Watch President Obama’s speech at National Defense University below:

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In one of the strangest stories I’ve come across in a long time—and there have been many—news reports say an FBI agent shot and killed an Orlando man with ties to deceased Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev.  Ibragim Todashev was … Read more »

Ben and Bobby will be testifying in front of the House Judiciary Committee on “Protecting U.S. Citizens’ Constitutional Rights During the War on Terror” at 10 am tomorrow at 2141 Rayburn House Office Building.  The two other witnesses will be … Read more »

As Jack posted yesterday—and as everyone is buzzing about—President Obama will give a major counterterrorism speech on Thursday at the National Defense University.  The Wall Street Journal, CNN, and Politico all report on the talk, and subjects … Read more »

Let’s begin with the 100 pages of Benghazi emails released by the White House yesterday, as it went into full damage control mode. Reuters reports that the talking points on Benghazi were scrubbed of references to terrorist groups before Susan … Read more »

The Benghazi attacks get more polarizing by the minute: Karen DeYoung of the Washington Post reports that White House Press Secretary Jay Carney has accused Republicans of leaking a falsified email to the media last week about the the talking … Read more »

UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Counterterrorism, Ben Emmerson, came by the Brookings Institution this morning for a wide-ranging discussion on his investigation of drone strikes. We had planned the interview as a video, but Emmerson’s remarks broke enough … Read more »

Benjamin Weiser of the New York Times reports on a terrorism case unsealed in Manhattan last night. One Ahmed Abassi from Tunisia has been “accused of seeking to develop a terrorist network in the United States and of proposing to … Read more »

The New America Foundation has released a fact sheet listing the identities of Guantanamo Bay detainees who are “confirmed to be or suspected of engaging in militant activities against either U.S. or non-U.S. targets” after their release or relocation from … Read more »

Let’s begin with yesterday’s Benghazi hearing. Gregory Hicks, former Deputy Chief of the U.S. Mission in Libya, gave a first-hand account of the attack, and said that he was demoted for questioning the administration’s explanation of the events that unfolded … Read more »

No, we didn’t stop talking about Benghazi even after last year’s presidential election came and went. Even the cicadas will disappear again before we’re done talking about it. Today’s congressional hearing on the Benghazi attacks is generating a maelstrom of … Read more »

One Buford Rogers of Montevideo, Minnesota, has been arrested for plotting a terrorist attack. The gentleman was found with “Molotov cocktails, suspected pipe bombs and firearms” and is affiliated with an anti-government group known as the Black Snake Militia. The … Read more »

Scott Shane of the New York Times discusses the devastating effects of online radicalization, and how difficult it can be to detect plots before the fact. The brothers Tsarnaev appear to have been motivated and instructed by Al Qaeda in … Read more »

Yesterday was a day we mostly forgot about: the second anniversary of the Osama bin Laden raid. Although much of the commentary centered around remarks from Adm. William McRaven, head of Special Operations Command, there has been some discussion of … Read more »

Dear Readers: You’re all stuck with me for the next week and a half while Raffaela takes a bit of a break.

Let’s begin with more news on those three comrades of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev who were arrested in connection with … Read more »

The Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington, DC hosted an excellent discussion yesterday on targeted killing in which “[p]anelists evaluated issues like the current frameworks regarding the use of drones, the ramifications of a ‘drone court,’ the targeting of U.S. citizens … Read more »

Let’s begin with this New York Times editorial on the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. The board argues that President George W. Bush’s “tough decisions” during his time in office have led this country to pay a steep price “for what … Read more »

Details in the investigation of the Boston bombings keep trickling out: Greg Miller of the Washington Post reports that the bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev,  who was killed in a shootout with police last week, was on the CIA’s radar screen; … Read more »

Brookings Senior Fellow Bruce Riedel, director of the Brookings Intelligence Project and a former CIA official, hosted Philip Mudd, a former CIA and FBI official, for a public talk this Monday entitled “Organizing and Managing Intelligence Analysis … Read more »

The latest on the Boston bombings is that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has been charged with using a weapon of mass destruction and malicious destruction of property in a dramatic bedside hearing yesterday. Wells linked to the New York Times story earlier, … Read more »

While the manhunt for one of the Boston bombing suspects was underway Friday, Susan and I wrote up this short annotated bibliography linking to pertinent resources about the conflicts in Chechnya and Kyrgzstan. Over the weekend, we took a deeper … Read more »

Ben and Steve  are speaking on a panel at the CATO Institute entitled “Drones and the New Way of War” along with Rosa Brooks of Georgetown Law and Benjamin Friedman of CATO. The event will be moderated by … Read more »

It has been widely reported that the two prime suspects in the Boston marathon bombings—one who was killed in a shootout early this morning—are ethnic Chechens. The brothers allegedly lived in Kyrgyzstan with their family before moving to the United … Read more »

The latest news on the Boston bombings: investigators have focused on two individuals who, according to video captured by a nearby security camera, appeared to carry black backpacks near the Marathon’s finish line.  So reports the New York Times. … Read more »

You’ve all, I’m sure, heard more than you want to about yesterday’s terrorist attack at Boston marathon—given the paucity of real information available about it—so I’m not going to try to round up all the relevant news coverage. Let me … Read more »

