Daily Briefing

Europe terror threat still active
European security officials said September 29 a terror plot to wage Mumbai, India-style shooting sprees in Britain, France, and Germany is still active and that sites in Pakistan — where the threat was intercepted 2 weeks ago — are being scoured for al-Qaeda operatives. The plot was still in its early stages and not considered serious enough to raise the current terror threat level, officials said.

Al Qaeda #2 - Dead
Score one for the good guys. Mohammad Fateh al Masri, believed to be al Qaeda's operational second in command, was killed over the weekend by a drone attack on the North Waziristan section of Pakistan. Al Masri led military operations in Afghanistan for the terrorist organizations.

Al Masri was emir, or leader, for Qaidat al-Jihad fi Khorasan, or the base of the jihad in the Khorasan -- the region that encompasses large areas of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Iran.

Al Masri's death comes as the CIA stepped up missile strikes in Pakistan against groups like the Haqqanis, al Qaeda, the Afghan Taliban and the Pakistan Taliban, with the majority of strikes hitting targets in North Waziristan.

RIM bets the pad
The continuing saga of the fast fade from relevance being performed by Research In Motion will begin a new chapter this week with the launch of what we believe will be called the "BlackPad". RIM's iPad fighter will have a 7" touch screen, making it smaller than the Apple device. It will run the latest version of Blackberry's operating system for touch screen devices. And it will, like the Torch phone that preceded it, ultimately fail to do much of anything.

The iPad has a lot of things going for it. It has terrific graphics. It runs literally thousands of applications, quickly and efficiently. It can, at the very least, rely on the appeal of Apple's core "iApps", namely iTunes and all its associated add-ons. The BlackPad, on the other hand, will...