Al-Qaeda remains intent on attacking the United States, as made clear by a series of planned attacks prevented by the American intelligence community, and it is unsafe to assume that al-Qaeda is not planning a staggering attack for the tenth anniversary of 9/11.

Recent attacks by al-Shabab in Uganda and the court hearing of an American charged with trying to join the jihad in Somalia are bad signs that a new transnational terrorist network is taking shape in East Africa, and President Obama has made the problem worse by ordering the killing of the man who could have helped disrupt and destroy the network.

The Obama administration is expanding its use of drones to target terrorists while shrinking the legal ground on which the attacks are based, isolating the CIA and putting drone operators at greater risk.