Word: attackers
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...intelligence community's work in Afghanistan is being called into question. According to a report, made public--remarkably--by Major General Michael Flynn, military intelligence has been "ignorant" about the local power structures in combat areas, imperiling U.S. troops on the ground. And it is likely that the attack on FOB Chapman will spill over into the efforts to train the Afghan army and police--which was always an iffy proposition and now faces a massive security question: How many of these trainees are actually reporting to Mullah Omar and bin Laden? After eight years in Afghanistan, is it possible...
...Amsterdam-to-Detroit jet and laid out additional steps to fix those shortcomings. Reporting that a systemic failure allowed the bombing attempt, he said he was ultimately responsible and made a plea for unity, a tacit acknowledgment of the sharp accusations that have been made since the thwarted attack. "Now is not the time for partisanship. It's a time for citizenship," he said...
...reaction to the two terrorist attacks during the last week in December is puzzling. One of the attacks, against a CIA outpost in Afghanistan, succeeded; the other, on an airplane landing in Detroit, failed. The Undiebomber was an amateur who was thwarted, rather neatly, by his fellow passengers on the plane. The Afghanistan operation was quite the opposite - highly sophisticated and devastating, with vast implications for both the war in Afghanistan and future clandestine CIA operations. And yet the Undiebomber has provoked an avalanche of attention in our twittery media - and from Republicans like Dick Cheney who yearn...
...have to understand that the CIA considers Afghanistan its most successful arena. This is where the CIA believes it has won two wars, in 1989 and 2001. So this has to challenge a lot of assumptions." As a result, there will be two immediate and contradictory reactions to the attack. The more overt will be a flash of spook machismo. A published comment from a CIA official included this threat: "Last week's attack will be avenged. Some very bad people will eventually have a very bad day." (Read "The CIA Takes a Big Hit in the Afghan...
...there was also a quieter and potentially more profound reaction: Given the skill of this operation, how trustworthy are the other sources the CIA has been using to help target its drone attacks against al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistan? The standard claim has been that the CIA's human intelligence against al-Qaeda - and other threats - has improved dramatically in recent years. "In a very perverse way, this attack may be the best testimony of all that human intelligence has improved," said the former official. But spies are, by nature, paranoid, and there will be suspicion now that...