From Shirley Henry
David Petraeus, who resigned as director of the Central Intelligence Agency after the revelation of an extramarital affair, has been named a visiting professor at Macaulay Honors College at the City University of New York, the school's chancellor said Tuesday.
Petraeus will assume the position in August, Matthew Goldstein, the chancellor, said. The university did not provide specifics about what Petraeus would be teaching.
In a statement, the retired Army general indicated he will lead an economic seminar.
"I look forward to leading a seminar at Macaulay that examines the developments that could position the United States - and our North American partners - to lead the world out of the current global economic slowdown," he said.
Petraeus, who once ran the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, resigned from his CIA post in November.
He resigned after admitting he had had an affair with his biographer, Paula Broadwell, a fellow West Point graduate who spent months studying the general's leadership of U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
The affair came to light during an FBI investigation of "jealous" e-mails Broadwell reportedly sent to another woman.
By Deirdre Walsh and Jill Dougherty
House Republican leaders released a report Tuesday on the deadly terror attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, in which they claim former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton personally signed off on cuts in security at the compound, which they say would contradict her congressional testimony.
The September 11, 2012, attack resulted in the deaths of U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.
The 46-page report by Republicans on five House committees cites a request from then-U.S. Ambassador to Libya Gene Cretz, sent last March 28 to Clinton asking for additional security resources, and a response dated last April 19 that bears Clinton's signature.
The April cable from the State Department, according to the GOP report, "acknowledged then-Ambassador Cretz' formal request for additional security assets but ordered the withdrawal of security elements to proceed as planned."
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By Ashley Killough
House Homeland Security Chairman Michael McCaul said Sunday he believes Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of the two Boston Marathon bombing suspects, received training during an extended trip to the Chechen region of Russia in 2012.
McCaul also questioned why the FBI did not take further action against Tsarnaev when he was investigated before his trip.
By Tim Lister and Paul Cruickshank
Tamerlan Tsarnaev appears to have become increasingly radical in ithe last three or four years, according to an analysis of his social media accounts and the accounts of family members. But there is so far no evidence of active association with international jihadist groups.
In August 2012, soon after returning from a long visit to Russia, Tsarnaev created a YouTube channel with links to a number of videos.
Two videos under a category labeled "Terrorists" were deleted. It's not clear when or by whom. But analysis by CNN and the SITE Intelligence Institute has uncovered a screen grab from one of those videos. It features members of the group Imarat Kavkaz - identifiable by the logo on their shirts. Imarat Kavkaz is the most potent militant Islamist group in Russia's North Caucasus region - which includes Chechnya and Dagestan.
Read the full story here.
By Peter Bergen, CNN National Security Analyst, and Jennifer Rowland, Special to CNN
Editor's note: Peter Bergen is CNN's national security analyst, the author of "Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for bin Laden - From 9/11 to Abbottabad" and a director at the New America Foundation. Jennifer Rowland is a program associate at the New America Foundation.
We don't yet know how or why the Tsarnaev brothers, the alleged Boston Marathon bombers, decided to carry out their attacks, but a look at how their stories correlate with those of some other terrorists living in the West could provide some answers to the questions that many are now asking about them.
1. How could someone who grew up in the United States become a terrorist?
Major Nidal Malik Hasan, who killed 13 people at Fort Hood Army Base in Texas in 2009, was born and raised in Virginia.
He self-radicalized, in part, over the Internet, which he used to reach out to the Yemen-based preacher Anwar al-Awlaki for advice about whether it is permissible for Muslim soldiers in the U.S. military to kill their comrades in the name of jihad.
Read Peter and Jennifer"s full take on cnn.com/opinion
By Barbara Starr
Initial indications are the two suspected Boston Marathon bombers likely do not have direct links to any major al Qaeda group or affiliates, or to a new significant terrorist threat to the United States, according to a U.S. official familiar with the latest intelligence information.
