Today’s Headlines and Commentary

Mark Mazzetti has a feature in the forthcoming issue of the New York Times magazine about drones and the evolving role of the Air Force. The Washington Post reports that Saudia Arabia is coming around! Riyadh is about to hand over another terrorist suspect to India--after deporting Sayed Zabiuddin Ansari last week--in a sign that the country is increasingly cooperating with Indian counterterrorism efforts. Quiver with fear! Bruce Riedel, Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution says in the Daily Beast that Lakshar e Tayyiba is “now more dangerous than Al Qaeda.”

[LeT] operates freely in Pakistan and has continuing connections with the Pakistani intelligence service and army. Its founder and leader Hafeez Saeed has a $10 million bounty on his head from the U.S., but regularly appears on Pakistani television and routinely addresses large anti-American rallies organized with the help of the ISI. LeT has a global presence, with cells throughout South Asia, the Persian Gulf, and into Europe, Australia and North America. With al Qaeda on the ropes, LeT, with the help of its Pakistani backers, is now probably the most dangerous terror group in the world.

James Kirchick, a fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, argues in the New York Daily News that the liberals—Harold Koh, in particular—who jumped down George W. Bush’s throat for his handling of the War on Terror are hypocrites for ignoring, even representing, President Obama’s terrorism policies. Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, also at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, states in Foreign Policy that Nigeria could become the next front in the War on Terror if the sectarian violence in the country persists. Dawn tells us that seventeen people were killed in North Waziristan by a drone today. According to The Hill, the U.S. has released $2.5 billion to Pakistan after the supply routes re-opened. See? Making up isn’t that hard, is it? The New York Times reports that British police have arrested seven more terrorist suspects in the lead-up to the Olympics. Thirteen alleged bad guys have been rounded up in total in the last 24 hours. CNN has the inside scoop on the leak provisions the Senate is writing into the Intelligence Authorization bill. Speaking of leaks, WikiLeaks has begun releasing classified emails related to Syria. CNN has the story. Mujaheddin-e Khalq (MEK) is straddling the fine line between terrorist organization and dissident group, reports the Washington Post. Although it is a designated FTO, prominent people in American politics have signed on to its effort to get itself off the FTO list. And the next time you think of calling in that bomb threat, please make sure it’s really a bomb, not, say, a “health improvement aid,” lest you send an entire country into a state of panic. That’s what happened near Birmingham, England, when a bus passenger reported “vapor escaping from a bag”---today’s Moment of Zen. For more interesting law and security-related articles, follow us on Twitter, visit the Georgetown Center on National Security and the Law’s Security Law Brief, Fordham Law’s Center on National Security’s Morning Brief, and Fordham Law’s Cyber Brief. Email us noteworthy articles we may have missed at wakeman.lawfare@gmail.com and  singh.lawfare@gmail.com.