al qaeda

Jesselyn Radack at Daily Kos has a nice roundup of yesterday’s Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing, called and led by Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), who opened the morning session with an announcement that the shootings of 13 soldiers on the U.S. Army base was a “terrorist” attack as opposed to a mass-murder. Never mind that [...]

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that this great New York Times story about President Obama’s Pakistan decision-making isn’t worthwhile, but there’s a quote buried in it that deserves a lot of elaboration:
During Mr. Obama’s Situation Room briefings on his alternatives, those advocating a minimal commitment of new troops in Afghanistan have argued that the [...]

For a very good and comprehensive look at why, as he puts it, “homegrown Islamic terrorism isn’t a threat,” even after the Fort Hood horror, read every word of this overview by Max Fisher of The Atlantic. A very small sample:
Concerns about the loyalty of Muslim-Americans have little basis. U.S. Muslims are even happier with [...]

I don’t know if this is wishful thinking or solid intelligence work. But Josh Partlow at The Washington Post has a spectacular story today from Kabul about possible fissures between al-Qaeda in Pakistan and elements of the Afghan Taliban coalition. Partlow’s sources indicate that the relationships are undergoing a transition:
[O]fficials and observers here differ over [...]

Check out Rachel Maddow going hard on Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.) for publicly revealing that the U.S. intelligence community is intercepting the communications of al-Qaeda-sympathetic cleric Anwar Aulaqi, a former U.S. preacher now in Yemen whom Fort Hood murder suspect Nidal Malik Hasan apparently contacted before the shooting.

Check out this New York Times piece about the Afghanistan debate’s latest shifts in the White House. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert Gates are now on board with a 30,000-troop increase*, as is Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The president is said to be [...]

Following up on ABC’s report that U.S. intelligence knew Fort Hood shooting suspect Nidal Malik Hasan tried to contact al-Qaeda facilitators online, The New York Times reports the aftermath:
[T]he federal authorities dropped an inquiry into the matter after deciding that the messages from the psychiatrist, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, did not suggest any threat of [...]

Via Justin Elliott, I wonder if “Muslim Mafia” author Dave Gaubatz is causing any heartburn for the four Republican members of Congress who endorsed his book attacking the Council on American-Islamic Relations. From an interview with the Family Security Network published today:
Now is the time for a professional and legal backlash against the Muslim community [...]

At this point, following investigators’ lead, it’s probably fair to conclude that the Fort Hood shooting suspect was motivated by religious extremism:
U.S. intelligence agencies were aware months ago that Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan was attempting to make contact with people associated with al Qaeda, two American officials briefed on classified material in the case [...]

Adam Serwer has an absolutely sterling post about the dangers of assigning collective guilt to American Muslims for the actions of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan:
In the past few months, we’ve seen a number of shootings performed by white men with right-wing fringe beliefs–but while an attempt to assign the responsibility for the murder of George [...]