Our partner the BBC has gotten its hands on a secret NATO report on the state of the Taliban. It shows Pakistan's security services are directly assisting the Taliban in Afghanistan and know where senior Taliban leaders are hiding. Joining us now is Bilal Sarwary, correspondent for our partner the BBC.

One in five African's are Nigerian and it's an underestimate to say that it's a worrying time for the country. This morning, doctors in the city of Kano says the death toll from Friday's bomb attacks by Islamist militants is certain to rise further. 160 people have so far been confirmed dead but bodies are still arriving at the city's mortuaries. So as a reminder Boko Haram, which wants an Islamic state, says it launched theses attacks because the authorities refused to free a group of its members from jail.

Wednesday marks the tenth anniversary of the United States opening a detention camp in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The past decade has seen no shortage of controversy about the base, both on legal and moral terms. Barack Obama campaigned for president on the promise to close the base, but signed into law the National Defense Authorization Act on December 31, which includes a provision allowing indefinite military detention without trial. There are currently 171 prisoners being held there, and no signs of shutting the facility down in the near future.

At least 25 are dead and dozens more are injured after a suicide attacker's bomb detonated in a crowded district in central Damascus, according to Syrian state television. In the second attack on the Syrian capital in two weeks, the attack was carried out on Friday morning in a busy section of the Midan neighborhood. State media blamed "terrorists." The attack preceded protests scheduled for later Friday. Demonstrators are calling for Arab League peace observers to turn over their mission to the United Nations.

On Friday, Somali authorities pleaded with U.S. officials to ease restrictions on wire transfers to the region after Sunrise Community Banks of Minnesota announced plans to halt the service. Due to the large number of Somalians living in that state, Sunrise handles many of these transactions. The U.S. views wire transfers to the Horn of Africa as risky because of terrorism concerns, yet thousands in famine-ravaged Somalia are dependent of them.

It's been a tumultuous year for U.S.-Pakistan relations. First came the arrest of a CIA contractor in Lahore who killed two Pakistani citizens, then the raid by U.S. special forces that ended in the death of Osama bin Laden. But relations hit a new low last month when a NATO air strike killed 26 Pakistani soldiers. A Pentagon report released Thursday says both countries share in the blame for the deadly attack, that Pakistani forces fired first.

In an unprecedented move, the United States government has asked two scientific journals to redact details of biomedical experiments which it fears could be used by terrorists to create deadly viruses. Two labs in the U.S. and the Netherlands recently created easily transmittable versions of the A(H5N1) virus, which causes bird flu. Though bird flu is highly lethal, it is not easily contracted by humans. Scientists have long been concerned an easily transferable version of the virus could create one of the deadliest pandemics in history. 

Concerns over security at the 2012 Olympics has prompted the United States to send 1,000 agents, including 500 from the FBI, to provide protection for its athletes in London. The Guardian is reporting this morning that American officials are apprehensive over British anti-terrorism laws and the effectiveness of their police force to handle threats. Their British counterparts, however, are concerned about the U.S. operating outside its jurisdiction. Gordon Corera, the BBC's security correspondent, has the latest from London.

It was a deadly weekend in Nigeria. The radical Islamist group Boko Haram staged a series of attacks that the Nigerian Red Cross says has left more than 100 dead in the northeastern part of the country. The terrorist attacks included shootings and suicide bombings, showing the increasing sophistication of a group which, by some counts, has killed as many as 330 people this year alone. On Sunday, the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria warned that luxury hotels in Abuja might be targets of further attacks.

On Tuesday, federal agents arrested four men ranging from ages 65 to 73 from the north Georgia towns of Cleveland and Toccoa on charges of an ambitiously designed domestic terror plot. The men are accused of trying to procure 10 pounds of ricin — an extremely lethal biological toxin — as well as explosive devices and illegal firearms. Kim Severson, Atlanta bureau chief for The New York Times, reports on the latest.

The office of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo was firebomed early Wednesday, apparently in retaliation for publishing an issue "guest edited" by the Prophet Muhammad. The magazine, known for its irreverence and skewering of all cultural institutions, had published a special edition earlier in the day to "honor" the victory of the Islamist Ennahda party in Tunisian elections under the name "Charia Hebdo," a reference to Sharia Law. Hugh Schofield, correspondent for the BBC, reports on the latest.

