Let’s do this as an internal debate. Part of Me: You saw that WSJ piece about al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and al-Shebaab moving into the fore of al-Q’s operations targeting the U.S., right? Another Part: Oh yeah. It struck me as commensurate with how John Brennan has framed the mutating threat from al-Qaeda’s failed-or-failing-state [...]

Sharif Mobley, an American citizen, worked at nuclear power plants along the east coast. Now he’s in Yemen, arrested under accusation of killing a hospital guard, and may be a homegrown extremist. His dad says he’s innocent. Mark Hosenball thinks he won’t be extradited for a U.S. trial. Karen DeYoung wonders about his connections to Anwar [...]

NYU’s Center on Law & Security has launched a new blog, and Peter Clarke takes to it to observe: Looked at from the UK, the debate raging in the United States about how and where the trials of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab should take place seems somewhat bizarre. To the British, it [...]

Building off Marcy’s post on the Washington Post‘s veneration of Rahm Emanuel, it now appears that Eric Holder had David Axelrod as an ally for what the Post calls an argument “rooted in principle” for trying KSM in criminal court. Rahm Emanuel had… Lindsey Graham. Obama went with Holder, Axelrod and principle. For the moment. [...]

This AP story starts off by saying al-Qaeda’s north African affiliate is “growing more active and attracting new recruits,” and then continues to suggest we should worry: The rapid recent rise of the al-Qaida group in Yemen – which spawned the Christmas airliner attack – is seen by U.S. officials and counterterrorism analysts as evidence [...]