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Newly released emails on the Benghazi terror attack suggest a senior White House aide played a central role in preparing former U.N. ambassador Susan Rice for her controversial Sunday show appearances -- where she wrongly blamed protests over an Internet video. More than 100 pages of documents were released to the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. Among them was a Sept. 14, 2012, email from Ben Rhodes, an assistant to the president and deputy national security adviser for strategic communications. The Rhodes email, with the subject line: "RE: PREP Call with...

Translation: by Brett Gasper "Ah,Here it is, kita'ab Allah (Book of Allah), this is the root of all disaster: Book of Allah. I'm not certain what day it is of this reviled month of Ramadan! You are making the tearing of the Quran such a big and dangerous thing.. It is only natural to want to tear this book! Those sons of kelba (dogs) think they can threaten me and dare me to tear the Quran - but I want to prove to them that they are nothing... and what is the big deal in tearing this book? Here the...

What we know and what we still don’t know. On September 11, 2012, terrorists attacked our consulate in Benghazi, Libya, and murdered four Americans, including our ambassador. Eight months later, we have learned some of what happened, but many questions remain. This week the House of Representatives will hold a hearing on Benghazi, because we still don’t know all the facts about how we responded during the seven and a half hours of attacks, why we could do nothing to save the lives of Ambassador Chris Stevens, Sean Smith, Glen Doherty, and Tyrone Woods, and what, if anything, we have...

Egypt's General Intelligence Service warned that a jihadi group is planning to launch terrorist attacks against the US and Israeli embassies in Cairo, according to a report Tuesday by Egypt Independent, citing a secret letter obtained by Al-Masry Al-Youm. According to the report, the attack is being planned by Global Jihad, the group suspected of killing 16 Egyptian border guards in Sinai on August 5. Al-Masry Al-Youm reportedly obtained a copy of the September 4 letter, sent to all Egyptian security sectors, warning that Sinai- and Gaza-based Global Jihad cells were planning attacks on the two embassies.

Earlier today the President heard from key national security principals on our preparedness and security posture on the eve of the eleventh anniversary of September 11th. Over the past month, Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism John Brennan has convened numerous meetings to review security measures in place. During the briefing today, the President and the Principals discussed specific measures we are taking in the Homeland to prevent 9/11 related attacks as well as the steps taken to protect U.S. persons and facilities abroad, as well as force protection. The President reiterated that Departments and agencies must...

Hawaii State Rep. John Mizuno, a Democrat from Kalihi Valley, issued a press release on August 30 demanding an apology and retraction of a letter to the editor published in Hawaii Reporter on August 23. He also threatened to file criminal and civil charges through the state attorney general over the posting, which Mizuno said included "false and misleading statements." But he later retracted that threat. The letter, authored by James Macey, was a less than complimentary opinion piece about a hearing he attended on August 8 that was run by Mizuno and peace activists looking to quell violence in...

Scandal: A month before the terrorist attack, the State Department was warned Benghazi couldn't protect itself and was surrounded by Islamist militia and al-Qaida camps. It was 3 a.m. and the administration pressed "snooze." When the U.S. mission in Benghazi called an Aug. 15 emergency meeting, it wasn't to discuss an obscure Internet video. It was to discuss the lack of security for a consulate surrounded by at least 10 terrorist camps. An Aug. 16 cable to the office of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and obtained by Fox News reported that the State Department's senior security officer "expressed concerns...

AL-QAEDA IN LIBYA: A PROFILEA Report Prepared by the Federal Research Division, Library of Congress under an Interagency Agreement with the Combating Terrorism Technical Support Office’s Irregular Warfare Support Program August 2012

In an often heated congressional hearing Wednesday, lawmakers and witnesses alike pointed to State Department official Charlene Lamb as the person most directly responsible for rejecting multiple requests for increased security at the U.S. diplomatic missions in Libya prior to the Sept. 11 attack. House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) excoriated the State Department for rejecting requests from the U.S. Embassy in Libya for an extension of temporary security forces that were withdrawn in the months prior to the attack that killed Amb. Chris Stevens and three other Americans. In a dramatic moment at the hearing, Issa released unclassified...

The Iranian Revolutionary Guards discovered an electronic monitoring device near the Fordow nuclear site in northern Iran last month, The Sunday Times reported Sunday, citing western intelligence sources. Soldiers were checking on communications terminals at Fordow when they discovered a rock, according to the report. When the soldiers attempted to move the rock, it exploded, presumably self-destructing. The device was reportedly capable of intercepting data from computers in Fordow. The Iranians did not report the discovery, according to the Times. Iran uses the Fordow facility to enrich uranium to a fissile concentration of 20 percent, the part of its work...