Over the weekend, two suicide bombers carried out an attack on African Union troops in Mogadishu, Somalia. Ten people were killed. The man allegedly responsible? A 22-year-old Somali-American man named Abdisalan Hussein Ali. He's not the first Somali-American to leave the U.S. and return back to Somalia to join a terrorist group called al Shabab. Zuhur Ahmed hosts a radio program that serves the community that Ali came from. Her show is called Somali Community Link and it broadcasts on Takeaway affiliate station KFAI in St. Paul, Minnesota. She has been discussing the case on her program.

Two attacks over the weekend in Afghanistan drew into even sharper relief the challenges of relations between Pakistan and the U.S. One reason: officials pointed to the first attack, in which a suicide bombing of an armored convoy killed 17 people, as a likely calling card not of the Taliban but the Haqqani terrorist network. The Haqqani network is based largely in Pakistan, and the U.S. has accused that country of supporting them. Now, American officials are in the difficult position of asking Pakistan for help in peace negotiations with the Haqqanis.   

Sgt. Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier who has been imprisoned by Hamas since 2006, was released on Tuesday in Egypt as part of a prisoner trade between Israel and Hamas. In exchange for Shalit's release, Israel freed 477 Palestinian prisoners, the first group of what will be more than 1,000. The deal is seen as a major political victory for Hamas, which Israel considers to be a terrorist organization. "I very much hope that this deal will advance peace," Shalit told Egyptian television before he was released. Many Israelis support the swap, but Arnold Roth, who was on The Takeaway yesterday, does not. Roth lost his daughter in 2001 to a Palestinian suicide bomber. The woman who drove that bomber is one of the 477 set to be released today.

On Christmas day in 2009, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab failed to detonate an explosive device he hid in his underwear, while flying aboard Northwest Flight 253 to Detroit, Mich. Abdulmutallab pleaded guilty in court yesterday to all eight charges against him, including conspiracy to commit terrorism, attempted murder on an aircraft, attempted placement of a destructive device, and the attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction.

The Department of Justice announced on Tuesday that a labyrinthine plot to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States had been conceived and funded by "high-up officials" in Iran. Attorney General Eric Holder vowed that "the United States is committed to holding Iran accountable for its actions." Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced that the U.S. was considering means by which to "send a strong message to Iran and further isolate it from the international community." Iran, in turn, claimed that the whole thing was cooked up by the U.S. to distract Americans from the state of the economy.

Attorney General Eric Holder announced in a news conference on Tuesday that U.S. officials foiled an Iranian-backed terrorist plot to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador to Washington. The plot, which allegedly involved a Mexican cartel and large sums of money, would have culminated in an assassination on U.S. soil — a clear violation of international law. But perhaps more tellingly, this plot reveals major rifts between two of the Middle East's largest nations and within Iran's highest levels of power.

The Justice Department on Tuesday accused Iran of sponsoring a plot to assassinate a Saudi Arabian ambassador to Washington. Attorney General Eric Holder said that an "international conspiracy" lead to the potential payment of $1.5 million to murder the ambassador while on United States soil. Two men connected with the plot, Manssor Arbabsiar and Gholam Shakuri, are said to be members of the Quds Force, a division of Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards.

In September 2001, just a week after the 9/11 attacks, another wave a fear began to grip the nation. It wasn't from a hijacked plane or a bomb, but from letters sent in the mail, and the white powder inside. The five envelopes were filled with a powder laced by the anthrax bacteria killed five people and sickened 17 others. It was the most notorious act of bioterrorism the country had ever seen. In 2008, Dr. Bruce Ivins, the key suspect of the nine year federal investigation committed suicide under the pressure of the intense scrutiny. After his death, investigators explained their belief that Dr. Ivins acted alone in distributing the deadly virus.

After 20 hours of fighting, Afghan forces killed the last insurgents who carried out a complex attack against the U.S. embassy, NATO headquarters, and police buildings in Kabul that started Tuesday. Seven people, including four policemen, died, and nine insurgents were killed. The Taliban initially took credit for the attack, though an insurgent group called the Haqqani network is believed to be responsible. The attack comes as the U.S. has begun to withdraw troops from the region. The attack still left many terrified, and wondering whether the Afghan government will be able to secure their stronghold within the capital city.