These are some early assessments but far from final conclusions, the official said. The assessments are part of a full interagency review now underway by the U.S. intelligence and law enforcement community, who are going back through their databases and information looking for any links to the two men.
In the last several hours, the intelligence review to a large extent has focused on regional militant connections the men have had in Russian or Central Asia. But the official also noted they simply may have been "inspired" by a militant ideology or may simply have been disgruntled persons aiming to carry out an attack, and had no connections to foreign groups. "We simply don't know yet," he said.
The review was ordered by James Clapper, director of National Intelligence. Initially, before the men were identified by the FBI, the review was looking at any indications of a threat emerging from overseas against the United States. Once the identities of the men became known, with their possible ethnic Chechen background, the focus shifted.
One official said some of the focus of the review is now purely regional - on any militant connections the men may have had in Russian or Central Asia. But he also noted they simply may have been "inspired" by a militant ideology or disgruntled persons aiming to carry out an attack.
The intelligence community is tasked under the review with checking any intelligence gathered overseas while the FBI will focus on what is known inside the United States.
By Barbara Starr and Pam Benson
U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies are again reviewing all intelligence on the two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing for clues about their motivations and connections to possible terrorist groups, U.S. officials told CNN.
In the hours since the identities of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Tamerian Tsarnaev were confirmed by the FBI, “there is a very methodical and in-depth analysis under way on these suspects and the connections they may have had to any overseas group,” a senior U.S. official said. Until Thursday, the Obama administration had not come up with any specific intelligence - including intercepts or online messages - indicating a threat to the Boston Marathon, according to officials that CNN had spoken with previously. But now, with the identification of the suspects, social media messages they have posted, and other information coming to light, “we can focus more specifically on their potential connections overseas,” the senior official said.
The officials said that agencies are going back through all relevant data - things such as intelligence reports, intercepts, jihadist websites, passport records — that they have collected to see if there is any information about the suspects and if there are potential links to international or domestic terrorist groups.
However, the senior official also strongly emphasized that the intelligence community simply has no answers at this point as to whether there is an international connection or whether the suspects were "inspired" or "influenced" by overseas groups. He also reiterated it is entirely possible this was purely an act of domestic terrorism with no foreign nexus.
By Pam Benson
The White House is threatening to veto a House cybersecurity bill unless changes are made to further safeguard privacy and civil liberties, and limit private-sector liability protections.
Last week, the House Intelligence Committee approved and sent to the full House proposed legislation that would enhance data sharing between the government and private industry to help protect computer networks from cyber attacks.
The committee amended the bill after consulting with the White House during its drafting, but the Obama administration is still not satisfied with some of its provisions.
"The administration still seeks additional improvements and if the bill, as currently crafted, were presented to the president, his senior advisers would recommend that he veto" it, the White House budget office said in a statement on Tuesday.
By Elise Labott
The United States published a blacklist of alleged human rights abusers in Russia on Friday as part of a law that threatens to further strain ties between Washington and Moscow.
The Magnitsky Act, signed into law by President Barack Obama last December, imposes visa bans and freezes assets of accused human rights abusers as well as those believed responsible for the death of Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.
Magnitsky uncovered the largest tax fraud in the country's history in the form of rebates claimed by government officials who stole money from the state. He was apparently beaten to death in 2009 after a year in a Moscow detention center.
FULL POST
By Pam Benson and Chris Lawrence
Despite the uproar over a disclosure this week of Pentagon intelligence concluding North Korea may be able to deliver a nuclear weapon on a ballistic missile, it's not the first time the Defense Intelligence Agency has suggested Pyongyang had that capability.
Since 2005, two former DIA chiefs have raised the possibility during congressional testimony.
At a Senate Armed Service Committee hearing in April 2005, then-DIA director Vice Admiral Lowell Jacoby acknowledged the possibility in response to a question about whether North Korea had the capability to put a nuclear device on a missile.
"The assessment is that they have the capability to do that," Jacoby said.
FULL POST
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