In a move which is going to hamper the U.S. ability to operate effectively against militants in Pakistan, Pakistan has let it be known that it wants about 335 U.S. personnel, CIA officers and contractors, and special operations force personnel to leave Pakistan; this would account for 25-40 percent of CIA staff in the country; tension between the two countries has been rising for a while, and it came to a head earlier this year when a CIA operative panicked during a covert operation and killed to innocent bystanders; the operative was released after the two families, who received $2.3 million in blood money from the CIA, asked the court to let him go; the Pakistani government, however, wants the U.S. covert footprint reduced and covert activity, including the use of drones, curtailed

In a congressional testimony, General Carter Ham, commander of the U.S. Africa Command, underscored the threat from shoulder-fired missiles looted from Libyan arms depots; Gen. Ham estimated that 20,000 of these missiles may have been in Libya at the time of the uprising; carried and fired by a single fighter, these missiles travel at supersonic speeds from a shoulder-fired launcher toward the heat signature of an aircraft engine, where they detonate

A list of Port Authority facilities especially vulnerable to terrorist attacks inadvertently released; the list contains some of the most heavily trafficked bridges, tunnels, and transit hubs in the world

DHS is launching a new outreach program aimed at improving the department’s negative image among certain groups; the pilot program is set to be launched in Chicago this week; its goal is to combat the stereotypes, mistrust, and misinformation that people hold about the department and its agencies, especially U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection; the outreach program will hold meetings where DHS officials will give immigrants, Muslims, and other groups the opportunity to express their concerns, ask questions, and learn more about the department; immigrant groups are skeptical of the program and its intent

One of the victims of the Israeli strike on two Hamas operatives in Sudan was the successor to the Hamas operatives killed by Israeli agents in Dubai last year; both operatives were in charge of the Iranian-Hamas arms smuggling connection; information emerged that Israel was particularly keen to disrupt the Iranian-Hamas connection after learning that the anti-Gaddafi rebels sold Iran hundreds of nerve and mustard gas munitions from abandoned Libyan military bases; Iran bought the munitions on behalf of Hamas and Hezbollah

Sudan accused Israel of killing two men in the port city of Port Sudan; Israel declined to comment on the accusations; sources say the target was the Hamas representative in Sudan in charge of the vast Iranian weapons smuggling enterprise for the Gaza Strip via Egypt; it appears Israel acted after information emerged that Iran purchased a large quantity of chemical munitions from anti-Gaddafi rebels; the rebels found the WMDs in Libyan military bases abandoned by the Libyan military; Iran was making arrangements to have the munitions delivered to Hamas and Hezbollah to be used against Israel; Israel’s action is reminiscent of the January 2009 attack on a convoy of arms smugglers in Sudan, near the Egyptian border; the strike, which killed 119 people, was aimed to prevent an Iranian weapons shipment from reaching Hamas; in the past two years Israeli aircraft and naval units have been operating against smuggling ships in the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea; the ships carry Iranian arms to Hamas

As angry protests spread in Afghanistan in response to a Florida pastor burning a Koran — a UN building was attacked, with twenty killed and more than eighty wounded — and with experts worried that anger will spread throughout the Muslim world, U.S. lawmakers of both parties are condemning the burning of a Koran by a radical American Christian pastor; Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina says that with rights come responsibilities in a free society; “I wish we could find some way to hold people accountable. Free speech is a great idea, but we are in a war. During World War II, you had limits on what you could say if it would inspire the enemy. So, burning the Koran is a terrible thing, but it doesn’t justify killing someone. Burning a Bible would be a terrible thing, but it doesn’t justify murder”

Kentucky’s Office of Homeland Security (KOHS) recently released an iPhone app designed to allow people to anonymously report any suspicious activity they see; the app, called, Eyes and Ears on Kentucky, captures tips in real-time and is capable of providing additional information using the iPhone’s camera and GPS features; the app comes as part of the broader national DHS “See Something Say Something” campaign which will gather tips from across the nation and allow local, state, and federal law enforcement officials to sift through reports of any suspicious activity

Yesterday was the first day of the congressional hearings on Islamic radicalization in America; it is already clear that the hearings will not become important and memorable like the Army-McCarthy Hearings of the early 1950s, the Fulbright hearings of the late 1960s, or the Church Hearings of the mid-1970s; in today’s political climate, nothing can bring a conversation to an end more quickly than accusing a public figure of engaging in stereotyping ethnic or religious minorities, of ethnic profiling and scapegoating — whether or not such accusations have any merit; the Democrats on the committee went on the offensive, painting the hearings as illegitimate and making the hearings themselves the focus of attention and debate; the tone and body language of many of the Republicans on the committee showed that they grasped that this was a no-winner for them; yes, they denied charges by Democrats that this was a case of witch hunting and stereotyping, but they acted as if they were simply hoping to ride out the hearings without doing anything too disastrous