Big changes continue for al-Qaida—earlier this week, the killing of Fazul Abdullah Mohammed dealt another heavy blow to the terrorist network, which then finally announced a new leader, Ayman Zawahiri. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates played down the news, saying he lacks the 'charisma' Bin Laden had. So what does the future look like for Al-Zawahiri and his organization?

According to a recent report from the State Department, Pakistani security forces are illegally rounding up political activists and unarmed fighters. In the last decade, thousands of people have been held without charges, tortured and killed, the report says. Many of those detained are members of the Baluchistan separatist group, which has battled the Pakistani government for independence for decades. The State Department report marks a new push by the Obama administration to urge Pakistan to address human rights abuses.

The Department of Homeland Security is recommending a more specific system to inform the public of potential threats. And we’ve been asking for your suggestions of what to replace it with. And you delivered in droves.

Dagel from Fairhaven, Mass. said:
“How about using characters from horror movies? It’s going to be a Jason kind of day today when you’re traveling.”

Aaron Champion called from Oklahoma, City to suggest:
"I think we should convert the terror alert system to the varying levels of humiliation you have to go through at the airport screening facility.”

The bombs found in UPS and FedEx packages last week have raised the issue of security screening for international cargo carriers. Since August 1st, 2010, all cargo loaded onto passenger planes in the U.S. is subject  to mandatory screening, but that isn't the case in many other countries. Only some of the packages traveling on cargo-only flights, on the other hand, are generally screened. Should UPS, FedEx and other shippers be doing more to safeguard air transport?

Is Pakistan our ally or is it home to our greatest threat? President Obama and his national security team, who already grapple with that question on a daily basis, will be examining it again as high level Pakistani officials arrive in Washington later this week. Pakistan's foreign minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, and General Ashfaq Kayani, the head of Pakistan's military who is thought to be the most powerful man in the country, head to Washington at a particularly contentious time of U.S.-Pakistan relations.

The first civilian trial for a former Guantánamo Bay detainee begins today. Tanzanian-born Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani is accused of bombing embassies in Tanzania and Kenya in 1998, killing hundreds.

WNYC Reporter Ailsa Chang is covering the trial.

Jury selection is set to get underway today in his controversial trial of 23-year-old Canadian Omar Khadr, the only Westerner remaining at the Guantánamo Bay detention center in Cuba. Khadr currently faces five charges of war crimes, including the fatal wounding of U.S. Delta Force soldier Christopher Speer in Afghanistan. Khadr has been imprisoned at Guantánamo Bay since the age of 15. This trial is the first war crimes trial under the Obama administration. 

Fourteen people, mostly of Somali descent, have been accused of providing support to the Somali terrorist group al-Shabab. That’s the group that claimed responsibility for a bombing last month that killed 76 people who were watching a World Cup match in Uganda, including an American aid worker. Al-Shabab have declared war on the United Nations and humanitarian organizations in Somalia. A handful of people have been arrested in recent weeks on charges they were leaving to aid the terrorist group.

Explosions in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, killed at least 74 soccer fans watching the World Cup final on Sunday. Eyewitnesses described the carnage: chairs covered in blood and abandoned cars littering the scene.

Faisal Shahzad, the Pakistani-born American citizen who attempted to blow up a car in Times Square, pleaded guilty yesterday to ten terror-related charges. “I want to plead guilty 100 times over,” said Shahzad in Manhattan federal court. He went on to describe his training in Pakistan and the events leading up to the attempted bombing.

We talk with WNYC reporter Ailsa Chang, who was in the courtroom.

Yesterday the Supreme Court upheld a law, adopted in 1996, that bans Americans from providing support to foreign terrorist groups. Up to fifteen years in prison is the penalty for contributing cash, weapons, training, personnel, and expert advice or assistance to any foreign group that the United States deems as terrorists. 

Two American citizens were arrested yesterday at New York's JFK airport. The young men from New Jersey, both in their 20s, had been under surveillance since 2006. Law enforcement laid low, gathered evidence and waited until this weekend when the two men were trying to board separate flights to Egypt, and then to Somalia where they were allegedly planning to join al-Shabab, a terrorist group allied with al-Qaida.

Senator Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) has called for Americans charged with terror crimes to be stripped of their citizenship. However, there's no precedent for stripping an American of his or her citizenship and the law says that the U.S. cannot use the revocation of citizenship as punishment. The issue is murky and we turn to Peter Spiro, a professor of law at Temple University and Dr. Azima Khan, an immigrant from Pakistan who recently received her citizenship, join us to talk about the case.

New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said yesterday that the bomb found in an S.U.V. Saturday evening in Times Square was amateurish and flawed, but could have been deadly.

President Obama's nuclear security summit, held in Washington, D.C. and hosting 46 world leaders, wrapped up last night with a request from the president. He called on all the nations present to cooperate in keeping nuclear material out of the hands of terrorists.

It's been over 24 hours since the terrorist attack in Moscow, where two female suicide bombers targeted subways, killing almost 40 people.

UPDATED 7:00 p.m. Alex Goldmark here. 

Some new additions to the show. 

Tomorrow we talk with Special Master Kenneth Feinberg. He's also known as President Obama's "pay czar." But before he was handed the tongue twisting title of Special Master for the Troubled Asset Relief Program Executive Compensation he was also the Special Master for the 9/11 Victim's Compensation Fund. So he's an old hand at heading up special projects on a large scale. We'll be asking him about bonuses and pay of course, but also about the man behind the tough decisions of national import. 

Now that election results in Iraq are in, the real challenges start. How will different factions in Iraq form a coalition government? The post-election government in Iraq will have play a serious role in how, and how fast, US troops can pull out. So we're watching that closely. 

We love trends. So we're looking into reports that sexual harassment claims are on the rise ... from men. We want to know if this means that incidents are increase, that more men are willing to speak up, or both. 

And we'll find out why Wrestlemania and pro-wrestling generally are just so darn profitable. 

An American woman who called herself "Jihad Jane" on the internet has been charged with trying to recruit Islamic terrorists. She is also accused of taking part in an international conspiracy to kill a Swedish cartoonist. Colleen LaRose, a blond-haired, green-eyed resident of suburban Philadelphia, was taken into custody last October, but her arrest was kept secret until yesterday. 

A group of Afghan insurgents invited "Frontline" journalist Najibullah Quraishi to go deep into the Taliban territory of the Baghlan province, so that he could document their mission to kill American and German forces working in the region.

UPDATED: 8:35 p.m. 

Alex Goldmark here on the holiday night shift. 

Tomorrow we'll continue our ongoing effort to understand as many ripple effects of the Haitian earthquake as possible. We will hear from two doctors, one of them Haitian-American, about the strains and stresses on the medical community and the medical workers administering necessary care in the battered country. 

On an uplifting note, it is Mardi Gras time. We'll get Grammy award winning musician Terence Blanchard to tell us about his favorite carnival time music. Good listening will abound.