Intelligence, U.s. Intelligence | featured news

The Senate on Thursday confirmed John Brennan as the Obama administration's next Central Intelligence Agency director, overcoming concerns expressed by Republicans and some Democrats about the administration's use of lethal drone strikes.

Osama bin Laden's spokesman and son-in-law has been captured by U.S. intelligence officials, a senior congressman said Thursday, calling it a "very significant victory" in the ongoing fight against al-Qaida.

A new report for the Pentagon has concluded that the nation’s military is unprepared for a full-scale cyber-conflict with a top-tier adversary and must ramp up its offensive prowess. The unclassified version of the study by the Defense Science Board also urges the intelligence community to boost its collection on leading nations’ cyber-capabilities.

A former CIA agent who leaked a covert officer's name to the media has been sentenced to 30 months in prison. John Kiriakou, 48, pleaded guilty in 2012 to violating an intelligence law. No-one had been convicted under the statute in 27 years.

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.

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.

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 Pentagon is beefing up its spy service to send several hundred undercover intelligence officers to overseas hot spots to steal secrets on national security threats after a decade of focusing chiefly on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.