Terrorism

UPDATED 19:10 PM EDT, May 23, 2013

Obama sketches more targeted anti-terror plan

Out with the "global war on terror." In with more narrowly targeted counterterrorism policies that persistently zero in on violent extremists at home and abroad.

President Barack Obama on Thursday laid out a counterterrorism strategy for a post 9/11, post-war world that he said seeks to strike the right balance between providing security and safeguarding civil rights in an open society. He said that plan includes more oversight of U.S. drone strikes, shutting down the U.S. detainee center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and safeguarding press freedom.

FUTURE THREATS

UPDATED 18:58 PM EDT, May 23, 2013

Obama lifts ban on Guantanamo transfers to Yemen

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama is lifting his self-imposed ban on transferring Guantanamo Bay detainees to Yemen, where a leadership upheaval has improved the country's security but not eliminated the terrorist organization trying to recruit jihadists.

UPDATED 6:14 AM EDT, May 23, 2013

US drone strikes killed four Americans since 2009

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration acknowledged for the first time Wednesday that four American citizens have been killed in drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen since 2009. The disclosure to Congress comes on the eve of a major national security speech by President Barack Obama in which he plans to pledge more transparency to Congress in his counterterrorism policy.

UPDATED 6:40 AM EDT, May 22, 2013

Officials say Benghazi suspects under surveillance

WASHINGTON (AP) — Five men are under round-the-clock U.S. surveillance in Libya, wanted for questioning in the attack last year on the diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya. The White House believes there is enough proof for a military force to seize them as terrorist suspects, officials say, but prefers to wait until investigators have enough evidence to try them in a U.S. civilian courtroom.

UPDATED 21:33 PM EDT, May 21, 2013

Pentagon wants $450M for Guantanamo prison

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon is asking Congress for more than $450 million for maintaining and upgrading the Guantanamo Bay prison that President Barack Obama wants to close.

New details on the administration's budget request emerged on Tuesday and underscored the contradiction of the president waging a political fight to shutter the facility while the military calculates the financial requirements to keep the installation operating.

UPDATED 7:40 AM EDT, May 20, 2013

Why Benghazi keeps coming back

WASHINGTON (AP) — The night of smoke, chaos, gunfire and grenades that killed four Americans in Benghazi, Libya, is well-documented. Eight months later, it is the decisions made back in Washington that remain murky and in perpetual dispute.

Why were a diplomatic outpost and the visiting U.S. ambassador left so poorly protected? Should the Pentagon have rushed jets or special forces to the rescue when the assault began? Did President Barack Obama's administration obscure the true nature of the terrorist attack to help him get re-elected?

UPDATED 22:52 PM EDT, May 16, 2013

Justice Dept. faulted for terrorists placed in witness protection

WASHINGTON (AP) — The government has allowed terrorists into America's witness protection program and has failed to provide the names of some of them for the watch list that's used to keep dangerous people off airline flights, the Justice Department's inspector general says.

As a result of the department's failure to share information with the Terrorist Screening Center, some in the witness protection program who were on a "no-fly" list were allowed to travel on commercial flights, the department's watchdog said.

UPDATED 6:25 AM EDT, May 23, 2013

Web Jihad Inaction

Just miles from New York City’s hallowed Ground Zero, an Internet server in New Jersey hosts a Jihadist leader’s website that instructs supporters of al-Qaida to use explosive devices against western civilians, along with blueprints showing how to build the bombs.

Another website, hosted on a server located in Miami, provides Hezbollah – designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department – a platform for its television website al-Manar.

UPDATED 6:44 AM EDT, May 14, 2013

Gitmo prisoner: Obama has 'abandoned' detainees

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Guantanamo Bay detainee says he feels abandoned by President Barack Obama and the world after more than 10 years at the U.S. prison.

"I believe that President Obama must be unaware of the unbelievably inhumane conditions at the Guantanamo Bay prison, for otherwise he would surely do something to stop this torture," Yemeni prisoner Musa'ab Omar Al Madhwani wrote in a federal court declaration this year.

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