U.S. officials deny Russian spy was trying to seduce Obama Cabinet official
By Terry Frieden and Adam Levine
CNN
U.S. officials are denying a claim in a British documentary that accused Russian spy Anna Chapman was close to seducing an Obama Cabinet official.
A BBC documentary about modern sleuths included the allegation along with an interview with a top FBI official, who says that the United States cracked down on the spy ring because "they were getting close enough to a sitting U.S. Cabinet member that we thought we could no longer allow this to continue."
New North Korean missile or parade float?
By Adam Levine
North Korea is building a long-range missile to launch later this month, according to South Korea's Chosun Ilbo newspaper, but American officials and experts who spoke to Security Clearance questioned whether it is anything more than a parade mock-up.
The report cites American and South Korean officials who say the missile is likely to be unveiled at the April 15 parade to honor the 100th anniversary of the birth of Kim Il-sung, who founded communist North Korea.
The 40-meter missile supposedly has a bigger booster and could give it the capability of reaching the United States, according to the report. FULL POST
NYC probing web posting about terror threat
By Chris Kokenes
Gotham's top cop on Tuesday said authorities are looking into the possibility that an Egyptian writer may have been responsible for an online posting that pictured a New York cityscape with the words "Al Qaeda. Coming Soon Again in New York."
"The use of language indicated that," said New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly. "Its many different dialects in Arabic and our analysts thought that this was Egyptian in nature."
He said that the graphic image, which surfaced Monday on a few jihadist Web forums and featured the words in the English, did not coincide with any specific online chatter about a potential threat and that it was unclear whether one or multiple individuals was responsible for the posting. FULL POST
U.S. offers $10 million for capture of suspect in Mumbai attacks
By the CNN Wire Staff
The United States is offering as much as $10 million for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, a Pakstani man accused of masterminding the 2008 terrorist assault on Mumbai that killed 166 people.
The "wanted" notice announcing the large bounty for Saeed, 62, was posted on the website of the U.S. State Department's Rewards for Justice program late Monday.
The amount is one of the highest offered by the program, on par with the sum pinned on the Taliban leader Mullah Omar, but below the $25 million on offer for al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Mystery surrounds silencing of key al Qaeda websites
By Adam Levine, with reporting from Barbara Starr, Jamie Crawford and Santiago Melli-Huber
Key al Qaeda online forums have fallen silent in the past two weeks, leaving terrorism experts to wonder the cause and whether a key communications mode of the terror group and its affiliates has been purposely undermined.
The sites, where al Qaeda posts messages and jihadists and wannabe jihadists post messages and discussions regarding their ideology and loyalty, started disappearing on March 23, said Aaron Y. Zelin, a researcher in the Department of Politics at Brandeis University. Zelin also maintains the website Jihadology.net.
The outages were first reported by the Washington Post. No entity has claimed responsibility and U.S. officials contacted by CNN would not comment.
Military could visit Afghan shooting site
By Barbara Starr
U.S. military investigators may travel as early as this week to the Afghan villages where an American soldier is alleged to have shot and killed 17 civilians last month in a shooting rampage.
It would be the first visit by U.S. investigators who had been staying away out of respect to the villagers angry about the shooting.
The military is coordinating details of the visit with the Afghans, a U.S. official told CNN.
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