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Lebanese security forces have captured Majid bin Muhammad al Majid, a Saudi jihadist who leads the al Qaeda-associated Abdullah Azzam Brigades, according to reports. The Abdullah Azzam Brigades has stepped up attacks against Hezbollah for its involvement in the Syrian civil war. Majid was reportedly detained on or before Dec. 29, according to Reuters, but the circumstances of his capture were not disclosed. Lebanon's defense minister told AFP that Majid is in custody and is being interrogated. US intelligence officials contacted by The Long War Journal said that Majid is in Lebanese custody and was detained in early December. The...

Vladimir Putin has vowed to pursue terrorists to “total annihilation”, in his first public comments since the Volgograd suicide bombings. In his traditional New Year's Eve address, which was broadcast at midnight from the Far Eastern city of Khabarovsk, (5pm in Moscow), he praised Russia’s unity in the face of both terrorism and natural disasters and promised to continue an unrelenting fight against the bombers. “In the past year we have faced problems and serious challenges including the inhuman terror attacks in Volgograd and unprecedented disasters in the Far East,” he said. “Dear friends, we bow our heads in memory...

A member of the White House review panel on NSA surveillance said he was “absolutely” surprised when he discovered the agency’s lack of evidence that the bulk collection of telephone call records had thwarted any terrorist attacks. “It was, ‘Huh, hello? What are we doing here?’” said Geoffrey Stone, a University of Chicago law professor, in an interview with NBC News. “The results were very thin.” While Stone said the mass collection of telephone call records was a “logical program” from the NSA’s perspective, one question the White House panel was seeking to answer was whether it had actually stopped...

Judicial Watch has obtained a full transcript of a teleconference between then White House top counterterrorism adviser John Brennan and members of the media. Brennan is now the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. During the May 7, 2012 conference call, Brennan twice told TV terrorism consultants that US intelligence had “inside control” of a May 2012 terror plot. Brennan’s disclosure made headlines quickly, with Reuters reporting a few days later: The next day’s headlines were filled with news of a U.S. spy planted inside Yemen-based Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), who had acquired the latest, non-metallic model

The University of the Incarnate Word is a highly-rated Catholic college in San Antonio, Texas. It is hardly a hot bed of campus violence. When senior Robert Cameron Redus was pulled-over last Friday by campus police for “erratically speeding,” it is unlikely he had any clue of how tragically the stop would end. The campus police department contends Redus, an honors student set to graduate in May, grabbed the officer’s steel baton during a struggle. Not in dispute, however, is that Redus was shot five times by the officer, at close range, leaving him dead and the University scrambling to...

The team of less than two dozen Navy SEALs from Seal Team 6 huddled in one fast boat and headed toward the Somali shoreline under the cover of darkness in the early hours of Saturday morning. Three more small boats with additional SEALs flanked the assault team’s craft, to provide back-up and assist with the planned extraction of an al Shabaab warlord named Ikrima. According to multiple U.S. military sources, the lead boat landed, and the assault team hit the beach near the Southern Somali town of Barawe, headed for the fortified seaside compound of their target. U.S. intelligence had...

(CNN) -- U.S. Navy SEAL Team Six pulled out during a raid to capture suspected Al-Shabaab leader Ikrima when it became clear that he couldn't be taken alive, a senior U.S. official told CNN. "Their mission was to capture him. Once it became clear we were not going to able to take him, the Navy commander made the decision to withdraw," said the official, who has direct knowledge of the entire Somalia operation but declined to be identified publicly.

Past US strikes on Al Shabab leaders, even successful ones, have not diminished the group.A commando unit from the US Navy’s Seal Team Six launched an amphibious raid on a Somali town, but failed to confirm a capture or kill of their Al Shabab target, suspected to be linked to Nairobi’s Westgate mall terror attack. The operation could have opposite its intended result of discouraging further attacks. Analysts warn that even earlier successful targeted strikes against Al Shabab, a Somalia-based Islamist militant group, failed to curb the group's capacity to carry out international terror attacks, and that failed missions could...

In his article “Gulf between perception and reality of Muslims” (Oct.3), Aijaz Zaka Syed has once again echoed the feelings of all Muslims around the globe who feel bad about the way the entire community is being blamed for the wrongdoings of a few, who in the name of Islam are wreaking havoc around the world and giving a bad name to Islam and Muslims at large. It is sad to hear and read reports about killings and violence perpetrated by deviant groups who claim to be waging a “holy war.” The writer has rightly stressed that the word Islam...

