– President Obama downplayed the likelihood of an Iranian attack inside the U.S., telling NBC’s Matt Lauer “We don’t see any evidence they have those intentions or capabilities.”
– After Russia and China vetoed a tough U.N. resolution seeking to rein in Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s violent crackdown on protesters, the U.S. called for a new international coalition, including European and Arab states, to seek for an alternate plan.
– Kassam Salimani, commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s elits Quds Force, reportedly arrived in Syria to help manage Syrian President Bashar Al Assad’s suppression of popular unrest, according to a “top member of the National Syrian Council.”
– Special Operations forces will take an elevated role in Afghanistan as the U.S. military shifts away from a combat mission and focuses on advising Afghan security forces and killing top insurgent leaders.
– Egypt’s decision to charge 19 Americans being held by authorities with crimes amid growing acrimony with the U.S. over the direction of the military-led transitional government could cause U.S. lawmakers to make good on threats to withhold the U.S.’s massive military aid package to the military as leverage.
– A study by a British group being disputed by American authorities found that the Obama administration has launched 260 drone strikes in Pakistan, killing between 282 to 535 civilians, including more than 60 children.
– Amid news yesterday that current Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas could be considered to lead a new unity government, his Fatah faction and the Hamas resistance movement, considered by Israel and most of the West to be a terror group, agreed to form a national unity government in meetings in Qatar.
– The U.N. reported on Friday that the famine that killed tens of thousands in Somalia last year has ended. However, officials remain cautious. “The crisis is not over,” said José Graziano da Silva, director general of the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations,
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