US Feature: How the Obama Administration Killed 3 US Citizens in Yemen (New York Times)

See also EA Video Analysis: Drones, President Obama, and Rand Paul's Filibuster --- "More Macbeth Than Mr. Smith Goes to Washington"

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Abdulrahman al-AwlakiThe missile strike on Sept. 30, 2011, that killed Mr. Awlaki — a terrorist leader whose death lawyers in the Obama administration believed to be justifiable — also killed Mr. Khan, though officials had judged he was not a significant enough threat to warrant being specifically targeted. The next month, another drone strike mistakenly killed Mr. Awlaki’s 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman, who had set off into the Yemeni desert in search of his father. Within just two weeks, the American government had killed three of its own citizens in Yemen. Only one had been killed on purpose.

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Iran Feature: Is This How Tehran Took Down the US Drone? (Peterson/Faramarzi)

Iran guided the CIA's "lost" stealth drone to an intact landing inside hostile territory by exploiting a navigational weakness long-known to the US military, according to an Iranian engineer now working on the captured drone's systems inside Iran.

Iranian electronic warfare specialists were able to cut off communications links of the American bat-wing RQ-170 Sentinel, says the engineer, who works for one of many Iranian military and civilian teams currently trying to unravel the drone’s stealth and intelligence secrets, and who could not be named for his safety.

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Iran Special Analysis (Part 2): The IAEA's Nuclear Report --- Not All Sources Are Equal

If the burden on Iran, in the eyes of the IAEA, has been to show the level of co-operation to meet questions and assuage doubts, then the burden on the IAEA --- given that "proof", of either the absence or presence of a militarised nuclear programme, is likely to be beyond reach --- was to at least sweep away some of the cynicism over its effort by establishing a clear record of its enquiry.

The Agency may have cleared the low bar set by The New York Times, for whom any assertion was going to constitute "meticulous sourcing", but it has not gone much higher.

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Head of British Intelligence: We Don't Torture (But You Won't Find Out If We Do)

I am not sure the main story is in the first paragraph of this article by Richard Norton-Taylor of The Guardian of London: the real stunner would have been if the head of MI6, Britain's foreign intelligence service, had announced that his officers were regularly waterboarding and breaking kneecaps.

In lieu of that, I think the real take-away here --- in the first public speech by an MI6 head in the agency's century of existence --- is the levels of barricades that Joh Sawer set up to prevent any exposure of MI6 activities.

In short, the unprecedented appearance was to push back against the pressure, as in the legal case of Binyam Mohamed, the UK resident abused on three continents, for British intelligence to comply with demands for information. That includes placing MI6 above the legal process: no court can be allowed, in Sawers' view, to have access to documents or testimony.

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