Today's Headlines and Commentary

Maulvi Nazir, a top militant commander for the Taliban was killed in a drone strike in Pakistan today. It seems that at least five others were killed along with him, as the New York Times reports here, the AP says here, and the Washington Post writes here.

As I reported yesterday, Judge Colleen McMahon ruled in favor of the government in the targeted killing FOIA case brought by the New York Times and the ACLU in the Southern District of New York. Read Bobby's thoughts on the decision here, the ACLU's press release here, Josh Gerstein of Politico here, Adam Liptak in the New York Times here, David Glovin of Bloomberg here, Chad Bray of the Wall Street Journal (caution: pay wall) here, and Karen DeYoung of the Washington Post here.

Ben noted that President Obama signed the 2013 NDAA, and here's the AFP story on his signing statement.

Al Qaeda in Yemen is offering a bounty to those who kill U.S. Ambassador to Yemen Gerald Feierstein or American soldiers stationed there. Here's the AP story on the $160,000 worth of gold they're offering.

General John Allen sent along the options for the continuation of a U.S. military presence in Afghanistan after 2014. Elisabeth Bumiller and Eric Schmitt of the Times report on the details.

In the wake of that whole fiscal cliff-avoidance/kicking-the-can-down-the-road thing, the DOD and the OMB are reworking their 2014 budget request. Here's The Hill's story.

Ellen Nakashima writes about new tactics that some companies are taking to help protect themselves from cyber breaches---planting fake data to lure the hackers into so-called "rabbit holes."

Over in Iraq, Prime Minister Nuri Al-Malaki is asking protestors to cease and desist, writes Christine Hauser of the Times. The demonstrations started back in December in response to a government raid on the home and office of the finance minister, who is a Sunni; for those who are rusty on Iraqi ethnic divisions, Al-Maliki’s government is Shiite-dominated.

Iran says it's captured at least six U.S. drones, writes the AP.

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