INFILTRATING an al-Qaeda affiliate is a huge feat. The CIA and Saudi Arabia’s intelligence agency have won many plaudits since news emerged on May 8th of how they had foiled a plot to blow up an aircraft flying to America. A double-agent posing as a would-be suicide-bomber penetrated the terrorist group’s Yemen-based f...

THE delegation of the National Transitional Council, Libya’s ruling authority, was all smiles as it flew back to Tripoli, the capital, after a day in Kufra, a trading post deep in the Sahara desert some 1,700km (1,056 miles) to the south. There tribal feuding in the past two months has left scores dead. The councillors...