My colleague, and one of my favorite human beings, Debra Burlingame, wrote to me yesterday:

"Have started new project with Liz Cheney and Bill Kristol:Keep America Safe.com"

Then she mentioned how the left was going nuts. Indeed, Maureen Dowd, of The New York Times, had nothing but mean spirited things to say about the new endeavor in her opinion column yesterday. On Liz Cheney and Bill Kristol Dowd wrote:

The blonde 43-year-old lawyer, a mother of five hailed by her fans as “a red state rock star,” teamed up this week with Bill Kristol to start a new group called “Keep America Safe.” Kristol, of course, was the chief proponent of the wacky notion that Dan Quayle, and later Sarah Palin, could Keep America Safe, which somewhat undermines the urgency and gravity of the group’s moniker.

I am fascinated that Dowd left out criticism of Burlingame. Naturally, Dowd did her homework and knows Burlingame is the third person involved. But Burlingame is hard, if not impossible, to attack because she goes straight after the truth not the sell. In her stories in The Wall Street Journal — whether she's writing about Gitmo or Jihadist's bogus lawsuits, or 9/11 — Burlingame's conviction is crystal clear. There's no agenda other than asking readers to face certain facts from which they can deduce their truth. Readers relate to that.

Burlingame's ability to speak to both left and right is an imperative for keeping America safe, not just as a tag line but as a reality. 

(drawing by Terry Shoffner for The Wall Street Journal)

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Trouble in Saudi Arabia: Al-Qaeda’s ‘Bum’ Assassination Attempt

A suicide bomber almost managed to kill a heavily guarded Saudi prince, passing through several security checkpoints with a bomb hidden in his rectum.

Interior Minister Prince Nayef of Saudi Arabia and his son, Deputy Interior Minister Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, have many enemies. For decades, the powerful and unaccountable elder Prince Nayef has “overseen” the Saudi police force; Nayef once boasted that his law enforcement agency solves 100 percent of the kingdom’s annual crimes. Nayef regularly uses torture to elicit confessions from Saudi nationals as well as visitors from other countries, and for this human rights officials have repeatedly referred to Nayef as “the grim reaper of international law.” More recently, the elder Nayef was put in charge of a program to help terrorists living in and around Saudi Arabia to repent and change their ways. To administer the program, Nayef put his son, Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, in charge.

On August 28, one of those alleged to have repented — Abdullah Hassan Taleh al-Asiri, a 23-year-old Saudi national — almost succeeded in killing the younger prince by exploding himself during a meeting. The royal family had high hopes for a better outcome in its attempts to bolster support for its controversial program. It even went so far as to gamble flying al-Asiri into the kingdom from Yemen on a royal jet, despite the fact that al-Asiri is on a list of 85 terrorists wanted by the Saudi authorities. Scott Stewart of STRATFOR Global Intelligence explained what happened during the meeting:

After al-Asiri entered a small room to speak with Prince Mohammed, he activated a small, improvised explosive device (IED) he had been carrying inside his anal cavity. The resulting explosion ripped al-Asiri to shreds but only lightly injured the shocked prince — the target of al-Asiri’s unsuccessful assassination attempt.

Al-Qaeda was quick to take credit for the suicide bombing (according to SITE). After all, it was a major public relations coup. For starters, the royals had been tricked — promised surrender and instead given a Trojan horse. Saudi’s princes pride themselves on having impenetrable personal security systems. Instead, this recent incident revealed a major flaw in the royal armor, not to mention in the country’s airline security system. Al-Qaeda was quick to point out (through jihadist websites) that al-Asiri had passed through two major security checkpoints, in the Najran and Jeddah airports, before boarding a royal jet with explosives hidden up his bum.

A bomb hidden in his anal cavity? Why does this sound so terribly familiar?

Remember Fadhel al-Maliki? Read the story here. 

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9/11 Families for a Safe & Strong America lists all 2,976 men, women and children killed on 9/11 by name. Reading each name in silent memorial is a powerful experience. 

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Al-Qaeda and the Sahara. A suicide bomber attacks a French embassy in Mauritania in response to Sarkozy's stance on the burqa.

Two French Agents Kidnapped in Somalia — Why Were They There? Two French intelligence agents, supposedly on a public mission without need for cover, get kidnapped while posing as journalists.

Was Sa’ad Bin Laden Managing Al-Qaeda from Iran? Osama bin Laden's son may have been more than just a "low-level" target, as U.S. counterterrorism official once described him.

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In Revenge of the ‘Shoe Bomber’ over at The Wall Street Journal, Debra Burlingame illuminates the shocking story of how terrorist Richard Reid has sued to resume his jihad from prison. And how the Obama administration has caved in to these bogus and outrageous demands. 

Last May at the National Archives, President Barack Obama warned that “more mistakes would occur” if Congress continued to politicize terrorist detention policy and the closure of Guantanamo Bay. “[I]f we refuse to deal with those issues today,” he predicted, “then I guarantee you, they will be an albatross around our efforts to combat terrorism in the future.”

