Today's Headlines and Commentary
The cell phone belonging to Osama Bin Laden's courier, which was recovered in the raid last month, contains critical information about not only bin Laden's own network, but also about a militant group, Harakat-ul-Mujahedeen, which is an asset of Pakistani intelligence.
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The cell phone belonging to Osama Bin Laden's courier, which was recovered in the raid last month, contains critical information about not only bin Laden's own network, but also about a militant group, Harakat-ul-Mujahedeen, which is an asset of Pakistani intelligence. The New York Times has the story, as does Politico.
A letter found among bin Laden's possessions and written by him discussed changing Al Qaeda's name. NPR and the AP have the story.
As the Senate continues working on its own version of the National Defense Authorization Act, that chamber's Armed Services Committee has approved a bipartisan (25-1) and "sweeping" (according to the New York Times) package that redefines the rules for detaining terrorist suspects, revises jurisdiction for reviewing Guantanamo cases, and requires detention for al Qaeda suspects. Ben blogged about the differences between the House and Senate resolutions yesterday.
Ben posted briefly about the White House brief on the House version of the Defense Authorization Act. Read Josh Gerstein's full article that he references here.
Jack and Ben have already commented upon the naming of Mark Martins as the chief prosecutor of the military commissions. The Miami Herald has this coverage this morning; the Post has this coverage.
The Kerry-McCain resolution on U.S. intervention in Libya is scheduled to be marked up in a hearing next week, and appears to have a great deal of support in the Senate. Consensus in the House, on the other hand, is an entirely different story.
The Miami Herald reports that an Iraq veteran, who has taken many of the most intimate photos of Guantanamo Bay prison, is being held in a detention center for making a false statement on a 2006 passport application.
For more news and analysis links, see Today’s Terrorism News over at the CenterLine.
Raffaela Wakeman is a Senior Director at In-Q-Tel. She started her career at the Brookings Institution, where she spent five years conducting research on national security, election reform, and Congress. During this time she was also the Associate Editor of Lawfare. From there, Raffaela practiced law at the U.S. Department of Defense for four years, advising her clients on privacy and surveillance law, cybersecurity, and foreign liaison relationships. She departed DoD in 2019 to join the Majority Staff of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, where she oversaw the Intelligence Community’s science and technology portfolios, cybersecurity, and surveillance activities. She left HPSCI in May 2021 to join IQT.
Raffaela received her BS and MS in Political Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2009 and her law degree from Georgetown University Law Center in 2015, where she was recognized for her commitment to public service with the Joyce Chiang Memorial Award. While at the Department of Defense, she was the inaugural recipient of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s General Counsel Award for exhibiting the highest standards of leadership, professional conduct, and integrity.
