Terrorism Special: Osama bin Laden and the July 2005 London Bombings

News this week seemed to answer an on-going question since the terrorist attacks of 7 July 2005 that killed 52 people in London: according to the story, 7-7 was the late Osama bin Laden’s last successful attack. This judgement was gleaned from documents captured in the raid on the compound in Abbotobad, Pakistan, in which bin Laden was killed.

That’s it then. A definitive conclusion.

Well, not quite. Look closer at the story....

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Somalia Special: The CIA's Secret Bases (Scahill)

Nestled in a back corner of Mogadishu’s Aden Adde International Airport is a sprawling walled compound run by the Central Intelligence Agency. Set on the coast of the Indian Ocean, the facility looks like a small gated community, with more than a dozen buildings behind large protective walls and secured by guard towers at each of its four corners. Adjacent to the compound are eight large metal hangars, and the CIA has its own aircraft at the airport. The site, which airport officials and Somali intelligence sources say was completed four months ago, is guarded by Somali soldiers, but the Americans control access. At the facility, the CIA runs a counterterrorism training program for Somali intelligence agents and operatives aimed at building an indigenous strike force capable of snatch operations and targeted “combat” operations against members of Al Shabab, an Islamic militant group with close ties to Al Qaeda.

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Yemen Snapshot: With President Saleh Away, Relatives Try to Hold Power Against "Boring" Protests (Kasinof)

General Yahya Saleh“The problem is that the rest of the world believes that this is a youth revolution,” Brig. Gen. Yahya Saleh, one of the nephews, said in an interview in his office at the sprawling headquarters of Central Security Forces, the paramilitary division he commands.

“How many are there in the squares?” he asked. “Do they represent the majority? In a democracy, does the minority rule the majority? They should have some self-respect and go home. It’s been five months now, and it’s boring.”

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Afghanistan Video and Transcript: Obama Announces "Withdrawal" of US Troops

OBAMA: Good evening. Nearly ten years ago, America suffered the worst attack on our shores since Pearl Harbor. This mass murder was planned by Usama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda network in Afghanistan, and signaled a new threat to our security – one in which the targets were no longer soldiers on a battlefield, but innocent men, women and children going about their daily lives.

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4-Point Guide to Obama and Afghanistan: "This is Not a Withdrawal, It is a Limit to Escalation"

1. This is not "a substantial withdrawal". It is a limit to the escalation in the US military presence begun by the Obama Administration soon after it took office.

2. This "withdrawal" is based on an Al Qa'eda puppet show.

3. This is not a Presidential victory over his military advisors, with a full US withdrawal as the eventual outcome.

4. This is a speech looking towards a domestic victory.

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Yemen Snapshot: CIA Planning to Expand US Drone Campaign (Gorman/Entous)

The Central Intelligence Agency is preparing to launch a secret program to kill al Qaeda militants in Yemen, where months of antigovernment protests, an armed revolt and the attempted assassination of the president have left a power vacuum, U.S. officials say.

The covert program that would give the U.S. greater latitude than the current military campaign is the latest step to combat the growing threat from al Qaeda's outpost in Yemen, which has been the source of several attempted attacks on the U.S. and is home to an American-born cleric, Anwar al-Awlaki, who the U.S. sees as a significant militant threat.

The CIA program will be a major expansion of U.S. counterterrorism efforts in Yemen. Since December 2009, U.S. strikes in Yemen have been carried out by the U.S. military with intelligence support from CIA. Now, the spy agency will carry out aggressive drone strikes itself alongside the military campaign, which has been stepped up in recent weeks after a nearly year-long hiatus.

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War on Terror Special: Pakistani Intelligence Announces Its Full Cooperation With U.S. Forces During Upcoming Top Secret June 12 Drone Strike On Al-Qaeda At 5:23 A.M. Near Small Town Of Razmani In North Waziristan (The Onion)

The attack will be at 5:23 a.m. --- got it?Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency restated Thursday its commitment to the fight against terrorism, pledging full cooperation with U.S. forces during the upcoming strike on an al-Qaeda safe house on June 12 at 5:23 a.m. near the small town of Razmani in the remote tribal region of North Waziristan.

At a hastily convened press conference, ISI chief Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha called Pakistan's long- standing partnership with the United States "stronger than ever," explaining that both countries share an interest in rooting out al-Qaeda before its leaders have time to gather their secret cache of hidden weapons and move to a new location, possibly a tribal area in northwest Pakistan where Pasha said U.S. intelligence is limited in both its sophistication and reach.

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Pakistan: Obama Administration Divides Over Drone Strikes (Entous/Gorman/Rosenberg)

Fissures have opened within the Obama administration over the drone program targeting militants in Pakistan, with the U.S. ambassador to Pakistan and some top military leaders pushing to rein in the Central Intelligence Agency's aggressive pace of strikes.

Such a move would roll back, at least temporarily, a program that President Barack Obama dramatically expanded soon after taking office, making it one of the U.S.'s main weapons against the Pakistan-based militants fighting coalition troops in Afghanistan.

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US Feature: 5 Top Facts About Defense Spending --- and What It Costs America (Holland)

Head Start provides education, health, nutrition, and parenting services to low-income children and their families. It's an incredibly successful, effective and popular program, but there are only 900,000 places in the program for more than 2.5 million eligible kids. According to the National Priorities Project, what we've spent on the Afghanistan war so far could fund Head Start for all eligible children for the next 15.6 years.

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Pakistan Feature: The Article that Led to Journalist Saleem Shahzad's Disappearance

UPDATE 1325 GMT: Pakistan's Geo News has posted that Saleem Shahzad's car has been found with an unidentified dead body and the journalist's identity.

Geo TV is now reporting that the http://www.twitter.com/AleemMaqbool">body is that of Shahzad and it bears marks of torture.

Sources on Twitter are reporting that Shahzad's brother-in-law has identified the body.

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