On June 17, at the Administrative Maximum (ADX) penitentiary in Florence, Colo., one of those albatrosses, inmate number 24079-038, began his day with a whole new range of possibilities. Eight days earlier, the U.S. Attorney’s office in Denver filed notice in federal court that the Special Administrative Measures (SAMs) which applied to that prisoner—Richard C. Reid, a.k.a. the “Shoe Bomber”—were being allowed to expire. SAMs are security directives, renewable yearly, issued by the attorney general when “there is a substantial risk that a prisoner’s communications, correspondence or contacts with persons could result in death or serious bodily injury” to others.

Reid was arrested in 2001 for attempting to blow up American Airlines Flight 63 from Paris to Miami with 197 passengers and crew on board. Why had Attorney General Eric Holder decided not to renew his security measures, kept in place since 2002?

This is required reading. 

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The reports of the death of Sa'ad bin Laden — son of Osama Bin Laden — may or may not be greatly exaggerated, to borrow from Mark Twain.

Yesterday, NPR first reported that he was allegedly killed in a drone attack in Pakistan several months ago. NPR quoted a source saying the CIA was "80-85 percent certain" he was dead. The source also said Saeed bin Laden wasn't specifically targeted but rather "was in the wrong place at the wrong time." That he was actively involved with Al Qaeda but was not a major enough of a player to target with hellfire missiles. 

In 2002, the Associated Press reported that Sa'ad was believed to have played a major role in the bombing of a synagogue in Tunisia which killed 19 people on April 11, 2002. 

Today, ABC News The Blotter reports that the CIA withheld this information for months as a way of "messing with al-Qaeda" (read: to conduct psychological warfare against the enemy). Their reporters don't identify the source for the quote and it doesn't strike me as something a CIA officer would say precisely. 

My take is that the CIA is entirely unsure if Sa'ad bin Laden is in fact dead. Shortly after Christmas last year, at the tail end of the first major Predator strike campaign in Pakistan, ABC News reported that a Predator drone killed one of FBI's Most Wanted Terrorists, Fahid Mohammed Msalam. Several months ago, the FBI would not confirm with me Msalam's status — whether he is considered dead or alive. As of today, Msalam remains listed with the FBI as a fugitive from justice. There is still a $5 million bounty on his head. 

The interesting piece of the puzzle is how the CIA allegedly received reports of Sa'ad bin Laden's death: through chatter intercepts. Wouldn't Al Qaeda use the death of a bin Laden by a Predator drone strike as a means to make him a martyr? Or does it make Al Qaeda look weak and helpless against advanced American technology to the extent that Al Qaeda wanted to keep the death out of the public eye?

Why report this now?

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In a surprise move, the sole surviving terrorist of the Mumbai attacks last November has confessed. He named  Lashkar-e-Tayyiba as the group behind the plot. 

Admitting his role in the carnage which left more than 160 people dead, Mohammed Ajmal Kasab said Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi of the banned militant group Lashkar-e-Tayyiba had been involved in plotting the attacks.

…He had pleaded not guilty to all charges, and recanted a confession to the crimes that he said was made under duress.

Katab's 86 crimes include murder, participating in a seige, various terrorism charges and waging war against India. 

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This is an interesting first.

In an article published yesterday, the CIA — for the first time ever — shared specific details of a recent drone strike in Pakistan with reporters Mark Mazzetti and Eric Schmitt of The New York Times. Until now, the CIA and the Air Force have not discussed details of any drone strikes inside Pakistan with the press. 

On April 19, a drone launched from a UAV struck a vehicle parked "inside an al Qaeda compound in South Waziristan, in Pakistan’s tribal areas," at which point it "erupted in a fireball." 

American intelligence officials say that the truck had been loaded with high explosives, apparently to be used as a bomb, and that while its ultimate target remains unclear, the bomb would have been more devastating than the suicide bombing that killed more than 50 people at the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad in September. 

This story comes on the heels of an important story last week, also for The New York Times, by Jane Perlez and Pir Zubair Shah. In it, the pair managed to interview a "Pakistani logistics tactician for the Taliban, a 28-year-old from the country’s tribal areas," who admitted that the drones were the single biggest threat to the Taliban.

The one thing that impressed him were the missile strikes by drones — virtually the only American military presence felt inside Pakistan. “The drones are very effective,” he said, acknowledging that they had thinned the top leadership of Al Qaeda and the Taliban in the area. He said 29 of his friends had been killed in the strikes.

The drone attacks simply prompted Taliban fighters to spend more time in Afghanistan, or to move deeper into Pakistan, straddling both theaters of a widening conflict. The recruits were prepared to fight where they were needed, in either country, he said.

The Taliban logistics man also told the reporters that he knew that missile strikes from drones involve civilian casualties. What this means is the more civilians the drones kill, the more negative press the drones receive and the more pressure the CIA and the Air Force will be under to curtail or to stop them.

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