Today's Headlines and Commentary

There is reason to believe that a drone strike today killed the leader of Al Qaeda in Yemen, Nader Al Shaddadi. Here's Nasser Arrabyee of the Times on the incident, and Reuters lets us know that nine people were killed in that strike. Andrew Hammond of Reuters discusses the implications of Yemeni interim President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi's decision to publicly support drone strikes in the country on his popularity.

The FBI has arrested a man who attempted to detonate what he thought was a large bomb outside of the New York Federal Reserve Bank. Here's Sari Horwitz of the Washington Post and The Hill on that news.

Over at the Times Room For Debate feature, experts are debating whether Congress should impose cybersecurity mandates on businesses. Included among the debaters is James Lewis of Center for Strategic and International Studies & Senator Joe Lieberman.

The Times editorializes today on Russia's decision to rethink participating in the Nunn-Lugar nuclear disarmament program.

The U.S. and Israeli militaries are going to be conducting a joint missile and air-defense drill later this month in Israel. And no, it has been long in the works and has absolutely nothing to do with the growing tension in the region, writes Karin Brulliard in the Post and Isabel Kershner of the Times.

Iranian military officials are claiming that they have conducted dozens of undetected drone flights into Israeli airspace recently. Hmmmm.

Manssor Arbabsiar has pled guilty to conspiring with the Iranian military to kill the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the U.S. Here are the NPR and the Washington Post stories.

Josh Gerstein of Politico has the latest on the case against former CIA officer John Kiriakou.

Are you worried about the alleged U.N. takeover of the Internet? Never fear, Google, Cisco, Facebook, Microsoft, and AT&T are here! They're joining the U.S. delegation in Dubai this December at the ITU conference, writes Jennifer Martinez of The Hill.

Anne Applebaum makes the case for a (perhaps) minority viewpoint regarding security in Benghazi in her Washington Post column today. Recounting a situation she encountered in Libya earlier this year, Applebaum---who is, incidentally, married to Poland’s foreign minister and thus in some respects akin to diplomatic family members---writes:

I don’t know why officials decided that Ambassador Stevens had sufficient security in Benghazi, but I’m sure they had their reasons---just as I had my reasons to believe I would be safe on the street in Tripoli that night. Clearly they were wrong. But that doesn’t mean that going forward, their counterparts should always err on the side of safety, all of the time. There is such a thing as too much security.

Carlo Munoz of The Hill reports on the latest letters from Senator Lindsey Graham requesting more information about security measures in place there.

Scott Shane answers some basic questions as best he can regarding Obama administration officials' disclosures regarding the attack in the Times. And Libya's starting to point fingers at who officials there believe was the leader of the attack that day. His name? Ahmed Abu Khattala of Ansar al-Shariah. David Kirkpatrick of the Times reports.

In case you want even more 9/11 hearing coverage than Wells has been up to, here's Julie Tate and Ernesto Londono's Post piece today and Jeremy Herb of The Hill.

Three children were killed last weekend in a coalition strike in Helmand province, ISAF has just announced. ISAF has reason to believe that the Taliban was using them to place roadside bombs. Alissa Rubin describes the attack at the Times.

The list of Taliban leaders who might have ordered the attack on 14-year old Malala Yousafzai is getting shorter, writes Dana Priest of the Post. Looks like it might be Mullah Fazlullah, also known as "Mullah Radio," who is apparently on, according to Jeff Dressler of the Institute for the Study of War, "everyone's target list."

Meanwhile over at Pakistani newspaper Dawn, Anas Abbas takes a hard look at the data on drones strikes, arguing that:

It’s about time Pakistan wakes up to the strategic advantages of drone strikes and identify its role in curtailing terrorism instead of choosing to selectively criticize them whenever “Good Taliban” are targeted---who continue to send fighters in Afghanistan to fight Nato troops such as Hafiz Gul Bahadur, Maulvi Nazir and Haqqani Network.

Pakistan, being a vital non-Nato ally, must treat all Taliban as one, while allowing these strikes unabated, and stop decrying sovereignty issues because sovereignty, if Pakistan still has one, is foremost being violated by Taliban and Al Qaeda.

As a banner during a protest aptly portrays ‘Drones kill, so Malala can live’. This should be Pakistan’s philosophy in order to avoid future incidents which aim at crushing the very spirit of Pakistan by targeting a 14-year-old beacon of light, Malala Yousufzai.

William Neuman writes on the negotiations between the FARC and Colombian governments in the Times.

The White House is denying that it's done a classified investigation into Huawai, the Chinese telecom company that a Senate subcommittee recently looked into.

Russia has arrested a prominent leftist opposition leader named Sergei Udaltsov on terror charges. David Herszenhorn of the New York Times reports on the news.

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