Spies & Secrets: 4 True Stories From Tom Clancy's Novels Sometimes truth may be stranger than fiction, but for best-selling author Tom Clancy, the two are often more closely paralleled. Clancy died Tuesday (Oct. 1) at the age of 66, but his thrilling, espionage and military-inspired novels helped him become one of the most well-known American authors. From a dramatic Soviet-era defection to a high-profile assassination plot, here are four true stories from Clancy's novels. • The Hunt for Red October Clancy's first novel, "The Hunt for Red October," was published in 1984. The book introduced Clancy's most famous fictional...

The Department of Homeland Security is urging shopping malls in the United States to increase security in the aftermath of the carnage wrought by al Qaeda’s Somalia affiliate over the weekend in Nairobi. Malachy Kavanagh, a spokesman for the International Council of Shopping Centers, told The Daily Beast on Monday that the department contacted shopping malls Sunday to check on the precautions they were taking against mass shooters. U.S. intelligence officials say there is no specific threat information suggesting that al Qaeda is planning a similar kind of mass shooting in American shopping malls. Nonetheless, security experts worry about copycats....

“You have one metric, and that is preventing all attacks. . . . If there’s one attack, you are unsuccessful,” he said. By that measure, the FBI’s record has been stained in recent years by April’s Boston Marathon bombing and by the deadly shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Tex., in 2009. Asked what he would consider to be his least-proud moment, Mueller cited those two atrocities. “I hate to lose people, and I would say you feel most pain from what happened in some place like Fort Hood or what happened up in Boston,” he said.

Be forewarned before heading out to watch your favorite teams play this season. In the wake of the Boston Marathon bombing and increased chatter of terrorist attacks, it should come as no surprise that the NFL is clamping down on what fans can bring into stadiums. The NFL Committee on Stadium Security is said to have voted unanimously to institute the new policy which bans purses (not clutches), backpacks, and coolers from stadiums. Instead, only clear gallon bags are allowed. Much like airport security restrictions, there are a host of specifics fans will have to sort out before heading out...

t wasn’t just any terrorist message that triggered U.S. terror alerts and embassy closures—but a conference call of more than 20 far-flung al Qaeda operatives, Eli Lake and Josh Rogin report. The crucial intercept that prompted the U.S. government to close embassies in 22 countries was a conference call between al Qaeda’s senior leaders and representatives of several of the group’s affiliates throughout the region. snip Several news outlets reported Monday on an intercepted communication last week between Zawahiri and Nasser al-Wuhayshi, the leader of al Qaeda’s affiliate based in Yemen. But The Daily Beast has learned that the discussion...

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This story got a lot of buzz on the Internets today, as it seemed to suggest that the dragnetting of America’s phone metadata and browsing habits via Prism by NSA might be resulting in young couples with simultaneous interests in new pressure cookers and backpacking were being raided by armed law enforcement.The blogger in question is Michele Catalano, who some of you may remember from her blog, “A Small Victory,” on which she wrote during the mid-2000s. As the story evolved throughout the day, police released a statement clarifying that it wasn’t NSA’s dragnetting that got her family ensnared but...

Abstract The Heritage Foundation has tracked post-9/11 terrorist plots against the United States in an effort to study the evolving nature of the threat and to garner lessons learned. The best way to protect the United States from terrorism is to ensure a strong and capable domestic counterterrorism enterprise—and to understand the continuing nature of the terror threat. The Boston Marathon bombing was the 59th publicly known terror plot against the United States since 9/11. In a political environment of sequestration on the one hand, and privacy concerns on the other, there are those on both sides of the aisle...

Microsoft has collaborated closely with US intelligence services to allow users' communications to be intercepted, including helping the National Security Agency to circumvent the company's own encryption, according to top-secret documents obtained by the Guardian.

As the U.S. intelligence community struggles to complete a damage assessment over the secret information allegedly stolen by NSA leaker Edward Snowden, sources told ABC News there is a growing consensus within the top circles of the U.S. government that the 30-year-old contractor could deal a potentially devastating blow to U.S. national security. ... Before he fled Hawaii for Hong Kong in late May, Snowden allegedly downloaded significant amounts of information about some of the country’s most sensitive secrets — specifically how the U.S. government does surveillance abroad. One source told ABC NEWS that as an information specialist with security...

The FBI uses drones for domestic surveillance purposes, the head of the agency told Congress early Wednesday. Robert Mueller, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, confirmed to lawmakers that the FBI owns several unmanned aerial vehicles, but has not adopted any strict policies or guidelines yet to govern the use of the controversial aircraft. “Does the FBI use drones for surveillance on US soil?” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) asked Mr. Mueller during an oversight hearing on Capitol Hill Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee. “Yes,” Mueller responded bluntly, adding that the FBI’s operation of drones is “very seldom.”...