Dina Temple-Raston

Adding to the coverage of NPR's national security team, Dina Temple-Raston reports about counterterrorism at home and abroad for NPR News. Her reporting can be heard on NPR's newsmagazines. She joined NPR in March 2007 fresh from a two year sabbatical in which she completed two books, learned Arabic and received a Master's Degree from Columbia.

A long-time foreign correspondent for Bloomberg News in Asia, Temple-Raston opened Bloomberg's Shanghai and Hong Kong offices working for both Bloomberg's financial wire and radio operations. She also served as Bloomberg News' White House correspondent during both Clinton administrations and covered financial markets and economics for both USA Today and CNNfn.

Temple-Raston is an award-winning author. Her first book, entitled A Death in Texas and about race in America, won the Barnes' and Noble Discover Award and was chosen as one of the Washington Post's Best Books of 2002. Her second book, on the role Radio Mille Collines played in fomenting the Rwandan genocide, was a Foreign Affairs magazine bestseller. She has two books related to civil liberties and national security. The first, In Defense of Our America (HarperCollins) written with Anthony D. Romero, the executive director of the ACLU, looks at civil liberties in post-9/11 America. The other, The Jihad Next Door (Public Affairs), is about the Lackawanna Six, America's first so-called "sleeper cell" and the issues that face Muslims in America.

Temple-Raston holds a Bachelor's degree from Northwestern University and a Master's degree from the Columbia University's School of Journalism. She was born in Belgium and French was her first language.

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11:01pm

Sun April 1, 2012
The Two-Way

Top Prosecutor At Guantanamo Military Commissions To Retire

Originally published on Sun April 1, 2012 11:03 pm

Credit U.S. Central Command

NPR has learned that the top prosecutor at the Guantanamo Bay military commissions has asked to retire from the military after he finishes his assignment there.

Brig. Gen. Mark Martins says he hopes the decision will drain some of the politics out of the chief prosecutor's position and will provide some continuity.

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11:01pm

Mon March 26, 2012
National Security

For U.S. Analysts, Rethinking The Terror Threat

Credit Joji Thomas / AP

There has been a subtle shift taking place in the intelligence community in recent months.

Intelligence and law enforcement officials say analysts and experts who have been tracking al-Qaida for more than a decade have been quietly reassigned. Some are being moved completely out of al-Qaida units. Others are being asked to spend less time watching al-Qaida and more time tracking more traditional foes — like state-sponsored terrorists.

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2:00pm

Mon March 12, 2012
Middle East

Al-Qaida Leader Eyes Opportunities In Syria

Counterterrorism officials say al-Qaida's leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, has much at stake in Syria. He has credibility in the region among jihadis because of his long battle against Egypt's government and if he can somehow take credit for the fall of Syria's president, it might rejuvenate al-Qaida. Officials say Zawahiri is already positioning himself with a video that calls on jihadis to travel to Syria.

11:01pm

Wed February 29, 2012
National Security

Officials Look For Signs Of Al-Qaida Surge In Syria

Credit AP

U.S. intelligence officials tracking the situation in Syria have their eye on one group in particular: al-Qaida's affiliate in Iraq.

The group has longstanding ties to Syria, and its early members weren't just Iraqis; many of them were Syrians. The former leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, not only established a network of fighters in Syria, but he also folded them into his northern Iraqi faction of al-Qaida.

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2:29pm

Fri February 24, 2012
National Security

Hezbollah Suspect May Face U.S. Military Commission

Originally published on Fri February 24, 2012 3:18 pm

Credit Wsthiq Khuzaie / AP

The Obama administration is seeking to try a Lebanese man linked to Hezbollah in a military commission, expanding the reach of the military tribunal beyond al-Qaida and Taliban suspects for the first time.

The man at the center of the case is Ali Musa Daqduq. He was the last detainee held by American forces in Iraq and had been turned over to Iraqi custody when U.S. forces formally withdrew from Iraq in December.

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