“Following a year-long operation by undercover FBI agents, a Maryland couple has been arrested and charged with attempting to sell US nuclear secrets to another country in exchange for cryptocurrency,” CNN reports.

The Washington Post says FBI agents “posed as spies for the foreign country and began communicating by email with the person, suggesting a meeting, but the person said that was too risky, noting that they were risking their life in offering the information to the foreign government.”

“National security officials at the White House were recently issued a warning: move away from the immediate area as soon as possible if you ever feel the acute onset of pressure, sound or heat in the head,” McClatchy reports.

“The U.S. government is sending a message to diplomats, national security staff and intelligence officers that ‘anomalous health incidents’ — also known as ‘Havana syndrome’ because it was first detected in Cuba — are serious, widespread and pose real danger to their health at home and abroad.”

“Top American counterintelligence officials warned every CIA station and base around the world last week about troubling numbers of informants recruited from other countries to spy for the United States being captured or killed,” the New York Times reports.

“The message, in an unusual top secret cable, said that the CIA’s counterintelligence mission center had looked at dozens of cases in the last several years involving foreign informants who had been killed, arrested or most likely compromised. Although brief, the cable laid out the specific number of agents executed by rival intelligence agencies — a closely held detail that counterintelligence officials typically do not share in such cables.”

“A sword-wielding man dressed as a ninja attacked several special operations soldiers who were training at a California airport, reportedly forcing them to shelter in a hangar and inflicting wounds that required stitches,” Stars and Stripes reports.

The attacker was “wearing full ninja garb.”

Dana Milbank: “Republicans on the Senate Armed Services Committee didn’t just give a dressing down to the nation’s top soldier about the Afghanistan pullout; they assassinated his character and impugned his patriotism, accusing him of aiding the enemy and of placing his own vanity before the lives of the men and women serving under him.”

It’s not hard to imagine the outrage from Republicans if Democrats did this.

New York Times: “On Tuesday, General Mark Milley will appear in what could be the most significant televised congressional hearing involving senior military leaders since Gen. David Petraeus was grilled by lawmakers on the fiasco that was the war in Iraq in 2007.”

“Halfway through his four-year term as the nation’s top military officer, General Milley, along with Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III, is certain to face sharp questions about another contentious topic: Afghanistan, including their advice to President Biden not to withdraw all U.S. troops from the country.”

Yahoo News: “In 2017, as Julian Assange began his fifth year holed up in Ecuador’s embassy in London, the CIA plotted to kidnap the WikiLeaks founder, spurring heated debate among Trump administration officials over the legality and practicality of such an operation.”

“Some senior officials inside the CIA and the Trump administration even discussed killing Assange, going so far as to request ‘sketches’ or ‘options’ for how to assassinate him.”

“When CIA Director Bill Burns traveled to India earlier this month a member of his team reported symptoms consistent with Havana syndrome and had to receive medical attention,“ CNN reports.

“The incident set off alarm bells within the US government and left Burns ‘fuming’ with anger… Some officials at the CIA viewed the chilling episode as a direct message to Burns that no one is safe, including those working directly for the nation’s top spy.”

A new study from Rand sounds the alarm:

“The vast majority of military personnel and their families are not extremists. But even a small number of people engaged in extremist activities could damage the U.S. military’s reputation, its force, its members, and the larger community. Extremist activities can also be harmful to the individuals who are radicalized and their friends and family.”

“U.S. intelligence agencies are seeing early signs that al Qaeda militants have begun to return to Afghanistan, after they dispersed from the country in response to the U.S. counterterrorism effort there,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“When Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley goes before Congress on Sept. 28, he may face some of the most hostile questioning of any modern four-star general,” Axios reports.

“Newly released excerpts from Peril by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa — detailing secret moves by the nation’s highest-ranking military officers to manage national security risks that he perceived Donald Trump posed in the final days of his presidency — are driving questions about whether Milley went too far.”

“Three former American intelligence officers hired by the United Arab Emirates to carry out sophisticated cyberoperations admitted to hacking crimes and violating U.S. export laws that restrict the transfer of military technology to foreign governments,” the New York Times reports.

“Al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri appeared in a video marking the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11, attacks, months after rumors spread that he was dead,” the AP reports.

Former President George W. Bush spoke about the threat of domestic terrorism on Saturday during a speech to mark 20 years since the Sept. 11, 2001, Reuters reports.

Said Bush: “We have seen growing evidence that the dangers to our country can come, not only across borders, but from violence that gathers within.”

He added: “There is little cultural overlaps between violent extremists abroad and violent extremists at home… they are children of the same foul spirit, and it is our continuing duty to confront them.”