, June 12; Long War Journal, June 11)

Kurdish forces announced that they have taken full control of Kirkuk after the Iraqi army fled before the ISIS offensive nearby Nineveh governorate. "The whole of Kirkuk has fallen into the hands of peshmerga," Kurdish spokesman Jabbar Yawar told Reuters. "No Iraq army remains in Kirkuk now." The fall of Mosul, Nineveh's capital and the country's second city, to ISIS threatens to unravel the delicate political balance in Iraq's north. Kirkuk and the surrounding governorate of Tamim (see map) has long been at the heart of a dispute between Iraq's Arabs and Kurds. ISIS is reported to be shelling areas south of Kirkuk. "After their defeat by the Peshmerga, the ISIS are now shelling the liberated areas from a distance, using seized Iraqi weapons," said Anwar Haji Osman, the Kurdistan Regional Government's deputy minister of Peshmerga, the Kurdish armed force.

The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on June 10 dismissed (PDF) a lawsuit brought by a former Guantánamo detainee against former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. According to the original complaint (PDF), the plaintiff, Sami Abdulaziz Allaithi, was an Egyptian professor working in Kabul teaching English. When the US started its bombing campaign, the plaintiff fled to Pakistan, was captured and then transferred to the Guantánamo Bay Detention Camp where he claims he was tortured and prevented from practicing his religion. This treatment continued even though he was classified as a non-enemy combatant by the Department of Defense's Combatant Status Review Tribunal until he was released. In the opinion, written by Judge Janice Rodgers Brown, the court held that, "[t]he now-settled law reveals several flaws and inadequacies of the Appellants' complaint. ... In response, counsel invites us to remand this case to allow them an opportunity to rectify whatever mistakes lie in their pleadings... We cannot."

An Egyptian court on June 11 sentenced a prominent activist from the 2011 revolution to 15 years in prison for organizing an unsanctioned protest and assaulting a police officer last year. Activist and blogger Alaa Abdel Fattah was forced to wait outside of a courtroom at Cairo's Torah Prison while he was tried in absentia inside. Abdel Fattah, who was released on bail in March, was charged along with 23 other co-defendants for a protest in Cairo that occurred in November of last year. The men were protesting provisions in a new constitution that would allow civilians to be tried in military courts, breaching a law banning all but police-sanctioned protests. The defendants were additionally fined LE 100,000 ($14,000) each and will be placed on five years probation after the completion of their sentences. The conviction is the first of a leading activist since Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi took the office of the presidency this weekend. Abdel-Fattah is expected to be granted a retrial.

An estimated half a million have fled Iraq's second largest city, Mosul, since it was seized by forces of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) June 10. The Geneva-based International Organization for Migration (IOM) said the takeover of Mosul, capital of Nineveh governorate, has "displaced over 500,000 people in and around the city." Most are taking refuge in the neighboring Kurdish autonomous zone. Said Boumedouha, Amnesty International's Middle East deputy program director, urged: "The Kurdistan Regional Government and neighboring countries must provide civilians fleeing the conflict with refuge. The international community must also provide support towards the humanitarian needs of people displaced as a result of the violence.” (Al Jazeera, AI, June 11) Following the fall of Mosul, ISIS militants have been advancing south, towards Baghdad. On June 11 they seized Tikrit, capital of Salaheddin governorate, just 150 kilometers from Baghdad. The Salaheddin cities of Tuz Khourmatu and Baiji are likewise reported to have fallen. Prime Minister Nouri Maliki vowed to resist the offensive and punish those in the security forces who fled after offering little or no resistance. (UN News Centre, AFP, BBC News, June 11)