Brought to U.S., Man Is Charged With Aiding Somali Terrorists – New York Times
This past Monday, Nigerian authorities sent Mohamed Ibrahim Ahmed to the United States to face charges that he provided material support to al-Shabaab, the terrorist insurgent group fighting to overthrow the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) in Somalia. Ahmed is alleged to have [...]

JihadJane, an American woman, faces terrorism charges – Washington Post
A petite, blond-haired, blue-eyed high school dropout who allegedly used the nickname JihadJane was identified Tuesday as an alleged terrorist intent on recruiting others to her cause.
The most obvious point here is that if profiling was ever an effective counterterrorism tool in the past, which is doubtful, [...]

Bali Bomber Mastermind Dulmatin ‘Killed in Shoot-out’ – Timesonline
Dulmatin, a senior figure in the Southeast Asian terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah, was killed during a police counterterrorism raid in Pamulang today. Dulmatin, who participated in the Bali bombing in 2002, was a highly sought-after terror suspect and the third fugitive that Indonesian police have killed since [...]

Experts Urge Keeping Two Options for Terror Trials – New York Times
An article in yesterday’s New York Times noted that though several congressional Republicans have publicly equated a tough anti-terrorism stance with a commitment to try all foreign terrorism suspects before military tribunals, some high-ranking former Bush Administration counterterrorism officials believe that the option to [...]

Opinion: It’s Still George Bush’s World – AOL News
Even more than a year after his inauguration, President Barack Obama’s foreign policy agenda is still largely devoted to fixing the messes he inherited from Bush. And that’s likely to continue to be the case for quite some time to come, unless Obama makes a more fundamental [...]

On Thursday March 4th, as part of its “How Safe Are Our Skies” documentary, the BBC showcased a controlled simulation that it commissioned to determine the level of damage and destruction that the Christmas Day airline bombing attack attempted by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab would have caused if executed successfully. The results of the experiment, which was [...]

As Reuters reported late last month, it was about two years ago that a Department of Homeland Security official first brought “’the most significant development in the criminal exploitation of aircraft since 9/11’” to the attention of his supervisors.  Yet since this time, the U.S. government has taken little to no action to abate the [...]

House Testimony: The Paradoxes of Al Qaeda: Think Tank : The New Yorker
More broadly, with or without success in the pursuit of Al Qaeda’s leadership, the group’s self-isolation should provide a fundamental framework for U.S. counterterrorism policy, particularly in the communications sphere. That policy should be constructed to patiently reinforce Al Qaeda’s political isolation. (The [...]

I keep harping on our lack of strategic thinking in the United States.  I know many people consider this an academic exercise, as in (paraphrasing): “Ivory toward academic Bernard Finel keeps suggesting we consider ’strategy’ explicitly, but the reality is that we have a complex threat environment and receive plenty of guidance from senior leaders [...]

In audio message, bin Laden says he endorsed Dec. 25 airline bomb plot – washingtonpost.com
Osama bin Laden endorsed the failed attempt to blow up a U.S. airliner Christmas Day and threatened new attacks against the United States in an audio message released Sunday that appeared aimed at asserting that he maintains some direct command over [...]