Central Intelligence Agency

Clashes between members of al-Qaeda's branch in Syria and a rebel faction in the country's north believed to have been trained by the U.S. and Turkey have stopped after the rebels abandoned their headquarters, activists said Aug. 1.

A US-led coalition air strike earlier this month killed the leader of an Al-Qaeda offshoot in Syria that American officials accuse of plotting attacks against the United States and its allies, the Pentagon said.

George H.W. Bush, the oldest living former U.S. president, fell at his summer home on July 15 and broke a bone in his neck but was doing OK, a spokesman said.

Belgrade's Radio B92 sacked 12 of its remaining 17 employees on Thursday as part of a "new concept" for the station which forms part of the B92 media organization, owned by Greece's Antena media group. 

Al-Qaeda has confirmed that its second-in-command, the chief of its powerful Yemeni branch, was killed in a US drone strike, in the heaviest blow to the jihadist network since the death of Osama bin Laden.

Britain has been forced to remove some of its spies after Russia and China accessed the top-secret raft of documents taken by former US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, British media reported.
 

The United States is in talks with Qatar on the status of five Taliban figures who may be free to return to Afghanistan a year after their release in a US prisoner swap, the head of the CIA said May 31. 

"I want to make sure that they're not going to be allowed to return to the fight," Central Intelligence Agency director John Brennan said on CBS talk show "Face the Nation."  

US President Barack Obama is poised to quicken the pace of weapons supplies and training to Iraqi tribes, while eyeing a rapid offensive to recapture Ramadi from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
 

Germany's foreign intelligence agency helped the CIA track down Osama bin Laden in Pakistan where US special forces killed the al-Qaeda leader, according to a German news report published May 17.

The third edition of the East European Comic Con (EECC), an event gathering under one banner comic book artists, vendors, actors, cosplayers, gamers and boardgame enthusiasts, has started in Bucharest's Romexpo venue on Friday, Mircea Muresan, the EECC's director, estimating an attendance of around 30,000 during the convention's three days.