“The Trump administration has brought a Qaeda suspect to the United States to face trial in federal court, backing off its hard-line position that terrorist suspects should be sent to the naval prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, rather than to civilian courtrooms,” the New York Times reports.

A new NBC News|SurveyMonkey National Security Poll finds an overwhelming majority of Americans — 76% — are worried that the United States will become engaged in a major war in the next four years.

A new Washington Post-ABC News poll finds 74% of Americans are concerned the United States could get involved in a full-scale war with North Korea.

Politico: “National security officials across the federal government say they are seeing new restrictions on who can access sensitive information, fueling fears in the intelligence and security community that the Trump administration has stepped up a stealthy operation to smoke out leakers. Officials at various national security agencies also say they are becoming more concerned that the administration is carefully tracking what they’re doing and who they’re talking to — then plotting to use them as a scapegoat or accuse them of leaks.”

“One U.S. official voiced concern over even talking to their superiors about a benign call from a reporter. The agency this official works for had started limiting staff’s access to information, they said, and it would make it far easier to figure out who was talking to people in the media. There was suspicion, the official said, that the agency was even tracking what they printed, to keep tabs on what information they were accessing.”

“The Pentagon is putting the final touches on a promised new counter-Islamic State strategy for Syria and Iraq, and it looks very much like the one the Obama administration pursued,” the Washington Post reports.

“The core of the strategy is to deny territory to the militants and ultimately defeat them, and to stay out of Syria’s civil war pitting the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad, Iran and Russia against domestic opposition forces. The two fights in that country have come into increasingly close proximity in recent months, and there have been clashes.”

“Military officials from Defense Secretary Jim Mattis on down have emphasized in recent days that they are not looking for a fight with the regime or the Iranians. That has put them at odds with White House officials who have expressed concern about Iranian expansion across a new battlefield in Syria’s southern desert.”

“Senior officials across the government became convinced in January that the incoming national security adviser, Michael Flynn, had become vulnerable to Russian blackmail,” the New York Times reports.

“At the F.B.I., the C.I.A., the Justice Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence — agencies responsible for keeping American secrets safe from foreign spies — career officials agreed that Mr. Flynn represented an urgent problem.”

“Yet nearly every day for three weeks, the new C.I.A. director, Mike Pompeo, sat in the Oval Office and briefed President Trump on the nation’s most sensitive intelligence — with Mr. Flynn listening.”

President Trump has given Defense Secretary Jim Mattis the authority to set troop levels in Afghanistan, a U.S. official told Reuters, opening the door for future troop increases requested by the U.S. commander.

“Two of the nation’s top intelligence officials said in a hearing Wednesday they would not discuss specifics of private conversations with President Trump, declining to say whether they had been asked to push back against an FBI probe into possible coordination between his campaign and the Russian government,” the Washington Post reports.

“Testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats refused to say whether it was true… that Trump asked Coats if he could reach out to then-FBI Director James B. Comey and dissuade him from pursuing the Michael Flynn matter.”

Said Coats: “I don’t believe it’s appropriate for me to address that in a public session.”