U.s. Intelligence | featured news

The U.S. military did not quickly intervene during the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Libya last month because military leaders did not have adequate intelligence information and felt they should not put American forces at risk, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Thursday.

The assault on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi last month appears to have been an opportunistic attack rather than a long-planned operation, and intelligence agencies have found no evidence that it was ordered by Al Qaeda, according to U.S. officials and witnesses interviewed in Libya.

China rejected on Tuesday as "groundless" U.S. accusations that two top Chinese telecoms equipment makers posed a security risk. The U.S. House of Representatives' Intelligence Committee urged American companies on Monday to stop doing business with Huawei Technologies Co Ltd and ZTE Corp. , warning that China could use equipment made by the companies to spy on certain communications and threaten vital systems through computerized links.

American companies should avoid sourcing network equipment from China's two leading technology firms because they pose a national security threat to the United States, the House Intelligence Committee warned Monday.

U.S. intelligence and the Pentagon have begun assembling preliminary information about potential targets and militant personnel in Libya that could be struck if President Barack Obama ordered such action.

Concerned about the reaction to an anti-Muslim film that was gaining attention online, the U.S. intelligence community sent a cable to the embassy in Cairo, Egypt, warning of the concern, a U.S. official told CNN.

From a second-floor window of his refuge at the Ecuadorean embassy, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on Sunday called on President Obama to release Bradley Manning, the United States intelligence analyst accused of leaking masses of confidential information.

Iran has stepped up work to develop a nuclear warhead, Israeli newspapers said on Sunday, citing officials in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government and leaked U.S. intelligence.

The US has expanded its secret intelligence forces in Africa, with Special Operations forces establishing a network of small air bases to spy on terrorist hideouts, The Washington Post reported on Thursday.

Al Qaeda's core organization is likely incapable of carrying out another mass-casualty attack on the scale of September 11, 2001, U.S. intelligence and counterterrorism officials said on Friday.