Unidentified warplanes or drones bombed Libya's eastern city of Derna Feb. 7, reportedly hitting Shura Council locations. Shura Council sources confirmed to local media that two of their fighters were killed. A woman and her child were also among dead—by some accounts, killed in a strike on a hospital in the city. A wing of the city's al-Wehda hospital was said to be "completely destroyed." The Shura Council is aligned with the Islamist-led Libya Dawn coalition that controls most of Libya's west, and has been battling ISIS forces for control of the city.  (Libya Observer, Reuters, AFP, Feb. 7) Derna is an Islamist-controlled enclave in eastern Libya, which is mostly controlled by the more secularist "official" government. The "official" government last month rejected a UN-brokered deal to unite the two rival regimes—both of which are now threatend by the growing ISIS presence in the country.

In anticipation of the fifth anniversary of the start of the Egyptian revolution, authorities have spent the last week clamping down on dissidents in an effort to avoid further political unrest. At the instruction of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Egyptian security forces searched over 5,000 homes, seized activists in public, closed an art gallery, raided a publishing house and arrested a medical doctor in a night-time raid, all as "precautionary measures." Fearing a similar uprising to the one that ousted his predecessor Hosni Mubarak, al-Sisi addressed his critics last month, stating "Why am I hearing calls for another revolution? Why do you want to ruin the nation? I came by your will and your choice and not despite it." Speaking anonymously to the Associated Press, an Egyptian senior security official stated, "We are very concerned and will not allow protests. These movements are aimed at polarizing society and mobilizing the masses against the government."

Two of three Guantánamo Bay detainees scheduled for release boarded a plane for transfer on Jan. 20 while the third detainee turned down the opportunity. Though the two released detainees were natives of Egypt and Yemen, they were resettled in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro. The third detainee, Yemeni national Mohammed Bawazir, has gained a reputation for hunger striking as a protest against his 14 years of captivity without trial. Though Bawazir originally agreed to resettle in an unidentified country, he changed his mind reportedly upon realizing that he would not be returning to any family. Currently, 91 detainees remain in Guantánamo Bay, and 34 await resettlement in foreign countries.

A court in Lisbon ruled on Jan. 15 that a former CIA operative will be extradited to Italy to serve a seven-year sentence for her involvement in the 2003 kidnapping and "rendition" of Egyptian terror suspect Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr (AKA Abu Omar). Operative Sabrina De Sousa was one of 26 former agents convicted in absentia for the infamous event, and she recently filmed a documentary regarding her long struggle to clear her name. In October officials detained De Sousa in a Portuguese airport without warning and seized her passports pending the court's decision. De Sousa's lawyer expressed his intention to appeal the case to the Supreme Court and move to the Constitutional Court if necessary. De Sousa hopes to receive a pardon from Italian President Sergio Mattarella, who recently pardoned another CIA operative involved in the matter. Mattarella is scheduled to speak with US President Barack Obama in March about various issues, which may include De Sousa's case.

World War 4 Report has been keeping a dispassionate record of Barack Obama's moves in dismantling, continuing and escalating (he has done all three) the oppressive apparatus of the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) established by the Bush White House. This year, the stakes got much higher, with multiple foreign interventions in Syria and ISIS striking in Europe. On the night of Obama's 2016 State of the Union address, we offer the following annotated assessment of which moves over the past year have been on balance positive, neutral and negative, and arrive at an overall score:

In the wake of the Paris attacks, the centripetal tendency in world affairs seems to hold sway—a further Great Power convergence against ISIS. When the French nuclear aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle reaches its position off Syria's coast, it joins a Russian guided missile cruiser already there—and cooperation between the two powers appears imminent. "Under the Russian president's decree, the General Staff is working out joint anti-terrorism operations with the French Navy," said Col-Gen. Andrey Kartapolov, deputy chief of staff, according to Moscow's state news agency Tass. "With the arrival of the Charles de Gaulle warship to the Syrian shore we will organize joint military operations." Citing Kartapolov, Tass also claimed, "Russian warplanes have destroyed about 500 fuel tank trucks that were illegally transporting oil from Syria to Iraq for refining." While not stated, this presumably means ISIS oil. (NPR)

Egyptian authorities on Nov. 8 arrested prominent human rights activist and journalist Hossam Bahgat after military officials questioned him concerning a report he wrote on the secret trial of former military officers. Bahgat, who writes for Mada Masr, was charged with "publishing false news that harms national interests and disseminating information that disturbs public peace." Rights groups such as Amnesty International  have called the arrest a "blow for freedom of expression." [Sic*]

The Cairo Criminal Court found the brother of al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri innocent of terrorism charges on Oct. 15. Mohamed al-Zawahri was the leader of a Salafist group and was an ally of ex-president Mohammed Morsi, who is associated with the Muslim Brotherhood. Mohamed al-Zawahiri was tried with 67 other defendants in the case referred to as the "al-Zawahri cell." Ten co-defendants were sentenced to death, and 32 others were given life imprisonment. Mohamed al-Zawahri was arrested in August 2013, two days after security forces forcibly dispersed the Rabea Mosque protest camp, killing perhaps 600.