A lawyer who came to prominence for his full-throated defense of a subsequently convicted terrorist was quietly promoted to the No. 3 slot at the Department of Justice last month, a post that puts him in charge of the administration’s policy regarding Guantanamo Bay detainees. The move has raised red flags on Capitol Hill and elsewhere among national security stalwarts who argue that the promotion could imperil the country’s longstanding war on terrorism.

@mrubin1971Two news stories from recent weeks, if true, should raise a red flag in the United States that Iran is preparing to use Hezbollah to strike at U.S. interests in Latin America, if not in the United States itself.First, this story from the Lebanese news portal Naharnet and sourced in part to Israeli radio. The Naharnet story was taken down shortly after it appeared: Hezbollah is using a training base established by Iran in northern Nicaragua near the border with Honduras, the Israeli radio reported on Thursday [September 6]. “The area is cordoned off and there are around 30 members...

Explosive blasts destroyed power lines to Iran's underground nuclear facility at Fordo last month, the head of Iran's atomic agency said at a meeting of UN atomic agency member states Monday. "On ... 17th August 2012, the electric power lines from the city of Qom to the Fordo complex ... were cut using explosives," Fereydoon Abbasi Davani told the 155-nation International Atomic Energy Agency gathering in a speech. Davani did not accuse anyone of sabotage, but in the past Iran has claimed both Israel and the United States were behind the assassinations of nuclear scientists and computer viruses targetting its...

A militant Islamist leader whose forces have just conquered two-thirds of the West African state of Mali vows to launch holy war against the West. Omar Ould Hamaha, the military commander of Ansar Dine, or "Defenders of the Faith", which has scored a stunning victory in Mali against the failed state's armed forces, now controls a region larger than France which includes three paved runways that could be used to fly in weapons or drugs. He said: "Even if they (western forces) don't come here, when we have finished conquering France, we will come to the USA, we will come...

Ethiopia's new leader Hailemariam Desalegn, expected to assume power following the death of the longtime prime minister, readied for the post on Friday after holding talks with US President Barack Obama. But Hailemariam, 47, a relatively little-known politician overshadowed by his mentor Meles Zenawi, who died on Monday, faces tough challenges both internally and across the volatile Horn of Africa region. Obama, who telephoned Hailemariam late Thursday, urged him to "use his leadership to enhance the Ethiopian government's support for development, democracy, human rights and regional security," the White House said. Hailemariam has also met with South Sudan's foreign minister...

TORONTO - The fur will be flying at an east-Toronto Mosque Friday afternoon, when a group of dog owners plan to walk their canines outside the building during prayer sessions. It was toward the end of August that two groups — the Canadian Hindu Advocacy and Canadians United Against Terror - set up a Facebook page inviting people to walk their dogs in front the Salahuddin mosque in Scarborough. Their call was a response to an incident in August that took place during an anti-Israel demonstration at Queen’s Park by an Islamic group where a Jewish man was arrested for...

USA Today reports that the riot at the U.S. embassy in Cairo appears to have been planned well before the Egyptian media reported on the anti-Islam YouTube film that was blamed for sparking the protest. The protest was reportedly announced on August 30 by Gamaa Islamiyya, an Egyptian terrorist group, to call for the release of its leader, Sheikh Omar abdel Rahman — aka the blind sheik, who is serving a life sentence for the first World Trade Center bombing:

Immobilized with fear, a 4-year-old British girl huddled for eight hours beneath the legs of her slain mother in the back of a car filled with corpses on a remote Alpine road — all while French investigators stood nearby, unaware the girl was there.

The Venezuelan government has seized a U.S. flagged ship and detained its captain for more than a week. The ship Ocean Atlas has been at port in Maracaibo, Venezuela since August 29. After four hours in port, the ship was boarded by armed security personel, and the captain was detained on suspicion of trafficking in arms or drugs. The rest of the crew of 16 Americans has remained on board under guard. According to a well-placed source arrest warrants have been issued for all of the crewmembers, who are to be taken off the ship for questioning. Incredibly, my Forbes...

WASHINGTON — In December 2009, our commander in chief went to West Point and proclaimed that he would withdraw all U.S. forces from Afghanistan by 2014. Since then, he has proudly emphasized that "We are on a course to end this war responsibly." Now U.S. and NATO troops and loyal Afghan soldiers and police officers are reaping the bitter harvest of the seeds that Barack Obama planted with those words. Over the last 10 days, in five separate incidents, seven American military personnel were killed in what used to be called "green on blue attacks" — where Afghan soldiers or...