The Taliban’s April 27 attack against a ceremony commemorating Afghanistan’s independence has gotten a lot of media attention but the Taliban has shown itself unable to capitalize on a golden opportunity.

An attack against the food supply is unlikely to create a significant death toll, but the panic such an attack may evoke can cause repercussions that are far greater than the death toll itself.

The San Francisco Olympic torch relay April 9 revealed the organizational capabilities of the Chinese government and its intelligence collection apparatus inside the United States.

The trial of eight men accused in connection with the 2006 plot to bomb a series of airline flights originating from London’s Heathrow Airport is providing insight into the involvement of the core al Qaeda leadership. Most notably, however, the trial serves as a reminder that al Qaeda remains fixated on aircraft as targets and that, in spite of changes in security procedures since 9/11, aircraft remain vulnerable to attack.

Russia has seen an upsurge in high-profile killings in recent years despite the reining in of organized crime by the Kremlin.

Conventional wisdom holds that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, as an African-American, is under a greater threat than either his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton or Republican candidate John McCain. But a close look at the rhetoric on many radical white racist Web sites suggests that all three candidates are at risk.

The Chinese government’s March 18 report that a China Southern Airlines crew thwarted an attempted terrorist attack in mid-flight March 7 has been met with skepticism in some Western circles. Regardless of Beijing’s reasons to invent such a plot, we are not so quick to dismiss this incident.

Several unsolved small-scale attacks in New York City since 1997 bear certain similarities. This could be coincidence, or it could be that the perpetrators are connected to the loosely organized black bloc movement.

Militants are more apt to use weapons they know.

As grassroots operatives become increasingly important to the jihadist movement, local police departments will become an even more critical force in the effort to keep the United States safe from attacks.