Obama: 'We Will Never Falter' in Terror Fight

President urges a split nation to remember sense of unity

(NEWSER) - At the dawn of the ninth 9/11 anniversary, President Obama looked out over a divided country and urged it to remember that shared sense of horror and unity it felt as it watched towers collapse. "If there is a lesson to be drawn on this anniversary, it is this: We are one nation—one people—bound not only by grief, but by a set of common ideals," he said in his weekly address. More»

We're relatively safe—so now what?

(NEWSER) - “We’re safer than we think,” declares Fareed Zakaria in Newsweek , “but no one wants to admit it.” It should go without saying that we’re safer than we were nine years ago today. Al-Qaeda used to operate so successfully “because most governments treated the group as an annoyance rather than a major national-security challenge”—not so anymore. We’ve instituted effective security measures at home; in Afghanistan, we’ve “fractured” al-Qaeda through regime-toppling, camp-destroying, and money-blocking. More»

(AP) - The nation marked the eighth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks today in ceremonies under gray skies in New York City, at the Pentagon, and at the crash site of Flight 93 in Pennsylvania. Today also was the first time the anniversary was observed as a national day of service, following an order President Obama signed this year. To see images from the ceremonies, click "Slideshow" at left. More»

Driver was key member of organization: prosecutor

(NEWSER) - Arguments in the trial of Salim Hamdan gave a view of al-Qaeda's inner circle today, as prosecutors opened by painting Osama bin Laden's driver as a key member of the organization, the Miami Herald reports. The lead prosecutor depicted Hamdan as a constant presence in high-level al-Qaeda operations and argued that he knew the destination of the fourth plane hijacked on 9/11. More»

Core 'essentially gone,' but spinoff groups a concern

(NEWSER) - Al-Qaeda today is mostly a spent force, unable to carry out another 9/11-style attack, said US intelligence officials yesterday, reports Reuters . The mostly anonymous assessment—in a conference call led by Robert Cardillo, deputy director of US national intelligence—came one year after the killing of Osama bin Laden , with security experts also noting that al-Qaeda had been diminished by the Arab Spring around the Middle East. For the next year at least, an attack using chemical, biological, atomic, or radiological weapons by the "core" group was deemed extremely unlikely. More»