Cia, Intelligence | featured news

A would-be "underwear bomber" involved in a plot to attack a US-based jet was in fact working as an undercover informer with Saudi intelligence and the CIA, it has emerged. The revelation is the latest twist in an increasingly bizarre story about the disruption of an apparent attempt by al-Qaida to strike at a high-profile American target using a sophisticated device hidden in the clothing of an attacker.

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.

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.

Iranian state television on Sunday aired what it described as the confession of an Iranian man detained for spying for the CIA. State television broadcast a taped interview with Amir Mirza Hekmati, in which he said he had received training by the U.S. intelligence services. The channel said he had been sent to Iran to provide misinformation to Iranian intelligence.

The CIA's operations in Lebanon have been badly damaged after Hezbollah identified and captured a number of U.S. spies recently, current and former U.S. officials told The Associated Press. The intelligence debacle is particularly troubling because the CIA saw it coming....

In an anonymous industrial park, CIA analysts who jokingly call themselves the "ninja librarians" are mining the mass of information people publish about themselves overseas, tracking everything from common public opinion to revolutions.

The CIA worked closely with Moammar Gadhafi’s intelligence services in the rendition of terror suspects to Libya for interrogation, according to documents seen Saturday by the AP, cooperation that could spark tensions between Washington and Libya’s new rulers. The CIA was among a number of foreign intelligence services that worked with Libya’s agencies, according to documents found at a Libyan security agency building in Tripoli.

The relationship between the CIA and Pakistan's intelligence agency is not shut down, but is strained, a U.S. official said.

President Obama will receive a report Thursday detailing how some government agencies failed to share or highlight potentially relevant information about Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab before he allegedly tried to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day, while others were insufficiently...