WBEZ 91.5 Chicago

According to the American counterterrorism establishment, al Qaeda is on the brink of collapse. Officials suggest that with a small number of additional blows, the U.S. can effectively extinguish the Pakistan-based organization that executed the September 11th attacks.

Al Qaeda has degenerated into a fractured, marginal body that is kept alive largely by the anti-terrorist bureaucracy it helped to spawn, says Fawaz Gerges, a professor at the London School of Economics. He discusses his new book The Rise and Fall of Al-Qaeda.

The story seems pulled from a movie script: Last week, the U.S. government alleged that officials high up in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard concocted a plot to assassinate Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the U.S., with the help of a Mexican drug gang. Members of the Iranian security force, U.S.

In the decade since 9/11, the U.S. has dramatically altered its counterterrorism strategy. Focus on Al Qaeda's as an existential threat to our society has waned.

A Chicagoan convicted of helping terrorists plan an attack is asking for a new trial.In some new court filings, Tahawwur Rana’s lawyers argue his trial was not fair.

Yesterday, in a major speech, U.S. attorney Patrick Fitzgerald defended the Patriot Act and said the most important shift in fighting terror over the past decade has been the new level of cooperation between intelligence and law enforcement.

For the tenth anniversary of 9/11, Worldview explores the terror attack's impact on Chicago’s Muslim community. We’ll speak with an attorney for Rabih Haddad's Global Relief Foundation, one of two local Muslim charities shuttered by the federal government shortly after the attacks.