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Editor’s note: Peter Bergen, CNN’s national security analyst, is a fellow at the New America Foundation, a Washington-based think tank that promotes innovative thought from across the ideological spectrum, and at New York University’s Center on Law and Security. He’s the author of “The Osama bin Laden I Know: An Oral History of al Qaeda’s Leader.” Katherine Tiedemann is a policy analyst at the New America Foundation. They edit the AfPak Channel on ForeignPolicy.com.

Executive Director, Middle East Policy Council, and associate editor of Middle East Policy; author, Global Security Watch – Iran: A Reference Handbook Today, we’re here to discuss Afghanistan. […] he’s been providing consulting services to corporations on Middle Eastern issues. What we do know is that this al-Qaeda core has successfully embedded itself in what I call a syndicate of terrorist organizations in Pakistan – the old Afghan Taliban, the new Pakistan Taliban, groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba, and Jaish-e-Mohammed.\n Have we made substantial progress, in terms of the creation of structures, to prevent these kinds of incidents and in the restructuring after 9/11? SAGEMAN:

Like a snake backed into a corner, however, a weakened al Qaeda isn’t necessarily less dangerous. In the first comprehensive look of its kind, Foreign Policy offers the Almanac of Al Qaeda, a detailed accounting of how al Qaeda’s ranks, methods, and strategy have changed over the last decade and how they might evolve from here. What emerges is a picture of a terrorist vanguard that is losing the war of ideas in the Islamic world, even as its violent attacks have grown in frequency.

THE highly classified C.I.A. program to kill militants in the tribal regions of Pakistan with missiles fired from drones is the world’s worst-kept secret.

The United States has long tried to maintain plausible deniability that it is behind drone warfare in Pakistan, a country that pollsters consistently find is one of the most anti-American in the world. For reasons of its own, the Pakistani government has also sought to hide the fact that it secretly agreed to allow the United States to fly some drones out of a base in Pakistan and attack militants on its territory.

The bomber, a Jordanian doctor linked to al Qaeda, detonated his explosives on December 30, 2009, at an American base in Khost in eastern Afghanistan, killing himself and seven CIA officers and contractors who were operating at the heart of the covert program overseeing U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan’s volatile northwestern tribal regions. The suicide attack was a double cross: Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, the bomber, had earlier provided information to the CIA that was used in targeting some of those drone attacks

Niemand weiß genau, wo sich heute Osama bin Laden aufhält. Inzwischen herrscht allerdings Gewissheit, dass die Amerikaner den Al-Qaida-Chef bereits im Winter 2001 hätten fassen können. Eine Rekonstruktion der bizarren Ereignisse von Tora Bora

Editor’s note: Karen Greenberg is the executive director of the Center on Law and Security at New York University, where Peter Bergen is a research fellow. Bergen is also CNN’s national security analyst and a senior fellow at the New America Foundation. New York City (CNN) — Obama administration officials, apparently bowing to political pressure, said over the weekend they are considering moving the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the accused operational commander of the 9/11 attacks, out of New York City.

Washington (CNN) — A December 22 briefing, prepared by the top U.S. intelligence official in Afghanistan and obtained by CNN, maps out the strategy and strength of the Taliban and their allies in Afghanistan, and concludes that the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan is increasingly effective.

(CNN) — On August 28, the Saudi Arabian deputy minister of interior, Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, survived a bombing attack launched by an al Qaeda cell based in Yemen, Saudi Arabia’s southern neighbor.

http://www.tnr.com/article/the-battle-tora-bora