The Constitution Project has released the results of its Task Force on Detainee Treatment in the form of this 577-page report—which concludes that “it is indisputable that the United States engaged in the practice of torture” and that “the … Read more »

While ex-Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf was busy admitting on CNN that he approved at least some U.S. drone strikes on Pakistani territory during his time in office, the chief judge of Peshawar’s High Court was busy stating that drone strikes … Read more »

I wonder what Ben Emmerson was thinking when he watched CNN this evening. Emmerson, the UN Special Rapporteur on Counterterrorism and Human Rights who is conducting an investigation into the legality of the U.S. targeted killing program, concluded after a … Read more »

Mark Mazzetti of the New York Times has another feature adapted from his forthcoming book The Way of the Knife: The C.I.A., a Secret Army, and a War at the Ends of the Earth. This one, like the last… Read more »

Let’s begin with the New York Times’s editorial board, which argues in this piece that shifting the U.S. drone program from the CIA to the Pentagon will only “be a marginal improvement,” and that “the proposed change would mean scant … Read more »

Bad news from Farah, Afghanistan, where a deadly insurgent attack killed at least 44 and wounded more than 100. Nine Taliban fighters dressed as Afghan soldiers stormed a government compound, and a firefight ensued that lasted nearly seven hours, according … Read more »

The number of hungry detainees at Guantanamo Bay has, unfortunately, grown to 39. Peter Finn and Julie Tate of the Washington Post have more about the situation and the detainees’ qualms that led to the food fight in the first … Read more »

Courtesy of The Onion, America’s Finest News Source:

Ayman Al-Zawahiri Delivers TEDTalk On Changing Face Of Terrorism

ATLANTA—Addressing attendees gathered for this week’s TEDxEvolution Conference, al-Qaeda head Ayman al-Zawahiri delivered an informative and engrossing TEDTalk on the state

… Read more »

Let’s begin with Guantanamo Bay: Eyder Peralta of NPR reports that the International Committee of the Red Cross has arrived at the prison to assess the situation as the number of detainees participating in the hunger strike has grown to … Read more »

This is sure to satisfy your targeted-killing jonesing for the week: Out of Sight, Out of Mind, a website launched by a company called Pitch Interactive, documents—quite stunningly in visual terms, if not altogether fairly—the scope and scale … Read more »

Charlie Savage of the New York Times reports on the hunger strike at Guantanamo Bay. The official number of hungry detainees as of yesterday morning stood at twenty eight.

Benjamin Weiser of the Times tells us that—under our very noses—Ahmed … Read more »

Big news from Afghanistan over the weekend—at least until the next time things fall apart: Just like that, after months of back and forth, Bagram is now in Afghan custody. Afghan officials have promised not to release the people the … Read more »

Big news that things are probably going to stay the same on the drone front—at least according to Mark Mazzetti and Scott Shane of the New York Times, who write that the transition of the targeted killing program from the … Read more »

As Ben and Gregory McNeal posted earlier, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Counterterrorism and Human Rights, Ben Emmerson, issued this statement on March 14 after a three-day visit to Pakistan, in which he concluded that U.S. drone strikes are, … Read more »

Today is the tenth anniversary of the Iraq invasion. Tim Arango of the New York Times has the sad news that bomb blasts in Baghdad marked the occasion. Elsewhere in that same newspaper, Arango recounts Iraqi views about the … Read more »

No, don’t worry, we didn’t forget about you, dear readers. News and commentary just took a day off yesterday. We all need a mid-week vacation sometimes.

Let’s begin by sounding the alarm bell: Mark Mazzetti and David Sanger of the … Read more »

Welcome back. If you are in Washington area, I hope you have been enjoying the glorious spring weather—and now with added evening light.

As Wells posted earlier, New York Times three amigos Scott Shane, Mark Mazzetti, and Charlie Savage … Read more »

I’m about as tired of talking about Rand Paul’s filibuster as you are hearing about it. So let’s begin with two other big news items to kick-start your weekend. First, John Brennan was confirmed by the Senate yesterday 63-34 to … Read more »

So reports the Wall Street Journal:

A son-in-law of Osama bin Laden and longtime suspected member of al Qaeda has been captured by U.S. officials, who are preparing to bring him to the U.S. to face charges, according to three

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Duke Law School held its annual LENS conference over the weekend. Its theme this year was “Battlefields, Boardrooms, and Backyards: The New Face of National Security Law.” Here is the conference program, and below are the videos of the various … Read more »

Let’s begin with Afghanistan news. Amie Ferris-Rotman of Reuters reports that, this summer, NATO will announce the size of the training force that will remain in Afghanistan after most troops leave in 2014. Carlo Munoz of the Hill tells us… Read more »

As I’m sure you’re all aware, Chuck Hagel was confirmed by the Senate yesterday, 58 to 41, to be Secretary of Defense. He was sworn in today, and has to immediately turn to the $46 billion in spending cuts that … Read more »

Let’s begin with Senate news. Our favorite group of people has voted to end debate on Chuck Hagel’s nomination, reports Sara Murray at the Wall Street Journal. The majority vote for Secretary of Defense is scheduled for 4:30 p.m. … Read more »

Let’s begin with the flare-up that happened in Afghanistan over the weekend. President Hamid Karzai ordered U.S. Special Operations Forces to immediately halt operations in Wardak province—and leave in two weeks—after local residents complained that troops “have unlawfully detained, tortured … Read more »