Today’s Headlines and Commentary

Ahmed Al Haj of the Associated Press reports that Yemeni authorities have detained a possible U.S. citizen with alleged ties to Al Qaeda:

The man was carrying two U.S. passports and a German one, and had been shuffling from one mosque to another in the nearby eastern city of Marib before moving on to Shabwa. . . . The Yemeni official said security forces transferred the man on Tuesday to the capital, Sanaa, where he was being questioned by intelligence officers. He added that the suspect told officials he had been “spreading religious awareness” in Saudi Arabia before moving to Yemen few months ago.

Agence France Presse also has the story.

Abu Hamza, the radical Islamic cleric who was extradited from the U.K. to the U.S. last week, pled not guilty to terrorism charges in a Manhattan court yesterday. Judge Katherine Forrest---the same judge who recently decided the Hedges case---set a trial date of Aug. 26. Here are Al Jazeera, Richard Roth and Olivia Smith of CNN, and Benjamin Weiser of the New York Times on the news.

Lots of drone news today: Byron Tau writes in Politico about Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes’s interview with PBS's Frontline, in which Rhodes argued that drones save lives. Here are the interview and transcript.

Bloomberg argues in this editorial that “U.S. drone attacks or commando raids. . . risk feeding [ ] extremism and ought to be kept in reserve” in the Obama administration’s future policy in Libya.

Also, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform started a hearing at noon EST today on the “Security Failures of Benghazi.”

From the Department of That’s a Slap in the Face: Even as American and Pakistani activists have been conducting hunger strikes and protests over drone strikes---you guessed it---a drone strike killed five militants in N. Waziristan today, says Agence France Presse.

Meanwhile, Spencer Ackerman and Noah Shachtman of Wired’s Danger Room discuss the much broader problem of countering violent extremism in the long-term and diminishing its appeal.

French authorities have uncovered an “extremely dangerous terrorist cell,” complete with bomb-making materials and members who intended to travel to Syria to fight in its civil war, according to the Associated Press.

Reuters tells us about SecDef Leon Panetta’s latest remarks on NATO insider attacks.

If you’re planning any October trips to Bali, be warned that Indonesian authorities say that terrorists may attack the island this week to commemorate the last bombing a decade ago, reports Eric Bellman of the Wall Street Journal.

Michael R. Gordon and Elisabeth Bumiller of the Times inform us that the United States has a military presence in Jordan to deal with any spillover---both in terms of refugees and weapons---from neighboring Syria.

Over on the Brookings web site, Brookings experts Suzanne Maloney, Shadi Hamid, Justin Vaïsse, Bruce Riedel, Michael E. O'Hanlon and Clara M. O'Donnell discuss different aspects of Mitt Romney’s foreign policy agenda after his speech at the Virginia Military Institute on Monday.

And Press TV has finally found the global enemy of human rights. Perhaps the Iranian English-language news outfit is taking inspiration from South Park, but it certainly is blaming Canada---today’s “human rights slaughterhouse” Moment of Zen.

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